Sleepy Philosophy Radio

Your Habits Are a Painkiller | Samuel Beckett's Complete Philosophy

Fall asleep to the life and mind of Samuel Beckett, who made an art of failure, waiting, and going on. Born on a Good Friday in a comfortable Dublin suburb, a brilliant,

The Wisdom of Insecurity | Alan Watts's Philosophy for Sleep

Fall asleep to the life and ideas of Alan Watts, the philosopher who taught the West how to let go. Across sixteen unhurried chapters, we follow the strange and luminous

There Are No Accidents | Sigmund Freud's Complete Psychology

Fall asleep to Sigmund Freud, from a room full of buried gods to a chosen death in exile. He set out to be the coldest of scientists and ended by telling the strangest s

All of Neoplatonism | Plotinus's Complete Philosophy

Fall asleep to Plotinus, the mystic who taught that all things flow from a single source and long to return. In the third century, in the crowded city of Rome, a gentle

Thank You for Listening | Membership on Spotify

Thank you for listening, whether this is your first episode or your fiftieth. Our regular episodes are free for everyone, and they always take hours of reading and writi

The Darkest Philosopher Who Ever Lived | Philipp Mainländer

Fall asleep to the story of Mainländer, the philosopher who taught that God has died and death is our redemption. In a rented room by a German river, a mild and dutiful

Let Go of God to Find God | Meister Eckhart's Complete Philosophy

Fall asleep to the medieval mystic who taught ordinary people to pray to be rid of God. At the summit of the medieval Church, a Dominican master who governed dozens of r

Montaigne | He Locked Himself in a Tower and Described Us All

Fall asleep to Montaigne, who locked himself in a tower to study one man and quietly described us all. In fifteen seventy-one a French nobleman withdrew from public life

How to Stay Calm When Fortune Takes Everything | Boethius’s Complete Philosophy

Fall asleep to the story of Boethius, the Roman philosopher who faced execution and answered it with reason alone. In a prison cell in the north of Italy, fifteen centur

Life Is Worth Living | William James and the Sick Soul

Fall asleep to the life of William James, the invalid who became America's great philosopher of hope and belief. As a young man William James was so ill in body and mind

Is Change Real? | Heraclitus vs Parmenides | Philosophy for Sleep

Fall asleep to the oldest quarrel in philosophy, whether all things flow or nothing ever moves at all. Twenty-five centuries ago, two Greek thinkers gave opposite answer

No One Is Free Alone | Hegel and the Need to Be Seen

Fall asleep to Hegel, who watched an old world end and swore reason was moving through the ruin. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born into a modest world and rose, aga

Those Who Know Do Not Speak | The Hidden Teachings of Lao Tzu

Fall asleep to the ancient Chinese way of yielding, water, and the wisdom of doing without forcing. More than two thousand years ago, in a China torn apart by endless wa

The Most Reluctant Convert | C.S. Lewis for Deep Sleep

Fall asleep to the life and mind of C.S. Lewis, the atheist who became Christianity's most beloved modern voice. Over more than two hours, this longform episode traces t

The Sword Was Never the Point | Miyamoto Musashi for Deep Sleep

Fall asleep to the story of Miyamoto Musashi, the undefeated swordsman who laid down his blade to write. Born into the last years of Japan's long civil wars, a rough, mo

Why We Fear Death | Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death for Sleep

Fall asleep to the story of Ernest Becker, who traced all human striving back to the fear of death. In a hospital bed on the Canadian coast, a dying man agreed to be rec

Man Is Not a Piano Key | Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground for Sleep

Fall asleep to the story of literature's first anti-hero, the sick and spiteful man who spoke the modern mind's secret. In the winter of a year that would take almost ev

Is Life Worth Living? | Nietzsche vs Schopenhauer | Philosophy for Sleep

Fall asleep to the story of the young Nietzsche, who worshipped Schopenhauer and spent his life trying to prove him wrong. As a lonely student, Friedrich Nietzsche found

The Power of Your Subconscious Mind | Joseph Murphy for Sleep

An Irish boy left the priesthood, crossed an ocean, and built a new faith out of the human mind. This is the story of Joseph Murphy, the Irish-born minister whose single

The Odyssey Explained: The Full Story and What It Really Means | For Sleep

Fall asleep to Homer's Odyssey, a voyage through mortality, memory, identity, and the difficult meaning of home. Beginning with a man who refuses immortality, then enter