The Philosopher's Zone - Program Podcast

Karl Popper's idea of "the open society" promoted values of inclusivity, transparency and democratic freedom. Today, some fear that the open society is under threat, with negative consequences for a lot of things we've come to take for granted - including public health.

Most people agree that nation states don't have any moral right to control the movement of citizens within their borders, or to prevent citizens from travelling beyond those borders. So why should we accept that states have the right to exclude or restrict entry to refugees and immigrants?

The march of technology never stops, and sometimes institutions have trouble keeping up with the changes. This week we’re looking at possible future crimes committed via technology that’s already with us: brain-computer interfaces, which enable things to happen in the physical world by means of neural impulses – thoughts and imaginings, rather than movements.

A quick scan of leading philosophy journals reveals that what passes for "philosophy" is selectively screened, with analytic philosophy clearly the dominant style. We look at the history of this phenomenon, some of the likely consequences, and how might it be addressed.

When Nicola Redhouse had each of her two children, she experienced shattering post-natal anxiety that sent her deep into the mystery of the self, and the relationship between mind and body. A long standing participant in psychoanalysis, she found herself up against the practical limits of Freudian theory - but would science provide more useful insight?

Can science potentially reveal everything, giving us a "God's eye view" of the world? Some hope that the answer is (or will one day be) Yes - other more cautious observers wonder if science can ever overcome its blind spot.

In 1944, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer published their famous claim that "Enlightenment reverts to mythology" - meaning that any rational order sooner or later collapses into irrationality. Seven decades later, it seems they were were right on the money. Is human society fated to be irrational? And why is the alt-right having all the crazy fun these days?

Reality TV draws increasing concern from observers who fear that cast, producers and audiences alike could be participating in something morally reprehensible - and that serious consequences for society lie ahead.

Resentment, blame and guilt are generally placed on the negative side of the ledger of human emotions. Nobody particularly enjoys the way they feel. But they are morally important all the same, both in the public sphere and in the realm of interpersonal relationships.

According to Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, modern secular politics is theological from the ground up – which may come as a nasty surprise to the many people who believe, often for very good reasons, that religion and politics should be kept as far from each other as possible.

How are your critical thinking skills? Fine, you say. Everybody sees themselves as a competent critical thinker. But when you break critical thinking down to its component skills, it turns out to be more complicated and difficult than you might expect.

Artificial intelligence is pretty impressive these days. An AI robot can interact with humans in ways that give a strong impression of empathy, intellectual engagement and independent thought. A robot can smile, frown and respond to emotional cues offered by human faces and voices. But can it experience real emotions of its own?

Who is responsible for acts of torture? Individual perpetrators, certainly. But focusing on the guilt of individuals can lead us to miss the significance of context - social, political, cultural, the "ecology" of complex circumstances within which practices of torture occur.

The ancient Greek root of our word "technology" is techne, which means "craftsmanship" or "art". In a world where technology today is thought of in mechanistic terms - consumer items that simply appear in our lives and perform certain functions - is it time we rediscovered the techne behind its development?

Most of us think of the European Enlightenment as a historical period during which society cast off the shackles of mythic thinking. Today, mythic thinking is alive and well in the era of neo-liberal capitalism - at least that's according to the analysis of critical theory, a mode of philosophy deeply rooted in the dynamics of history. Critical theory comes to us via Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, whose 1944 work Dialectic of Enlightenment is still a seminal text. But how does it hold up today?

With freedom of speech at Australian universities currently under governmental review, we explore the notion of free speech on campus. Should what gets said at universities - and who gets to say it - be regulated? And is the supposed "free speech crisis" just a front for the culture wars?

Existentialism entered the popular consciousness after World War 2, and for many it still has a mid-century ring to it. But how does it look look today, especially in an age where the unfolding environmental crisis calls for something more than radical humanism?

John Kaag is a philosopher who travelled to the Swiss Alps with the aim of putting into practice some of Nietzsche's recommendations for "becoming who you are". In his memoir Hiking With Nietzsche, what he finds is that following in the footsteps of the great German thinker requires big shoes.

As an intellectual oddball in the early 20th century, Walter Benjamin appears to have been a precursor of the cross-disciplinary hybrid thinkers we celebrate today. Was he the first multimedia journalist?

Getting older: comedy or tragedy? Martha Nussbaum and Saul Levmore—co-authors of Aging Thoughtfully: Conversations About Retirement, Romance, Wrinkles and Regret—talk about older bodies, intergenerational resentment, and a certain Shakespearean geriatric.