Philosophy? WTF??

Age and Ageing Part 5

Age and Ageing Part 4

Age and Aging Part 3

Age and Ageing Part 2

In youthful spirits, the fresh faced Danny and Dr. Mike take a look at what it's like to get old and mine all the philosophical chat they can from it.

In this final episode of the series, Danny and Mike explore the idea that human being can be reduced to their DNA. Does your genetic make up determine how your life unfolds and the choices you make. Plus, should we develop a method to control our impulses and even develop a 'code' in which to follow. Thus, everything has been covered completely in this series! Nothing has been left out! Oh, and listen out for a quick section of what might have been overlooked.

Free Will and Determinism Part 4

Are you really free to eat anything you like for breakfast? Even turkey? Maybe, How about wear any clothes you want? Even slippers outside? Could be. But what about having children and keeping them? Is there really an option not to procreate and not to keep a child you produce? Is evolutionary biology controlling us to maintain the human species above your immediate desires? Tune in to find out!

See, we knew you would be back! This time Danny and Dr. Mike consider whether or not they are truly 'good' people or perhaps 'bad' without knowing it? If morality changes as time moves on, can you be 'good' one moment and 'bad' the next because the world has changed its mind on what is moral? You should tune in this time as our moral, upright podcasters honestly give their take on ethical thought because next time they could considered nasty pieces of work!

Freewill and Determinism Part 1You were always going to end up here, why fight it?

Where do you live? In the real world or online? Danny and Dr. Mike finish off their existentialism chat with a discussion about the way we have recorded our lives and how we present ourselves online. Also, a rigorous talk on what Dr. Jakyll gets up to when his fiancé is 'taking the waters in Bath'.

This week, Dr. Mike whisks Danny of into the mists of time and recalls his days as Earth's first line of defense against Alien invasion! You heard correctly, Mike once was part of a crack team of first responders who were engaged in monitoring the night skies for suspicious flying objects and scouring the countryside for extraterrestrial vehicles etc. That's right! They did all these amazing things and still made sure they were home in time for tea!

It's a new year and everyone is feeling optimistic and about the year ahead! Everyone except for Dr. Mike and Danny who return with more of their chat on the dark side of existentialism. Come join them as they talk Sisyphean ordeals, Star Trek and being 'Beach Ready'.

So here it is the 2023 WTF?? Christmas Special!

Welcome back for another round of Existentialism talk with Danny and Dr. Mike. Listen as they continue to look for answers in the structures and traditions of life. Listen out and see if you can find order and rules in their chat about Kafka's Trial!

Yes dear listener, we have returned to continue our exploration of Existentialism. This time we focus on the depths of despair as we look at the absurdness of existence! Danny and Dr. Mike will take you through the darkness and look for any signs of meaning along the way. Strap in and think positive thoughts! 

To not make a choice is still a choice have some good faith and tune into the final part of Danny and Dr Mike's Existentialism discussion! They chat about the return of philosophy to schools and the importance of critical thinking in our world where the answer to all questions is most certainly 42!

Once again you have made the correct choice! This week in their continuing chat on Existentialism, Danny and Dr. Mike turn to Kierkegaard and the different stages of life. Are you still in the throes of hedonism, or have you reached the stage in which you want to give something back? Find some meaning in your life by listening to the duo examine these stages and then they turn once again to the movies and Kurosawa and has given so much philosophical advice in the past! Facebook: https://tinyurl.com/5eyc2bpvTwitter/X: @PhilosophyWtfBuy us a coffee: https://tinyurl.com/32sv2yz2

This week Danny and Dr. Mike find themselves on the stage of life continuing their discussion on Existentialism by asking are we more than just decision makers? Do we bring more to the table then just our ability to make a decision? Listen while stroking your chin in wonder as the pair present the despair of choice in our current world on inauthentic news and misinformation.Facebook: https://tinyurl.com/5eyc2bpvTwitter/X: @PhilosophyWtfBuy us a coffee: https://tinyurl.com/32sv2yz2

Congratulations! You have chosen wisely to listen to this podcast! This week Danny and Dr. Mike tackle Existentialism. Stroke your beards, adjust your berets and light up your Gauloises as you listen to the truth seeking pair as they steer their way through the nihilism of our current world. Hold on tightly and in good faith as they bravely throw themselves into the void of our foundationless world and order coffee and pain-au-chocolat! Facebook: https://tinyurl.com/5eyc2bpvTwitter/X: @PhilosophyWtfBuy us a coffee: https://tinyurl.com/32sv2yz2

