Philosophy Crush » Podcasts

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: With the publication of Essays: The Philosophy Crush Podcast, my intention in releasing this book was to bring this podcast project to a conclusion. The book contains all the podcast episodes with several additional […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: Over a century ago, the American philosopher and psychologist William James argued in his book Pragmatism that what he called “the present dilemma in philosophy” is that philosophers may not be as objective as they […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: Half a century ago, Austrian philosopher Ivan Illich published a little book called Deschooling Society. Illich's principal aim in that book was to critique existing educational institutions from the elementary school to the […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: We make a very large mistake when we imagine that western-style democracy is destined to remain ascendant forever. Authoritarianism is the proverbial wolf at the door in every democratic society, and its constant […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: The second chapter of Leo Tolstoy's short story “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” begins with the following sentence: “Ivan Ilyich's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.” I […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: In the city where I live, a statue of John A. Macdonald, Canada's first prime minister, has been removed from its pedestal in a public park and placed in an undisclosed location for […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: It's customary for people in my profession to answer this question in the following way: you become a philosopher by earning usually three degrees in philosophy from the best universities you can get into and for which you can […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: I can only hope that cancel culture is a trend that, like many similar phenomena, is here today and will be gone tomorrow, although I'm not about to offer a prediction about this. When a pendulum […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: We all value innovation, or at least we say we do. A question I seldom see answered or even asked, however, is what makes innovation possible? The question, what makes something possible, is […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: One of the questions that first attracted me to philosophy when I was a teenager is the perennial problem of the meaning of life. The search for meaning drove me to read widely […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: I’ve always made it a point to listen to anyone who dispenses advice on how to live, whoever they are. Anything from ancient moral philosophy to clickbait headlines that read something like “Top […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: Many years ago I asked my former Ph.D. advisor why he chose to write a particular book that he had published some years back. His name was Gary Madison and the book in […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: Were I to set out to create a fanaticized society, I would begin by dividing its population into several inward-looking groups, to each of which I would relate a narrative about who they […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: If you’re anything like me, when you see a large mass of humanity going in one direction your instinct is to go another way. I can’t say what this instinct is exactly, where […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: On your next day off consider getting in your car and driving far out of the city and deep into the countryside. You’ll find some interesting things there. Some of them are funny […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: For several decades now, the corporate model has inserted itself into the university. The phenomenon gained momentum in the 1980s under the influence of political conservatism and the consequences are with us still. […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: Strange Beautiful Music is the title of Joe Satriani’s “musical memoir” which was published in 2017, a book I read recently and highly recommend. It’s also the title of his record of 2002 and the […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: Here’s a question that has long been on a great many people’s minds but that philosophers seldom discuss, at least on the record: why is there so much jargon in philosophy? Many people’s first impression […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: When you see a philosopher staring out a window, they’re not daydreaming. They’re working. A philosopher is always working. We don’t keep regular hours. We don’t clock in and clock out, and we […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: No, this isn’t 1970. It’s a full half-century later, but judging from what we’ve been hearing for several years now, those pesky Russians are at it again. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: A tenured professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington was recently fired—or strong-armed into early retirement at age 55—for making some controversial statements on Twitter. His name was Mike Adams. I use […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: Let me begin by saying I’m an outsider to U.S. politics. I come from and still live in southern Ontario, on the border with New York State. Like many Canadians, I’ve always been […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: Political trends are like the wind—at your back one day, in your face the next, and utterly fickle. Regardless of your politics, those winds are going to be against you sooner or later, […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: Hans-Georg Gadamer once remarked that when in his student days he first met Martin Heidegger, he could tell from Heidegger’s eyes that he had a great imagination. Coming from Gadamer, this was high […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: How will COVID-19 change our society, not only in the months ahead but over the longer term? Many are offering predictions about how our lifestyles might change as a result of the pandemic, […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: Rather than simply close their doors, universities around the world are attempting to cope with the pandemic largely by opting for what’s called “remote learning,” essentially putting all courses, both undergraduate and graduate, […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: I’m going to continue on the theme of adversity, this time focusing on what might be some of the political consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic we’re all living through. Experiences of socially shared […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: The COVID-19 pandemic has raised a hornet’s nest of issues, ranging from public health matters to politics to the question of what the longer-term societal consequences of this might be. Some of these […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: I write this in the midst of a global pandemic. As a life-threatening virus goes around the world, institutions and businesses have closed their doors, people including myself are working from home, “social […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: The prefix “post” remains in vogue, so here’s a new term for you. I’ve written about “post-truth,” “post-common sense,” and “post-news” already. Here’s something even hotter off the press: post-ethics. It seems wrong […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: Surely no philosopher, or professor of philosophy, would ever do this, you would think. It’s common sense that you can’t judge a book or an author you haven’t read, and surely no intelligent […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: Canada is no military superpower and never will be, but a question that arises from time to time in our country is under what circumstances should Canada become involved militarily in any of […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: Where are you getting your information? Or your ideas generally? How much do you know about what’s happening in the world, or in your own country? I’m not asking about what you believe […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: I can think of about a dozen reasons why you wouldn’t want to be a public intellectual. Here are just a few. Do you remember Socrates? He was a public intellectual. He went […]

PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: One of the oldest and most central questions of philosophy is, how should we live? What is the good life for human beings? Another has to do with understanding the times: what is […]