Baruch Spinoza was perhaps most famous for his equation of God with Nature - a view that his contemporaries, probably correctly, took to be atheist. But what did he think about death? Steven Nadler, author of A Book Forged in Hell and Think Least of Death, discusses this aspect of his thought with Nigel Warburton.  

In this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast Cornell philosopher Kate Manne discusses the notions of misogyny, male entitlement, and the term that she coined 'himpathy' with Nigel Warburton.

Verificationists believe that every meaningful statement is either true by definition or else empirically verifiable (or falsifiable). Anything which fails to pass this two-pronged test for meaningfulness is neither true nor false, but literally meaningless. Liam Bright discusses Verificationism and its links with the Vienna Circle with David Edmonds in this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast. 

For this special episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast (produced under lockdown) Nigel Warburton interviews David Edmonds about his bestselling book, written with David Edinow, Wittgenstein's Poker. It focuses on a heated argument between the two great Viennese philosophers Karl Popper and Ludwig Wittgenstein, and the differing accounts that were give of it by those who were there.   

For this first of two special lockdown episodes of Philosophy Bites we interviewed each other. Here David Edmonds interviews Nigel Warburton about his bestseller A Little History of Philosophy. In the companion episode Nigel interviews David about his bestseller Wittgenstein's Poker.

Cheryl Misak has recently published a biography of F.P. Ramsey, the great Cambridge thinker who died at the age of only 26, but who nevertheless made a significant impact in several different fields including philosophy, mathematics, and economics. In this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast she discusses Ramsey's interactions with Wittgenstein. The two thinkers had very different personal styles and their philosophies reflect this.

Philip Goff discusses some of Galileo's insights into the nature of matter. He then goes on to discuss his own view about consciousness, panpsychism. Goff believes that matter is conscious at some level. 

In this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast, recorded before the Covid-19 lockdowns, the political philosopher Elizabeth Anderson explains why we need to be prepared to talk more, even with people with whom we strongly disagree.   

Christian List, a philosopher, discusses the complexity of free will and determinism. He explores intentional agency, alternative choices, and causal control in decision-making. List argues for the importance of intentional agency in personal choice despite challenges from scientific perspectives. He also uses the economy as an analogy to explain the necessity of postulating entities in creating explanatory models.

Some philosophers have drawn very strange conclusions about the nature of reality. Despite this Emily Thomas believes that their work may still be worth studying. They usually have had good reasons for what they concluded. In this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast she discusses several wildly implausible metaphysical theories with Nigel Warburton.  We are grateful for support from the Marc Sanders Foundation and from our Patreon donors.