
RSam Podcast
Philosophy & Theory | AI & CogSci
Latest episodes

Aug 9, 2024 • 1h 37min
Todd McGowan: Hegel, Contradiction and Embracing Alienation
Prof. Todd McGowan is a professor of English at the University of Vermont and Professor and Director of Film and Television Studies. He’s authored numerous books on Hegelian philosophy, Lacanian psychoanalysis, existentialism and film studies, including Emancipation After Hegel, Capitalism and Desire, Enjoyment Right & Left and Embracing Alienation. He also hosts the superlative Why Theory podcast and co-organises the Lack conference. Prof. McGowan is in continuous dialogue with his fellow travellers Slavoj Žižek, Alenka Zupančič, Adrian Johnston and others in contemporary Hegelian-Lacanian theory. In this episode, we discuss the Hegel renaissance, Hegelian contradiction, Dialetheism and Paraconsistent logic, ontology from Kant to Hegel, coupling Lacanian psychoanalysis and existentialism, universalism, alienation and Peter Rollins' Church of the Contradiction.
You can find more of Prof. McGowan's work at https://www.uvm.edu/cas/english/profile/todd-mcgowan
Watch the video version here.
RSam Podcast #47
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{Podcast}
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RahulSam
Substack: https://rsampod.substack.com/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4ryEqjut4r6SMtfxLdM1Le
Anchor: https://anchor.fm/rahul-samaranayake
Available on other platforms at https://link.chtbl.com/PDBAf9Zd
Website: https://rahulsam.me/
{Social Media}
https://www.instagram.com/name_is_rahul/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahul-samaranayake-981a9315b/
https://twitter.com/trsam97
{Reference Links}
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/740010/embracing-alienation-by-todd-mcgowan/
https://cup.columbia.edu/book/emancipation-after-hegel/9780231192705
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If the ideas I discuss in this podcast evoke your interest, consider visiting https://theunhappyman.substack.com/
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Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.
Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statutes that might otherwise be infringing.
If you are or represent the copyright owner of materials used in this video and have a problem with the use of the related material, please email me at trahulsam@gmail.com, and we can sort it out.
Thank you.

Jul 17, 2024 • 1h 49min
Adrian Johnston: Žižek's Ontology and Transcendental Materialism
Prof. Adrian Johnston is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque and a faculty member at the Emory Psychoanalytic Institute in Atlanta. He is the author of numerous books, including Zizek's Ontology, A New German Idealism, the Prolegomena to Any Future Materialism trilogy and Infinite Greed. Prof. Johnston is in continuous dialogue with his fellow travellers Slavoj Žižek, Alenka Zupančič, Catherine Malabou, Todd McGowan and others in contemporary Hegelian-Lacanian theory while also bringing into the discourse the developments within analytic philosophy and the natural sciences. In this episode, we discuss ontological incompleteness, transcendental materialism, Hegel, Schelling, the Freudo-Lacanian death drive and their broader metapsychology, Žižek's engagement with quantum mechanics, Catherine Malabou's theorising on neuroplasticity vis-à-vis Hegelianism, object-oriented ontology, the violence of the subject, alienation, doughnut vs layer cake ontology, cognitivism, David Chalmers and panpsychism, philosophising on neuroscience and bridging the gap between analytic and continental philosophy.
You can find more of Prof. Adrian Johnston's work at https://philosophy.unm.edu/people/faculty/profile/adrian-johnston.html
Watch the video version here.
RSam Podcast #46
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{Podcast}
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RahulSam
Substack: https://rsampod.substack.com/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4ryEqjut4r6SMtfxLdM1Le
Anchor: https://anchor.fm/rahul-samaranayake
Available on other platforms at https://link.chtbl.com/PDBAf9Zd
Website: https://rahulsam.me/
{Social Media}
https://www.instagram.com/name_is_rahul/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahul-samaranayake-981a9315b/
https://twitter.com/trsam97
{Reference Links}
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/145006032-freedom https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/538522.Adrian_Johnston
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If the ideas I discuss in this podcast evoke your interest, consider visiting https://theunhappyman.substack.com/
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Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.
Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statutes that might otherwise be infringing.
If you are or represent the copyright owner of materials used in this video and have a problem with the use of the related material, please email me at trahulsam@gmail.com, and we can sort it out.
Thank you.

