Philosophy Talk

Coming up: How can we get better at learning at teaching? Josh and guest-host Blakey Vermeule ask Catherine Hartley, Professor of Psychology and Neural Science at NYU.

Coming up: How do stories and ingenuity help a community in danger survive and thrive? Josh and Ray ask Edgar Garcia from the University of Chicago, author of "Emergency: Reading the Popol Vuh in a Time of Crisis."

Please join us in wishing a hearty happy birthday to Andrew B. Hammond Professor of French Language, Literature and Civilization at Stanford University (and co-host of the program since 2017) Joshua Landy. Prior to hosting, Josh joined John & Ken as a guest several times, including this 2012 live recording at Litquake in San Francisco.

Happy 80th birthday to acclaimed moral philosopher Peter Singer, who joined us on this date in 2023 as Josh and Ray questioned how to make a better world.

More America250 thoughts at https://philosophytalk.org/playlist/america-at-250.

Coming up: How do you advocate for women's rights while opposing women's suffrage? Josh and Ray explore the life & thought of anarchist philosopher Emma Goldman with Candace Falk, founding director of the Emma Goldman Papers Project.

🎧 Sunday at 11 am on KALW 91.7 FM in San Francisco & https://www.kalw.org/show/philosophy-talk/2024-11-15/emma-goldman.

This Saturday marks the semiquincentennial of U.S. independence, and whether or not you feel like celebrating it’s certainly worth thinking about where we are, where we’ve been, and where we’re going on America’s democratic journey. This month we’ve got a longer-than-usual playlist featuring episodes from throughout our 20+ years on the air that question the past, present, and future of this experiment in self-government: https://philosophytalk.org/playlist/america-at-250

Coming up: Josh and guest co-host Devon Strolovitch talk to the authors of recent and forthcoming books that speak to our dangerous times:

• Christopher Star from Middlebury College, editor of "How to Face the End of the World: An Ancient Guide for Apocalyptic Times"

• Christian Miller from Wake Forest University, author of "The Honesty Crisis: Preserving Our Most Treasured Virtue in an Increasingly Dishonest World"

• Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of "The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us"

The father of existentialism, Jean-Paul Sartre, was born June 21, 1905, so tune in for a vintage episode with Thomas Flynn from Emory University, author of "Sartre: A Philosophical Biography."

BIG NEWS: Our "Wise Women" series took 2nd place for Interview Program in this year's Public Media Journalists Association awards, one of three for our home station KALW in San Francisco 🏆

The sixteen-episode series about women in philosophy from antiquity to the 20th century was originally funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities that was abruptly terminated by the new administration in April 2025.

Coming up: Is Gender an oppressive system that sorts people into pink and blue boxes, or is it a critical part of people’s identities? Josh and guest-host Blakey Vermeule ask Josh's regular co-host Ray Briggs, co-author of "What Even Is Gender?"

Coming up: What is experience really like before reason comes along to change everything? Josh and Ray explore the life & thought of Maurice Merleau-Ponty with Taylor Carman from Barnard College, author of "Merleau-Ponty (Routledge Philosophers)."

Junebugs abide! Check out episodes in our library featuring these June babies: Jürgen Habermas (June 18, 1929), Jean-Paul Sartre (June 21, 1905), Alan Turing (June 23, 1912), and Emma Goldman (June 27, 1869), along with past guests Irv Yalom (June 13, 1931) and the late Geoff Nunberg (June 1, 1945).

Coming up: If other animals have language, thought, and culture, then what's so special about humans? Josh and guest-host Alison Gopnik roam the Earth with Peter Godfrey-Smith from the University of Sydney, author of "Living on Earth: Forests, Corals, Consciousnesses, and the Making of the World."

Happy Memorial Day. As Americans remember their fallen servicemenbers, we remember this 2011 episode when our guest David Kennedy noted that of the 535 then-members of Congress, the number with children in the military was 10. With our government more cartoonishly bellicose than ever, what is that number today?

More at https://philosophytalk.org/shows/the-military-what-is-it-good-for