philosophy

#474 Andrew Norman - Mental Immunity; Reason, Critical Thinking, Beliefs, and Morality

May 27, 2021

Dr. Andrew Norman teaches philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University. He works on the conceptual and historical foundations of humanism. He has published widely on the nature of reason and the teaching of wisdom, and written books on critical thinking and the structure of dialogue. Dr. Andrew Norman is the former Director of CMU’s Ethics, History and Public Policy program, and is interested in constructive engagement with the religious and in developing naturalistic alternatives to destructive religious mythologies. He speaks regularly on such topics as reason and faith, science and religion, the foundations of ethics, and the evolutionary, cultural, and attitudinal roots of prosocial behavior. He is the author of Mental Immunity: Infectious Ideas, Mind-Parasites, and the Search for a Better Way to Think. More»
#469 Tim Maudlin: Philosophy of Physics, Quantum Mechanics, and Metaphysics

May 14, 2021

Dr. Tim Maudlin is Professor of Philosophy at New York University. Her has interests primarily focused in the foundations of physics, metaphysics, and logic. His books include Quantum Non-Locality and Relativity, Truth and Paradox and The Metaphysics Within Physics. He is a member of the Academie Internationale de Philosophie des Sciences and the Foundational Questions Institute (FQXi). He has been a Guggenheim Fellow. More»
#468 Andreas Elpidorou: How Boredom, Frustration, and Anticipation Lead us to the Good Life

May 13, 2021

Dr. Andreas Elpidorou is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Louisville. He specializes in the philosophical study of the mind and has published extensively on the nature of emotions (especially, boredom), consciousness, and cognition. He is best known for his work on the function and value of boredom. He is the co-author of Consciousness and Physicalism: A Defense of a Research Program (Routledge, 2018), the co-editor of Philosophy of Mind and Phenomenology: Conceptual and Empirical Approaches (Routledge, 2016), and the author of the recent book, Propelled: How Boredom, Frustration, and Anticipation Lead us to the Good Life. More»
#462 David Papineau: The Metaphysics of Sensory Experience

Apr 29, 2021

Dr. David Papineau is Professor of Philosophy at King's College London, having previously taught for several years at Cambridge University where he was a fellow of Robinson College. He was President of the British Society for Philosophy of Science for 1993-5, President of the Mind Association for 2009-10, and President of the Aristotelian Society for 2013-14. He’s also the author of 9 books, including Philosophical Naturalism, Thinking About Consciousness, and Knowing the Score. His new book is The Metaphysics of Sensory Experience. More»
#457 Michael Strevens - The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science

Apr 16, 2021

Dr. Michael Strevens is Professor of Philosophy at New York University. He works on the philosophy of science, where his interests include explanation, complex systems, probability, confirmation, the social structure of science, and causation; the psychology of concepts; and the philosophical applications of cognitive science. He is the author of The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science. More»
#456 Henry Greely - CRISPR People: The Science and Ethics of Editing Humans

Apr 15, 2021

Dr. Henry Greely is currently the Deane F. and Kate Edelman Johnson Professor of Law and Professor by courtesy of Genetics at Stanford University, and also an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He specializes in the ethical, legal, and social implications of new biomedical technologies, particularly those related to neuroscience, genetics, or stem cell research. He is a founder and president of the International Neuroethics Society; a member of the Multi-Council Working Group of the NIH’s BRAIN Initiative, whose Neuroethics Working Group he co-chairs; a member of the Committee on Science, Technology, and Law of the National Academies; and chair of California’s Human Stem Cell Research Advisory Committee. He’s also the author of The End of Sex and the Future of Human Reproduction, and more recently, CRISPR People: The Science and Ethics of Editing Humans. More»
#446 Pedro Galvão: Três Diálogos Sobre a Morte

Mar 22, 2021

THIS INTERVIEW IS IN PORTUGUESE. More»
#445 Kateřina Lochmanová: The History and Philosophy of Antinatalism

Mar 19, 2021

Kateřina Lochmanová is currently finishing her postgraduate studies of philosophy at the University of Ostrava, where she graduated with a diploma thesis entitled Iracionality of a Wager on Life in the Context of Benatar’s Antinatalism. She is one of the coorganisators of conferences on antinatalism in Ostrava as well as in Prague (with Vlastimil Vohánka, Filip Svoboda, David Černý and Tomáš Hříbek). At present, she is primarily concerned with geometry and metaphysics of space by a German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, but peripherally she is still interested in the subject of antinatalism too, especially in (the history of) Benatar’s asymmetry argument. She is the editor of History of Antinatalism: How Philosophy Has Challenged the Question of Procreation. More»
#441 Francesca Minerva: Abortion, Cryonics, Lookism, and the Journal of Controversial Ideas

Mar 11, 2021

Dr. Francesca Minerva is a research fellow at Warwick University and a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Ghent. She is the co-founder and co-editor of the Journal of Controversial Ideas. Her research focuses on applied philosophy, including lookism, conscientious objection, abortion, academic freedom, and cryonics. More»
#440 James Lenman: Ethics, Motives, Consequentialism, and Morality

Mar 8, 2021

Dr. James Lenman is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield. He is known for his expertise on ethics. Dr. Lenman is a former president of the British Society for Ethical Theory (2002-2008). More»