The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast

"Hey, it's Jack here – I'm still out in the van writing up my travel book. The wind and rain coming down hard in France, as you might hear in the background. We're recording an old-school show and another interview at the end of the month, which we're really excited to produce and share. In the meantime, I'm happy to release a one-to-one conversation with me and John Nelson – author of Jesus' Physical Appearance and host at Premier Unbelievable. We explore why the biblical writers include no description of Jesus' body, what that absence might mean, and how Jesus' appearance has been imagined, altered, and politicised across history. Along the way, we discuss Jesus' clothing, Stoic and Cynic influences, animals and incarnation, modern Christian culture, the politics of Jesus' image, and a few of the more intriguing Christian conspiracy theories. I hope you enjoy the show!" Links Jesus' Physical Appearance (book) Behind The Gospels (substack) Biblical Time Machine (podcast)

Hey, it's Jack here – I'm currently in the snowy hills of Switzerland, recording this from the back of my campervan, so forgive the audio quality. (It won't be like this beyond the introduction.) I've been busy producing new content for YouTube, with some exciting conversations coming your way – one of which, was with Ed Winters, which I'm excited to share with you today. We had a really interesting discussion about some of the internal tensions within vegan philosophy. We agree on a lot – but, as you'll hear, our main disagreements concern the moral status of non-animals (which Ed rejects) and whether veganism should involve avoiding products tied to slave labour (which he also rejects). You can watch the conversation on YouTube now – just search Dr Jack Symes – or sit back and listen here. Thanks again for your support – I hope you enjoy the show. Links Earthling Ed, Website Jack Symes, YouTube

The meaning of life is, as Albert Camus put it, the most urgent question in philosophy – the one on which everything else depends. Yet, when Western philosophy looks to answer this question, it paces up and down the same old libraries – the same shelves filled with the same assumptions about what counts as a self, a good life, and what happens after death. African philosophy of religion has been neglected in this area. Not because it has nothing to say – but because we haven't been listening. Today, we'll be exploring this tradition – that is, African philosophy – on the meaning of life with Dr Aribiah David Attoe, Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. Dr Attoe has published several books – including The Question of Life's Meaning: An African Perspective, and African Perspectives to the Question of Life's Meaning – as well as numerous articles and special journal issues on today's topic, bringing these globally neglected traditions into dialogue with mainstream philosophy. In this episode, we'll explore what it means to live meaningfully with others – not merely alongside them. We'll ask how harmony differs from conformity, and whether communal ideals can protect outsiders. And, most importantly, we'll confront life and death head-on: whether it's possible to find meaning, and – if not – how we should live in a meaningless world. ___ This episode is produced in partnership with The Global Philosophy of Religion Project at University of Birmingham, funded by the John Templeton Foundation. Links Aribiah David Attoe, Publications Global Philosophy of Religion Project 2

The supreme being of classical theism is unlimited in power, knowledge, and goodness – a being distinct from the world, who creates it out of nothing and governs it from beyond. On this picture, we are not identical with God. God's consciousness is not our consciousness – and our identity is not theirs. That picture has long been challenged by schools of Hindu philosophy and, more recently, by Western philosophies of religion that reject traditional conceptions of God. In response to the problem of evil, some philosophers now argue that if there is a creator, then that creator must be limited in power. Advaita's challenge is more radical. It doesn't just revise the traditional conception of God – it dissolves it. Where classical theism draws a sharp distinction between God and the world, Advaita says that reality is non-dual. The divine is not something separate from us or from the universe, but the underlying reality that appears as both. To explore these competing visions of the supreme being, reality, and our place within it, I'm joined by three guests. Returning to The Panpsycast for the fifth time is Philip Goff, Professor of Philosophy at Durham University. As listeners will remember, Philip is the author of several brilliant books – including Galileo's Error and, more recently, Why? The Purpose of the Universe. David Godman is a leading author, best known for his work on the Hindu sage, Sri Ramana Maharshi. And last but not least, Miri Albahari is Senior Lecturer at The University of Western Australia – where her work explores the metaphysics and epistemology of Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta. What is gained – and what is lost – when God is no longer unlimited, or is no longer separate from the world? Can these alternatives still ground mind, meaning, and morality? And by what means could we come to know such a reality – and decide between these rival conceptions of God? This episode is generously supported by The John Templeton Foundation, through The Panpsychism and Pan(en)theism Project (62683). Links Philip Goff, Website David Godman, Website Miri Albahari, Website

