The simplest questions often have the most complex answers. The Philosopher's Zone is your guide through the strange thickets of logic, metaphysics and ethics.
Does philosophy answer questions, or just keep asking them over and over again? Some say that compared to the sciences, philosophy has few runs on the board when it comes to measurable results. And then there's the issue of sexism in the discipline, and Western philosophy's colonial past. In this live panel discussion recorded in Brisbane, we put philosophy's feet to the fire.
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51:32
Queer theory and animal rights
This week we're exploring links between queer liberation and animal subjugation, and discovering how the struggles for acceptable queer identity are often entwined with entrenching animal exploitation. Along the way we get into some fascinating history of sexual violence, colonial constructs of the human, and those ever-shifting categories of "natural" and "deviant" behaviour.This program includes themes of sexual assault and animal abuse that some listeners may find distressing.
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37:08
AI, reliability and trust
AI is making all kinds of important decisions for us these days, but how far can we trust it? Or rather, what kind of trust is appropriate to bring to AI? The inner workings of "black box" AI are inscrutable even to its creators, so if transparency and explainability are essential to the development of trust, then we could be in trouble. It all depends on how we think about trust.
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33:45
Innocence and "child rescue" in the colonial imagination
The forced removal of First Nations children from their families was active government policy in Australia between the 1910s and the 1970s, and still continues today under the banner of child protection. Today we're hearing that the story of the Stolen Generation has a historical parallel in the "child rescue" movement in 19th century Britain, when so-called "ragged children" were taken from their families - in many cases, abducted - and placed in institutions, to be trained and moulded into productive citizens.
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37:26
What is a conspiracy theory?
We all feel we know what a conspiracy theory is: it's a belief held by other people about a conspiracy or conspiracies. Nobody likes being identified as a conspiracy theorist - including conspiracy theorists - and this makes life difficult for social scientists, psychologists and other researchers. When it comes to philosophy and the business of nailing down exactly what a conspiracy theory is, things get even muddier.
The simplest questions often have the most complex answers. The Philosopher's Zone is your guide through the strange thickets of logic, metaphysics and ethics.
Brasil