A collection of our episodes featuring political topics
(Click on the episode title to listen and read the full episode notes!)
Episode 184: The Future of the University
Episode 183: Cringe
Episode 182: Tragic Temporality (with Sean Kirkland)
Episode 181: What is Philosophy?
Episode 180: Foucault's "Fearless Speech" (Parrhesia)
Episode 179: Are Universals "Real"?
Episode 178: Totalitarianism (with Peg Birmingham)
Episode 177: El roto, Lo huachafo, Lo jodido (with Carlos Amador)
Episode 176: The Establishment Clause
Episode 175: DEI Then and Now (with Paul Breines)
Episode 174: Decorum
Episode 173: Unruly Identity (with Falguni Sheth)
Episode 172: Ambiguity
Episode 171: Trust
Episode 170: Judgment
Episode 169: Responsibility
Episode 168: Authority
Episode 167: Revenge
Episode 166: Virtue
Episode 165: Kant's Categorical Imperative
Episode 164: The Significance Impulse (with Josh Glasgow)
Episode 163: Justice
Episode 162: Matter and Consciousness in Indian Philosophy (with Tuhin Bhattacharjee)
Episode 161: Ethics, Democracy, and Phronesis (with Dimitris Vardoulakis)
Episode 160: Posthumanism
Episode 159: Nature
Episode158: Does God Exist?
Episode 157: The Ethics of Refusal (with Devonya Havis)
Episode 156: Meat
Episode 155: Zionist ressentiment, the Left, and the Palestinian Question (with Zahi Zalloua)
Episode 154: Aristotle and Feminist Materialism, Troubled (with Emanuela Bianchi)
Episode 153: The Gutenberg Parenthesis (with Jeff Jarvis)
Episode 152: Evidence
Episode 151: Whose Jesus? (with John D. Caputo)
Episode 150: Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation
Episode 149: Voting
Episode 148: The Future of Journalism (with Andrea Guzman)
Episode 147: Overcoming Sexuality (with Nir Kedem)
Episode 146: Peer Review
Episode 145: Ideology and Self-Emancipation (with William Clare Roberts)
Episode 144: The Sublime

The ocean and space and “Ode to Joy” are sublime, of course… but what about an excellent lentil soup? In a confusing twist of etymology, where one would expect “sub” to mean “below,” in the word “sublime” it indicates something above or even beyond. We use it as a superlative, but a superlative of what?...
Episode 143: Off-Grid Living (with Eric Mack)

What motivates people to live off-grid in the 21st C? And how hard is it to survive out there? This week, the HBS hosts are joined by Eric Mack, journalist and co-host ofย Our Uncertain Futureย podcast, who decided in 2020 to move his family “off-grid.” Currently residing in a 100% water- and energy-independent compound in the...
Episode 142: Ideology

What, if anything, is the difference between having ideological commitments and belonging to a “cult”? This episode is a “deep dive” into theย veryย deep waters of ideology and ideological commitments. A couple of important notes for listeners: first, this episode was recorded the day before William Clare-Roberts’ excellent essay “Ideology and Emancipation: Voluntary Servitude, False Consciousness,...
Episode 141: Generative AI

Generative Ai is a still new and emergent technology capable of producing not only text that could be mistaken as human-generated, but also images, video, music, and “voice.” For all of the amazing opportunities opened up by generative AI, however, it does not come without its own risks. Secondary and post-secondary education, for example, was...
Episode 139: Friendship

The HBS hosts discuss how friendships are forged, maintained, and sometimes broken. In The Politics of Friendship, Jacques Derrida invokes a statement originally attributed to Aristotle: โMy Friends, there are no friends,” capturing something that seems to be fundamental about friendship. Friendship is essential to human thriving, but also difficult, if not impossible, to attain...
Episode 137: Originality

The HBS hosts ask: what’s so special about originality? Today, originality is being challenged in so many ways: comedians โstealingโ jokes, cultural appropriation, remixes, not to mention the myriad ways that generative artificial intelligence has made plagiarism of all kinds possible. Weย value originality over imitation, creativity over copying, and novelty over the โsame old,...