Yes its holiday time in Philosophy? WTF?? world! Open up your deck chair, unscrew a bottle of ambre solaire lay back and listen as Mike muses on the purpose of leisure time!Dive into our archive of earlier episodes here: https://castbox.fm/channel/id3766780?country=gb Send us an email: philosophywtf@gmail.com Buy us a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/danmifunev

Danny and Dr. Mike conclude their discussion on AI with a wider chat on who gets the keys to the social media platforms we all use and the fallibility of the humans that are in charge of them. Also, with ChatGPT and similar are we removing humans from the creative process and does this spell the end of art? Tune in to hear all this and more with your 'all too human' hosts!

This week gasp in suspense and delight as Danny and Dr Mike, without any computer assisted aides whatsoever, tightrope walk across the twin philosophical concepts of the Turning Test and the Chinese room! You will hold your breath as the Turning test brings us closer to the idea that the machines could take over and then laugh in relief as Searle arrives to save humanity (for now) with the Chinese Room thought experiment! Yes, the future and your job is safe for a while as Philosophy?WTF?? prove that humanity will win and the machines have no chance... probably. 

Join us this week as Dr Mike and Danny get super topical and chat ChatGPT! That's right, PhilosophyWTF has caught up with the 21st Century and is getting to grips with cutting edge thought! Listen with growing concern as our fearless thinkers discuss the rise of computer generated Artificial Intelligence and then sigh with relief as they cheerfully explain that actual artificial intelligence is impossible - well at least for the moment! Join Our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/454227078353259/ Follow us on Twitter: @PhilosophyWtfContact us: philosophywtf@gmail.comSupport your favourite drinking and thinking podcast! Philosophy?WTF?? Stuff Available: https://www.teepublic.com/user/danmifune

Welcome listeners to the final part of the talk with Hunter! As Danny's and Mike's chat with Hunter winds down, inevitably the chat turns to politics and Science Fiction! Also we have a chance to listen in and hear more about Hunter's life, how he encountered the podcast and how he realised that philosophy should be accessible for everyone (especially if Danny and Mike can do it!)   

This week Danny, Hunter and Mike have had enough of the breakneck speed of technology and discuss whether we should destroy ChatGPT and 'go back to the 50s'. Then, listen in horror as Danny raises the idea that maybe there were upsides to George Bailey not existing and whether we should be able to 'reset' our lives. All this plus the inevitable Star Trek talk! 

Welcome back to part two of our chat with Hunter. This week we talk nation and identity and ask ourselves: 'are we where we come from?', 'How much of ourselves do we take with us when we travel?' 'Where does our culture come from?', 'Is a man an island even if he lives on one?' So relax, sit back and take back sovereignty with Hunter, Mike and Danny! 

In this week's episode Danny and Mike have a cosy chat with American friend-of-the-pod Hunter Campbell Royall! With a focus on our relationship to the land, Identity and culture we ask who we really are and where did we come from?

With one day left in Austria and with a 'craving for generality' and an 'anthropological turn' Danny, Mike and Neso finish up on that 'grumpy sod' Wittgenstein. In this episode we really get to grips with the 'later' Wittgenstein and the more quirky parts of his life. 

Welcome back dear listeners to our Wittgenstein special in which Danny has been let loose and fanboy gush over his favourite thinker. This week Danny discusses Wittgenstein's lesser known thoughts on religion, ceremonies and rites. We also get an insight into Danny's frame of mind as he talks about a religious experience he once had whilst stuck on a train! All this plus a discussion on the future of academia in the wake of 'Chatgpt'!

Yes, Danny's moment has finally come! Our travellers have reached Austria and Danny seizes his chance to drag Nesso and Mike down to the Wittgenstein museum, pull the ladder away  talk all things Wittgenstein!. Questions will be answered! amazing stories will be told! Podcast descriptions will be filled with hyperbole! Don't miss this exciting episode wherein nothing will be passed over in silence!Join Our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/454227078353259/ Follow us on Twitter: @PhilosophyWtfContact us: philosophywtf@gmail.comSupport your favourite drinking and thinking podcast! Philosophy?WTF?? Stuff Available: https://www.teepublic.com/user/danmifune

Join us this week for the big reunting event as Mike and Danny finally hook up in Germany. Grimace with barely suppressed irritation as you hear Mike, as over excited as an existentialist in dispair, fails to let Danny get a word in edge ways. Be overcome with emotion at their long awaited reunion, gasp in incomprehension at Mike's clear betrayal and his subsequent realisation that Danny has been "thinking away from home". Yes, passions run deep this week, can even Henri Bergson help to calm the such turbulent emotions? Listen in and find out, I'm not going to tell you here, I won't give Danny the satisfaction of seeing me cry...

