New Books Network Podcast

Philosophy May 10, 2023

Realism for Realistic People

A New Pragmatist Philosophy of Science

Hasok Chang

Hosted by Carrie Figdor

For a certain kind of standard realist, science aims at getting the absolute truth about the universe. For Hasok Chang, this view is unrealistic because we have no way of …

Philosophy May 1, 2023

Mobilizing Hope

Climate Change and Global Poverty

Darrel Moellendorf

Hosted by Robert Talisse

The news concerning climate change isn’t good. The warming of our planet now threatens to trap millions of people in extreme poverty while destabilizing the global order in ways that …

Philosophy April 20, 2023

An Indian Theory of Defeasible Reasoning

The Doctrine of Upādhi in the Upādhidarpaṇa

Eberhard Guhe

Hosted by Malcolm Keating

An Indian Theory of Defeasible Reasoning: The Doctrine of upādhi in the Upādhidarpaṇa (Harvard University Press, 2022) is the first translation of this anonymous Navya-Nyāya treatise predating Gaṅgeśa. Eberhard Guhe’s …

Philosophy April 10, 2023

Distracted from Meaning

A Philosophy of Smartphones

Tiger C. Roholt

Hosted by Carrie Figdor

Social scientists have long studied the ways in which smartphone use can distract us from the proper performance of means-ends tasks, such as driving or medical procedures. In Distracted from …

Philosophy April 1, 2023

Who Should We Be Online?

A Social Epistemology for the Internet

Karen Frost-Arnold

Hosted by Robert Talisse

The Internet plays a central role in how we communicate, share information, disseminate ideas, maintain social connections, and conduct business. The Internet also exacerbates existing problems regarding irrationality, bias, wrongful …

Philosophy March 10, 2023

Grief Worlds

A Study of Emotional Experience

Matthew Ratcliffe

Hosted by Carrie Figdor

The grief we feel when someone close to us dies is characterized by a complex and profound experience of loss. But what is this experience? In Grief Worlds: A Study …

Philosophy March 1, 2023

Bias

A Philosophical Study

Thomas Kelly

Hosted by Robert Talisse

The concept of bias is familiar enough, partly because it is deployed frequently and in different contexts. For example, we talk about biased jurors, biased procedures, biased laws, biased decisions …

Philosophy February 20, 2023

Selfless Minds

A Contemporary Perspective on Vasubandhu's Metaphysics

Monima Chadha

Hosted by Malcolm Keating

Buddhists are famous for their thesis that selves do not exist. But if they are right, what would that thesis mean for our apparent sense of self and for ordinary …

Philosophy February 10, 2023

Beyond Words

Philosophy, Fiction, and the Unsayable

Timothy Cleveland

Hosted by Carrie Figdor

It seems undeniable that language has limits in what it can express – among other philosophers, Wittgenstein famously drew a line of this sort in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. But what …

Philosophy February 1, 2023

A Realistic Blacktopia

Why We Must Unite to Fight

Derrick Darby

Hosted by Robert Talisse

In the United States, unjust disparities in things like income, opportunity, health, safety, and education tightly track racial categorizations of the US population. An intuitive approach to social justice calls …

Philosophy January 20, 2023

Side Affects

On Being Trans and Feeling Bad

Hil Malatino

Hosted by Sarah Tyson

Fatigue, disorientation, numbness, envy, rage, burnout. What good could come from thinking about trans experience and these bad feelings? In Side Affects: On Being Trans and Feeling Bad (University of …

Philosophy January 12, 2023

After Thomas Kuhn

The Structure of Aesthetic Revolutions

Oana Serban

Hosted by Carrie Figdor

Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions revolutionized the way philosophers and historians of science thought about science, scientific progress, and the nature of scientific knowledge. But Kuhn himself also …

Philosophy December 30, 2022

The Idea of Prison Abolition

Tommie Shelby

Hosted by Robert Talisse

By any reasonable metric, prisons as they exist in the United States and in many other countries are normatively unacceptable. What is the proper moral response to this? Can prisons …

Philosophy December 10, 2022

Interdisciplinarity in the Making

Models and Methods in Frontier Science

Nancy J. Nersessian

Hosted by Carrie Figdor

Based on examining physics and the practices of physicists, philosophers of science often see models in science as representational intermediaries between scientific theories and the world. But what do scientists …

Philosophy December 1, 2022

Legitimate Opposition

Alexander Kirshner

Hosted by Robert Talisse

The idea of legitimate political opposition is familiar. A decent political order permits citizens, parties, and coalitions to challenge those in power. Under such conditions, there is an ongoing nonviolent …

Philosophy November 21, 2022

The Tattvasaṃgraha Of Śāntarakṣita

Selected Metaphysical Chapters

Charles Goodman

Hosted by Malcolm Keating

The Tattvasaṃgraha of Śāntarakṣita: Selected Metaphysical Chapters (Oxford University Press, 2022) collects excerpts from a massive encyclopedic work of the late period of Buddhism in India. Translator Charles Goodman has …

Philosophy November 10, 2022

Meaning and Metaphysical Necessity

Tristan Grøtvedt Haze

Hosted by Carrie Figdor

In 1980, the philosopher and logician Saul Kripke published a small but hugely influential book, Naming and Necessity, in which he argued that some claims that we discover empirically to …

Philosophy November 1, 2022

Authority, Cooperation, and Accountability

Saba Bazargan-Forward

Hosted by Robert Talisse

We often find ourselves acting in concert with others, where what we do together goes beyond the causal contribution of any single participant. When a collection of individuals works together …

Philosophy October 20, 2022

Cross-Cultural Existentialism

On the Meaning of Life in Asian and Western Thought

Leah Kalmanson

Hosted by Malcolm Keating

Does human existence have a meaning? If so, is that meaning found in the world outside of us, or is it something we bring to our experience? In Cross-Cultural Existentialism …

Philosophy October 10, 2022

Bad Beliefs

Why They Happen to Good People

Neil Levy

Hosted by Carrie Figdor

Misinformation, disinformation, fake news, alternative facts: we are awash in a vast sea of epistemically questionable, not to mention false, testimony. How can we discern what is epistemically good to …