Philosopher's Zone
The simplest questions often have the most complex answers. The Philosopher's Zone is your guide through the strange thickets of logic, metaphysics and ethics.
ABC · {"ABC","ABC Australia"}
Show overview
Philosopher's Zone has been publishing since 2021, and across the 5 years since has built a catalogue of 261 episodes. That works out to roughly 140 hours of audio in total. Releases follow a weekly cadence.
Episodes typically run twenty to thirty-five minutes — most land between 28 min and 35 min — and the run-time is fairly consistent across the catalogue. None of the episodes are flagged explicit by the publisher. It is catalogued as a EN-language Society & Culture show.
The show is actively publishing — the most recent episode landed 4 days ago, with 33 episodes already out so far this year. Published by {"ABC","ABC Australia"}.
From the publisher
The simplest questions often have the most complex answers. The Philosopher's Zone is your guide through the strange thickets of logic, metaphysics and ethics.
Latest Episodes
View all 261 episodesWho's afraid of Cultural Marxism?
Habermas and the retreat of reason
Visual art as philosophy
How smart are machines, anyway?
Hegel: The philosopher with the (one) big idea
Eco-grief and environmental loss
Colonising space
Can pregnancy be a job? the ethics of commercial surrogacy
Belief, emotion and trust
Communication in an age of crisis
Can sport survive AI?
Purity, filth and 'promiscuous defecators': why we're weird about poo
Bad faith and 'just asking questions'
'Natural' disasters and climate justice
Where am I? Buddhist philosophy and the self
Common sense vs reason: when philosophy gets weird
Adam Smith, economics and moral philosophy
Can AIs be friends?
Kant and religion
Speech acts and AI
Speech acts - utterances that have the power to make things happen in the world - are increasingly being created by AI, especially in certain workplaces where it's not uncommon to receive orders and instructions from an algorithm. The power of a speech act is often understood as emanating from the intention of its author - but if AI lacks the capacity for intention, how much authority do AI-generated workplace commands really have?