Episodes
Friday Feb 09, 2024
THOUGHT FOR TODAY - INTERESTING TIMES 75
Friday Feb 09, 2024
Friday Feb 09, 2024
In this podcast we take a critical look at the output of BBC Radio 4's Today Programme which has an influential position in the distribution of news to the UK. We take a couple of examples for closer scrutiny, the daily homiletic Thought for Today slot, and a particular interview with opposition shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, on her back-peddling on green issues. [Free. 28 minutes. Strong language.]
Tuesday Jul 04, 2023
LAO TZU 58
Tuesday Jul 04, 2023
Tuesday Jul 04, 2023
In this podcast, we consider Chapter 71 of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching. This chapter is about self-deception, understood as a sickness. We appraise the character of many modern politicians in the light of Lao Tzu's insights on this matter. [Free. 25 minutes.]
Wednesday Jan 13, 2021
REASON ON REASON 3 - QUESTIONING IN THE AGE OF REASON
Wednesday Jan 13, 2021
Wednesday Jan 13, 2021
In this third podcast in the series Reason on Reason, I investigate the rise of questioning during the Enlightenment and the accompanying scepticism towards ecclesiastical, theological and political authority. The main part of the podcast is analysis and comment on Kant's newspaper article of 1784, What is Enlightenment? This article exposes a tension between the promise of the new questioning for knowledge and it application and the possible impacts this movement could have on social cohesion. Other dramatis personae include Voltaire, Hume, per-cursor, Locke, and Blake for the ensuing Romantic back-lash. [Free. 32 minutes.]
Saturday Jan 25, 2020
RESILIENCE: INTERVIEW WITH GODFREY DEVEREUX
Saturday Jan 25, 2020
Saturday Jan 25, 2020
In this interview renowned Yoga Teacher Godfrey Devereux about a recent turn his work has taken. Godfrey has dropped the language surrounding contemporary Yoga to talk instead about resilience and how it is a consequence of a certain meditative self-enquiry. I ask Godfrey to elucidate this and particularly in the context of impending ecological catastrophe. I give my own take on these matters which is more inclined to speak up for activism. Listen to the following podcast, The Yogi and the Commissar, in which I explore some of the themes that emerged and in the light of Simone de Beauvoir's existentialism. [Free. 32 minutes.]
Sunday Jun 09, 2019
DESIRE & THE FUTURE [YES & NO 6]
Sunday Jun 09, 2019
Sunday Jun 09, 2019
This podcast, recorded in November 2018, continues with commentary on the Songs of No and Yes, and explores the theme of desire further. As well as asking if determinism universally applies, I ask what would be the existential consequences if it did. I conclude that metaphysical issues, like free will - determinism are probably undecidable, and, in this case, of no existential consequence. The upshot for meditation practitioners is that they are well-advised to be engaged with the world and to make efforts to make a future of flourishing for self and others, rather than repudiating creativity, politics and altruism because "what will be, will be." (If such is their bent.) The practice of letting be with bright awareness, I argue, should be understood as applicable to all aspects of lived experience, including the active, creative and passive. The role of determinism in the scientific method is briefly considered. [Free. 18 minutes.]
Monday Dec 10, 2018
EXPERIENCE [NO & YES 2]
Monday Dec 10, 2018
Monday Dec 10, 2018
This podcast is the second in the series Songs of No and Yes. It revisits the theme of the previous one, that of sitting meditation. The perspective is a little different and there is a strong 'no', or sealing off of escape routes which we are likely to attempt when the rawness of sitting is encountered. It also repudiates metaphysical speculation, grand-narratives, and other such hubris, seeking to point towards the ineffable rather than attempt to 'eff' it. [Free. 17 minutes.]
Tuesday Jul 24, 2018
TRUMP, MAY, PUTIN AND MEN IN FUNNY HATS [PART TWO: FRAGMENTATION]
Tuesday Jul 24, 2018
Tuesday Jul 24, 2018
This wide-ranging podcast draws on the same sources as Part One and is similarly stimulated by current affairs. This time, the thesis that the current historical unfoldings of the mutually entangled economic, cultural and ecological systems are characterised by fragmentation is defended and a variety of possible material antecedents of this tendency are considered. We identify environmental degradation, technological developments, contradictions in capitalism in its current phase, cultural fragmentation, the enmeshment of state and corporate power, gross inequalities of wealth and power and movements of populations as mutually dependent factors giving rise to fragmentation, amongst others. [Free. 54 minutes.]
Thursday Aug 10, 2017
KNOWLEDGE, UNDERSTANDING, WISDOM
Thursday Aug 10, 2017
Thursday Aug 10, 2017
Why do we have these three cognitive terms? What do they denote and how are they distinct from each other? This podcast is a preliminary investigation of these difficult questions. [Free. 43 minutes.]
Friday Aug 05, 2016
IMAGINATION, SKEPTICISM & WONDER
Friday Aug 05, 2016
Friday Aug 05, 2016
This is an account of the philosophical imagination and how it is both freed and rendered circumspect by skepticism. [Free. 42 minutes.]