Philosophy Everyday

Tara Isabella Burton is a novelist, theologian, and former religion correspondent for Vox. She holds a doctorate in theology from Oxford and is the author of the nonfiction books Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World and Self-Made, as well as three novels, most recently Here in Avalon. She is a lecturer and visiting research fellow at the Catholic University of America, where she co-directs the Can Beauty Save the World? project, and is currently writing The Great Work: How Magic Made the Modern World, an intellectual history of Western esotericism and the idea that reality is malleable.In this conversation, we explore what happens to religion when people stop trusting institutions. We discuss why so many people who say they have no religion still believe in a higher power, why the self has become the only authority many of us trust, and how traditional religion is returning as one more option in a remixed spiritual identity. Tara explains the so-called trad-tech alliance, why religion is increasingly treated as software you download to live a certain kind of life, and why she thinks we have listened to Nietzsche a little too much. We also talk about what happened to SoulCycle and wellness culture, how whole societies can become possessed by ideas, from Jung on Hitler to the strange history of the swastika in 19th-century occultism, and what it means to carry an oracle in our pocket in the age of AI. Finally, we discuss Plato’s view of philosophy as an act of love, why the Catholic Church under Pope Leo is becoming a home for AI skeptics, the three philosophers who shaped Tara’s thinking most (Kierkegaard, Plato, and Simone Weil), and whether AI can ever replace human creativity.Instagram and other platforms:⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/philosophy.everyday⁠⁠⁠More from Philosophy Everyday:⁠⁠⁠https://www.thephilosophyeveryday.com/

Liv Boeree is a science communicator, former professional poker player and host of the Win-Win podcast. She studied astrophysics at the University of Manchester before winning titles on both the European Poker Tour and the World Series of Poker. In recent years she has focused on game theory, AI risk and Moloch, the trap behind races to the bottom, from the Cold War nuclear arms race to today's race to build superintelligent AI. In this conversation, we ask whether AI could become humanity's successor species, and why it doesn't have to. We begin with hyperstition, Liv's word for 2026 and a term coined by the philosopher Nick Land, and why the stories we tell about AI may become self-fulfilling now that AI agents act on the words they read. From there, we explore accelerationism, what Moloch actually is, and what nuclear arms control can teach today's AI labs about safety, transparency and verification. Later, we discuss Anthony Aguirre's idea of tool AI versus building "one omniscient, omnipotent god", Nick Bostrom's Superintelligence, Iain M. Banks' Culture series, the rise of AI religion and e/acc, and what Liv calls psycho-security. We also talk about meaning in a world where AI does all the work, from Aristotle's idea of leisure to why sport might be the one AI-proof industry. Then we turn to Norma, Moloch's opposite, who brings stagnation and over-regulation instead of collapse. We finish with Liv's front-runners for the word of 2027.Liv's podcast: https://www.livboeree.com/winwinpodcast/Instagram and other platforms:⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/philosophy.everyday⁠⁠More from Philosophy Everyday:⁠⁠https://www.thephilosophyeveryday.com/

Robin Waterfield is a classicist, author, and one of the most prolific translators of ancient Greek philosophy and history into modern English, with more than thirty-five volumes of translations to his name. His work includes Plato’s Republic and Symposium, Herodotus, Marcus Aurelius, Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, Epictetus, Xenophon, Euripides, and other major Greek and Roman authors. His latest translation is Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, published in 2026, continuing a career focused on making ancient philosophy, Greek history, and classical literature accessible in readable modern English. In this conversation, we discuss Thucydides and the Melian Dialogue, including the famous line “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must,” and why Robin considers that familiar version misleading. We compare Thucydides and Herodotus, examine how the ancient Greeks understood history, and discuss Aristotle, eudaimonia, happiness, ancient Greek religion, moral philosophy, slavery, Spartan helots, leisure, education, and the origin of the word “school.” We also explore how Plato and Aristotle have been transmitted and translated over more than two thousand years, what modern translators change when working from ancient Greek texts, the surviving fragments of the Presocratics and Democritus, and Robin’s skepticism about how much we can know about the historical Socrates from Plato and Xenophon. The episode also covers Plato’s Academy, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Greek manuscripts and papyri, translation theory, Euripides, Aesop, ancient jokes, and the challenges of translating philosophy, history, prose, and poetry into modern English.Robin's website:https://robinwaterfield.com/Instagram and other platforms:⁠https://linktr.ee/philosophy.everyday⁠More from Philosophy Everyday:⁠https://www.thephilosophyeveryday.com/

