philosophy

How reliable are the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves? 

If there was a pill that gave you all the benefits of sleep without you ever having to go to sleep again, would you take it?

If a lion did a good deed, how would we know? Can animals ever act for moral reasons?

Can mind-altering drugs expand our consciousness and provide meaningful insight, or are they nothing more than a route to empty delirium?

Would you let one man die to save five children? Would you kill a man to save those five children?

Does affirmative action undermine the achievements of those who are supposed to benefit from it?

In a world that's rapidly becoming overpopulated, can we at least talk about population control?

Do popular ideas spread because they're useful, or because they're infectious - like a nasty disease?

Could ancient virtues such as wisdom, courage, prudence, and justice help solve some of the most challenging problems of contemporary life? 

Science can explain what happens. But can it explain why anything happens at all?

What would motivate an ordinary person to give away more than half of their income to charity?

If you know San Francisco, you’ll know the newly remodeled Dolores Park, where people gather to eat ice cream in the sun.

You’ll also know the Presidio, the former military complex now designated a National Park. And you’ll easily name the city’s largest park, since it’s twenty percent larger than Central Park in New York: it’s Golden Gate Park. But can you name the city’s second largest park? 

What kind of right is the right to bear arms, if it is a right at all? 

How could science help us understand our own happiness?

How could the smartest, most observant people around believe for millennia that the sun and all the planets and stars all revolved around the Earth?

Celebrate International Women's Day as John and Ken explore the life and thought of the French feminist philosopher.

When is the burden of debt so great that it becomes immoral?

How could there be meaning in a world that's ultimately nothing but gas and dust?

Is it a privilege or a right to be treated as you deserve to be?

Is America's embrace of the free-enterprise system a practical matter – an effective way of organizing resources and the distribution of goods – or does it rest on deeper principles? 

Are borders essential to nationhood, or do they form an exclusive club that unfairly keeps certain people from pursuing a better life? 

What exactly is existentialism? How is man condemned to be free? And what’s so hellish about other people? 

What rights should convicted felons be expected to forfeit before prison becomes cruel and unusual punishment?

What happened in 2015 that challenged our assumptions and made us think in new ways?

Is truth just a compliment we pay to sentences we like to assert?

What kind of divinity allows its believers to suffer?

Is Taoism a religion, a philosophy, a spiritual practice, or a way of life? 

Is there such a thing as 'one true self', or is the self merely a conglomerate of 'mini-selves' shaped by cultural and social forces?  

What do Descartes and Perry Mason have in common? They both distrust eyewitness testimony.