Jul 13, 2024 • 1h 55min
Helen Rollins: Cinema and Psychoanalysis
Helen Rollins is a writer and filmmaker from Northern Ireland, currently based between Belfast and London. She studied modern languages and literature at Cambridge and the ENS de Lyon. She lectures in philosophy, film and psychoanalysis and is the author of the forthcoming book Psychocinema. In this episode, we discuss film theory, lack, obect a, Lacan's gaze, the divided self, Hegelian contradiction, ideology, capitalism and its discontents.
You can find more of Helen's work at https://helenrollins.com/ and https://helenrollins.substack.com/
God Isn't Ready for Me Yet: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stevepieters/god-isnt-ready-for-me-yet
Helen's book: https://www.wiley.com/en-ie/Psychocinema-p-9781509561148
Watch the video version here.
RSam Podcast #45
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{Podcast}
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RahulSam
Substack: https://rsampod.substack.com/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4ryEqjut4r6SMtfxLdM1Le
Anchor: https://anchor.fm/rahul-samaranayake
Available on other platforms at https://link.chtbl.com/PDBAf9Zd
Website: https://rahulsam.me/
{Social Media}
https://www.instagram.com/name_is_rahul/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahul-samaranayake-981a9315b/
https://twitter.com/trsam97
{Reference Links}
Psychoanalysis playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcJ6nqGscKrdfBwmut9q9US2HlDreOo0i&si=x3c-CbSSWTaY27nv
https://thedangerousmaybe.medium.com/lacans-concept-of-the-object-cause-of-desire-objet-petit-a-bd17b8f84e69
https://youtu.be/GXOcdFoQPXM?si=6DsavQ1ALxRMbjwP
https://youtu.be/vGQkqcJc7m8?si=S4vD1gXg50goos6B
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If the ideas I discuss in this podcast evoke your interest, consider visiting https://theunhappyman.substack.com/
---------------------------------------
Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.
Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statutes that might otherwise be infringing.
If you are or represent the copyright owner of materials used in this video and have a problem with the use of the related material, please email me at trahulsam@gmail.com, and we can sort it out. Thank you.

Jul 9, 2024 • 1h 51min
Anna Riedl: The Historical Development of Cognitive Science
Anna Riedl is a cognitive scientist who researches rationality under radical uncertainty. She completed her undergraduate degree in psychology at the University of Vienna and did the Middle European interdisciplinary master's programme in Cognitive Science. Anna was a researcher at the Viennese Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Decision Support and a member of the Global Shapers Community organised by the World Economic Forum, serving as curator for the Vienna Hub.
You can find more of Riedl's work at https://www.riedlanna.com/ and https://x.com/AnnaLeptikon.
CogSci map: https://www.riedlanna.com/cognitivesciencemap.html
CogSci millennium: https://cognitivescience.substack.com/p/the-cognitive-science-millennium
Watch the video version here.
RSam Podcast #44
---------------------------------------
{Podcast}
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RahulSam
Substack: https://rsampod.substack.com/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4ryEqjut4r6SMtfxLdM1Le
Anchor: https://anchor.fm/rahul-samaranayake
Website: https://rahulsam.me/
{Social Media}
https://www.instagram.com/name_is_rahul/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahul-samaranayake-981a9315b/
https://twitter.com/trsam97
{Reference Links}
https://youtu.be/0aQebCENIjg?si=Ed0aiOSKHEhCndlv
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9780230307827
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24113.G_del_Escher_Bach
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/695429.G_del_s_Proof
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34848865-exact-thinking-in-demented-times
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Question_Concerning_Technology
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262540568/being-in-the-world/
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262540674/what-computers-still-cant-do/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Dreyfus%27s_views_on_artificial_intelligence
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-94-009-8947-4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology_of_Perception
https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/5299/Active-InferenceThe-Free-Energy-Principle-in-Mind
https://academic.oup.com/book/36527
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262514620/vision/
https://study.sagepub.com/friedenberg3e
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262701099/mind/
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If the ideas I discuss in this podcast evoke your interest, consider visiting https://theunhappyman.substack.com/
---------------------------------------
Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.
Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statutes that might otherwise be infringing.
If you are or represent the copyright owner of materials used in this video and have a problem with the use of the related material, please email me at trahulsam@gmail.com, and we can sort it out. Thank you.

17 snips
Jul 5, 2024 • 1h 32min
Mel Andrews: Ontology of the Free Energy Principle and the Philosophy of Machine Learning
Mel Andrews, a philosopher of science specializing in machine learning, delves into the philosophy of AI, ethics, and the ontology of the free energy principle. They discuss challenges in academia, capitalist influences on AI ethics, the evolution of machine learning research, and the intersection of philosophy with AI and critical theory.

