The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast

For religious believers, considering the questions that surround the nature or attributes of God, is important in their attempt to form a coherent understanding of their creator. In the Summa Theologica, shortly after arguing for the existence of God, Saint Thomas Aquinas writes the following: “Having recognised that a certain thing exists, we have still to investigate the way in which it exists, that we may come to understand what it is that exists.” This seems like a peculiar thing to state. I know that there exists something, but I have no idea as to what this thing is. As Brian Davies points out in his book Philosophy of Religion: A Guide and Anthology, this not such an odd statement after all. Suppose I attempt to open a door, and something stops it from opening. I might say, ‘well something is certainly in the way’. If it makes sense to make this statement, it also makes sense to ask, 'what is it'?

In the Summa Theologica, shortly after arguing for the existence of God, Saint Thomas Aquinas writes the following: “Having recognised that a certain thing exists, we have still to investigate the way in which it exists, that we may come to understand what it is that exists.” This seems like a peculiar thing to state. I know that there exists something, but I have no idea as to what this thing is. As Brian Davies points out in his book Philosophy of Religion: A Guide and Anthology, this not such an odd statement after all. Suppose I attempt to open a door, and something stops it from opening. I might say, ‘well something is certainly in the way’. If it makes sense to make this statement, it also makes sense to ask, 'what is it'?

For religious believers, considering the questions that surround the nature or attributes of God, is important in their attempt to form a coherent understanding of their creator. In the Summa Theologica, shortly after arguing for the existence of God, Saint Thomas Aquinas writes the following: “Having recognised that a certain thing exists, we have still to investigate the way in which it exists, that we may come to understand what it is that exists.” This seems like a peculiar thing to state. I know that there exists something, but I have no idea as to what this thing is. As Brian Davies points out in his book Philosophy of Religion: A Guide and Anthology, this not such an odd statement after all. Suppose I attempt to open a door, and something stops it from opening. I might say, ‘well something is certainly in the way’. If it makes sense to make this statement, it also makes sense to ask, 'what is it'?

Bringing together contemporary psychology and moral philosophy, the work of Christian B. Miller in character education has been tremendously influential. Christian Miller is the A.C. Reid Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University and the Director of the Character Project funded by the John Templeton Foundation and the Templeton World Charity Foundation. As well as publishing over 75 papers, Professor Miller is the author of Moral Character: An Empirical Theory, Character and Moral Psychology, and The Character Gap: How Good Are We? Links to all of which can be found on our website. In today’s interview, we’ll be talking to Professor Miller about his latest book, The Character Gap. In his own words: Here is the predicament that most of us seem to be in. We are not virtuous people. We simply do not have characters that are good enough to qualify as honest, compassionate, wise, courageous and the like. We are not vicious people either – dishonest, callous, foolish cowardly, and so forth. Rather, we have a mixed character with some good sides and some bad sides. This, I have claimed, is the most plausible interpretation of what psychology tells us. It is also true to our lived experience in the world. Those are the facts as I see them. Now comes the value judgement – this is a real shame. . . Excellence of character, or being virtuous, is what we should all strive for.

Bringing together contemporary psychology and moral philosophy, the work of Christian B. Miller in character education has been tremendously influential. Christian Miller is the A.C. Reid Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University and the Director of the Character Project funded by the John Templeton Foundation and the Templeton World Charity Foundation. As well as publishing over 75 papers, Professor Miller is the author of Moral Character: An Empirical Theory, Character and Moral Psychology, and The Character Gap: How Good Are We? Links to all of which can be found on our website. In today’s interview, we’ll be talking to Professor Miller about his latest book, The Character Gap. In his own words: Here is the predicament that most of us seem to be in. We are not virtuous people. We simply do not have characters that are good enough to qualify as honest, compassionate, wise, courageous and the like. We are not vicious people either – dishonest, callous, foolish cowardly, and so forth. Rather, we have a mixed character with some good sides and some bad sides. This, I have claimed, is the most plausible interpretation of what psychology tells us. It is also true to our lived experience in the world. Those are the facts as I see them. Now comes the value judgement – this is a real shame. . . Excellence of character, or being virtuous, is what we should all strive for.

Rebecca Roache is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London. Dr Roache specialises in practical ethics, logic, philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychiatry and early modern philosophy, but in this episode, we’ll be speaking to Rebecca specifically about the philosophy of language and swearing.  In the words of Rebecca Roache: "With a little imagination, we can find limitless and powerful ways to offend people if that’s what we want to do. We don’t need to give a f*ck about whether our favourite swear words are declining in their capacity to shock." (Ethics Centre,2015  - click for full article) This interview is produced ‘in association with The Institute of Art and Ideas and the Philosophy for Our Times podcast’. A very special thank you to everybody at the Institute of Art and Ideas for making this interview possible. *We apologise for the audio quality of this episode. We recorded the interview at How the Light Gets In Festival, and although the rain had stopped for us momentarily, you’ll be able to hear festival-goers celebrating the outbreak of sunshine in the background. We’ll be back in the studio after this episode. Thank you, we hope you enjoy the show!

