Skye Cleary on Authenticity

How did morality evolve? Why do different cultures have such a similar set of moral norms and values? Hanno Sauer gives an evolutionary story that explains the genealogy of morality through human co-operation. 

Most Western philosophers are deeply ignorant of Japanese philosophy. Takeshi Morisato who was brought up in Japan, and who has studied both continental and analytic Western traditions provides and introduction to some of the key strands in Japanese philosophy. 

Melissa Lane, a classics scholar as well as a philosopher, discusses some key features of Plato's political philosophy and shows its continuing relevance. 

Today we welcome philosopher Skye Cleary. She is a lecturer at Columbia University and the City College of New York. Skye is the author of Existentialism and Romantic Love and co-editor of How to Live a Good Life. Her writing has appeared in The Paris Review, Aeon, Business Insid ... Show More

Skye C. Cleary is a philosopher, writer and university teacher. In her new book How to Be Authentic: Simone de Beauvoir and the Quest for Fulfillment (St. Martin’s Press, 2022) offers an introduction to Beauvoir’s thinking about authenticity and how experience and situation shape ... Show More

Kick-starting second-wave feminism with her 1949 book The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir was a key member of the Parisian circle of Existentialists alongside Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Her philosophical influences include Descartes and Bergson, phen ... Show More

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Simone de Beauvoir. "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman," she wrote in her best known and most influential work, The Second Sex, her exploration of what it means to be a woman in a world defined by men. Published in 1949, it was an immedi ... Show More

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Simone de Beauvoir. "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman," she wrote in her best known and most influential work, The Second Sex, her exploration of what it means to be a woman in a world defined by men. Published in 1949, it was an immedi ... Show More

We are joined by Mary L. Edwards to discuss her new book Sartre's Existential Psychoanalysis: Knowing Others. We discuss Sartre's concept of bad faith, the in-itself and the for-itself and the challenge that his philosophy poses to psychoanalysis. We also discuss Sartre's psychob ... Show More

To be or not to be? That is the question. At the center of Hamlet’s soliloquy is the issue of whether life is worth living. In episode 72 of Overthink, Ellie and David consider this issue with philosopher and existentialism expert Céline Leboeuf. How can we find meaning in our li ... Show More

Model, actor, activist, entrepreneur and author Emily Ratajkowski joins us to discuss My Body (Metropolitan Books, Nov. 9). Kirkus calls her standout debut essay collection “a refreshingly candid, fearless look into a model’s body of work and its impact on her identity and politi ... Show More

Judith Butler joins Adam Shatz to discuss a landmark in feminist thought, Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949). Dazzling in its scope, The Second Sex incorporates anthropology, psychology, historiography, mythology and biology to ask an ‘impossible’ question: what is a woma ... Show More