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Philosopher's Zone

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Language: English
Category: Society and Culture / Blogs and Commentary
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Alan Saunders explores the big questions and arguments; he looks at the world of philosophy and at the world through philosophy.


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2009-06-27 - Is philosophy irrelevant to science?

Scientists get on with the job – they do stuff with test tubes or with computers – but can philosophers help them? Do they need help and, if so, do they think they need help? This week, we examine what philosophers of science talk about and what effect it might have on what scientists actually do....

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[ Sat, 27 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]


2009-06-20 - The Romantic Movement and rock music

Romantic ideas and philosophy live on in certain strains of modern rock music, according to this week's guest, Craig Schuftan, author of Hey Nietzsche - Leave them kids alone. David Bowie, The Cure, The Smiths, Queen, and more contemporary bands like My Chemical Romance and Weezer share some seriously Romantic tendencies with people like Byron, Schopenhauer, Wagner and even Nietzsche - and it's not just because they all viewed the world through the same gloomy prism....

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[ Sat, 20 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]


2009-06-13 - A conversation with Isaiah Berlin

Last week, we commemorated the centenary of the birth of the greatest British philosopher and historian of ideas, Isaiah Berlin. This week, we raid the ABC archives for a long interview in which Berlin talks about human freedom: are we free and, if we are not free, can we be moral? Are we responsible for what we do or can circumstances let us off the hook?...

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[ Sat, 13 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]


2009-06-06 - A tribute to Isaiah Berlin

Isaiah Berlin was born in Russia a hundred years ago, on 6 June 1909. He grew up to be a distinguished philosopher, a great historian of ideas - tracing the origins and vicissitudes of liberal thought over the last few centuries - and an eloquent defender of liberty. He was a man with very many friends and, this week, we talk about him with one of them: the British political philosopher John Gray....

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[ Sat, 06 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]


2009-05-30 - The Happiness Machine

Philosopher Caroline West believes the word `happiness´ should be abolished because it has become a catch all for such a wide variety of states of being and ways of living that it has lost all meaning. But where to from there? What are our alternatives? And how might a happiness machine help us think about the problem? Join Caroline West as she addresses the recent Sydney Writers' Festival....

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[ Sat, 30 May 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]


2009-05-23 - Jekyll and Hyde and criminal responsibility

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was published in 1886. It was hugely successful and has given us one of the archetypes of our time, but what does it have to tell us about our attitudes to guilt? Was Dr Jekyll a murderer or does the fact that the crimes were committed by his alter-ego, Edward Hyde, get him off the hook? This week on The Philosopher´s Zone, we examine the problem of guilt and responsibility....

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[ Sat, 23 May 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]


2009-05-16 - Thinking about the lives of the great thinkers

Ray Monk from the University of Southampton in the UK is something unusual in philosophers of the English-speaking world: he´s a biographer. This week, he tell us about the challenges of writing the lives of Bertrand Russell and of the great Ludwig Wittgenstein and why the thinks that biography is a very Wittgensteinian genre....

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[ Sat, 16 May 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]


2009-05-09 - The unhappy family of Ludwig Wittgenstein

Sometimes it´s easy to forget that long dead philosophers had families; a world beyond the cocoon of their thinking and writing; a life with all the joy and sadness and conflict that a family can provide. The 20th century Viennese philosopher's family might today be described as deeply dysfunctional, as well as cultured and hugely wealthy. We're joined by Alexander Waugh, author of, The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War....

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[ Sat, 09 May 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]


2009-05-02 - The philosophy of the quantum spook

Does physics offer us a fuzzy picture of a clear reality or a clear picture of a fuzzy reality? In 1947, Albert Einstein told Max Born -- a great physicist and the grandfather of Olivia Newton-John -- that he couldn´t accept quantum theory because it involved `spooky actions at a distance.´ But does having quantum theory without the spooks mean believing in time travel? Huw Price, philosopher and physicist, helps us boldly go....

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[ Sat, 02 May 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]


2009-04-25 - Philosophy and The Wealth of Nations - P.J. O'Rourke

Adam Smith is known today as the father of economics, but he was, by profession, a philosopher. His book The Wealth of Nations is an attempt to apply philosophy to the world of money-making and commerce. This week, we dip into his great work with the help of P.J O´Rourke, the American political commentator, wit and author of a recent study of Smith....

