Latest Programs

Saturday 28 August 2010

Listen Now - 2010-08-28 |  Download Audio - 28082010

Spoilt for choice or spoilt by choice? Renata Salecl

Now that Australia has made its choice - sort of - The Philosopher's Zone looks as the very idea of choice. Much more than previous generations, we can pick and choose where we live, how many children we have or don't have, what type of bread we would like to eat and even what our gender will be. But the flipside is that that these choices don't always seem to fulfil us. This week we look at the connections between choice and contemporary capitalism and freedom, and the ideologies that underpin all three.  Read Transcript

Saturday 21 August 2010

Listen Now - 2010-08-21 |  Download Audio - 21082010

The philosophy of astronomy - Simon Schaffer

What is the ideology that propels scientists to go to so much trouble? Think, for example, of the hazards involved in a voyage from Europe to our part of the world in the 18th century. Why would you go to all that effort just to observe the transit of Venus? For Science Week, we explore the philosophy of northern astronomy in the Southern Hemisphere with Simon Schaffer, Professor of the History of Science at the University of Cambridge.  Read Transcript

Saturday 14 August 2010

Listen Now - 2010-08-14 |  Download Audio - 14082010

Philosophy on the campaign trail

Tony Abbott has been admiring cows at the Brisbane Show, Julia Gillard has, it's said, been patronising Mark Latham by brushing him down the front, but is there anything ideological happening in this election? This week, we go in search of political philosophy and ask whether the world we live in - not just Australia, but the whole of the West - is any longer a world in which political elites can articulate the issues and meet the challenges of the age.  Read Transcript

Saturday 07 August 2010

Listen Now - 2010-08-07 |  Download Audio - 07082010

Criminal responsibility and the rational mind

The criminal law defines a range of public wrongs and it provides for those who commit such wrongs to be called to answer for them through the criminal process of trial and punishment. We also allow for a number of conditions which mute or nullify our responsibility for a given crime: intention, causation, omission etc. This week on The Philosopher's Zone, we look at criminal responsibility and its assumptions about rationality.  Read Transcript

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