Philosophy For Our Times

Latest episodes

Showing 20 · updated from the feed

Rehumanising science | Carlo Rovelli - Part 2

What makes humans different from nature? What do Confucianism and Daoism have to do with physics? Is science too realist? In part 2 of our interview with Carlo Rovelli,

Sep 22
45 min

Rehumanising science | Carlo Rovelli - Part 1

Are electrons real? What is the connection between physics and Buddhism? Is now the time to rehumanise science? Eastern philosophies have been an integral part of scient

Sep 15
38 min

Taking down the cultural elite | Catherine Liu

What is managerialism? Why is the meritocracy sliding into technocracy? Does suffering make us seem more pure? We tend to think that today’s progressive politics advance

Sep 8
37 min

The chains of freedom | Daniel Markovits, Elizabeth Anderson, Yaron Brook

Is freedom always an absolute good? For freedom to be beneficial and practical, does it need constraining? Are attacks on freedom really the first step to tyranny? From

Sep 1
47 min

The secret history of cool | Joel Dinerstein

Who was the first person to be cool? What connects the civil rights movement and Albert Camus' 'The Rebel'? How has the coopting of black terminology impacted American so

Aug 25
29 min

Rebalancing the global order | Kishore Mahbubani

Is it truly the beginning of the end of Western dominance? Where did it all go wrong? And is this more than just an upheaval of the status quo? For centuries, Western po

Aug 18
33 min

The future of the right | Sohrab Ahmari, Gawain Towler, Rachel Maclean, Mark Littlewood

Is the populist right opposed to liberalism and the free market? Does this mark a change in what it is to be right-wing, or was it a mistake to see populism as far right

Aug 11
44 min

Love is more than magic | Alain de Botton

What do voyeurs want? What can the Greeks teach us about love? Why do we pursue those who we now are going to hurt us? Despite our longing for lasting connection, love o

Aug 4
35 min

In the name of reason | Steve Fuller, Miriam Schoenfield, Dan Sperber

Is the future one where we accept tribalism and conflict as inherent in the human condition, where moral and scientific beliefs based on reason are badges, shaped by clas

Jul 28
40 min

The mind is not a machine | Iain McGilchrist

For most scientists, the mind is little more than a machine. With the rise of AI, some now claim that computers may themselves become conscious. For acclaimed neuroscient

Jul 21
21 min

Anxiety and the soul's itch | Sarah Wilson

Is anxiety something to be embraced, rather than fixed? Why are more and more of us feeling the 'soul's itch'? How we can start living more meaningfully? Anxiety is ofte

Jul 14
26 min

Truth, beauty and other misconceptions | Lisa Randall

Is beauty a reliable indicator of scientific truth? Or is it merely a distraction? Some of the best scientists throughout history have equated beauty with truth. But is

Jul 7
22 min

The world after liberalism | Maurice Glasman & Sohrab Amari

Is this the end of liberalism, or just another temporary crisis? If it is the end, what will follow it? And where did it all go wrong? Since the end of WWII, the Western

Jun 30
32 min

Why artists shouldn't fear AI | Jaron Lanier

What does originality mean in the age of AI? Why should artists resist the temptation to fear AI? What role will human creativity play in the future we're building? Jaro

Jun 23
30 min

Copying consciousness: the future of mind uploading | Anders Sandberg

What makes you 'you'? If scientists made a digital replica of your mind, would this new 'you' be conscious? And what does this all mean for what it means to exist? Whole

Jun 16
37 min

The return of idealism | James Tartaglia

Is materialism mistaken in its understanding of consciousness? How can dividing experience into the phenomenal and the transcendent provide a new angle from which to view

Jun 9
28 min

Reimagining the right | Richard Tice

Is this the end of Britain's two-party system? How has Reform brought together seemingly contradictory left- and right-wing ideas? Why do they think that we should get us

Jun 2
29 min

Is philosophy becoming irrelevant? | Mary Midgley

Does philosophy still matter in today's world? If so, why are students less and less interested in studying in it? In a special episode from the IAI archives, Mary Midgl

May 26
27 min

Who's afraid of gender? | Judith Butler

Why has gender identity become such a controversial talking point in modern politics? Judith Butler, pioneering gender theorist whose changed the way we think about gend

May 19
40 min

Human perception is imagination | Nadine Dijkstra

Nadine Dijkstra is a Principal Investigator at the Institute of Neurology at UCL. Her research in Imaging Neuroscience explores how the brain generates mental images and

May 12
14 min

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Position in the Philosophy chart (US), last 90 days.

