Central to modern biology and the study of life is the concept of the
organism—roughly, a body with interconnected parts that make specific
contributions to the development and functioning of the whole. There
are competing organism concepts even today, but the 18th century was a
critical period in which thinkers gradually shed prior ideas of life in
te ... Show More
Jul 10
Daniel Cohnitz and Jussi Haukioja, "Foundations for Metasemantics" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Metasemantics studies the foundations of meaning, asking what makes it the case that certain words have the meanings that they do. But what makes metasemantic theories true? This question has been all but ignored in philosophy of language. In this book, Cohnitz and Haukioja addre ... Show More
1h 9m
Jun 3
Rivka Weinberg, "The Meaning of It All: Ultimate Meaning, Everyday Meaning, Cosmic Meaning, Death, and Time" (Oxford UP, 2026)
You can stock your life with important work, relationships, activities, and art, and yet, you can still ask: what's the point of it all? Almost every thinking person has had that question—many more than once. Granted, you're more likely to worry about the point of life when thing ... Show More
49m 59s
May 24
PJ DiPietro, "Sideways Selves Travesti and Jotería, "Struggles Across the Américas" (U Texas Press, 2025)
How does coloniality shape the sociosomatic possibilities of our bodies? More importantly, how do gender-nonconforming people not only resist the limitations of that coloniality but also make, connect to, and revitalize other possibilities? How do displaced people use old and rad ... Show More
1h 17m
Jul 2022
512. Does Philosophy Still Matter?
<p>It used to be at the center of our conversations about politics and society. Scott Hershovitz (author of <i>Nasty, Brutish, and Short</i>) argues that philosophy still has a lot to say about work, justice, and parenthood. Our latest installment of the Freakonomics Radio Book C ... Show More
49m 52s
Jan 2023
#309 — Vulnerability, Politics, and Moral Worth
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Sam Harris speaks with Martha C. Nussbaum about her philosophical work. They discuss the relevance of philosophy to personal and political problems, the influence of religion, the problem of dogmatism, the importance of Greek and Roman philosoph ... Show More
45m 26s
Dec 2019
#178 — The Reality Illusion
<p>Sam and Annaka Harris speak with Donald Hoffman about his book "The Case Against Reality." They discuss how evolution has failed to select for true perceptions of the world, his "interface theory" of perception, the primacy of math and logic, how space and time cannot be funda ... Show More
1h 7m
Jul 2022
15. Does Philosophy Still Matter?
It used to be at the center of our conversations about politics and society. Scott Hershovitz is the author of Nasty, Brutish, and Short, in which he argues that philosophy still has a lot to say about work, justice, and parenthood. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See p ... Show More
49m 52s
Aug 2023
#96 — The Nature of Consciousness
Sam Harris speaks with Thomas Metzinger about the scientific and experiential understanding of consciousness. They also talk about the role of intuition in science, the ethics of building conscious AI, the self as an hallucination, how we identify with our thoughts, attention as ... Show More
40m 37s
Aug 2017
#92 — The Limits of Persuasion
Sam Harris speaks with David Pizarro and Tamler Sommers about free speech on campus, the Scott Adams podcast, the failings of the mainstream media, moral persuasion, moral certainty, the ethics of abortion, Buddhism, the illusion of the self, and other topics. If the Making Sense ... Show More
1 h
Oct 2019
#172 — Among the Deplorables
<p>Sam Harris speaks with Andrew Marantz about his book "Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation." They discuss the effect of social media on politics, the distinction between publishers and platforms, the problem of guilt by ... Show More
51m 31s
Jan 2018
Freedom and Hostile Design
Some acts of expression are awesome, while others suck, and one philosopher has a new theory about the difference. Using this theory as a guide, we look at some of the suckiest things that ever sucked in urban design, and the street artists and compassionate vandals who are tryin ... Show More
28m 6s
Jun 2023
Episode 262: Supposing Truth is a Woman (Nietzsche's "Beyond Good and Evil")
<p>David and Tamler dive into the first two parts of Nietzsche's <em>Beyond Good and Evil</em> which contain some of Nietzsche's best drive-bys on philosophers like Plato, Descartes, the Stoics, Kant, and Hegel along with beliefs in free will, hard determinism, Christianity, mora ... Show More
1h 28m