Episode 281: Choose Your Fighter

David and Tamler talk about Jorge Luis Borges' disorienting short story "The Other." A 70-year-old Borges sits on a bench by the Charles River and who should he encounter but himself as a 19-year-old, by the Rhône River in 1918 Geneva. Is this a dream? Who is dreaming it? What do ...  Show more

In another Back 2 Basics episode, David and Tamler talk about Plato's "Crito," a dialogue that takes place two days before Socrates' death by hemlock. His friend Crito wants him to escape, but Socrates will only agree if they judge that it's the right thing to do. One imagined de ...  Show more

ORIGINALLY RELEASED Feb 3, 2022

In this episode, Alyson and Breht introduce, teach, and discuss the philosphy of two giants in western philosophy: Arthur Schopenhaur and Friedrich Nietzsche. 

They discuss their respective philos ...

Sean Illing talks with Cornel West about the American philosophical tradition known as pragmatism. They talk about what makes pragmatism so distinctly American, how pragmatists understand the connection between knowledge and action, and how the pragmatist mindset can invigorate o ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Continental-Analytic split in Western philosophy. Around the beginning of the last century, philosophy began to go down two separate paths, as thinkers from Continental Europe explored the legacy of figures including Friedrich Nietzsche and ...  Show more

Is philosophy an unbiased quest for the true account of the world?

From Plato to Aristotle, Russell to Wittgenstein, we traditionally see philosophers as engaged in the disinterested pursuit of truth: a view philosophers themselves are inclined to encourage. But in a pos ...