May 25, 2024 • 1h 27min
Why You Should Read Byung-Chul Han (w/ Davood Gozli)
Dr Davood Gozli is a cognitive psychologist and lay philosopher. In this episode, we discuss Byung-Chul Han's work and his contributions to the contemporary critical theory discourse.
You can find more of Dr Gozli's work at https://dgozli.com/ and https://www.youtube.com/c/DavoodGozli
Watch the video version here.
RSam Podcast #42
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{Podcast}
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RahulSam
Substack: https://rsampod.substack.com/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4ryEqjut4r6SMtfxLdM1Le
Anchor: https://anchor.fm/rahul-samaranayake
Website: https://rahulsam.me/
{Social Media}
https://www.instagram.com/name_is_rahul/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahul-samaranayake-981a9315b/
https://twitter.com/trsam97
{Reference Links}
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byung-Chul_Han
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/970747.Byung_Chul_Han
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If the ideas I discuss in this podcast evoke your interest, consider visiting https://theunhappyman.substack.com/
---------------------------------------
Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.
Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statutes that might otherwise be infringing.
If you are or represent the copyright owner of materials used in this video and have a problem with the use of the related material, please email me at trahulsam@gmail.com, and we can sort it out. Thank you.

May 16, 2024 • 1h 31min
Graham Oppy on Analytic Idealism, Gödel's Proof for God, and Ontological Arguments
Prof Graham Oppy is the Professor of Philosophy at Monash University and, before that, did his graduate work at Princeton. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities and the foundation editor of the Australasian Philosophical Review. He's also the author of several books, including Atheism: The Basics by Routledge, Arguing about Gods and Ontological Arguments and Belief in God—additionally, he's also published superlative papers on Gödel's ontological proof for the existence of God. Apart from being a renowned philosopher of religion, he has also published on the philosophy of math, language, aesthetics, and science. In this episode, we discuss new atheism, Bernardo Kastrup's analytical idealism, Gödel's proof for God, Anselm's and Hegelian ontological arguments, limits of formal axiomatisation, and its relationship to epistemology and Christian existentialism.
You can find more of Prof Oppy's work at https://research.monash.edu/en/persons/graham-oppy and https://x.com/OppyGraham
Watch the video version here.
RSam Podcast #41
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{Podcast}
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RahulSam
Substack: https://rsampod.substack.com/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4ryEqjut4r6SMtfxLdM1Le
Anchor: https://anchor.fm/rahul-samaranayake
Website: https://rahulsam.me/
{Social Media}
https://www.instagram.com/name_is_rahul/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahul-samaranayake-981a9315b/
https://twitter.com/trsam97
{Reference Links}
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WE1y00bwCU
https://www.amazon.com.au/Ontological-Arguments-Belief-Graham-Oppy/dp/0521481201
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sOlr9TeI2k
https://www.academia.edu/8233351/Godelian_ontological_arguments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WK-auo8Miw
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If the ideas I discuss in this podcast evoke your interest, consider visiting https://theunhappyman.substack.com/
---------------------------------------
Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.
Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statutes that might otherwise be infringing.
If you are or represent the copyright owner of materials used in this video and have a problem with the use of the related material, please email me at trahulsam@gmail.com, and we can sort it out. Thank you.

May 13, 2024 • 1h 48min
Inês Hipólito on Computational Phenomenology, E-Cognition and the AI of Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Dr Inês Hipólito is an Assistant Professor at Macquarie University, specialising in cognitive science and philosophy of mind and AI. Prior to this role, she served as a lecturer at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain. She employs E-Cognitive Science, Complex Systems, and the Free Energy Principle to investigate the dynamic relationship between human cognition and artificial intelligence. Furthermore, Dr Hipólito is also the co-founder of the ‘International Society of the Philosophy of the Sciences of the Mind’ and serves as the AI ethics advisor/architect for VERSES, a cognitive computing company. In this episode, we discussed computational phenomenology, E-cognition, active inference, the free energy principle, the philosophy and ethics of AI, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Simone de Beauvoir.
You can find more of Dr Inês Hipólito's work at www.ineshipolito.com and https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/persons/ines-hipolito
Watch the video version here.
RSam Podcast #40
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{Podcast}
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RahulSam
Substack: https://rsampod.substack.com/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4ryEqjut4r6SMtfxLdM1Le
Anchor: https://anchor.fm/rahul-samaranayake
Website: https://rahulsam.me/
{Social Media}
https://www.instagram.com/name_is_rahul/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahul-samaranayake-981a9315b/
https://twitter.com/trsam97
{Reference Links}
https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/publications/an-alternative-to-cognitivism-computational-phenomenology-for-dee
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Clark
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaun_Gallagher
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Thompson
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691180144/artificial-you
https://youtu.be/Wkyc2tay2dw?si=HWzZ-PQRWVLm1vGK
https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/5/article/925194/summary
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If the ideas I discuss in this podcast evoke your interest, consider visiting https://theunhappyman.substack.com/
---------------------------------------
Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.
Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statutes that might otherwise be infringing.
If you are or represent the copyright owner of materials used in this video and have a problem with the use of the related material, please email me at trahulsam@gmail.com, and we can sort it out. Thank you.

