Thales’ Well

I spoke with Will Large about the Jewish philosopher Emmanual Levinas.  Levinas is a philosopher who had a unique conception of ethics, one resistant to many of the traditional ways we approach ethics in Philosophy. Many of Levinas' writings were composed during his time in a prisoner of war camp, and his work unsurprisingly embraces notions of escape, otherness, subjectivity and anti-totalitarianism.  Also, many members of his immediate family were murdered by fascists. Levinas' entire career subsequently became devoted to radically transforming how we approach others in a concrete way. With Will, I had a wide-ranging conversation where we touched on the distinction between ethics and morality, Levinas' book Totality and Infinity, Daniel Kahnemann, Gilles Deleuze, virtue signalling, parenthood, the movie Election, political anarchism and environmentalism.  Dr William Large works at the University of Gloucestershire. He is the author of Levinas' 'Totality and Infinity: A Reader's Guide and Heidegger's Being and Time: A Philosophical Guide. You can find out more about Will here. You can listen to more free back content from the Thales' Well podcast on TuneIn Radio, Player Fm, Stitcher and Podbean. You can also download their apps to your smart phone and listen via there. You can subscribe for free on iTunes. Please leave a nice review. You can follow me on Twitter: @drphilocity

This month I am talking with Dr Luna Dolezal from the University of Exeter. Luna is Senior Lecturer in Medical Humanities, with a particular interest in applied phenomenology, philosophy of embodiment, philosophy of medicine and medical humanities (esp. through literature and philosophy). I chatted to Luna about the notion of shame, medicine, Sartre, Nussbaum and Channel 4's TV show Embarrassing Bodies. Luna is about to begin a major research project with the Wellcome Trust. You can find out more about Luna here. You can read some of Luna's writings which we discussed on the podcast here. You can listen to more free back content from the Thales' Well podcast on TuneIn Radio, Player Fm, Stitcher and Podbean. You can also download their apps to your smart phone and listen via there. You can subscribe for free on iTunes. Please leave a nice review. You can follow me on Twitter: @drphilocity

This week I discuss the nature of denial, post-truth, and conspiracy theories with Dr Keith Kahn-Harris. We ended up talking about Holocaust denial, anti-vaxxing, climate change, and the resurgence of flat-earth theory. Keith tries to unpick the similarities and differences between all these different types of discourse. He argues that there are many types of denialism. Rather than classifying these phenomena as irrational and nonsensical, he argues that they are secretly are in love with the best traditions of scholarship and truth, and hold an irrepressible desire for respectability and legitimacy. Our talk is based on Keith's recent book Denial: The Unspeakable Truth (Notting Hill Editions, 2018). Keith is a sociologist, essayist, and music critic. He is an Associate Lecturer and Honorary research fellow at Birkbeck College. As well, he is a Fellow of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research and senior lecturer at Leo Baeck College. You can find out more about Keith at his website here. He is on Twitter: @KeithKahnHarris Here is the link to the BBC animation that Keith spoke about in the podcast. You can listen to more free back content from the Thales' Well podcast on TuneIn Radio, Player Fm, Stitcher and Podbean. You can also download their apps to your smart phone and listen via there. You can also subscribe for free on iTunes. Please leave a nice review. You can follow me on Twitter: @drphilocity

This week I am talking to Olli Lagerspetz about his recent book A Philosophy of Dirt (Reaktion, 2018). This book is a fascinating exploration of what we mean by dirt, how we can use Philosophy to examine it, and whether dirt is an objective or subjective phenomenon. We talked about how dirt is conceived in science, art, politics, anthropology and how we might think of dirt in the context of the environment. As usual in a philosophy conversation, we ended up talking about Plato. Olli Lagerspetz (b. 1963) is  a Senior Lecturer and Adjunct Professor at the Philosophy department at Åbo Akademi University, and Adjunct Professor of the History of Ideas at Oulu University. He is Associate Editor of the Journal of Philosophical Investigations. Lagerspetz studied  at Åbo and, with Peter Winch, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 1992-1998 he was Lecturer of philosophy at the University of Wales, Swansea. Lagerspetz has written extensively on the philosophy of the humanities and the social sciences and on the history of social anthropology. His   most recent books include A Philosophy of Dirt (2018), Trust, Ethics and Human Reason (2015) and Intellectual Networks,Philosophy and Social Anthropology (2014) with Kirsti Suolinna and Edward Westermarck. In his research, Lagerspetz has often liked to focus on issues that breach the fact/value divide.  He is interested in looking for alternatives to reductionist accounts of the world we live in. His  main intellectual influences (besides his parents and family members) are Ludwig Wittgenstein and Egon Friedell, plus people who have taught him or worked with him: Lars Hertzberg, Peter Winch, Richard Beardsmore, Ullica Segerstrale, Kirsti Suolinna, Göran Torrkulla, and Hans Rosing. Olli is married with two children and two cats. In his free time, he plays music (tuba and piano). His book was recently reviewed in The Guardian. You can find out about the book here. You can listen to more free back content from the Thales' Well podcast on TuneIn Radio, Player Fm, Stitcher and Podbean. You can also download their apps to your smart phone and listen via there. You can also subscribe for free on iTunes. Please leave a nice review. You can follow me on Twitter: @drphilocity