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[ Sat, 25 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]


2009-04-18 - Ideals and dirty hands - C.A.J. Coady

What´s wrong with moralism in politics? Can you be moral and advocate morality while at the same time being aware of your own moral failings? Can you at the same time be an idealist and a realist? And what about dirty hands? Do the supreme emergencies of political life sometimes mean that you might have to do things that you would normally regard as immoral? Some hard questions about the realities of political life this week on The Philosopher´s Zone....

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[ Sat, 18 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]


2009-04-11 - Getting down to reality: Raymond Geuss

Lenin divided people into two kinds: `who´ and `whom´. For him, the important question in politics was who does what to whom? But is this grimly realistic view of power neglected by philosophers with too much of an interest in justice, equality, rights and other ideals? This week, we look at realism and what it means for political philosophy....

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[ Sat, 11 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]


2009-04-04 - Hypatia of Alexandria - a philosophical martyr

Hypatia of Alexandria was beautiful and clever, and, as far we know, never did anybody any harm, so why was she torn to pieces by an angry mob, armed (so some stories tell) with oyster shells? This week, we look at the woman and the heritage of what is probably the longest-standing philosophical tradition in Western civilisation: that rational yet mystical, sometimes Pagan, sometimes Christian, body of doctrines known as Neo-Platonism....

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[ Sat, 04 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]


2009-03-28 - Voice in the wilderness - R.G. Collingwood

R.G. Collingwood—philosopher, archaeologist, historian—was a man difficult to place, who felt very much an outsider in the philosophical world at the time of his death in 1943. Yet, today what he was interested in is very much like the sort of thing we're interested in: the hidden presuppositions behind our ways of thought and doing history as a form of re-enactment. The world looks very different when seen from the point of view of this neglected figure....

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[ Sat, 28 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]


2009-03-21 - Understanding and blame while the money runs out

It´s not a good time to be a big noise in banking or the motor industry, but who are the really guilty parties here and do the media help us to understand what´s going on? Can business ethics enable us to draw lines between culpability, incompetence and culpable incompetence? And are the ethics of the media totally compromised by spin and image manipulation?...

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[ Sat, 21 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]


2009-03-14 - Talking to the animals

You can talk to the animals till the cows come home but will they talk back? Perhaps they do and you just don´t get the message. Either way, the fact that animals don´t seem to possess language has, since ancient Greek times, encouraged the view that they´re not capable of being rational and therefore not fit to be members of the community. This week, the Dutch philosopher René ten Bos questions our time-honoured views of animals and how to behave towards them....

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[ Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]


2009-03-07 - A rear view of Alfred Hitchcock

A rear view of Alfred Hitchcock is a view that takes in what lies behind and beneath. And what we find is a profoundly pessimistic, though not hopeless, view of the world and a keen interest in the way we see it. How do we interpret what we see? And can we see without interpretation? Can life approach perfection or are we doomed to get it wrong? Serious philosophical questions, all addressed by the fat Englishman who made movies for Hollywood....

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[ Sat, 07 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]


2009-02-28 - Providence lost?

`Providence´ is not a word of which we make much use these days. For us, it tends to be a synonym for good fortune or perhaps a sense that somebody is watching over us. But what is providence if it isn´t whatever deliveries you a prize in the lottery? To the ancient Greeks, providence was the inherent purpose and rational structure of the world, and this week we meet the Australian philosopher Genevieve Lloyd, who argues that the idea can still help us clarify the ideas of freedom and autono...

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[ Sat, 28 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]


2009-02-21 - Burning issues: the ethics of firefighting

You´re a firefighter and you have a choice: do you save the old person, who´s relatively easy to save, or do you go for the child when your attempt might not be successful and you might lose your own life trying? Fire fighting has been much on all our minds lately. There are a lot of practical and emotional issues here, but is there anything philosophical to talk about? We meet a philosopher who has been battling with the ethical issues of the firefighter´s life....

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[ Sat, 21 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]


2009-02-14 - Charles Darwin - The Philosopher's Zone and All in the Mind Special

The human animal is a complex beast - we mate, fight, emote, and socialise in curious ways. Charles Darwin´s theories continue to provoke controversy over how and why we behave the way we do. Join leading evolutionary scientists and philosophers in this one hour special, as presenters Alan Saunders and Natasha Mitchell consider how Darwin radically influenced the life of the mind. From the philosophical and historical excavations of Darwinian thought, to contemporary adventures of Darwin in...