Angie Hobbs is Professor Emerita of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield, where she held the world's first chair of that title. She works on ancient Greek philosophy, particularly Plato, and on how it bears on contemporary questions. Alongside her academic work she has taught the Socratic method in schools and to the UK civil service, and appears regularly on radio and television. Her books include Plato and the Hero, and most recently Why Plato Matters Now, which she also narrated for audiobook. She is currently writing a book on heroes and heroism.In this conversation we discuss what Plato was reacting against, from the Sophists to the materialism of Democritus, and why he took Heraclitus and Parmenides seriously but not the atomists. We look at the problem of separating Plato from Socrates in the dialogues, and why Plato wrote in dialogue form and never in his own voice. We turn to the Republic and Thrasymachus's claim that justice is the interest of the stronger, the charge from Popper and Berlin that Plato was a totalitarian, and the fact that the Republic itself would be banned under its own censorship rules. On the Symposium we cover the competing accounts of love, Aristophanes' fable of the divided spheres, Diotima's ladder and the image of the pregnant philosopher, Alcibiades' account of trying to seduce Socrates. We also discuss the theory of forms and how much of Plato's ethics survives without it, his time with the Pythagoreans and what mathematics and musical harmony meant to him, Nietzsche's charge that Plato was a life-denier, what Christianity took from Plato and what it changed, and how much of the Plato we read is the historical one.Angie's book:https://angiehobbs.com/Instagram and other platforms:https://linktr.ee/philosophy.everydayMore from Philosophy Everyday:https://www.thephilosophyeveryday.com/

Simon Critchley is a British philosopher, author, and the Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy at The New School for Social Research in New York. One of the most distinctive voices in contemporary philosophy and continental philosophy, his work spans ethics, political philosophy, psychoanalysis, literature, religion, tragedy, death, football (soccer), and the role of philosophy in everyday life. He has written more than twenty books, including The Book of Dead Philosophers, What We Think About When We Think About Soccer, Tragedy, the Greeks, and Us, Mysticism, and Heidegger Thinking: Being and Time Explained. Critchley is known for making complex philosophical ideas accessible, playful, provocative, and relevant beyond academic philosophy. In this conversation, Simon Critchley explores what mysticism actually means, why modern philosophy has become too serious, and whether mystical experience can exist outside organized religion. We discuss Christian mysticism, incarnation, religious belief, miracles, Martin Luther and the Reformation, Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity, the Übermensch, Kierkegaard, Spinoza’s pantheism, free will, determinism, and why philosophy can offer comfort without providing simple answers. We also examine football (soccer) as a modern religion filled with rituals, gods, collective ecstasy, corruption, tragedy, comedy, suffering, and hope. Finally, we discuss the fear of death, whether philosophy can teach us how to die, technological immortality and the longevity movement, David Hume, professional philosophers, Heidegger’s Being and Time, and why philosophy should remain playful, open, and connected to life.Simon's website:https://simon-critchley.com/Instagram and other platforms:⁠https://linktr.ee/philosophy.everyday⁠More from Philosophy Everyday:⁠https://www.thephilosophyeveryday.com/

Peter Adamson is Professor of Philosophy at LMU Munich and the host of the widely respected podcast History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps. He is one of the leading scholars working on the history of philosophy across the Islamic world, late antiquity, medieval philosophy, Greek philosophy, Arabic philosophy, and the broader global history of ideas. In this episode, we discuss Ibn Sina’s Flying Man thought experiment, the mind-body problem, the soul, the self, and whether the mind can exist without the body. We also explore Ibn Sina, also known as Avicenna, Ibn Rushd, also known as Averroes, Al-Ghazali, Aristotle, Plato, falsafa, kalam, Islamic philosophy, philosophy in the Islamic world, Arabic philosophy, the Greek-Arabic translation movement, the Latin translation movement, Maimonides, Al-Kindi, Al-Farabi, Descartes, the Islamic Golden Age, the Abbasid world, Byzantium, Syriac translators, madrasas, commentary traditions, the Mongol invasions, the myth that Al-Ghazali killed philosophy, and why philosophy in the Islamic world was far more original, diverse, and influential than many standard histories suggest.Peter's podcast:https://historyofphilosophy.net/Instagram and other platforms:⁠https://linktr.ee/philosophy.everyday⁠More from Philosophy Everyday:⁠https://www.thephilosophyeveryday.com/

