Within Reason

Latest episodes

Showing 20 · updated from the feed

#165 Buddhist Emptiness Explained - Jan Westerhoff

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Aug 31
1 h 44 min

#164 The Chosen Creator: Putting Words in Jesus' Mouth?

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Aug 9
2 h 14 min

#163 Religion is an Obligation - Ross Douthat

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Jul 31
1 h 48 min

#162 Two Million Subscriber QnA

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Jul 30
51 min

#161 What’s the Point of Going Back to the Moon? Chris Hadfield -

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Jul 15
57 min

#160 Every Theory of Consciousness - Robert Lawrence Kuhn

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Jul 2
2 h 20 min

#159 Aristotle: The World's Greatest Philosopher?

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Jun 25
1 h 24 min

#158 Could Consciousness Be an Illusion?

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Jun 18
2 h 07 min

#157 How a Blind Man Sees the World - Tommy Edison

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Jun 8
1 h 04 min

#156 Mysticism: The Heretics Who Got Too Close to God - Simon Critchley

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May 26
1 h 17 min

#155 AI Music is Not Music - Adam Neely

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May 13
1 h 57 min

#154 Happiness: Epicurus' Ancient Guide - Jonny Thomson

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May 4
1 h 48 min

#153 If Anyone Builds It, EVERYONE Dies - AI Expert on Superintelligence

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Apr 26
1 h 35 min

#152 Why AI Will Never Be Conscious

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Apr 20
1 h 41 min

#151 John Lennox - What Nearly Dying Taught Me About God

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Apr 13
1 h 18 min

#150 Materialist AND Panpsychism are True - Galen Strawson

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Apr 8
57 min

#149 My Problem With C.S. Lewis - Philip Pullman

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Apr 2
1 h 27 min

#148 Blaise Pascal: Philosopher, Mathematician, Genius - Graham Tomlin

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Mar 25
1 h 34 min

#147 What is PURE Consciousness? - Thomas Metzinger

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Mar 18
2 h 03 min

#146 The Most Complicated Thing in the Universe: What is the Brain?

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Mar 8
2 h 24 min

Chart trend

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

#1#8#14JunJulAugSep

all-time peak

days in the top 3 since Nov 2024

Chart positions

Where Within Reason ranks today in each Apple Podcasts chart (US, Sep 15, 2026).

#10 ▲ 2 Philosophy US

What listeners say

A curated, balanced selection of Apple Podcasts reviews.

I’ve been searching for a podcast that is balanced and not as dogmatic as so many I’ve come across. Admittedly it tests my understanding and at times is uncomfortable. However I always come away with a better perspective from which to form an opinion or at least continue to research. To the extent that Alex gives respect to his guests and is so diverse in his knowledge is the very reason I listen.

Zepmag · May 2026

I just started listening and the guests are amazing. Great conversations with Bernardo Kastrup, Annika Harris, and Hank Green, to name a few. The ad insertions are crazy making though. They pop in randomly, mid-thought. My ADHD brain always loses the thread for a moment. This is the only podcast I listen to that does this. Can it be addressed?

Ken Murphy · Dec 2025

Great podcast - host actually engages resourcefully and critically with ideas for people genuinely curious about biblical criticism / religion - and isn’t just doing “love to hate” or “preaching to the choir” style content

former missionary · Aug 2025

For me, Alex O’Connor’s show is a mixed bag. On the one hand, he does bring on people who are genuinely experts in their field or at least know what they’re talking about. I love that he’s had on Bart Ehrman, Andrew Mark Henry (Religion for Breakfast), Justin Sledge (Esoterica) and Filip Holm (Let’s Talk Religion). He is actually making an effort to talk about religion from a historical, academic standpoint instead of doing those atheist takedowns of religion that give irreligious people a bad name. At the same time, there are also episodes that demonstrate my main issue with famous philosophers. They make blanket assumptions about history that isn’t backed up by anything. For example, on episode #55, Robert Sapolsky claims that cultures from the desert tend to be monotheistic while cultures from the rain forests tend to be polytheistic. Before the Abrahamic religions, however, basically every society was polytheistic (people like to bring up Zoroastrianism but even that had divinities besides Ahura Mazda). This blanket assumptions, which is based in the idea that Abrahamic religions represent all of religious history, kind of undermines Sapolsky’s premise. It’s not just him. I see this issue of making blanket assumptions about history that often aren’t even true among many philosophers on these types of shows.

Yahya of Georgia · Apr 2025

What a disappointment. Over and over again I hear the podcaster fail to notice, much less represent, serious flaws in the arguments, offered by the guests on the show. The meek acceptance of sloppy thinking and outright ignorance from Ross Douthat was particularly frustrating. The lack of critical engagement harms this podcast’s credibility.

Burned By Adobe · Sep 2026

Great podcast ruined by intrusive & jarring midroll ads. Midroll may be more lucrative but I stopped listening to the podcast because of them

TheSecondCaleb · Jul 2026

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