Free Daily Podcast Summary
Philosophy For Our Times: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Institute of Art and Ideas
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.
Latest Episodes
The most recent episodes — sign up to get AI-powered summaries of each one.
- 2 days ago32 min
The Enlightenment Under Fire | John Gray
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 TimesDon'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/
- 1 weeks ago1h 1m
From Life | Tom Overton on John Berger
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.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
- 3 weeks ago24 min
Blue Labour | Maurice Glasman
DescriptionDoes 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. 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
- 3 weeks ago46 min
Evidence in the Dock | Nick Enfield, Timothy Williamson, Genia Schönbaumsfeld
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.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
- 4 weeks ago53 min
The Beautiful World | Nicholas Humphrey
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.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/philosophyforourtimesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
- Sep 29, 202622 min
Permissivism and Irrelevant Influences | Miriam Schoenfield
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/philosophyforourtimesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
- Sep 22, 202645 min
Rehumanising science | Carlo Rovelli - Part 2
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/philosophyforourtimesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
- Sep 15, 202638 min
Rehumanising science | Carlo Rovelli - Part 1
Are electrons real? What is the connection between physics and Buddhism? Is now the time to rehumanise science?Since the Hellenistic period, Eastern philosophies have been an integral part of scientific thought and the development of multiple fields. 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.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/philosophyforourtimesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Get Philosophy For Our Times summaries in your inbox
Free AI-powered daily recaps. Key takeaways, quotes, and mentions — in a 5-minute read.
Get Free Summaries →Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.
You Might Also Like
Listeners also like.
In Our Time: Philosophy
Discusses philosophers, theories, and key themes in philosophy, from altruism to Wittgenstein.
In Our Time
Explores pivotal ideas, figures, and discoveries across history, science, philosophy, and culture through expert discussions.
Free Thinking
Philosophers, historians, and critics explore current events through the lens of history, culture, and ideas.
Philosophize This!
Explores the history of philosophy by breaking down key thinkers and ideas in chronological order for a general audience.
In Our Time: Culture
Discusses popular culture, poetry, music, and visual arts and their roles in society.
The UnMute Podcast
Philosophers discuss current social and political issues with insight, humor, and a drive for change.
Inquiring Minds
Explores the intersection of science and society through critical thinking and in-depth analysis.
Intelligence Squared: Arts & Culture
Explores pivotal artistic and cultural movements through conversations with leading writers, artists, and thinkers.
This Cultural Life
BBC Radio 4
On Being with Krista Tippett
Deep conversations on spirituality, science, and the human condition with thinkers and spiritual leaders.
In Our Time: History
BBC Radio 4
To The Best Of Our Knowledge
Explores big ideas through conversations with thinkers and creators across science, arts, and humanities.
About Philosophy For Our Times
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.
Customized Recaps
AI-powered recaps with compact key takeaways, quotes, and insights.
Straight to Your Inbox
Get key takeaways from Philosophy For Our Times in a 5-minute read.
Save Hours Every Week
Stay current on your favorite podcasts without falling behind.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Podzilla's Philosophy For Our Times daily summary?
It's a free AI-powered email that summarizes new episodes of Philosophy For Our Times as soon as they're published. You get the key takeaways, notable quotes, and links & mentions — all in a quick read.
How does the Philosophy For Our Times podcast summary work?
When a new episode drops, our AI transcribes and analyzes it, then generates a personalized summary tailored to your interests and profession. It's delivered to your inbox every morning.
Is this an official Philosophy For Our Times product?
No. Podzilla is an independent service that summarizes publicly available podcast content. We're not affiliated with or endorsed by Institute of Art and Ideas.
Can I get summaries of other podcasts too?
Absolutely! The free plan covers up to 3 podcasts, any in the catalog. Basic raises that to 15, Pro to 40 and Max to 100. Browse our full catalog at /podcasts.
How often does Philosophy For Our Times release new episodes?
Philosophy For Our Times publishes weekly. Our AI generates a summary within hours of each new episode.
What topics does Philosophy For Our Times cover?
Philosophy For Our Times covers topics including Arts, Philosophy, Culture, Society & Culture. Our AI identifies the specific themes in each episode and highlights what matters most to you.
Start getting Philosophy For Our Times summaries tomorrow morning.
Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.
Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.