Send us a textIs the self a soul that is immortal? Is the self a thinking thing or a bundle of perceptions? The Existentialists take this question and place at the center the importance of choice. The self emerges through our experiences and the choices we make. Join us as we discuss Kierkegaard and Sartre in this final episode on The Self. Contact us via email at [email protected] Open Door Philosophy on Instagram @opendoorphilosophyOpen Door Philosophy website at opendoorp...

Send us a textAncient philosophers believed the self was an immortal soul. This began to shift in the late 16th century when the concept of the self began to radically change to a more abstracted, biological self. Join us as we look at Rene Descartes and David Hume's theories on the self. Contact us via email at [email protected] Open Door Philosophy on Instagram @opendoorphilosophyOpen Door Philosophy website at opendoorphilosophy.com

Send us a textWhat is the self? Something immaterial? Something like a soul? Or perhaps consciousness? Is it you? Join us for this episode as we look to ancient explanations of the self from Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Hinduism. Contact us via email at [email protected] Open Door Philosophy on Instagram @opendoorphilosophyOpen Door Philosophy website at opendoorphilosophy.com

Send us a textAh love, a many splendored thing. At first you are attracted to their looks, but then you realize there's something more to them, something beautiful within, their beautiful soul. Join us for this third and final part on Plato's Symposium where we review the speech of Socrates. Contact us via email at [email protected] Open Door Philosophy on Instagram @opendoorphilosophyOpen Door Philosophy website at opendoorphilosophy.com

Send us a textAre you destined to be with someone? Is there a soul-mate out there, somewhere, just for you? Is love something that comes upon us, or is it something we cultivate within ourselves? Join us for this second episode on Plato's Symposium where we discuss the speeches of Aristophanes and Agathon. Contact us via email at [email protected] Open Door Philosophy on Instagram @opendoorphilosophyOpen Door Philosophy website at opendoorphilosophy.com

Send us a textWhat is love? Can it inspire us to be better? Can it bring harmony to opposites? These are of the most enduring questions we have, so much so that Plato wrote an entire dialogue about it called Symposium. Join us for this episode in which we give some background and discuss the first three speeches on love!Contact us via email at [email protected] Open Door Philosophy on Instagram @opendoorphilosophyOpen Door Philosophy website at opendoorphilosophy.com

Send us a textWe finish our overview of The Oxford Four with Mr. Parsons' favorite, Mary Midgley. She wrote on the topic of metaphilosophy, championed a pluralistic view of morality, and raged against scientism and reductionism. AND she had swaggy hats!Contact us via email at [email protected] Open Door Philosophy on Instagram @opendoorphilosophyOpen Door Philosophy website at opendoorphilosophy.com

Send us a textShe protested WWII and abortion. She was the pupil of Ludwig Wittgenstein and the eventual conservator of his work. She turned moral philosophy on it's head with her paper Modern Moral Philosophy. She was a Catholic convert. And she's Andrew's philosophical hero. Join us this week for another installment of the Oxford Four series, this time featuring Elizabeth Anscombe. Contact us via email at [email protected] Open Door Philosophy on Instagram @opendoorphiloso...

Send us a Text Message.Ever heard of the Trolly Problem? Of course you have, even if you don't know you have. This episode we turn our attention to Philippa Foot, the originator of the famous thought experiment, but she was know for so much more. Her moral philosophy focusing on natural goodness helped usher in the revival of virtue ethics in the second half of the 20th century. Join us as we explore this member of the Oxford Four, Philippa Foot. Contact us via email at contact@opendoorp...

Send us a Text Message. Dive into the fascinating world of Iris Murdoch, one of four trailblazing women who revolutionized philosophy at Oxford University before and during World War II. These extraordinary friends reshaped philosophical thought with their groundbreaking ideas. In this episode, we explore Murdoch's impressive literary achievements and delve into her profound moral philosophy which centers around love. Join us for an engaging discussion on the life and legacy of a philoso...

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...

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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