#1#34#66JunJulAugSep

#19

all-time peak

640

days in the top 50 since Nov 2024

Chart positions

Where Philosophy For Our Times ranks today in each Apple Podcasts chart (US, Sep 23, 2026).

#33 ▲ 11 Philosophy US

What listeners say

A curated, balanced selection of Apple Podcasts reviews.

Fantastic content. PLEASE get better audio equipment/better audio editing. Too quiet, too much echo, sometimes muffled. But the rest of the pod is fantastic.

daintysinferno · May 2025

I love this podcast and am a long time listener. However, I cannot stand the newer host, Ali. She speaks in a way that reads as pretentious and condescending - as though she is speaking to small children, with an indeterminable accent that feels like an affect reminiscent of Frasier. Once past her introduction, 5 stars all around. Please be authentic, Ali. So many people won’t give this show a chance if this type of intro is the first impression.

remedyrook · Feb 2025

These are great conversations, but sometimes the moderator will ask the speaker to get back on track in a way that deprives audiences of the full thought. This is particularly frustrating when sophisticated speakers make comments that ultimately loop back around to the main point. Let people finish! Many of the best points would have been missed had the speakers heeded the moderator’s demands.

Philosophy fan 378 · Apr 2024

Whether you’re well established as someone who can translate creative energy into the impact you want to have on the world, or just getting started making sense of our ever changing culture - this is a must-listen podcast for you! The entire IAI team does an incredible job leading conversations that cover a huge breadth of topics related to the ins and outs of living a life you can be proud of - from leaders who’ve actually walked the path. Highly recommend listening and subscribing!

obacker19 · Jul 2020

As a layperson this podcast serves as a window into the sort of conversations and ideas that that one might encounter in discussions between professionals, of various philosophical ideas and issues. It seems like the creators of this podcast seek to provide opinions and arguments about philosophical questions that feature differing viewpoints from not only philosophers, but also experts in other fields whose expertise might be relevant to the topics at hand. The inclusion of non-philosophers seems like an approach that might lead to more interesting discussions. What results is relatively brief statements by the participants regarding their respective views of the topic at hand, and a little bit of clarifying input from the moderator. The topics tend to be overly broad to be meaningfully discussed in the time allotted, and there is very little in the way of direct criticism of arguments or positions taken. The takeaway is usually just a rough idea of the opinions of the various forum members, but lacking any detailed argument for their positions. Personally this listener is uninterested in opinions unsupported by evidence and logical argument. If you, like me seek a robust exchange of ideas this is probably not the podcast for you.

Fhjjjvvg · Aug 2025

I’ve now listened to my first episode. The guest, Santiago Zabala, seems generally to be quite intelligent and thoughtful. However he belies his bias or, at best, his ignorance of the IDW when he makes the preposterous claim that they are in effect willfully blind to a variety of existential emergencies and instead favor order for its own sake. Specifically, he mentions Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris. I don’t listen much to Peterson, so I can’t speak to his views. But having listened to and read Sam Harris, Bret Weinstein, Heather Heying, and Eric Weinstein for several years now, there is a preponderance of evidence FAR beyond a shadow of a doubt that those 4 individuals are quite terrified indeed about climate change. They speak about it frequently and characterize it as the greatest emergency of our time. So when Zabala takes such a cheap shot and grossly mischaracterizes a diverse group of thinkers, he not only insults the intelligence of his listeners, but his own intelligence, as well.

G*G*2015* · Jan 2021

We strive to present a balanced view by showing a diverse range of reviews from Apple Podcasts.