Philosopher's Zone

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Philosopher's Zone Podcast

The simplest questions often have the most complex answers. The Philosopher's Zone is your guide through the strange thickets of logic, metaphysics and ethics.

  1. 6 DAYS AGO

    Deep ecology

    With the climate heating up and our planetary support systems breaking down, how does an eco-philosopher manage to stay cheerful? This week's guest has been living and breathing these issues for many decades, which you'd think might make it difficult for him to get out of bed in the morning. But get out of bed he did, for a surprisingly upbeat conversation about optimism, pessimism and ecological identity.

    28 min

  2. 11 SEPT

    AI and reading

    AI is like all new technology, insofar as many people are afraid of it. When it comes to AI and education, scare stories abound of students using ChatGPT to write their essays, and a possible future where teachers are replaced by bots. But according to this week's guest, there's much to be excited about.

    28 min

  3. 4 SEPT

    The philosophy of history in China

    Ancient China seems like a place and a time far removed from our own - but when we look at how ancient and medieval Chinese scholars thought about the role and practice of history, we find some striking modern parallels.

    34 min

  4. 28 AUG

    Extremism, gender and science

    Extremists used to be easy to spot: they were seen as irrational, unstable and... well, extreme. But in recent years, we've seen extremists on the political right laying claim to traditional Enlightenment values - reason, free speech, autonomy, human rights - that were traditionally used as bulwarks against extremism.

    28 min

  5. 23 AUG

    Orwellian equality: What can this philosophical outsider teach us about how to live

    Few English language writers enjoy the position of authority, even reverence, that the journalist, essayist, novelist George Orwell does. While Orwell is best known for his novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four”, he can also be read as developing a provocative moral sensibility — perhaps even an ethical system — in dialogue with the exigencies of war that framed his life, as well as the philosophical traditions that were “in the air” in English culture in the first half of the twentieth century.

    29 min

  6. 16 AUG

    Can philosophy save us from the tyranny of toxic positivity?

    Ever since Plato’s cave, the darkness has been considered something to be left behind. This is the founding myth of philosophy, the beginning of the Western philosophical tradition. But how might philosophy be different if it had, from the beginning, learned to see in the dark? If it had embraced, rather than sought to tame, the emotions that sometimes overwhelm us when we experience the too-muchness of life?

    29 min

  7. 9 AUG

    Why liberalism needs fewer defenders, and more devotees

    Over the last decade, liberalism has found itself on the ropes. Even many liberals seem to regard it as too soft a political disposition for hard times. This has led some of its most passionate advocates to make the case for its importance with a degree of desperation commensurate with their sense of the existential threat it faces from resurgent forms of authoritarianism, intolerance, populism and political violence. But there is another way of making the case for liberalism — and that is to point to its benevolent effects all around us, the extent to which its influence is written all over those social practices and dispositions we hold dear. In other words, maybe liberalism doesn’t have to be defended at all, but simply acknowledged, and lived-into, as a way of life that both reflects and sustains our hard-won commitment to fairness, decency and equality.

    29 min

  8. 2 AUG

    What is AI doing to our humanity?

    Whatever else artificial intelligence is, according to Professor Shannon Vallor, it is first and foremost a projection of the human. And so whatever threat it poses, is a threat from within our humanity.

    29 min
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About

The simplest questions often have the most complex answers. The Philosopher's Zone is your guide through the strange thickets of logic, metaphysics and ethics.

Information

  • Creator
    ABC listen
  • Years Active
    2006 - 2024
  • Episodes
    711
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2024, Australian Broadcasting Corporation. All right reserved.
  • Show Website
    Philosopher's Zone

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