This week I had a fantastic conversation with Prof. Graham Harman about his unique theory of Object-Oriented Philosophy. Our discussion was wide-ranging, we discussed Graham’s background, metaphysics, HP Lovecraft, art, architecture, Bruno Latour, contemporary Marxism, and Graham's views on the current politics of the United States. Graham is a Professor of Philosophy at Sci-Arc in Los Angles. He has authored several articles and over 15 books. Most recently his work includes Object-Oriented Ontology: A New Theory of Everything (2018, Pelican) and Speculative Realism: An Introduction (2018, Polity). You can read the article Graham and I discussed about Bruno Latour here. Also, here you will find a link to the article Graham mentioned where he responds to Marxist criticism. Graham is a prolific blogger and you can find more about his writing and upcoming events there. You can also follow him on Twitter: @DrZamalek With thanks to Niki Young of the University of Malta.  You can listen to more free back content from the Thales' Well podcast on TuneIn Radio, Player Fm, Stitcher and Podbean. You can also download their apps to your smart phone and listen via there. You can also subscribe for free on iTunes. Please leave a nice review. You can follow me on Twitter: @drphilocity

I had a fascinating discussion with Tim Edensor this week on the geography and politics of light. Tim has a brilliant talent for making us think  differently about something we take for granted. During our chat we talked about our changing perceptions of light, the politics of light, the aesthetic appreciation of light, and how one's willingness to decorate your house at Christmas might be a key factor in the Brexit vote. Most importantly we talked about Tim's great affection for  the Blackpool Illuminations.  Tim is a Reader in Cultural Geography at Manchester Metropolitan University. He researches geographies of tourism, national identity, industrial ruins. and urban materiality. Tim is the author of From Light to Dark: Daylight, Illumination and Gloom (University of Minnesota Press, 2017). You can find out more about Tim here.  You can listen to more free back content from the Thales' Well podcast on TuneIn Radio, Player Fm, Stitcher and Podbean. You can also download their apps to your smart phone and listen via there. You can also subscribe for free on iTunes. Please leave a nice review. You can follow me on Twitter: @drphilocity

This week I am talking about forensic linguistics with Dr David Wright from Nottingham Trent University. We chatted about how forensic linguistics is used in crime detection, authorship analysis, expert witnessing, aiding policing investigation as well as some of the landmark cases where forensic linguistics has been used. We also spoke about David's research on the language of sexual violence in online forums.  David Wright is a forensic linguist. His research applies methods of corpus linguistics and discourse analysis in forensic contexts, and aims to help improve the delivery of justice using language analysis. His research spans across a range of intersections between language and the law, evidence, crime and justice. He is co-author of An Introduction to Forensic Linguistics: Language in Evidence. You can read some of David's article at The Conversation.  He is on Twitter also: @WrightDW You can listen to more free back content from the Thales' Well podcast on TuneIn Radio, Player Fm, Stitcher and Podbean. You can also download their apps to your smart phone and listen via there.  You can also subscribe for free on iTunes. Please leave a nice review. You can follow me on Twitter: @drphilocity

This week, as we approach All Hallows Eve, we turn to the ghastly, the monstrous,  the shocking, the ghoulish, the spooky and the downright eerie. I am talking to Dr Sorcha Ní Fhlainn who is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies and American Literature. She is a founding member of the Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies at Manchester Metropolitan University. We spoke about all things Gothic, the endless fascination with vampires, working class werewolves, ghosts, zombies, as well as how Gothic horror speaks to political questions. Sorcha also tells us about her love for Clive Barker. You find out more about Sorcha’s work here: https://goo.gl/V1VK9k She tweets at: @VampireSorcha The movie which Sorcha could not recollect towards the end of the podcast was Love at First Bite You can listen to more free back content from the Thales' Well podcast on TuneIn Radio, Player Fm, Stitcher and Podbean. You can also download their apps to your smart phone and listen via there.  You can also subscribe for free on iTunes. Please leave a nice review.

With the upcoming US elections I thought it would be a good time to see what a political philosopher has to say about it all. I am joined by Michael Baranowski who is a political scientist from Northern Kentucky University. We talked about Mike’s intellectual origins, the political philospher Edmund Burke, the legacy of John McCain, the possibility of socialism in America, and of course President Donald Trump, as well as the forthcoming elections. You can find out more about Mike here.  Mike is one of the hosts of the very brilliant podcast The Politics Guys.For anyone with an interest in American politics I thoroughly reccomend subscribing.  The David Foster Wallace piece we mentioned in the show is called Up Simba! and is available as an ebook. Here is a link to the original Rolling Stone article about John McCain's 2000 election campaign. 

  This week I had a really interesting discussion with Prof. Heidi Matthews about law, consent, and the MeToo movement. Heidi is an Assistant Professor of law at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto. She co-directs the Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime and Security. Her research area is international criminal law, the law of war, political theory and law and sexuality, with a specific focus on global regulation of political violence in relation to history and gender. You can read Heidi’s Aeon article on sexual consent here. You can follow Heidi on Twitter @Heidi_Matthews We recorded this conversation prior to the Blasey Ford/Kavanaugh hearing in the US Senate, and the subsequent confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court. Heidi has since published an article in The Conversation commenting on these events.  During the podcast, Heidi recommended listeners to consult the work of Paul Clark of Garden Court Chambers on the impact of economic austerity on the legal profession in the UK.