Philosophy For Our Times - Details, episodes & analysis

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Philosophy For Our Times

Institute of Art and Ideas

Arts

Society & Culture

Frequency: 1 episode/826d. Total Eps: 574

Philosophy for our Times is a free philosophy podcast from the Institute of Art and Ideas, bringing you the latest talks and debates from the world’s leading thinkers. We host weekly episodes on today’s biggest ideas in news, society, culture, politics, science and arts. Visit our website and subscribe today to never miss an episode.

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Data updated on 04/11/2026

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The Enlightenment Under Fire | John Gray

Tuesday, November 3, 2026 • Duration 32:31

Is the Enlightenment a force for good today?

One of Britain’s most provocative thinkers, John Gray is a political philosopher known for dismantling liberalism and exposing the illusions of human progress. Former Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics, Gray has challenged orthodoxy across the political spectrum with a body of work that ranges from critiques of Enlightenment rationalism to meditations on the limits of secular humanism.

He is the bestselling author of Straw Dogs, The Silence of Animals, and Seven Types of Atheism as well as a frequent contributor to The Guardian, New Statesman, and The Times Literary Supplement. Gray’s sharp insights and contrarian stance continue to shape contemporary debates on ethics, politics, and the future of humanity.

"One of the most important thinkers alive." — The Times

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From Life | Tom Overton on John Berger

Tuesday, October 27, 2026 • Duration 01:01:05

Tom Overton is perhaps the worlds eminent researcher of John Berger. Alongside close to a decade of friendship, Overton has worked with Berger's personal archives for 15 years, giving him a unique insight into the mind of one of the 20th Century's most important cultural figures.

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To witness such talks live buy tickets for our upcoming festival: https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/

And visit our website for many more articles, videos, and podcasts like this one: https://iai.tv/

You can find everything we referenced here: https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes

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Blue Labour | Maurice Glasman

Tuesday, October 13, 2026 • Duration 24:50

Does the left really need to be more conservative? What is the difference between capital C and lowercase c conservatism? Is the Blue Labour movement the best tool against the MAGA agenda and right wing nationalism?

Maurice Glasman is the founder of the Blue Labour movement, a conservative strand of socialism that champions tradition, community, and civic association. In his view, we’ve come to the end of an era. From Thatcher and Reagan, through Blair and Clinton, we used to live in a period of open borders, globalisation and the rule of capital. Trump and MAGA show that the electorate is fed up with this. But what comes after MAGA? Glasman argues Blue Labour is the politics of the future.

Political theorist, Labour life peer, and a member of the House of Lords, Maurice Glasman founded the Blue Labour movement in 2009.

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To witness such talks live buy tickets for our upcoming festival: https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/

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Evidence in the Dock | Nick Enfield, Timothy Williamson, Genia Schönbaumsfeld

Tuesday, October 13, 2026 • Duration 46:59

Should we give up seeing evidence as the truth and instead see it as a persuasive argument? Does evidence settle the matter or is a counter-narrative always possible? And if evidence is not the truth, how are we to choose between competing perspectives and models of the world?

We turn to evidence to settle the matter. And we imagine it is evidence that confirms a scientific theory, or the guilt of an accused. But perspective can result in evidence being interpreted radically differently. One person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. More broadly some argue all so-called 'facts' are context or theory dependent. And if evidence depends on perspective, it is no longer clear what counts as evidence in the first place. Unlike the French legal system, that assumes evidence determines truth, the English system embeds opposing narratives, each employing their own 'evidence' to support a case. The same is true when physicists operate with different models of reality, recognising that alternative frameworks can be used.

Nick Enfield is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Sydney and Director of the Sydney Centre for Language Research. He is the author of Language vs Reality.

Analytic philosopher and author of Knowledge and Its Limits, Timothy Williamson is a Senior Research Fellow at New College, Oxford and former Wykeham Professor of Logic.

Genia Schönbaumsfeld is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southampton and the author of several books – most recently, Wittgenstein on Religious Belief. In 2023, Genia was awarded a highly prestigious ERC Advanced Grant for her project entitled ‘The Ethics of Doubt – Kierkegaard, Scepticism and Conspiracy Theory’.

Jay Shapiro hosts.

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To witness such talks live buy tickets for our upcoming festival: https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/

The Beautiful World | Nicholas Humphrey

Tuesday, October 6, 2026 • Duration 53:06

Are homo sapiens the only organisms capable of creating and experiencing beauty? Can we find beauty in God? Why do we see the hand of an Artist in the Natural, if God does not exist?

Beauty is one of the most fundamental truths of the world. Everyone can understand it, but why? Where does evolution come from and what is its benefit to humanity? Nicholas Humphrey argues that our attraction to the beautiful is primarily a psychological phenomena, that we have used to train ourselves throughout history. His expansion upon Hopkins musing that "all beauty may be called rhyme" illuminates how our minds search for and reward a hunt for similarities, not identical matches, between objects, people, and organisms. If our body needs nutrients, our minds are stimulated by beauty.

Nicholas Humphrey is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the London School of Economics and a Bye Fellow at Darwin College, Cambridge. As a theoretical psychologist, his research focuses on the evolution of intelligence and consciousness. He is the author of twelve books, including Consciousness Regained (1983), The Inner Eye (1986), A History of the Mind (1992), Soul Searching (1995), The Mind Made Flesh (2002), Soul Dust (2011), and Sentience (2022). His honors include the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, the Pufendorf Medal, and the 2026 Dennett Prize, awarded by the International Center for Consciousness Studies for significant advances in philosophy of mind, cognitive science, evolutionary biology, or artificial intelligence.

