philosophy bites

Don Cupitt on Non-Realism About God

Don Cupitt, the controversial theologian and philosopher whose BBC television series The Sea of Faith (and accompanying book) spawned a theological movement with the same name, is the interviewee for this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast. He explains his non-realism about God.

Listen to Don Cupitt on Non-Realism About God

Ethics Bites podcast now available on iTunesU

Ethics Bites, the Open University sister series of the Philosophy Bites podcast, is now available on iTunesU together with transcripts. It includes interviews with Michael Sandel,  Richard Posner,  Janet Radcliffe Richards, Tim Scanlon, Miranda Fricker, Peter Singer, Mary Warnock, and others. Four of these interviews have already appeared on Philosophy Bites, but a further nine are currently available from the Open University section of iTunesU.

Visit Ethics Bites on iTunesU

iTunesU has an amazing range of free educational audio and audiovisual podcasts. Perfect for the autodidact. The Open University has its own section there as do many of the major US universities and a few other UK ones (including Oxford University).

Wendy Brown on Tolerance

Tolerance is a central virtue of any liberal democracy.  Or at least that's the received opinion. In this interview for the Philosophy Bites podcast political theorist Wendy Brown of UC Berkeley, author of Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire, explains why she is sceptical about some ways in which the concept is used.

Listen to Wendy Brown on Tolerance

Anne Phillips on Political Representation

Participatory democracy is impractical, so most democracies are representative democracies. But should the representatives reflect the variety of those they represent? In particular, should there be roughly half women in a representative democracy? Anne Phillips of the LSE believes that there should be far more women acting as political representatives than there are at present. In this interview for Philosophy Bites she explains why.

Listen to Anne Phillips on Political Representation

Listen to Anne Phillips on Multiculturalism (an earlier Philosophy Bites interview)

A.C. Grayling on Bombing Civilians in Wartime

A.C. Grayling, author of Among The Dead Cities, explains why he believes that the Allies' deliberate targeting of civilians in Dresden and elsewhere during the Second World War was morally wrong.

Listen to Anthony Grayling on Bombing Civilians in Wartime

Christopher Shields on Personal Identity

Personal identity - the question of what, if anything, makes an individual the same person despite change over time - is an idea that has interested philosophers since antiquity. Christopher Shields discusses this topic in this Philosophy Bites interview.

Listen to Christopher Shields on Personal Identity