Eric and his temporary co-host, Tao Ruspoli (filmmaker, co-founder of the Bombay Beach Biennale) delve deep into what it is to teach and to learn... and they ask, "Can you learn anything really important from somebody else?"

Tao and Eric are joined by author Geoff Dyer to question whether certain individuals are worthy of worship. Dyer’s many books include But Beautiful (about jazz),  the novel Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi and, most recently, The Last Days of Roger Federer.  A  member of the American Academy of Arts and Science and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, his books have been translated into  twenty-four  languages. He is currently a Writer in Residence  at USC. A new book Homework  (a...

Eric Kaplan and Tao Ruspoli ask about how entertainment may or may not be "true". Tao substitutes for Taylor for the next several episodes. We've also just introduced video to the podcast! Let us know what you think.

This week Julia Moskin, Pulitzer Prize winning food reporter for the New York Times, joins Eric and Taylor to ask whether food is (or can be) art, and how it manages to do that while also just being yummy. Should great food taste like nothing you’ve ever tasted before or should it taste like the best ever version of its ingredients? Is culinary quality subjective or objective? Why do critics write reviews? Tune in and find out.

Another chestnut. Am I a self? Am I myself? Am I yourself? And if there is no such thing as the self, do I not exist? The Buddha and David Hume thought so – were they right? Join Taylor and Eric as they explore the conceptual labyrinth that is ourselves.

A command performance of a classic. Are we our bodies? Do we have sould? Do we have minds? Do haircuts diminish our true selves? Can our selves be hit by a bus or uploaded onto The Cloud? The French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty's body could’t be with us for this episode, but he joins us in spirit to tell us why we only meet people in the flesh.

Can we build a meaningful life on the shifting sands of irrational belief? Or if we refuse to make an infinite commitment, are we wasting our life, dog-paddling in a weak tea without hope or meaning? Is faith necessary or insane – or both? This week Eric and Taylor record their first ever episode before a live studio audience, namely the annual meeting of the American Society for Existential Phenomenology in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Tao Ruspoli, Iain Thomson, Mark Wrathall, Patricia and John...

Another command performance. (Okay, rerun.) Are we utterly dependent on others or should we look inward and try to be true to ourselves? Can we do both? Or neither? This week Eric and Taylor look to Ralph Waldo Emerson for some help with this deeply unsettling question.

Some things are obviously horribly bad and wrong. Is it possible to make them right? Do some people deserve satisfaction while others deserve punishment or mercy? When juries deliver verdicts and judges impose sentences, are they speaking the truth or just fumbling in the dark and settling on the least bad outcome? This week Taylor and Eric reflect on the possibility, the impossibility, and the necessity of justice. 

Do we owe it to anyone (even ourselves) to be thin? Is being thin always healthier, sexier, better looking, or somehow more praiseworthy? Is it easier to be a great philosopher or to get into heaven if you’re thin? This week Eric and Taylor are joined by philosopher Kate Manne, whose new book examines diet culture and fatphobia. The truth, as it often does, might surprise you. 

Does the lure of fame and fortune necessarily get in the way of making great music? Or is it okay to make some fun ear candy as a way of putting food on the table? This week Taylor and Eric chat about artistic integrity and the temptations of popularity and money with singer, songwriter, philosopher, violinist, and attorney at law, Andrew Choi – also known by musical nom de plume, St Lenox. As a bonus, find out how Bob Marley was inspired by the Banana Splits.

Synesthesia! A weird thing experienced only by unusual people, or by ordinary people on unusual drugs, or – is it something everybody has all the time? Are very low musical notes literally “dark”? Can food sound like something, like hot peppers going “ping” on your tongue? Why does it make sense to call a fork a “zrickrick” and a pillow a “baobwab”? Or does it? In 1688 William Molyneux asked John Locke whether a blind person who regained her vision would be able to distinguish a square from a...

Is revenge a dish best served cold, hot, or not at all? Should we all go on a revenge diet, or is it just too tasty? Could hitting back be so much fun that we can’t give it up? Or is the best revenge the serene feeling of being above revenge? Even if we know that vengeance inevitably leads to an endless cycle of vengeance, is it possible to get off the not-so-merry-go-round? How did Athena help the Furies become the Kindly Ones? Join Taylor and Eric as they confront the terrifying fact that...

