Thoughts: Philosophy Untangled

This episode is one of two which looks at the philosophy of law. We discuss 'what is the law?', we look at the connection between law and justice, and between law and morality (legal Positivism vs. Natural law). We visit the peculiarities of legal reasoning, the connection to rights and values, and with an emphasis on the philosophy of language also on how the law both abhors and deploys ambiguity.

In this New Year’s special episode, Professor Ben Colburn joins Ross and Alexandros in an in-depth discussion of the meaning of autonomy in Moral and Political Philosophy. What does it mean to be autonomous and ultimately why is it a good thing? Join us in in contemplating these and many more questions in this special episode of Thoughts.

What does it mean for a category to be socially constructed? Are we wronged when we are cast into a social category that doesn’t characterise us? How does Gender relate to all this? Dr. Katharine Jenkins, lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Glasgow, joins Ross and Alexandros to discuss these questions and many more in this episode of Thoughts.

!Content Warning: Sexual Assault! Why do we believe what we are told? When should we believe what we are told? And why is it so often the case that we suspend our belief exactly when others need it the most? Dr Mona Simion – Deputy Director of COGITO (and so much more) – is going to dissect these questions for us and explain to Ruaridh and Arianna why she thinks that, when it comes to cases of sexual allegation, we should (most of the time) believe the victim.

In this episode co-hosts Katie and Hamish are joined by Charlotte Kleine and Belen De Bacco from the Glasgow University Art Appreciation Society (GUAAS). They find out about some of GUAAS’s upcoming events and discuss Walter Benjamin’s essay, “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility”, and the body in modern and postmodern space.

Are borders always bad? Believe it or not, some philosophers think they are. Today we speak to Karl Martin Adam - a PhD candidate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill - who argues that settler colonialism is a case where borders seem like quite a good thing.  Jasmine Hunt and Hamish Stewart join him in conversation.

Why do we think of some violent acts in video games as wrong, and others not? In this episode, Katie Moody speaks to Dr. Rebecca Davnall, a lecturer in philosophy and game design studies at the University of Liverpool, about whether actions in video games can be morally wrong.

Do we have obligations to future people? Would it be better to just nuke the world? In this episode Katie Moody and Ross Patrizio talk to Dr Joe Slater, a lecturer in moral philosophy at the University of St Andrews, about our moral obligations to people living in the future.

Buddhism, and its metaphysics, is not given much attention in Western philosophy. Fortunately, Pavel Nitchovski, a PhD candidate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was as annoyed as we were about this, and decided to teach the topic in the Summer of 2020. In this episode, Hamish Stewart and Keir Aitken quiz Pavel about Buddhism’s conception of the non-self.

What is disability? How does it relate to enhancement? Do enhancements promote equality, or inequality? In this episode, Jasmine Hunt and Keir Aitken discuss the relationship between disability and enhancement - and the social and philosophical relevance of each - with Lysette Chaproniere.