It’s hard to find anything philosophical in the U.S. unless you are looking for a book or something on religion. The Barnes and Noble philosophy section is shrinking exponentially, there aren’t many philosophy magazines that you can find on the news stands or magazine racks (and those you do find are European) and finding a good philosophy website is tough.
Well, Apple and its ipods and itunes comes to the rescue of philosophical discussion just as it has for the music industry, the Apple Company and many other things. The itunes makes it very easy to find podcasts about just about anything and philosophical discussions are no exception.
There are not millions of different podcasts that deal with philosophy, at least not as many as there are about science, news and comedy but there are enough to keep you occupied and intrigued. The following list is not exhaustive (I hope) and is only a small sample of the small amount of philosophical podcasts on itunes.
‘Thinking Out Loud’- Philosophical Dialogues with Everyday People: This podcast is described very well by its title. ‘Thinking Out Loud’ is a recorded conversation of a group of people, not necessarily philosophers by training, which discuss things from ‘love’ to ‘free will.’ There aren’t too many of these discussions, only 22 episodes. The discussions do jump around a lot from one topic to another and the speakers sometimes say things that don’t make a lot of sense but most of the conversations can shed light on some interesting points of view. As a philosophy student I know how hard it is to put some ideas into words and this podcast is really good about helping people at least try.
Ethics Matters: This is a radio show in North Carolina which has made 27 of its episodes into podcasts. Ethics Matters is supposed to be a talk show about (ding, ding, ding) ethical issues. If you enjoy listening to talk radio shows, and you like the ethical side of philosophy, then this is the show for you. Some of the topics in the 27 podcasts include issues as abstract as ‘virtue ethics’ and as pragmatic as ‘civil rights’ and ‘health care reform.’ The hosts name is James Coley and he is a member of the North Carolina Society for Ethical Culture.
Philosophy Bites:Philosophy Bites is a great podcast that unfortunately only has 6 episodes available on itunes. You can try the podcasts website (www.philosophybites.com) but there aren’t any more episodes there. The hosts to Philosophy Bites are David Edmunds and Nigel Warburton and they dive into topics as bizarre as the philosophy of wine and as normal to philosophy as the problem of good and evil. The good thing about the above mentioned website is that you can see and buy some books by the philosophers featured on the show or about the topics discussed.
The above mentioned podcasts are not all the philosophical podcasts available on the web. They aren’t even the only ones available on itunes. Some other itunes podcasts dealing with philosophy are Philosopher’s Zone, The Philosophy Podcast, and Philosophy: The Classics but I’m sure that there are more. Don’t stop looking for things philosophical and don’t stop looking for philosophical themes in supposedly non-philosophical topics. I hope you enjoy some of these podcasts and that you enjoy philosophy in general.
