Author: Dominic Surya

This month, we discuss photographs and their vicissitudes with Daniel Smyth, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Sage School of Philosophy of Cornell University. (And yes, Smyth used to study and teach at the University of Chicago!)  Click here to listen to the episode. In this episode, Smyth asks: What does a photograph evidence? Away from philosophers,…

This month, we discuss race and cognitive science with Bryce Huebner, associate professor of philosophy at Georgetown University. Click here to listen to our conversation. Of course, we as individuals can be racist. Of course, so can our institutions. But when do we realize this, so that we might get something done about it? In…

This month, we discuss genealogical anxiety with Bob Simpson, lecturer in philosophy at Monash University. Click here to listen to our conversation. If you listen to this podcast, then for better or worse, you have likely been exposed to some Nietzsche (hopefully at a safe level!). In the nineteenth century, Friedrich Nietzsche (perhaps notoriously) introduced…

This month, we pull up our chairs and sit down once again with Robert May, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Linguistics at the University of California, Davis.  Click here to listen to our conversation. It seems sublime, unbelievable, groundbreaking — but maybe it actually doesn’t mean anything at all: e^(iπ) + 1 = 0 That’s Euler’s identity. Its…

This month, we talk with Catherine Legg, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at New Zealand’s University of Waikato. She teaches us about the philosophical categories of Charles Sanders Peirce’s (pronounced like the bag “purse”). Click here to listen to our conversation. At Legg’s university, philosophy is part of the School of Social Sciences. Here at Chicago, philosophy…

This month, we discuss love and moral value with Mark Hopwood, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Sewanee: The University of the South, and former co-host of this podcast! Click here to listen to our conversation. In discussing rights, religion, politics, and much more, we ask: Who has moral value? Who are we obliged to accommodate,…

This month, we discuss conditionals with Anthony (Thony) Gillies, Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. Click here to listen to our conversation. Lately, philosophers have resurrected interest in formal theories of what’s meant by conditional statements, or if-then statements. Conditionals are basic, because they relate conditions — knowns and unknowns, actions and results, etc. But…

This month, we discuss the categorical imperative with Stephen Engstrom, professor of philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh. Click here to listen to our conversation. True to the Chicago tradition, we philosophers spend a lot of time asking — but perhaps not so much time answering — an everyday question: What’s the right thing to do? What’s…

This month, we discuss reasons for action and belief with Mark Schroeder, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California. Click here to listen to our conversation. Consider one question from this episode. Can we decide what to believe, the way we decide how to act? We can, for instance, decide to worship at…

This month, we discuss gratitude with Barbara Herman, Griffin Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles. Click here to listen to our conversation. Is our subject this week, well, gratuitous? Given the dearth of philosophical attention to it in the last century or two, gratitude might not seem…