Send us a Text Message.People do not have any virtues, and people do not have any vices. You wouldn't be blamed for thinking this is a surprising take, but our guest Christian Miller thinks this is the case. Join us as Dr. Miller walks us through the argument in this captivating interview that canvases the landscape of character and virtue. Sign up for our newsletter here! Open Door Philosophy NewsletterContact us via email at [email protected] Open Door Philosophy on Instag...

Send us a Text Message.Roughly 1800 years ago, the most powerful person in the world wrote a book. Actually, back then it was only his journal, but today it is considered one of the great books of world wisdom. Known simply as Meditations, the emperor of the Roman Empire, Marcus Aurelius, for ten years wrote most mornings about the challenges he was to face and how he intended to approach them through the lens of his stoic philosophy. For generations since, millions have found a bit of themse...

Send us a Text Message.Can morality be entirely relative to an individual or a cultural standard? Does the diversity of moral beliefs across cultures undermine the existence of objective moral principles? Does the fact that human sacrifice once existed in one culture but looked down upon but another disprove the fact that there are objective morals? Or if we accept that moral subjectivism exists, is there a way to justify or make moral claims? Join us for this episode on moral...

Last weekend, as I was driving down the interstate in Houston, I noticed, not for the first time, a billboard that claims, “Signs, Miracles, and Wonders! Every Sunday at 11:00 AM.” I turned towards my wife and quipped, “I didn’t realize you could schedule them.” But in all seriousness, how should one express such things to others, something like a miracle or a sign? If language is how we report the world, how does one speak of their public or private experience of God? Is someone who has a re...

In the book of Exodus, God appears to the biblical patriarch Moses in the form of a burning bush, and tells him he is to lead the Isrealites, enslaved by the Egyptians, to freedom. In the Bhagavad Gita, the source of all things, lord Krisha, appears to prince Arjuna as his charioteer and helps him understand his identity and potential on the eve of a major battle. These appearances by gods, however, are not reserved just for the spiritual heroes of old. Millions of people around the world...

What’s the most important question in philosophy? Our guest Jack Symes believes it to be the question of God’s existence, no matter where you fall on the belief spectrum.  In this episode, Jack discusses with us his latest book, Philosophers on God: Talking about Existence which directly address this question. What is the origin of the universe? What are the most powerful arguments for and against the existence of God? What do thinkers outside of the Abrahamic faiths have to say about such...

Included in this episode are feminist icons Mary Wollstonecraft and Simone de Beauvoir, champions of new ethics Mary Midgley, Iris Murdoch, Philippa Foot, and Elizabeth Anscombe, and contemporary powerhouse on love and other moral stances Susan Wolf. It's a lot packed into one hour! Join us for this final installment of the series: Women Who Shaped Philosophy! Sign up for our newsletter here! Open Door Philosophy Newsletter Contact us via email at [email protected] Open Door...

Throughout the history of philosophy, women have been active, yet markedly absent from much of the scholarship. If you go into a book store or do a google search for the greatest philosophers, you would most likely see one or two women, at most on any given list. How can those two things coexist together? In Han Dynasty China, a female scholar was employed by the Emporer to write on the role of women. Plagued by the looming accusations of withcery and devil worship, a woman in the Medieval...

Throughout the history of philosophy, women have been active, yet markedly absent from much of the scholarship. If you go into a book store or do a google search for the greates philosohers, you would most likely see one or two women, at most on any given list. How can those two things coexist together? In Ancient Greece and Rome, a few women were revered as philosophical teachers. Plato occasionally included women in his famous dialogues. In Alexandria, Egypt, daughters of scholars were...

Whether concepts such as the Golden Ratio or more subjective standards of aesthetic judgments, beauty has been the subject of debate for every era of philosophical history. In the ancient world, it was the Greeks that formed much of what the ancient era would think about when considering beauty in concepts such as symmetry and ratios. The Enlightenment era philosophers of the modern period, influenced by the new emphasis on reason, grappled with the subjective nature of beauty and proposed a...

Beauty and aesthetics seems to be one of the least discussed branches of philosophy, yet occupied the minds of some of the greatest philosophers such as: Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Hume, just to name a few. Its appeal is immediately obvious, however, when someone asks the seemingly simple question of exactly what beauty is. The conversation that typically follows involves topics such as: what exactly are standards of beauty, if these standards are objective or entirely in the eye of the...