Things happen. Sometimes you find a $10 bill. Sometimes a bird craps on your head. Are these events just the meaningless result of previous events or is there a hidden purpose behind everything? Does God’s plan underlie the chaos of experience? Is the idea that something was “meant to be” (or not meant to be) comforting or crippling? And is the idea that everything is possible liberating or paralyzing? This week Helen De Cruz makes a record-breaking second appearance on the podcast to help...

This week Taylor is grading mountains (mountains, I tell you) of student essays. We are proud therefore to offer you a “command performance” (rerun) of this terrifying yet edifying episode on the perennial problem of free will. Is it an illusion? Are we puppets? When we think we are thinking (or acting) freely, are we actually just cogs in a heartless, meaningless, deterministic cosmic machine? Listen and find out.

This week Taylor and Eric are joined by philosopher Kieran Setiya, author of Life Is Hard, which they agree it is. It’s especially hard if you think you’re doomed to failure. Are you? Not necessarily. But if you don’t worry about success and failure, are you just going to be swimming in a soup of nothing matters and who cares? Tune in and find out how and why we judge life projects, careers – and people themselves – as successes or failures. Should we be making these judgments? Would our...

Is everything we do a kind of performance? Are we always reading from a script? And what makes bad acting bad? Do psychopaths make good actors? Do politicians make good psychopaths? And why do presidential candidates emphasize what they’re saying by pointing with their thumbs? Film and television actor Kevin Sussman joins Taylor and Eric to talk through these disturbing mysteries. 

Were poststructuralist, postmodern, postrespectable French philosophers like Michel Foucault the real masterminds behind identity politics, critical race theory, cultural appropriation, and pumpkin spice latte? Will civilization survive the rampant, unchecked questioning of grand narratives? Join Taylor and Eric as they unravel this bundle of phone cords and contemplate equality, freedom, civility and mutual respect, Foucault’s historical counternarratives, pronouns, green hair, nose rings,...

In this – repeat command performance (okay, rerun) – episode, Eric and Taylor grapple with the problem of moral luck. Are we in control of being decent human beings and doing the right thing or are we at the mercy of circumstance and maybe even of our own character? Listen, feel unsettled, then feel okay.

Can human beings change radically? And if they can, is that a good thing? What if we changed so much that we became strangers to each other? But if we couldn’t change at all, wouldn’t that mean we’re condemned to stagnation and despair? And hey, wouldn’t it be cool if we could sprout wings and fly? This week philosophers Melissa Shew (Marquette) and Kimberly Garchar (Kent State) help Taylor and Eric think about the possibility and desirability of radical human transformation. 

Being “judgmental” sounds like something bad, yet refraining from all moral judgment seems pathetic, and also impossible. So, what should we do? Can we be truly compassionate without also being capable of anger, resentment, and maybe some occasional Schadenfreude? This week Eric and Taylor are joined by actor, writer, and television producer Andy Richter, who will help them sort out when it’s okay and when it’s not okay to be, as Jesus of Nazareth said, “judgy.” 

Is there any pain as great as recalling past happiness from present misery? If so, why do we do it? Do we get pleasure from tormenting ourselves about losing something (or someone) we loved? Was Socrates right that living well means learning how to die? Does being comforted too quickly mean we never really cared? And if so, how quick is too quick? Join Eric, Taylor, Dante, Dostoevsky, and William Blake for an unsettling yet strangely consoling meditation on the paradox of grief. 

In this episode – returning here in a special command performance (rerun) – Eric and Taylor worry about whether ChatGPT might be a harbinger of total computer domination of the world and the looming obsolescence and expendability of human beings. Is that possible? Tune in and find out what it is about artificial intelligence that should really frighten you.

Does belief in God lead to intolerance and violence? Is monotheism about the number of gods or is it, as Egyptologist Jan Assmann suggests, about “having no other gods” and stamping out idol worship and superstition? Are secular atheists really just monotheists fighting a holy war against religion? Does monotheism contribute anything good to psychology or politics, and if so, is it worth the price? Join Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Moses, and the pharaoh Akhenaten for a discussion of whether we...