Philosopher's Zone podcast

#Australia #Philosophy #Society #ABC Radio Nationals

22:08

Host Francesca Amiker sits down with directors Joe and Anthony Russo, producer Angela Russo-Otstot, stars Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt, and more to uncover how family was the key to building the emotional core of The Electric State . From the Russos’ own experiences growing up in a large Italian family to the film’s central relationship between Michelle and her robot brother Kid Cosmo, family relationships both on and off of the set were the key to bringing The Electric State to life. Listen to more from Netflix Podcasts . State Secrets: Inside the Making of The Electric State is produced by Netflix and Treefort Media.…

Philosopher's Zone

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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.

954 episodes

Philosopher's Zone

3,363 subscribers

updated 4 days ago

Series home•Feed

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.

954 episodes

#Australia #Philosophy #Society #ABC Radio Nationals

All episodes

Philosopher's Zone

1
AI, reliability and trust 33:45

4 days ago33:45

33:45

AI is making all kinds of important decisions for us these days, but how far can we trust it? Or rather, what kind of trust is appropriate to bring to AI? The inner workings of "black box" AI are inscrutable even to its creators, so if transparency and explainability are essential to the development of trust, then we could be in trouble. It all depends on how we think about trust.…

Philosopher's Zone

1
Innocence and "child rescue" in the colonial imagination 37:26

9 days ago37:26

37:26

The forced removal of First Nations children from their families was active government policy in Australia between the 1910s and the 1970s, and still continues today under the banner of child protection. Today we're hearing that the story of the Stolen Generation has a historical parallel in the "child rescue" movement in 19th century Britain, when so-called "ragged children" were taken from their families - in many cases, abducted - and placed in institutions, to be trained and moulded into productive citizens.…

Philosopher's Zone

1
What is a conspiracy theory? 28:11

16 days ago28:11

28:11

We all feel we know what a conspiracy theory is: it's a belief held by other people about a conspiracy or conspiracies. Nobody likes being identified as a conspiracy theorist - including conspiracy theorists - and this makes life difficult for social scientists, psychologists and other researchers. When it comes to philosophy and the business of nailing down exactly what a conspiracy theory is, things get even muddier.…

Philosopher's Zone

1
Getting past post-truth 38:00

24 days ago38:00

38:00

Our current "post-truth" environment means it's getting harder to trust what we see, hear and read - and this is a problem for all of us, but especially for educators and anyone in the business of teaching younger people about the world. This week we hear from a scholar who's looking to a modern philosophical tradition to come up with critical thinking strategies for students.…

Philosopher's Zone

1
Expanding our moral circle 39:45

4 weeks ago39:45

39:45

Our "moral circle" encompasses fellow humans, other primates, dogs, cats and other animals to which we attribute feelings and interests. But as science teaches us more about the inner lives of insects, marine animals and even microbes, it becomes more and more apparent that we might need to include them in our moral circle as well. Furthermore, we may need to bestow moral significance on an upcoming population of artificial intelligences. How can we possibly care for them all, and accommodate their various conflicting interests?…

Philosopher's Zone

1
Knowing what things are like 31:19

5 weeks ago31:19

31:19

Conventional wisdom has it that if you've never fallen in love, if you've never given birth to a child, if you've never tasted Vegemite... then you can't know what these experiences are like. But is the conventional wisdom correct? This week we're asking if there could in fact be various kinds of what-it-is-like knowledge, not all of which require direct first-hand experience.…

Philosopher's Zone

1
How important is aesthetic education? 28:25

6 weeks ago28:25

28:25

It's often said that we're experiencing a crisis in the arts and Humanities, with declining student numbers in subjects that aren't deemed suitable for creating "job-ready graduates", and funding cuts slashing support for the arts. In a world of tight job markets and increasing importance given to STEM subjects, what can we do about it?…

Philosopher's Zone

1
Rediscovering Wilfrid Sellars 29:12

7 weeks ago29:12

29:12

The American thinker Wilfrid Sellars died in 1989, and has been remembered as a primarily analytic philosopher. But today, Sellars is being rediscovered by a new generation of Continental philosophers - and, perhaps surprisingly, Marxists. What do these thinkers find in Sellars, and how are his thoughts on science and knowledge being applied to questions of politics and society?…

Philosopher's Zone

1
Auschwitz: experiencing what can't be experienced 33:21

8 weeks ago33:21

33:21

This week marks 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz at the end of the Second World War. Representation in literature and cinema of the horrors that took place at Auschwitz is fraught with ethical ambiguities, as is the experience of actually visiting Auschwitz, which many people do today. The place stands as a famous memorial, known to all - and yet, this week's guest fears that the lessons of Auschwitz are being forgotten.…

Philosopher's Zone

1
Summer season: History and narrative 33:32

9 weeks ago33:32

33:32

Historians are commonly thought of as being a little like archaeologists or scientists - they're in the business of uncovering facts, and then presenting those facts to the public as accurately as possible. But this week we're considering history as a species of narrative, and the historian as someone who doesn't "discover" the meaning of the past but constructs it.…

Philosopher's Zone

1
Summer season: Libertarianism and freedom 40:15

10 weeks ago40:15

40:15

Libertarians are hard to pin down – they have a number of seemingly contradictory commitments that we normally associate with people on either the left or the right of politics. Libertarians like small government, low taxes and free markets – but they also favour things like same-sex marriage and drug legalisation. So what exactly is libertarianism, and where did it come from?…

Philosopher's Zone

1
Summer season: What is swearing? 34:31

11 weeks ago34:31

34:31

What exactly is it about swearing that gives it its offensive power? None of the standard philosophy-of-language explanations really gets to the bottom of why we swear, why we don't, and what we're doing when we use "obscene" language. This week, the author of a very sweary philosophy book offers some thoughts.…

Philosopher's Zone

1
Summer season: How philosophy fell in love with language 28:25

12 weeks ago28:25

28:25

Around the beginning of the 20th century, philosophy began to take what's come to be known as "the linguistic turn". All major philosophical questions, it was argued, were really questions about language, and this conviction would dominate philosophical discourse for the next century. But are philosophers now starting to turn away from the linguistic turn? And what might be coming next?…

Philosopher's Zone

1
Summer season: Music, taste and AI 42:35

13 weeks ago42:35

42:35

When you think about the music you like (or don't like), what does it tell you about your taste? Do you think you have good taste? And if you do, why? What is it about music that determines good or bad taste, and is it possible to cultivate the former?

Philosopher's Zone

1
Stability, security and survival: a conversation with Mary Graham 27:59

14 weeks ago27:59