Philosophy Talk

What movies of the past year challenged your assumptions and made you think about things in new ways?

Is the midlife crisis nostalgia for lost youth, or the fear of old age (or both)?  

Do the things we call 'trash' say more about those things or about us?

Is the self just a fiction we create to make sense of a complicated world?

Can we still lead productive, meaningful lives if the demand for human labor disappears?  

What could be controversial about a movement insisting that Black lives matter too? 

Is the internet destroying language?

Have we entered a post-truth era in which politicians and "news" outlets can lie without consequence?

Is there a place in democratic society for comedy that finds humor in people's deepest identities?

We don't have only one friend at a time, so why have only one lover at a time?

Remembering Philosophy Talk's co-creator, chief cheerleader, and guiding light, Ken Taylor.

The laws of physics determine how things in the cosmos change. But what would happen if the laws themselves changed?

Can we trust an algorithm to make morally responsible driving decisions?

Could rational communication really be the true key to real democracy?   

If humans have human rights because they’re persons, are there some nonhumans who are also persons with nonhuman rights?

What rights should undocumented immigrants have?

What do citizens owe the state? What does the state owe its citizens?

Would a race of thinking, autonomous, conscious machines be our slaves, our masters, or our partners?

Are Space and Time two separate entities, or just different dimensions of one thing? And what difference does that make?

Democracy may not be in great shape, but why would anyone prefer to be ruled by a despot?

Is the most elegant explanation always the best one?

Is knowing what you don't know the first step toward wisdom, or is a little arrogance a good thing?

What could we possibly still say to people who don't believe the climate is changing?

What should you have been be reading this summer—and how should you have been reading it? 

What is it like to teach philosophy in prison. What is it like to study philosophy while serving time?

How do we justify keeping so many nuclear weapons – and continually threatening to use them?

Could our universe be just one among an infinite number of universes in the multiverse?

Did postmodernism simply predict cynicism about the facts, or did it actually promote it?

Should any person or institution who has benefited from our sorry history of racism be required to compensate the victims of racism?