As Mike thunders down the autobahn on his way to meet Danny in Germany, our philosophical duo do a good thing and talk Altruism - or are they ultimately being selfish really for doing so? Is there something wrong about feeling good about doing good? Let's set up a hedonic calculus to work this thing out! Tune in this week for another helping of inspiring thought!

This week the philosophy podcast is well and truly 'on the road' as the chat is conducted via radio mic. That's right, Mike is racing toward Danny, navigating the European motorways and still managing to bring you high quality philosophy chat on the French philosophers! That's right our dynamic duo can perform high quality philosophical chat even on the move!

Merry Philosophical Christmas and a Happy New Year!

This week our intrepid duo finally catch up! Well almost. Listen in with joy as Mike boots away the kickstand on his Harley to race from France to Germany filling in the blanks of his French experience and all the most difficult to understand (and pronounce) French philosophers. Shift uncomfortably in your seat as Danny then reveals that he may have already covered some of the big German names! Yes listeners the two philosophy friends are well and truly back - nearly!!

Once more we head to Germany for a last serving of Nietzsche with Danny and Nesso! Find and follow your bliss as you become Niezschean and go beyond good and evil! Also as a bonus, listen with feigned surprise as Danny delves into his copy of 'Philosophy for Beginners' and finally brings up Wittgenstein! 

Don't feel guilty for listening to this week's episode! Reevaluate all values and listen to Danny and Nesso as they convince you rise above the slave morality! Yes, we're still in Germany and there more to learn from Nietzsche as tragedy and horror is presented in a beautiful way.  Yes, don't be life denying and join us as we look at humanity squarely in the face!

Welcome back to Germany as the discussion turns to Nesso's old friend Nietzsche! The man with the difficult to spell name features heavily as the discussion takes in David Bowie, Free spirits and yes, you guessed it... Botany! Sit back and relax as Danny and Nesso talk the Golden Ones and funny plants in today's packed episode. Plus there is an update on Mike's adventure in the back streets of Paris!

Welcome folks once again as Danny and Nesso will you to take in another serving of German thought! This time Schopenhauer is on the menu along with a side order of Eastern thinking. Sit back and relax as we take you into hitherto unreached corners of your mind and leave our earthly plain only to return to order another beer at the bar.

Fasten your berets and make sure the means of production have been secured because Venessa and Danny are talking Marx this week! Yes, hitherto Mike, Danny and Venessa have only interpreted the world of philosophy... the point is to change it! Dialectics also feature heavily this episode, especially the negative kind as we include a look at Adorno. Mike is still MIA but hopefully he's still doing his bit for UK and France relations in a Parisian Bar.

As the Philosophy World Tour recommences we find our hosts divided! Danny stumbles his way into Munich, meets up with an old friend to discuss who is the best German philosopher over a tall Oktoberfest beer stein, but where is Mike? How did they split up? All will be revealed as your favourite Philosophy podcast returns!

It looks like Danny and Doctor Mike have had too much fine French Cuisine and have been knocking back too much wine. They'll be resting under some trees for a while to recover. Please join them for more French thinkers when they return!

This week join Danny and Mike as they get down and dirty with Diderot. Listen as they risk the wrath of the divine being as they delve into deism and the designed world - is that a watch I see on the beach or is god just pleased to see us? Be delighted and reassured as everything seems to make sense, has a plan and is where it should be - including Danny still speaking from a French public convenience! 

This week join us for Rousseau style selfies by the river and manipulate your image for the sake of social success and recognition. But what is the cost to our innocence as we abandon the state of nature for the hurly burly of social interaction? Yes, society, who will save us from its corrupting influence? Will it be the Social Contract? Can everyone really have a say in every decision that needs to be made? I mean, I can't even decide what to have for breakfast. Are we only free one our voices are unmediated by representative authority? Will elected officials always let us down? Imagine if that were the case, right? Yes, the political merde really hits the fan as Rousseau sticks it to the man. All this and Danny gets the last word and admits to being a git. You'll only know it for sure if you listen to the finish.

