A weekly show about philosophy, science and the history of ideas from the Allen Brothers and Mark Sanders (best known to listeners as “America’s Sweetheart”). If you can imagine what would happen if Plato and Carl Sagan were guests on The Daily Show, then you have a pretty good idea of what’s going on here. Each week the trio provides an overview of a philosophical topic, a history of the problem and insights into contemporary thinking. They also take a behind-the-scenes look at the philosophers who came up with these ideas: usually they are kind of nuts (the guy who pioneered Utilitarian...
All handsome people enjoy a good paradox, so we decided to open up our paradox box again and pick out a few new ones for this episode. A lot of paradoxes have to do with the way language works, and how it fails us when we try to describe certain aspects of our experience. Often a series of...
Published 11/16/15
Are zombies real? Could we all be zombies? On this special Halloween episode, we raise topics from the dead—specifically we’re reanimating our discussion of philosophical zombies from Episode 2. This time we take a closer look at qualia, a technical term for the experiences that are unique to us...
Published 11/02/15