Thales’ Well

In this episode, I talk to Dr Matthew Barnard from Manchester Metropolitan University. We talk about the question of freedom and it's significance for Philosophy. To do this, we also explore Heidegger’s complex and often misunderstood theory of freedom . Rather than approaching freedom through the usual optic of free will versus determinism, Barnard argues that we need to think of freedom as beyond c...

In this conversation with Terry Pinkard, I discuss Hegel’s famous Phenomenology of Spirit. Terry recently published a brilliant introductory guide to this famously difficult book [Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit: A Guide (2023)] which we use as our jumping off point. We discuss the origin of Hegel's book against the backdrop of its turbulent historical moment - the after...

On this episode I talk to the Agnes Callard about the great Ancient Greek philosopher Socrates. We discuss Agnes' new book Open Socrates: The Case for A Philosophical Life [Penguin, 2025]. Agnes and I discuss the themes of Open Socrates, focusing on philosophy as a public, outward-looking practice, Socrates’ call to examine life is framed not just as introspection but as active engagement and testing...

In this episode, I am joined for a fascinating conversation with philosopher Evan Thompson as we delve into his thought-provoking book The Blind Spot. We discuss this collaboration with scientists Marcelo Gleiser and Adam Frank, his insights on reconciling the “scientific image” and the “manifest image” of the world, and the interplay between subjective experience and objective inquiry. Thompson expl...

I talk to psychologist Dr Christopher Kavanagh about the phenomenon of secular gurus. We discussed the secularism of latter day gurus, how they differ and compare to traditional cult leaders, what traits it takes to be a secular guru (galaxy brainedness, cultishness, anti-establishmentarianism), psychopathy/sociopathy, narcissism and techniques for avoiding manipulation.

Lars Iyer is back! On this episode I talk to novelist Lars Iyer about the fiction, the writing process, the relation between literature and the world, a writers compulsion to write. We speak about a whole range of writers like Plato, Samuel Beckett,  Maurice Blanchot, Paul Celan, Margaret Duras, Thomas Bernhard. One of the things Lars suggests is that the value of literature is it utter uselessness. Like all good things!

Lars is a ...

On this episode I talk with Chris Voparil from Union Institute & University about American philosopher Richard Rorty. We discuss Rorty’s biography, his complicated relation with American Pragmatist philosophy and both analytic and continental philosophy, how Rorty dealt with accusations of relativism, his epistemological and moral pluralism, what Rorty has to say about solidarity and community bu...

On this episode of the podcast, I talk to Swedish philosopher Prof. Martin Hägglund from Yale University about his book This Life: Why Mortality Makes Us Free. The dominant theme of our conversation was  the meaning of freedom. Martin has a distinct notion of the demands of being free and we got into a detailed discussion about what freedom really means, how to think about it, how freedom is tied up w...

On this episode I talk to Prof. Joost van Loon about French philosopher and sociologist Bruno Latour. We talked about a lot! Joost taught me about Latour’s actor network theory and while we were doing that we ended up chatting about the importance of concrete controversies, how objectivity works, the production of science, conspiracy theories, vaccine science, relativism, new materialism and Latour’s ...

On this podcast I talk to Dr Hager Weslati about the philosopher Alexandre Kojève. Kojève is a hugely influential but not very well-known philosophers. Here Hager and I talk about his life, his philosophy, and his famous lectures on Hegel. Kojève was a philosopher,  entrepreneur, diplomat, architect of the European Union and possible spy!

Hager Weslati is a lecturer in m...

A podcast with my colleague Dr Mark McKenna who is an Associate Professor at Staffordshire University. We talked about horror films. Specifically, we talked about the the snuff movie as a form of horror. We also talked about the cultural mythologies that have grown up around the concept of snuff, how this mythology transformed in the technological age as well issues pertaining to distribution, marketi...

Don Milligan is back to discuss his new book The Embrace of Capital  (Zero Books: 2022). In this , Don recounts and analyses his history of social and political activism interrogating the reasons he thinks working people have a love-hate relationship with capitalism but ultimately embrace it. But equally, Don tells us how working people hate insecurity, inequality, greed and love civic and political f...

On this episode Professor Graham Harman returns to talk about architecture and philosophy. We had a fascinating conversation discussing architecture in relation to the history of philosophy. Graham has tackled just this topic in new book Architecture and Objects  (2022), which has recently come out with University of Minnesota Press. We discuss a whole host of topics including the role of the ‘big three’ philosophers – Heidegger, D...

Friedrich Nietzsche is usually considered a staunch critic of socialism. My guest on this episode thinks this picture is a lot more complicated than we suspect. Professor Robert Miner suggests Nietzsche offers a very complex picture of what socialism entails, and we should consider Nietzsche as a critic and proponent of socialism. Robert Miner is a Professor of Philosophy at Baylor University. You can find a link to his university ...

This episode I am talking to Dr Tiff Thomas. We discuss the philosophy, ideas and politics of activist, mystic, worker and educator Simone Weil. 

Tiff is a lecturer in Philosophy at Manchester Metropolitan University and specializes in Spinoza. He is also interested in the work of Gilles Deleuze and Simone Weil. You can find out more about Tiff here. Tiff is a co-leader of the AHRC Funded UK Simone Weil Research Network which you c...

On this podcast I am talking to my colleague Prof. David Webb a philosopher at Staffordshire University. David is the author of Heidegger, Ethics and the Practice of Ontology (Continuum: 2011) and Foucault's Archaeology: Science and Transformation (Edinburgh U.P. 2013). He has published several articles on Michel Foucault, Michel Serres, modern French philosophy. He is especially interested in epistemology and philosophy of science...

On this episode of Thales’ Well I talk to Prof. Felix O’Murchadha who returns to talk about his new book The Formation of The Modern Self (Bloomsbury, 2022). Felix’s book provides a genealogy of the emergence of the self in the early modern period. We had a very wide-ranging discussion moving from ancient accounts of the self to contemporary versions. We discussed Montaigne, Descartes, Spinoza, Hume and Kant.

Felix is a Professor o...

This episode I had a fantastic discussion with Dr Colin Alexander about propaganda. We discussed the nature of propaganda, how to identify it, its ubiquity, as well as things we might do to mitigate the effect of propaganda on ourselves and society. More specifically, we focussed on a particular case study, with Colin explaining how propaganda is deployed by charitable organisations, companies and governments. In addition, we spoke...