Bence Nanay is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Antwerp and Research Associate in philosophy at the University of Cambridge. Nanay is also the principal investigator of the European Research Council project, Seeing Things You Don’t See: Unifying the Philosophy, Psychology and Neuroscience of Multimodal Mental Imagery.  As well as publishing more than 100 peer-reviewed articles, Nanay is the author of Between Perception and Action (2013) and Aesthetics as Philosophy of Perception (2016). It will, therefore, come as no surprise that our focus today will be Nanay’s work in the field of ‘philosophy of perception’. In a rare intersection between psychology, neuroscience and philosophy, ‘the philosophy of perception’ is concerned with the status of perceptual data, the nature of perceptual experience, and how this data and these experiences relate to beliefs about, or knowledge of, the world. This interview is produced ‘in association with The Institute of Art and Ideas and the Philosophy for Our Times podcast’. A very special thank you to everybody at the Institute of Art and Ideas for making this interview possible. To celebrate the release of this interview, we’re giving away three signed copies of Nanay’s Between Perception and Action– to be in with a chance of winning, just head over to our Twitter page. *We apologise for the length and audio quality of this episode. We recorded the interview in-between Bence’s talks at How the Light Gets In Festival, where it was tipping it down with rain.

Rick Lewis took his first degree in physics and philosophy of science at the University of Manchester, and later an MA in philosophy at the University of York.  Making philosophy accessible and encouraging the person on the street to engage in philosophy in their everyday life was, and is, hugely important to Rick. That’s why in 1991 Rick founded the magazine Philosophy Now, of which, he has been the editor ever since. Soon after launching the magazine, Philosophy Now became the first philosophy title to appear on UK news-stands.  This episode Jack, Andy, Olly and Rick will be discussing ‘the role of philosophy in everyday life’. For many, philosophy is something which can not only enrich our own lives but the lives of our fellow humans. For many others, philosophy is a waste of a life, something that diminishes, something which fails to enrich... Part I. Philosophy in Everyday Life. Part II. Philosophy Now, Further Analysis and Discussion.

Rick Lewis took his first degree in physics and philosophy of science at the University of Manchester, and later an MA in philosophy at the University of York.  Making philosophy accessible and encouraging the person on the street to engage in philosophy in their everyday life was, and is, hugely important to Rick. That’s why in 1991 Rick founded the magazine Philosophy Now, of which, he has been the editor ever since. Soon after launching the magazine, Philosophy Now became the first philosophy title to appear on UK news-stands.  This episode Jack, Andy, Olly and Rick will be discussing ‘the role of philosophy in everyday life’. For many, philosophy is something which can not only enrich our own lives but the lives of our fellow humans. For many others, philosophy is a waste of a life, something that diminishes, something which fails to enrich... Part I. Philosophy in Everyday Life. Part II. Philosophy Now, Further Analysis and Discussion.

Get 20% How The Light Gets In Festival 2018 using the discount code “PANPSYCAST20” at the final checkout page! Visit: https://hay.htlgi.iai.tv/?utmsource=panpsycast. Our Patreon page: www.patreon.com/panpsycast. Everything you could need can be found at www.thepanpsycast.com! Please tweet us your thoughts at www.twitter.com/thepanpsycast. Broadly speaking, the term 'religious language' refers to statements or claims made about God or gods. Many problems arise in the field of religious language, but our principal focus in this episode will be the problems that arise within the Abrahamic religions (that is, Judaism, Christianity and Islam). Simply put, it is unclear how one could use human-made language, to talk meaningfully about something infinitely powerful, infinitely knowledgeable and infinitely loving. This problem is worrisome to believers as it has the potential to undermine their traditions; if we cannot speak meaningfully about God, then the texts and teachings of Abrahamic faiths can only be deemed unintelligible (i.e. impossible to understand). In his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, the 18th Century Scottish philosopher David Hume alluded to the problem as follows: “But when we look beyond human affairs… when we carry our speculations into the two eternities, before and after the present state of things; into the creations and formulation of the universe; the existence and properties of spirits; the powers and operations of one universal Spirit existing without beginning and without end; omnipotent, omniscient, immutable, infinite and incomprehensible: We must be far removed from the smallest tendency to scepticism not to be apprehensive, that we have here got quite the reach of our faculties.” In Part I we’re discussing ‘the via negativa’, in Part II, Thomas Aquinas and Ludwig Wittgenstein, in Part III, the verification and falsification principles, and in Part IV we’ll be engaging in some further analysis and discussion.