The Philosopher's Zone - Program podcast Folgen

Where does the mind stop and the rest of the world begin? Some philosophers are now arguing that thoughts are not all in the head. The environment has an active role in driving cognition; cognition is sometimes made up of neural, bodily, and environmental processes. Their argument has excited a vigorous debate among philosophers and this week we discover what the fuss is about. We hear from two proponents of the extended mind thesis from one of its critics, Robert Rupert, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

In a world in which many humans do not have all their human rights fulfilled, who has what obligations to help bring a better world about? This is a question that, for many years, has exercised the mind of Thomas Pogge, Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs at Yale and Professorial Fellow at the Australian National University. This week, we talk to him about it by way of a chat about two influences on his thought: the great eighteenth century German philosopher Immanuel Kant, and one of his teachers, John Rawls, the distinguished American moral philosopher who died in 2002.

There’s been a change in the interpretation of Plato.  For centuries, he was admired for his inspiration and vision, rather than for his theories and argumentation. Then the pendulum swung hard in the other direction.