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Philosopher's Zone

Philosopher's Zone

ABC 242 Episodes Aug 13, 2026

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.

Episodes

Habermas and the retreat of reason
Habermas and the retreat of reason Aug 13, 2026 0:42:05 The great German philosopher Jürgen Habermas, who died in March, wrote in his later works about what he called Unheimlichkeit — roughly translated as "the unease of the times" — to describe the global retreat of liberal democracy, the fraying of the rules-based international order, and the increasing polarisation and hostility of public discourse. And yet, to the end he defended
Visual art as philosophy
Visual art as philosophy Aug 6, 2026 0:32:49 When it comes to the ideal philosophical medium, most of us would identify the written word - or maybe the spoken word, if we're fans of Socratic dialogue - and this is because for centuries, philosophy has been a linguistic practice. But this week we're arguing that visual art can be philosophy, and looking at how visual art can represent concepts in ways that haven't traditiona
How smart are machines, anyway?
How smart are machines, anyway? Jul 31, 2026 0:32:01 Ever since AI was founded in the 1950s, people have talked and written about 'intelligence' as though we all broadly agree on what that word means. But there's considerable debate on that score, and among the debaters are philosophers - like this week's guest - who question the degree to which machines can be said to be intelligent at all, and think that claims of intelligence ca
Hegel: The philosopher with the (one) big idea
Hegel: The philosopher with the (one) big idea Jul 24, 2026 0:36:19 GWF Hegel (1770-1831) wanted to construct nothing less than a complete explanation of reality - nature, consciousness, art, history, politics, the lot - based on a single self-explanatory idea. Whether or not he succeeded is an interesting question (spoiler: he didn't), but more interesting is the question of why philosophy has become so much less ambitious since then, and what w
Eco-grief and environmental loss
Eco-grief and environmental loss Jul 17, 2026 0:28:58 Philosophers have traditionally thought of grief as something that attaches to immediate loss - the death of a loved one, something terrible that's happened to us personally. But as the environmental crisis continues to wreak havoc on human and non-human lives, the philosophy of emotions needs a concept that captures a response to loss that perhaps hasn't happened yet, or loss th
Colonising space
Colonising space Jul 10, 2026 0:32:37 There's something about space that's always captured the human imagination, but what happens when space begins to capture the imagination of billionaire tech entrepreneurs? In the past, we've visited space for scientific purposes, but now the grand vision is colonisation, permanent human settlement on the Moon, Mars and even further afield, with such ventures along the way as ast
Can pregnancy be a job? the ethics of commercial surrogacy
Can pregnancy be a job? the ethics of commercial surrogacy Jul 3, 2026 0:32:57 Commercial surrogacy - the practice of paying someone to gestate your child and then hand it over when it's born - is banned in Australia, but it has its supporters. Defenders of commercial surrogacy argue that it should be legal for someone to receive payment for the labour of carrying a child, on the grounds that surrogacy constitutes a legitimate form of work. But are there so
Belief, emotion and trust
Belief, emotion and trust Jun 25, 2026 0:35:30 The traditional philosophical view of belief is that it's a rational cognitive affair, evidence based and directed toward truth. According to this account, things like delusion and religious belief are "edge cases", exceptions that prove the rule. But this week we're considering not only that belief may be closely tied to emotion, but that it may actually be a form of emotion its
Communication in an age of crisis
Communication in an age of crisis Jun 17, 2026 0:34:02 Collins Dictionary made "permacrisis" their word of the year in 2022 - a prescient choice because since then, the crises have just kept coming. Permacrisis is forcing us to take a close look at the way we communicate, because while free public discourse is one of the cornerstones of democracy, there's something about the nature of today's public discourse that fuels crisis, and k
Can sport survive AI?
Can sport survive AI? Jun 12, 2026 0:37:35 Elite sport is traditionally a celebration of the human, but for how much longer? We watch in awe as athletes perform feats of skill, strength and endurance,  and experience the high drama of triumph and defeat -  but it's all on a human scale, or at least it has been until now. Sport and technology have always been intertwined, but with the advent of AI, this week we're wonderin
Purity, filth and 'promiscuous defecators': why we're weird about poo
Purity, filth and 'promiscuous defecators': why we're weird about poo Jun 5, 2026 0:36:00 Why are we so repelled yet fascinated by bodily waste? Today we're talking purity, pollution, colonial sanitation regimes, medicine and public health, and how they've been shaped by our deeply ambivalent attitudes to the stuff we all produce (ideally) every day, but rarely think about deeply.
Bad faith and 'just asking questions'
Bad faith and 'just asking questions' May 28, 2026 0:28:58 There's a certain kind of question that raises suspicion as to the motives of the person asking it. 'Was the Holocaust really as bad as historians have made out?' 'Is there really a scientific consensus on climate change?' 'How do we now for sure that vaccines aren't harmful?' These kinds of questions can be read on the surface as innocent enquiry, but sometimes they can function

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