After discovering that there was very little literature review regarding the impact of psychedelics on the philosophy of the mind, philosopher Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes started to research how these drugs have impacted western philosophy. On this episode of the podcast, Peter examines the cultural history of the philosophy of psychedelics and how they’ve shaped philosophers’ perceptions of consciousness and reality.

Dr Peter Sjöstedt-H is an Anglo-Scandinavian philosopher of mind who specializes in the thought of Whitehead, Nietzsche, and Spinoza, and in fields pertaining to panpsychism and altered states of mind. Following his degree in Continental Philosophy at the University of Warwick, he became a Philosophy lecturer in London for six years and after which he pursued his PhD (on ‘Pansentient Monism’, examined by Galen Strawson and Joel Krueger) at the University of Exeter – where he is now a research fellow and associate lecturer. Peter is the author of Noumenautics, the TEDx Talker on ‘psychedelics and consciousness‘.

Are altered states of consciousness mere hallucinations or indicative of fundamental truths of reality? 

William James

Philosophy of psychedelics conference

Exploring Frameworks for Exceptional Experience

Humphry Davy

Nitrous Oxide

Arthur Heffter

Thomas De Quincey

Outsight project

Epiphonemalism 

René Descartes

Psychedelics heightened appreciation of nature

Eliminative materialism

David Luke podcast

Andrew Gallimore - Alien Information Theory

Carl Hart – psychedelic exceptionalism

Albert Hoffman

Bertrand Russell - Mysticism and logic

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A Fascinate Productions podcast for Drug Science