Philosophy Talk

French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil was also an activist whose goal was to elevate the lower classes.  But she was opposed to the kind of revolution where the oppressed overthrow their oppressors. So, how did she think we could achieve peace and justice? Is it enough to pay the right kind of attention to each other’s suffering? And how does this connect to her conversio...

Sometimes, we struggle to tell the truth—especially when it's the truth about ourselves. Why did James Baldwin, a prominent Civil Rights-era intellectual and novelist, believe that telling the truth about ourselves is not only difficult but can also be dangerous? How can truth deeply unsettle our assumptions about ourselves and our relations to others? And why did Baldwin thi...

What movies of the past year challenged our assumptions and made us think about things in new ways? Josh and guest co-host Jorah Danenberg present our annual Dionysus Awards for the most thought-provoking recent movies:

We’re all learning about the world all the time—not just as small children but all the way into old age. But how do we learn how to learn? How much depends on the circumstances of our birth, our upbringing, and our formal education? How can we get better at learning and teaching? And how do we figure out what’s valuable to retain and what’s important to ignore? Josh and guest...