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[ Sat, 14 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]


2009-02-14 - Charles Darwin - The Philosopher's Zone and All in the Mind Special

The human animal is a complex beast - we mate, fight, emote, and socialise in curious ways. Charles Darwin´s theories continue to provoke controversy over how and why we behave the way we do. Join leading evolutionary scientists and philosophers in this one hour special, as presenters Alan Saunders and Natasha Mitchell consider how Darwin radically influenced the life of the mind. From the philosophical and historical excavations of Darwinian thought, to contemporary adventures of Darwin in...

MORE... | LISTEN | DOWNLOAD | MOBILE DEVICE

[ Sat, 14 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]


2009-02-07 - Philosophy in the mountains - Arne Naess

Arne Næss, who died in January just a couple of weeks short of his ninety-seventh birthday, was a great mountaineer and part of the history of twentieth-century philosophy. He started out as a member of the great philosophical school the Vienna Circle but was better known as the founder of the movement known as deep ecology. This week, we pay tribute to the man and his work....

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[ Sat, 07 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]


2009-02-07 - Philosophy in the mountains - Arne Naess

Arne Næss, who died in January just a couple of weeks short of his ninety-seventh birthday, was a great mountaineer and part of the history of twentieth-century philosophy. He started out as a member of the great philosophical school the Vienna Circle but was better known as the founder of the movement known as deep ecology. This week, we pay tribute to the man and his work....

MORE... | LISTEN | DOWNLOAD | MOBILE DEVICE

[ Sat, 07 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]


2009-01-31 - Radical hope

Jonathan Lear, author of Radical hope - ethics in the face of cultural devastation, takes us through the story of an American Indian nation, the Crow, and their last great chief, Plenty Coups. Plenty Coup died an old man in 1932, having lived through the complete upheaval of Crow life and culture. So how did he show courage and hope when his very framework for understanding those concepts had disappeared?...

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[ Sat, 31 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]


2009-01-31 - Radical hope

Jonathan Lear, author of Radical hope - ethics in the face of cultural devastation, takes us through the story of an American Indian nation, the Crow, and their last great chief, Plenty Coups. Plenty Coup died an old man in 1932, having lived through the complete upheaval of Crow life and culture. So how did he show courage and hope when his very framework for understanding those concepts had disappeared?...

MORE... | LISTEN | DOWNLOAD | MOBILE DEVICE

[ Sat, 31 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]


2009-01-24 - Gavagai!

This week, we continue our look at translation by examining the extreme case of radical translation. How do you translate from a language which has no connection with yours and of which you do not speak a single word, and what does all this have to do with the mysterious word 'gavagai'? We also continue our look at the challenges of translating philosophy this week focusing on translating French, German and English....

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[ Sat, 24 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]


2009-01-24 - Gavagai!

This week, we continue our look at translation by examining the extreme case of radical translation. How do you translate from a language which has no connection with yours and of which you do not speak a single word, and what does all this have to do with the mysterious word 'gavagai'? We also continue our look at the challenges of translating philosophy this week focusing on translating French, German and English....

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[ Sat, 24 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]


2009-01-17 - Philosophy in another tongue

Philosophy aspires to universal truths but it has to do so in a particular language. How does the language in which philosophy is expressed affect what can and cannot be said, and how does translation affect our understanding of it? This week, we ask a Chinese philosopher how different Confucius is in English and we consider attempts to make Plato sound as though he came from Oxford....

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[ Sat, 17 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]


2009-01-10 - Islam and philosophy - Tariq Ramadan

The holy Koran is held by Muslims to be the literal word of God, and if you've got that, who needs philosophy? This week we put that question to the distinguished and controversial Muslim thinker Tariq Ramadan, who tells us that Islam not only needs philosophy but has already shared its insights with the West....

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[ Sat, 10 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]


2009-01-03 - The Emergence of Science, Part 2

Why did the great scientific revolution occur in the West and not in China or the Arab-Islamic world? This week, in the second part of an interview with Stephen Gaukroger from the University of Sydney, we find out why it happened, where it happened and how science became the bearer of general standards of rationality....

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[ Sat, 03 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +1000 ]

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