Society & Culture

Critical Concepts

by The Sane Society

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Latest episodes

#9 The Freedom to Stay with Eva von Redecker

October 2, 2026 · 26 min

--- 00:00 Intro 01:59 Freedom and desire 07:10 Spatial freedom 14:17 Temporal understanding of freedom 18:13 Freedom as experience of fulfilled time --- The translation of "Bleibefreiheit" (The Freedom to Stay) has just been published by…
#8 What can we learn from the Climate Crisis? with Dipesh Chakrabarty

September 18, 2026 · 53 min

--- 00:00 Intro 01:35 Human made climate change 05:26 Geological Agency 14:15 The Anthroposcene 35:20 Rethinking History 52:16 Outro --- The effects of the human-made climate crisis are becoming increasingly visible across the world…
#7 What is Social Freedom? with Axel Honneth

September 4, 2026 · 28 min

Freedom is an idea that is strikingly common to the way we speak and think about the world and ourselves. We could even go so far as to claim that much of what we do in our lives is motivated by a drive for freedom. But despite the…
#6 The Illusion of Free Markets with Bernard Harcourt

August 7, 2026 · 28 min

For most people, the existence of markets appears natural. We buy our food through markets, we rent the places we live in through markets, and our work takes place within a labor market. It is often assumed that markets are a sphere of…
# 5 What is Economic Power? with Søren Mau

July 24, 2026 · 30 min

Despite extreme levels of inequality, poverty, and ecological destruction, capitalism remains the dominant form of organizing social life. Not only that, it seems that each of us is in some way involved in its continuation. We constantly…

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#4 What is Phantom Possession? with Eva von Redecker

July 10, 2026 · 21 min

Across the world, authoritarian and fascist movements are gaining popularity. These movements often claim that external forces are trying to take away something they must defend against a specific enemy. Within these narratives, a…
#3 What is Alienation? with Rahel Jaeggi

June 26, 2026 · 28 min

The concept of alienation has a long tradition. Karl Marx famously introduced the concept during the rise of industrial capitalism to criticize the working conditions of industrial workers. Yet some might argue that alienation belongs to…
#2 Why Do We Reproduce Social Structures? with Sally Haslanger

June 12, 2026 · 44 min

When we are born into a particular society, we quickly learn its norms and practices. As we internalize these patterns, we also begin to reproduce them in our everyday actions. Through this repetition, it becomes tempting to see these…
#1 Why Do We Have Prisons? with Tommie Shelby

May 29, 2026 · 15 min

Prisons are a central institution of modern society, yet their legitimacy is rarely questioned. Many people assume they prevent crime and justly punish wrongdoing. But what if these assumptions are mistaken? Today’s guest, Tommie Shelby…

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About the show

To slightly alter a quote from Karl Marx: "We are therefore in a position to sum up the credo of our podcast in a single word: the self-clarification (critical philosophy) of the struggles and wishes of the age." To achieve this, we asked leading experts in the field of social and economic philosophy to break down the core concepts of their research.