Stephen Hawking's proclamation that philosophy is dead was clearly hyperbole. But when it comes to understanding the fundamental nature of reality, has philosophy really got anything left to contribute? Does the rise of physics demand the end of metaphysics? Debating these questions are Carlo Rovelli (Centre de Physique Théorique of the Aix-Marseille University), Eleanor Knox (King’s College London) and Alex Rosenberg (Duke University) with the BBC’s Ritula Shah in the chair. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information ..read more

Over the past two decades, our view of the ideals for science in society has changed. Discussions of the roles for values in science and changes in the views on the responsibilities in science have shifted the understanding of science from ideally value-free to properly value-laden. This shift, however, seems to remove a key difference between science and politics, as now both science and politics are value-laden, and disputes in both can arise from value disagreements. If science is not value-free (nor should it be), what differentiates science from politics? Heather Douglas lays out norms fo ..read more

Axel Honneth’s 2021 Royal Institute of Philosophy Dublin Lecture seeks briefly to reconstruct the history of conceptual disputes about the meaning of work from the beginning of capitalist industrialisation. Initially, the only kind of activity that counted as work in the proper sense was the industrialised manufacture of goods. Subsequently, this extremely narrow view of work was challenged by a succession of social actors who attempt to expand the definition by interpreting additional kinds of activity as work. At the present juncture, there is widespread acceptance of the view that caring an ..read more

Certain philosophies describe us as prone to forms of attachment that are illusory, and promise to indemnify us against the hazards of life by exposing such illusions. One such hazard is that of transience and temporal life itself, and it is sometimes urged that since the present is the only genuine reality, attachments to the past or the future are forms of illusion we can and should be free of. In the 2021 Royal Institute of Philosophy Annual Cardiff Lecture, Richard Moran questions the ideal of “living in the present” and so escaping the contingencies and loss that are part of temporal life ..read more

The terms 'systemic injustice' and 'structural injustice' are often used interchangeably and are often equated with 'institutional injustice.' But in order to understand these different forms of injustice, we should have a clear idea of what they are and how to distinguish them. Using racism as a paradigm case, Sally Haslanger sketches an account of society as a complex system and shows how relations that make up the structures are constituted by social practices. This helps us locate some of the leverage points for social change. Sally Haslanger is Ford Professor of Philosophy ..read more

There was an editing error on Ep. 10: Culture and Value in Du Bois’ The Gift of Black Folk with Chike Jeffers which has since been corrected. If you downloaded the episode before July 6th, please download the corrected version here: https://shows.acast.com/thinking-hard-and-slow/culture-and-value-chike-jeffers or by finding Ep. 10 on any podcast app. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information ..read more

What would it mean to do justice to testimonies of traumatic experience? That is, how can experiences which do not fit the customary scripts of sense-making be heard? Whereas processes of official memorialization or legal redress often demand that victims and survivors convey their experiences through familiar modes of narration, María del Rosario Acosta López's project on “grammars of listening” asks how it might be possible to hear these experiences on their own terms and what are the challenges that we encounter when trying to do so. She argues that doing justice to trauma requires a profou ..read more

Since 1925, the Royal Institute of Philosophy has been on a mission to help those interested in and perplexed by the problems of modern life to ask the right questions. Following in that tradition, we bring you Thinking Hard and Slow, a show that asks for your full attention with the promise of rich lectures and discussions. Join host Julian Baggini and leading figures in the world of philosophy as they tackle a range of issues such as: The Philosophy of Green Finance, The Ethics of Anger and Shame, How To Get Good at Bad Emotion, and Decolonizing Philosophy. Full episodes starting on April ..read more

What would it mean to do justice to testimonies of traumatic experience? That is, how can experiences which do not fit the customary scripts of sense-making be heard? Whereas processes of official memorialization or legal redress often demand that victims and survivors convey their experiences through familiar modes of narration, María del Rosario Acosta López's project on “grammars of listening” asks how it might be possible to hear these experiences on their own terms and what are the challenges that we encounter when trying to do so. She argues that doing justice to trauma requires a profou ..read more

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) lived what was in many ways an astonishingly modern, transcultural and translingual life. He was born in Lisbon and grew up in Anglophone Durban, acquiring a life-long love for English poetry and language. Returning to Lisbon, from where he would never again leave, he set himself the goal to travel throughout an infinitude of inner landscapes, to be an explorer of inner worlds. He published very little, but left behind a famous trunk containing a treasure-trove of scraps, on which were written some of the greatest literary works of the 20th century, mainly in Portug ..read more