This week, join Mike and Danny as they discuss beards and public perception. Yes, we are still in France and Montaigne and the crew are living large. Extreme philosophy is the name of the game and the French philosophes take no prisoners - it's Bastille or exile for out fearless thinkers. Tolerance and freedom are the name of their game but who do we tolerate? Do we tolerate the intolerant? Can we educate people to make appropriate choices or do we have to censor those that don't agree with us? Voltaire certainly put his money on education and Rousseau put his trust in swinging through the trees and beating his chest. Yes, always something for everyone in French philosophy. All of this and self love - what more can you ask for in a podcast that only asks for a small investment of your time and the tacit commitment to a complex subscription payment scheme hidden cunningly in the small print - our fee is in the post. Question authority.

This week join Danny and Mike as they tuck in to a baguette packed with succulent slices proto-phenomenological goodness. Yes, it's not even lunch time in France and we are already 2 bottles of merlot down and have started on the pastis. Listen in as we move between the front room (where we encounter the world) and the back room where we reflect on what we encounter in the front room - and where we can safely sit around in our pants and play on our XBoite. Yes, we are still in France and we are loving it. It's time to say a big old “meh” to authority and, in a surprisingly un-French move, give a suspicious sidelong glance at passion. WTF Montaigne? Call yourself a French man?? All of this and we have still spectacularly failed to free Danny from the toilette - Non on ne regrette rien!

This week join Mike and Danny as they settle into cafe society and sip red wine on the banks of the Seine. Yes in France they philosophise on main street, he said ruefully. So, adjust your berets, order some moules-frite and get le garcon de cafe to leave the bottle as we introduce Michel Eyquem de Montaigne - essayist, sceptic, anecdotalist and all round renaissance thinker - but don't call him a philosopher for gods sake, he won't like it. Montaigne, the man who summed up philosophy in four words, "what do I know?". The man who advocated front room and back room thinking, the man who invented the essay and earned the enmity of all students for evermore. All this and a quick time hop back to Greece to meet with Pyrrho and his boys. Oh yes, and Danny is still trapped in the toilet, it's all very embarrassing really.

This week join Mike and Danny as they unlimber their accordions, put on their berets and pour themselves a large glass of Calvados. Yes, we have made it to France and you can feel the angst literally rolling out of every cafe, bar and literary salon along the banks of the Seine. This, my friends, is where the merde gets real and philosophy is found on the very street corners of life. Not for the French the comfortable abstraction of philosophical reflection sequestered within the dreaming spires of some university or captured within the pages of a carefully balanced text book. Oh no, if you want to do the philosophy then it's down and dirty with every thought torn from your own screaming psyche and thrown into the existential mud outside of a seedy bar at 3am in the morning to wrestle with the whatever it may find there. In the words of Hemingway; "Those who do not last are always more beloved since no one has to see them in their long, dull, unrelenting, no-quarter-given-and-no-quarter-received, fights that they make to do something as they believe it should be done before they die. Those who die or quit early and easy and with every good reason are preferred because they are understandable and human. Failure and well-disguised cowardice are more human and more beloved.”. All this and Danny sounding like he's locked in the toilet. Right, who wants a drink?

This week, feel the clammy hand of dread upon your shoulders as we suggest the inconceivable notion of the Vitruvian Spider! (Yes, just picture that and try and sleep again!). Join Danny, Nesso and Dr Mike as we say farewell to the Italian Renaissance in all its wonder and glory - not because we don't care for it but quite frankly we think we can make our own. War, pandemic, run away capitalism, political power vacuums and an upheaval in familiar working conditions, how difficult can it be? Take a seat, put your feet up and watch as the excited puppy of the Renaissance, running around with its Copernican chew-toy, gets smacked on the nose by the rolled up newspaper of burgeoning Enlightenment empiricism. Oh yes, nobody likes their paradigms shifted do they? No sir, but it's too late now, Nietzsche's  madman is putting on his trainers and is getting read to run. Let's give him some room guys.

This week join Danny, Nesso and Dr Mike as they explore patronage, the nature of art and the melting point of ice cream. Yes, we are on the prowl looking for sweet, sweet patronage. Let's face it, why should artists get all the cash and the rock n roll life style? Surely Philosophers deserve a slice of the good life?? But what is the cost of “working for the man”? Was the Renaissance art world the better for it support from wealthy fat cats such as the Medici family? Status, better working conditions, expense accounts, what's not to like about the system, am I right? I mean, it's not like anyone is compromising anything, their creative vision for example. Okay, so the patron might stipulate what to paint, how to paint, what materials to use, how much time to take and where to display the finished work but it's still the artists work, yeah? I wonder if Amazon are looking for an in house philosopher, I could sell out…