Apr 26, 2024 • 1h 12min
Simon Critchley on Heidegger, Hermeneutics and Why Philosophy Begins in Disappointment
Prof. Simon Critchley is a philosopher and the Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York. He's the author of numerous books, including Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance, On Heidegger's Being and Time, Memory Theatre, and Tragedy, the Greeks, and Us (to name a few). Since 2010, Prof. Critchley has moderated The New York Times philosophy series, The Stone, and in 2020, he released Apply-degger, a long-form podcast series on Martin Heidegger's Being and Time. In this episode, we discuss how to philosophise well while being a useless philosopher, phenomenological existentialism and all things Heidegger.
You can find more of Prof. Critchley's work at https://www.simoncritchley.org/ and https://www.newschool.edu/nssr/faculty/simon-critchley/
Watch the video version here.
RSam Podcast #39
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{Podcast}
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RahulSam
Substack: https://rsampod.substack.com/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4ryEqjut4r6SMtfxLdM1Le
Anchor: https://anchor.fm/rahul-samaranayake
Website: https://rahulsam.me/
{Social Media}
https://www.instagram.com/name_is_rahul/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahul-samaranayake-981a9315b/
https://twitter.com/trsam97
{Reference Links}
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXaTWQcl9-DWk0N1yovQT6OJi2K89qj4J&si=HMJV2rlRZQAKKfqM
https://www.routledge.com/On-Heideggers-Being-and-Time/Levine-Critchley-Schurmann/p/book/9780415775960
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/743325.Infinitely_Demanding
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If the ideas I discuss in this podcast evoke your interest, consider visiting https://theunhappyman.substack.com/
---------------------------------------
Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.
Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statutes that might otherwise be infringing.
If you are or represent the copyright owner of materials used in this video and have a problem with the use of the related material, please email me at trahulsam@gmail.com, and we can sort it out. Thank you.

Apr 23, 2024 • 1h 43min
Philosopher of Education Reacts to Sabine Hossenfelder's Academic Woes
Dr. Vlasta Sikimić is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy of Science and a member of the Philosophy and Ethics group at Eindhoven University of Technology. Her research focuses on the Social Epistemology of Science, Metascience, Philosophy of AI and ML in Science and Philosophy of AI in Education. In this episode, we react to Sabine Hossenfelder's recent video: https://youtu.be/LKiBlGDfRU8?si=k95jhrK-QRHlIJ_P
You can find more of Dr. Sikimić's work at https://vlastasikimic.com/ and https://twitter.com/VlastaSikimic
Our previous conversation: https://youtu.be/70g559tguHs
Watch the video version here.
RSam Podcast #38
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{Podcast}
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RahulSam
Substack: https://rsampod.substack.com/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4ryEqjut4r6SMtfxLdM1Le
Anchor: https://anchor.fm/rahul-samaranayake
Website: https://rahulsam.me/
{Social Media}
https://www.instagram.com/name_is_rahul/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahul-samaranayake-981a9315b/
https://twitter.com/trsam97
{Reference Links}
Dr. Sikimić's work:
https://vlastasikimic.com/publications/
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13164-020-00504-7
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13194-022-00478-6
https://vlastasikimic.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/sikimiceip18.pdf
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If the ideas I discuss in this podcast evoke your interest, consider visiting https://theunhappyman.substack.com/
---------------------------------------
Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.
Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statutes that might otherwise be infringing.
If you are or represent the copyright owner of materials used in this video and have a problem with the use of the related material, please email me at trahulsam@gmail.com, and we can sort it out. Thank you.