Welcome to Open Door Philosophy! We're happy you stopped by! Sign up for our newsletter here! Open Door Philosophy Newsletter Contact us via email at [email protected] Open Door Philosophy on Instagram @opendoorphilosophy Open Door Philosophy website at opendoorphilosophy.com

Join us as we discuss our goals and plans for Open Door Philosophy in 2024. We discuss upcoming guests, episode topics, and more! Sign up for our newsletter here! Open Door Philosophy Newsletter Contact us via email at [email protected] Open Door Philosophy on Instagram @opendoorphilosophy Open Door Philosophy website at opendoorphilosophy.com

In this bit of nonsense, Andrew tries to convince Mr. Parsons to learn Latin, no one is sure what whiskey is, Mr. Parsons ditches the neck ties, and there's some dissatisfaction with camera angles.   Sign up for our newsletter here! Open Door Philosophy Newsletter Contact us via email at [email protected] Open Door Philosophy on Instagram @opendoorphilosophy Open Door Philosophy website at opendoorphilosophy.com

In this episode, we put a bow on the year that was 2023! We look back on the podcast and this year's meaningful events in our lives. We then discuss our favorite books of 2023; No Spoilers! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all our listeners. We'll see you in 2024! Sign up for our newsletter here! Open Door Philosophy Newsletter Contact us via email at [email protected] Open Door Philosophy on Instagram @opendoorphilosophy Open Door Philosophy website at opendoorphilosophy.com

What do you own? Why do you own it? Are things owned individually or collectively? Do citizens own public parks and do they have an obligation to its maintenance? Can you own ideas or other intangible things like money and time? Join us for this exploratory episode on the concept of property.  Contact us via email at [email protected] Open Door Philosophy on Instagram @opendoorphilosophy Open Door Philosophy website at opendoorphilosophy.com

In this bit of nonsense, we talk about Taylor's cardigans, how Mr. Parsons avoided fraud, Andrew's mysterious travel, and the difficulties of the Polish language.  Contact us via email at [email protected] Open Door Philosophy on Instagram @opendoorphilosophy Open Door Philosophy website at opendoorphilosophy.com

In this episode, we delve into the rich work of political philosophy by Leo Strauss, John Rawls, and Robert Nozick. We begin with Strauss's influential ideas on liberal education, examining how he views cultural cultivation as essential for intellectual development and a bulwark against the homogenization of mass culture. Strauss's Aristotelian perspective on nurturing the individual's nature through education sets the stage for a deeper exploration of societal structures. Transitioning to...

Need a bit of the ODP crew without the philosophy? Welcome to ODP Shorts! Andrew needs a haircut and thinks David Beckham is a fine American, Mr. Parsons' football team is struggling, and Taylor reviews former Houston Astros Jerseys.   Contact us via email at [email protected] Open Door Philosophy on Instagram @opendoorphilosophy Open Door Philosophy website at opendoorphilosophy.com

At one point in history, European countries were ruled by monarchs.  The Catholic Church also exerted a great deal of control. And our physical explanations for why nature is comprised the way it is relied on  metaphysical explanations reliant on God. Then enter the Enlightenment. Thinkers like Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau were instrumental in this transition from Medieval conceptions of the divine rights of kings and original sin to that of representative governments,...

Welcome to a very spectral, spooky episode of Open Door Philosophy! Since this episode releases on Halloween, we thought how better to celebrate than talk about our spookiest philosophers! You'll have to listen to find out who they are though, because suspense is the name of the game! Contact us via email at [email protected] Open Door Philosophy on Instagram @opendoorphilosophy Open Door Philosophy website at opendoorphilosophy.com

We know war happens all the time, unfortunately.  Caught up in war are states and individuals who wish for others to see their actions as reasonable, for the best, and ultimately just. But it seems war involves many actions which are considered wrong in other circumstances, killing another human being for example.  Most people will agree that self-defense is justifiable, but how far does that defense go before it becomes vengeance? And a particular difficulty for aggressor states is that they...

Philosophy is a notoriously massive subject, and for someone unfamiliar, it might be difficult to figure out where to start. Do you look for a famous name on the bookshelf? Try to choose a subject? Start with self-help? Maybe join a book club? In this episode, we answer a listener question by exploring how to get started in philosophy by recounting our own experiences and plotting a course.  Contact us via email at [email protected] Open Door Philosophy on Instagram...

The Shawnee, a native American tribe, tells a tale of brother crow and brother buffalo which imparts the wisdom of balance: to only hunt the buffalo when it is necessary for food and skins, but to remember that each creature is our brother and sister too. Tales like this one are not uncommon in many indigenous cultures around the world.  Through an illustrative story set in nature, they transmit the ethical, epistemological, and metaphysical beliefs of the tribe from one generation to the...