In this episode we finally get down and dirty with the big dog of Anglophone political philosophy, John Rawls. We discuss his 1993 book Political Liberalism, which expands on his earlier theory of justice to develop an account of the pluralistic tolerance at the heart of a liberal society characterized by the fact of a diversity of incommensurate but reasona ... Show More
Jun 10
136 TEASER | What’s the Point of Equality? Meditations on Post-Socialist Analytical Philosophy
In this episode, we talk about the relational paradigm in political philosophy. Made famous by Iris Marion Young, developed later by Elizabeth Anderson, this view of what equality is all about presents a puzzle for the class conscious. It says that the point of equality is to liv ... Show More
9m 17s
Nov 2024
John Gray on the US Election and a World After Liberalism, Part Two
This is the second instalment of a three-part episode. We once thought liberalism could and should be universal. But recent decades have shown that this presumption could be flawed. Now, with the re-election of Donad Trump in the US, liberalism has fallen out of favour at the bal ... Show More
39m 41s
Sep 2025
Ep. 374: Discussing Liberalism (Lincoln, et al) with Walter Sterling (Part Two)
Continuing our discussion of the dangers to and weak points of liberal democracy, including consideration of Patrick Deneen's Why Liberalism Failed (2018) Francis Fukuyama's "Liberalism and Its Discontents" (his 2020 essay), and Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now (2018). Get more ... Show More
48m 50s