Philosophy Talk Starters

Philosophy Talk Starters
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Bite-size episodes from the program that questions everything... except your intelligence. Learn more and access complete episodes at www.philosophytalk.org.

  1. 12/28/2025

    The Examined Year: 2025

    More at https://philosophytalk.org/shows/the-examined-year-2025. What happened over the past year that challenged our assumptions and made us think about things in new ways? Josh and Ray talk to philosophers and others about the events and ideas that shaped the last twelve months. The Year in Shamelessness with Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò from Georgetown University, author of “How Can We Live Together?” The Year in A.I. Hype with Arvind Narayanan from Princeton University, co-author of AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference The Year in Philosophy (Bowls) with Eli Yetter-Bowman, Founder of Ethereal Films and Director of The Bowl

    16 min

  2. 12/21/2025

    Mind Sharing

    More at https://philosophytalk.org/shows/mind-sharing. Mind reading might sound like the stuff of science fiction. But in philosophy and psychology, mind reading is something that human beings do whenever we try to guess what another person is thinking. Could it be that people are also natural born mind sharers, unconsciously shaping our behavior to be understood by others? How do we change or exaggerate our actions when others are present? And how can we use these insights to communicate better with our loved ones? Josh and Ray share their mind(s) with Julian Jara-Ettinger, Director of the Computational Social Cognition Lab at Yale University.

    10 min

  3. 12/14/2025

    Shakespeare's Outsiders

    More at https://philosophytalk.org/shows/shakespeares-outsiders. Over 400 years after his death, Shakespeare is still widely regarded as the greatest dramatist of all time. His many plays tackle questions about power, influence, identity, and moral and social status. His characters—be they villains or heroes—are often disdained because of their race, religion, class, disability, or gender. So what do Shakespeare’s plays reveal about identity and status in his time? How might they shed light on who we include and who we exclude today? Could Shakespearian dramas have more in common with modern day soap operas than we think? Ray and guest-host Adrian Daub go inside with David Sterling Brown from Trinity College, author of Shakespeare’s White Others.

    11 min

  4. 12/07/2025

    Wise Women: Im Yunjidang

    More at https://philosophytalk.org/shows/im-yunjidang. 18th-century Korean philosopher Im Yunjidang was the first Confucian to argue for women’s equality in matters of morality and to claim that women, just like men, can be sages. She also argued that it isn’t just what you do that matters morally—it’s also how you decide. So what does it mean to be a sage and how does someone become one? How did Im Yunjidang use traditional Confucian texts to argue for women’s spiritual equality? And what did she think was important when it comes to making difficult moral choices? Josh and Ray explore her life and thought with Hwa Yeong Wang from Duke Kunshan University, editor of Korean Women Philosophers and the Ideal of a Female Sage: The Essential of Writings of Im Yungjidang and Gang Jeongildang.

    10 min

  5. 11/30/2025

    Gilbert Ryle and the Map of the Mind

    More at https://philosophytalk.org/shows/gilbert-ryle. Gilbert Ryle (1900-1976) was a British philosopher of mind and language best known for his book The Concept of Mind. He developed a novel argument against Cartesian dualism, which he called “the doctrine of the ghost in the machine”—the idea that our minds and bodies are separate substances. Ryle introduced a new term for the problem with this argument: Descartes was making a “category mistake.” But what exactly is a category mistake, and how bad is it to make one? If Cartesian dualism is false, what is the relationship between our minds and our bodies? And what does it have to do with the distinction between “knowing-how” and “knowing-that”? Josh and Ray turn their minds to Michael Kremer from the University of Chicago.

    12 min

  6. 11/23/2025

    Can A.I. Help Us Understand Babies?

    More at https://philosophytalk.org/shows/can-ai-help-us-understand-babies. Artificial intelligence is everywhere in our day-to-day lives and our interactions with the world. And it’s made impressive progress at a variety of visual, linguistic, and reasoning tasks. Does this improved performance indicate that computers are thinking, or is it just an engineering artifact? Can it help us understand how children acquire knowledge and develop language skills? Or are humans fundamentally different from machines? Josh and Ray decode the babble with Michael Frank, Professor of Human Biology at Stanford University and Director of the Symbolic Systems Program.

    10 min

  7. 11/16/2025

    Wise Women: Margaret Cavendish

    More at https://philosophytalk.org/shows/margaret-cavendish. Margaret Cavendish was a writer of poetry, philosophy, polemics, histories, plays, and utopian fiction. She employed many different genres as a way to overcome access barriers for women and build an audience for her subversive philosophical ideas. So, what was so radical about Cavendish’s views? Why did she think all matter, even rocks, was at least partially rational? And how did she anticipate the term “epistemic injustice” 400 years before it was coined? Josh and Ray explore the life and thought of Margaret Cavendish with Karen Detlefsen from the University of Pennsylvania, co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of Women and Early Modern European Philosophy. Part of our series Wise Women, generously supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

    11 min

  8. 11/09/2025

    Narrative and the Meaning of Life

    More at https://philosophytalk.org/shows/narrative-and-the-meaning-of-life. Humans are uniquely storytelling creatures who can narrate the events of their own lives. Some argue that our lives derive meaning from our ability to see them as an ongoing story. So is telling our own life story the key to a meaningful life? Is it the events that matter, or how we describe them? Does it matter if we’re unreliable narrators who fudge the facts to make ourselves look good? Josh and Ray tell tales with Helena de Bres from Wellesley College, author of Philosophy in the First Person (forthcoming).

    11 min
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Bite-size episodes from the program that questions everything... except your intelligence. Learn more and access complete episodes at www.philosophytalk.org.

Information

  • Creator
    Philosophy Talk Starters
  • Years Active
    2017 - 2025
  • Episodes
    528
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © All rights reserved
  • Show Website
    Philosophy Talk Starters

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