Michael Levin is a developmental and synthetic biologist at Tufts University whose work sits at the intersection of biology, bioelectricity, artificial life, regenerative medicine, synthetic biology, computer science, cognitive science, and philosophy of mind. He is known for his research on how cells communicate, make decisions, build bodies, repair tissues, and form collective intelligence through bioelectric signals. His work on Xenobots and Anthrobots has opened new questions about living robots, synthetic life forms, biological machines, morphogenesis, basal cognition, cellular intelligence, regeneration, cancer, aging, and the nature of mind beyond the brain. In this conversation, Michael Levin and I explore whether mind and intelligence are binary or exist on a continuum, why cognition may be much older than brains, and how systems from cells to humans can pursue goals in different ways. We discuss the TAME framework, the spectrum of persuadability, cognitive light cones, bioelectricity, gap junctions, multicellular intelligence, Xenobots, Anthrobots, kinematic self-replication, neural wound healing, emergence, physicalism, mathematics, Platonic space, algorithms, bubble sort, Turing machines, evolution, human creativity, artificial intelligence, regenerative medicine, and the future of biology. This episode is for anyone interested in philosophy, consciousness, mind, intelligence, synthetic biology, developmental biology, AI, complex systems, evolution, and the deeper question of what it means for matter to become alive, intelligent, or aware.Michael's website:https://drmichaellevin.org/Instagram and other platforms:⁠https://linktr.ee/philosophy.everyday⁠More from Philosophy Everyday:⁠https://www.thephilosophyeveryday.com/

David Pinsof is an evolutionary psychologist, writer, and co-creator of Cards Against Humanity. He is the author of the substack "Everything Is Bullsh*t", where he examines self-deception, social status, morality, humor, and the hidden motives behind human behavior through the lens of evolutionary psychology. In this conversation, we discuss how self-deception stabilizes status games, why people pretend not to care about status, whether happiness is really the goal of life, why utilitarianism may misunderstand human nature, how charisma works, why deception can sometimes benefit the deceived, what ancient Cynicism reveals about status, and why laughter may have evolved as a way to signal that a social “mix-up” should not be taken seriously.Instagram and other platforms:⁠https://linktr.ee/philosophy.everyday⁠More from Philosophy Everyday:⁠https://www.thephilosophyeveryday.com/

William B. Irvine is an American philosopher and Professor Emeritus at Wright State University, best known for his work on Stoicism and practical philosophy. His books include A Guide to the Good Life, which helped popularize modern Stoicism, and his most recent work, How to Think More and Better: Being Reasonable in an Unreasonable World (2024), where he explores evidence-based reasoning, cognitive biases, and the challenges of thinking clearly in the modern information environment. In this conversation, we discuss why many people choose the “easy way” of thinking by relying on others instead of engaging in effortful reasoning, and how this tendency is amplified by social media and AI. We explore concepts such as evidence-based reasoning, confirmation bias, and the distinction between “feelers” and “thinkers.” The discussion also covers the erosion of trust in evidence in the age of AI-generated content, and how emerging technologies may both improve and distort our ability to think clearly.William's book:https://www.amazon.com/How-Think-More-Better-Unreasonable/dp/0197786847Instagram and other platforms:⁠https://linktr.ee/philosophy.everyday⁠More from Philosophy Everyday:⁠https://www.thephilosophyeveryday.com/

Rebecca Goldstein is a philosopher/novelist who brings serious philosophical ideas to the world of popular discussion. A trained analytic philosopher, with an interest in philosophers such as Spinoza, Plato, and Aristotle; her writing takes up many of the most ancient of questions about human existence from a contemporary perspective. She recently developed the concept of "the mattering instinct" (which represents the core impulse or drive of humans to believe their lives have importance). Here, we talk about why being happy isn't the most important thing in the world and how people are actually motivated by the desire to be meaningful. Here we also examine how we create our own sense of meaning through what Goldstein refers to as 'mattering projects', why modern life makes creating this kind of meaning difficult and how the loss of traditional forms of meaning (such as religious systems) has moved responsibility for developing a sense of personal meaning to the individual. Along the way we will reference Aristotle's concept of flourishing, Spinoza's view of living with purpose, the distinction between information and knowledge and what does it mean to lead a life worthy of consideration.Rebecca's book:https://www.amazon.com/Mattering-Instinct-Deepest-Longing-Divides/dp/1324096853Instagram and other platforms:⁠https://linktr.ee/philosophy.everyday⁠More from Philosophy Everyday:⁠https://www.thephilosophyeveryday.com/