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Permissivism and Irrelevant Influences | Miriam Schoenfield

Tuesday, September 29, 2026 • Duration 22:19

What does it mean for rationality to be ‘permissive’? Is rationality more limited than we would like to admit? Does the idea that ‘truth is the aim of belief’ still stand?

The concept of irrelevant influences has long been troubling for philosophers, despite the fact that rationality does not require us to renounce any of our beliefs. Miriam Schoenfield argues that permissivism, a framework where more than one rational conclusion can be reached from a given set of evidence, can help us to accept and manage differences in our beliefs, which are often constructs of our past, upbringing and religious motivations.

Miriam Schoenfield is a leading epistemologist, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, and award-winning essayist.

Don't hesitate to email us at podcast@iai.tv with your thoughts or questions on the episode!

To witness such talks live buy tickets for our upcoming festival: https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/

And visit our website for many more articles, videos, and podcasts like this one: https://iai.tv/

You can find everything we referenced here: https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes

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Rehumanising science | Carlo Rovelli - Part 2

Tuesday, September 22, 2026 • Duration 45:49

What makes humans different from nature? What do Confucianism and Daoism have to do with physics? Is science too realist?

In part 2 of our interview with Carlo Rovelli, we help unpick the history of the philosophy of science. From uncovering how millennia old Chinese philosophers were debating Enlightenment philosophical principles, to finding whether the self and consciousness are functionally identical, Rovelli's argument finds a home in a single statement: we must rehumanise science.

Theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli is a pioneer of theories like Loop Quantum Gravity, White Holes, and the relational interpretation of quantum mechanics. His books include Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, which has been translated into 41 languages and sold over a million copies, as well as the bestselling Reality Is Not What It Seems (2015) and White Holes (2023). He was named one of the 100 most influential thinkers in the world by Foreign Policy magazine, and is Emeritus Professor at the Centre de Physique Théorique of Marseille, as well as holding positions at the Santa Fe Institute and the Perimeter Institute.

Don't hesitate to email us at podcast@iai.tv with your thoughts or questions on the episode!

To witness such talks live buy tickets for our upcoming festival: https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/

And visit our website for many more articles, videos, and podcasts like this one: https://iai.tv/

You can find everything we referenced here: https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes

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Rehumanising science | Carlo Rovelli - Part 1

Tuesday, September 15, 2026 • Duration 38:05

Are electrons real? What is the connection between physics and Buddhism? Is now the time to rehumanise science?

Eastern philosophies have been an integral part of scientific thought and the development of multiple fields for millennia. Individuality and innovation have resulted in breakthrough after breakthrough, pushing the boundaries of the known in an ever-advancing march. However, Carlo Rovelli argues that science, especially physics, is leaving its philosophical roots behind, to the detriment of clarity and productive discourse.

Don't hesitate to email us at podcast@iai.tv with your thoughts or questions on the episode!

To witness such talks live buy tickets for our upcoming festival: https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/

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Taking down the cultural elite | Catherine Liu

Tuesday, September 8, 2026 • Duration 37:02

What is managerialism? Why is the meritocracy sliding into technocracy? Does suffering make us seem more pure?

We tend to think that today’s progressive politics advances equality through moral awareness and identity. But Catherine Liu argues that it has been captured by the professional managerial class, which replaces material redistribution with virtue signalling and cultural status. In this interview, Liu examines how universities, identity politics and trauma culture can obscure class struggle and what a renewed working-class politics might look like.

Catherine Liu is an American cultural theorist, critic, and professor of Film and Media Studies at the University of California, Irvine. A sharp public intellectual, Liu is best known for her incisive critiques of elite liberalism, academic hypocrisy, and the commodification of virtue. She brings together Marxist cultural analysis with polemic flair, offering a compelling—and at times confrontational—challenge to the moral self-image of the contemporary professional class.

Don't hesitate to email us at podcast@iai.tv with your thoughts or questions on the episode!

To witness such talks live buy tickets for our upcoming festival: https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/

And visit our website for many more articles, videos, and podcasts like this one: https://iai.tv/

You can find everything we referenced here: https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The chains of freedom | Daniel Markovits, Elizabeth Anderson, Yaron Brook

Tuesday, September 1, 2026 • Duration 47:57

Is freedom always an absolute good? For freedom to be beneficial and practical, does it need constraining? Are attacks on freedom really the first step to tyranny?

From freedom from tyranny and poverty to the right to free speech, we assume freedom is always desirable. But critics argue the consequences of freedom are less obviously desirable than we imagine and frequently unknown. Kafka wrote, "It is often better to be in chains than to be free," and Sartre that, "we're condemned to be free" since we are responsible for everything we do. And in wealthier countries where citizens are freer from the hunt for basic necessities like food, water, and housing, studies show depression and anxiety are more prevalent, not less.

Daniel Markovits is Professor of Law at Yale Law School and the Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Private Law. He is the author of the bestselling book The Meritocracy Trap

Elizabeth Anderson is Professor of Public Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Michigan. She specialises in moral, social and political philosophy, as well as feminist theory and the philosophy of economics and the social sciences.

Yaron Brook is an entrepreneur, writer, activist, and political scientist. He is currently chairman of the board of the Ayn Rand Institute and host of the Yaron Brook Show.

Isabel Hilton hosts.

Don't hesitate to email us at podcast@iai.tv with your thoughts or questions on the episode!

To witness such talks live buy tickets for our upcoming festival: https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/

And visit our website for many more articles, videos, and podcasts like this one: https://iai.tv/

You can find everything we referenced here: https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes

Philosophy For Our Times - Details, episodes & analysis

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Philosophy For Our Times - Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

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