Philosophy For Our Times

Ranking history

About the show

Latest episodes

• The Beautiful World | Nicholas Humphrey

  October 6, 2026 · 53 min

  Are homo sapiens the only organisms capable of creating and experiencing beauty? Can we find beauty in God? Why do we see the hand of an Artist in the Natural, if God does not exist? Beauty is one of the most fundamental truths of the…

• Permissivism and Irrelevant Influences | Miriam Schoenfield

  September 29, 2026 · 22 min

  What does it mean for rationality to be ‘permissive’? Is rationality more limited than we would like to admit? Does the idea that ‘truth is the aim of belief’ still stand? The concept of irrelevant influences has long been troubling for…

• Rehumanising science | Carlo Rovelli - Part 2

  September 22, 2026 · 46 min

  What makes humans different from nature? What do Confucianism and Daoism have to do with physics? Is science too realist? In part 2 of our interview with Carlo Rovelli, we help unpick the history of the philosophy of science. From…

• Rehumanising science | Carlo Rovelli - Part 1

  September 15, 2026 · 38 min

  Are electrons real? What is the connection between physics and Buddhism? Is now the time to rehumanise science? Eastern philosophies have been an integral part of scientific thought and the development of multiple fields for millennia…

• Taking down the cultural elite | Catherine Liu

  September 8, 2026 · 37 min

  What is managerialism? Why is the meritocracy sliding into technocracy? Does suffering make us seem more pure? We tend to think that today’s progressive politics advances equality through moral awareness and identity. But Catherine Liu…

• The chains of freedom | Daniel Markovits, Elizabeth Anderson, Yaron Brook

  September 1, 2026 · 48 min

  Is freedom always an absolute good? For freedom to be beneficial and practical, does it need constraining? Are attacks on freedom really the first step to tyranny? From freedom from tyranny and poverty to the right to free speech, we…

• The secret history of cool | Joel Dinerstein

  August 25, 2026 · 29 min

  Who was the first person to be cool? What connects the civil rights movement and Albert Camus' 'The Rebel'? How has the coopting of black terminology impacted American society more broadly? From James Dean to Kate Moss, we know cool when…

• Rebalancing the global order | Kishore Mahbubani

  August 18, 2026 · 34 min

  Is it truly the beginning of the end of Western dominance? Where did it all go wrong? And is this more than just an upheaval of the status quo? For centuries, Western powers dominated the global order and mistook that moment for…