Simon Blackburn on Plato's Cave

Can a work of art be immoral? What does that mean? Daisy Dixon, author of Depraved: The Story of Dangerous Art discusses this question with Nigel Warburton in this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast. 

Which physical characteristics does a woman have to have to be considered beautiful? Are there many different cultural variations on this? Heather Widdows, author of Perfect Me, thinks that today there is a single set of charactestics and that pressure to conform with these has p ... Show More

We blame people, and sometimes we blame institutions. Miranda Fricker investigates the nature of blame and its functions, draws some important distinctions, and considers the metaphysical implications of this practice. 

<p>David and Tamler continue their discussion of Plato's allegory of the cave. We talk about the connections with mystical traditions including Gnosticism, Sufism, and Buddhist paths to awakening. We also dig deeper into what Socrates calls 'dialectic' – what allows this method t ... Show More

Discussing Plato's Theatetus and Meno. 

In this week's episode, we learn about Plato's "Symposium", which you might think of as philosophy's version of fan fiction. We also learn about Plato's "Theory of Forms" and ask ourselves what makes a tree, well, a tree. This leads to discussion of Plato's famous "Allegory of th ... Show More

The Divided Line, Form of the Good, and Cave in Plato's Republic 

On Plato's mid-period dialogue from around 388 BCE. How do words relate to the things they represent? Socrates first argues that words represent things, and so doing etymology is a way of learning philosophical truths, then seemingly reverses himself. Get more at partiallyexamine ... Show More

<p>Simon Blackburn is well-known both as a writer of popular philosophy introductions (like <a href="https://amzn.to/4mg7kF5"><em>Think</em></a>), and also a significant figure in non-cognitivist meta-ethics, having invented the term “quasi-realism” to describe his moral philosop ... Show More

On Plato's middle dialogue depicting the death of Socrates (390 BCE) depicting the death of Socrates. Should philosophers fear death? In the course of giving arguments for the immortality of the soul, we get an elaboration of the recollection theory of knowledge (from the Meno) i ... Show More

This week philosopher Simon Critchley enlightens us to the roots of philosophy, as well as topics including football as ‘working class ballet’, what constitutes a 'good death’, and the relevance and importance of philosophy in these times. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy f ... Show More