In the beginning, there was nothing but air. The supreme being breathed upon it, and the air became water. Air and water moved together, forming mud. Seeing its shape, the supreme being breathed again – and life began. Today, we'll be exploring this creation story – born of Afro-Brazilian philosophy – forged under conditions of extreme violence, displacement, and resistance. During the transatlantic slave trade, more than four million Africans were forcibly taken to Brazil – far more than were sent to the United States. They brought with them their gods, their rituals, and their philosophies. Despite sustained efforts to suppress them, these traditions not only survived, but developed into sophisticated systems of thought that remain living practices today. We'll be exploring these traditions with José Eduardo Porcher Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. José is currently Director of the Spiritual Realities, Relationality, and Flourishing: Brazilian Contributions to Philosophy of Religion project, and has been centrally involved in a number of major research initiatives examining alternative approaches to philosophy of religion – including the John Templeton funded project Expanding the Philosophy of Religion by Engaging with Afro-Brazilian Traditions. In this episode, we'll explore the Afro-Brazilian religious tradition of Candomblé: its account of creation, its distinctive conception of God and the deities, and its striking vision of a world enchanted by a vital life-force that flows through people, objects, nature, and the divine. We'll ask what it means to live in a world where gods possess human bodies, where objects can be sacred, and where divinity is powerful yet limited. And we'll consider what these traditions might teach us about evil, responsibility, nature, and how to live well in a world that is far stranger than Western philosophy ever thought. This episode is produced in partnership with The Global Philosophy of Religion Project at University of Birmingham, funded by the John Templeton Foundation. Links José Eduardo Porcher, Webite José Eduardo Porcher, Afro-Brazilian Religions (Book)

Slavoj Žižek, Friedrich Nietzsche, Kehinde Andrews – the world has never been short of bad philosophers. But of all the minds who have graced, tortured, or otherwise afflicted human history, which one truly deserves the title: The World's Worst Philosopher? That's not an easy question; after all, philosophy has given us so many options. When Dan Dennett denied consciousness, was that the silliest claim ever made? What should we think when once sensible people – Philip Goff – convert to Christianity? Is Robert Wright, in fact, Robert Wrong? Is it the wartime quartet, or the woke-time bore-tet? Did Bentham really support bestiality? And why did David Papineau say that thing about women? Philosophers are supposed to be seekers of truth: lofty creatures aiming at wisdom, clarity, and the betterment of humanity. But philosophers are just people, shaped by forces that lead them astray. Sometimes they miss truth entirely; sometimes they stumble into it through terrible reasoning; and sometimes they make the world a genuinely worse place. Which brings us to the task at hand: trying to rank the worst philosopher in history. It's no easy feat. In fact, it's going to require the combined efforts of three of philosophy's greatest minds: Jack Symes, Andrew Horton, and (me) Olly Marley. This episode may also mark the end of our professional careers. But if we're going down, we'll go down like Socrates: making an unnecessarily big deal out of something that, absolutely, could have been easily avoided.

Jainism, along with Buddhism and Hinduism, is one of India's great dharmic traditions – though far less well known than its siblings. Emerging around the second century BCE, it is best-known for valuing ahimsa in pursuit of liberation – a devout practice of non-violence. Yet there is far more to Jain philosophy than liberation and ahimsa. Jainism offers a rich way of understanding the self, the cosmos, and the divine. It's a philosophy with a vision of reality that continues to challenge Western preconceptions on, well, just about everything: from the nature of souls and knowledge to the meaning of life and the origin of the universe. Today, we'll be exploring Jainism with Dr Marie-Hélène Gorisse. Dr Gorisse is currently Dharmanath Assistant Professor in Jain Studies at the University of Birmingham, where she's co-project lead of the Global Philosophy of Religion Project 2. Marie-Hélène's work explores South Asian philosophy of religion and, most specifically, she is a world-leading expert on Jaina philosophy. In this episode, we'll trace how Jainism arose, how its sages taught that the self can escape the cycle of rebirth, and the purpose of the universe. And perhaps more importantly, we'll explore how Jainism can help us all live better lives for the sake of ourselves, and the world around us. This episode is produced in partnership with The Global Philosophy of Religion Project at University of Birmingham, funded by the John Templeton Foundation. Links Marie-Hélène Gorisse, University of Birmingham The Global Philosophy of Religion Project 2, Website

Most people believe in moral facts – that is, there's something about torturing and murdering innocent people that makes it wrong, which goes beyond just a feeling. Yet it's hard to locate morality anywhere in the natural world. For this reason, many have understood God to be the source and arbiter of moral truth. But can morality depend on divine decree – or would that make goodness a matter of celestial whim? In this episode, we'll be discussing the nature of moral obligation with Paul Taylor, doctoral candidate in philosophy at the University of Liverpool. There, as a university teacher, he specialises in ethics, political philosophy, and – our topic for today – philosophy of religion. As the recipient of the Robbins Rotblat Scholarship, Paul's research examines one of the oldest and most perplexing questions in moral philosophy – first posed by Plato over two thousand years ago: does God decide what is moral, or merely report moral facts? In search of the best answer, we've been diving into Paul's unpublished work – pieces that ask not just the big meta-ethical questions, but the practical ones: what are we obliged to do, and why are we obliged to do it. As we'll discover, Taylor's work – and contemporary discussion on the Euthyphro dilemma – pushes us to think again about where morality comes from and whether we, and even God, must answer to it.

Across the world, belief in God continues to be widespread and, among philosophers, has long been considered one solution to the problems of the world's origin, fine-tuned nature, and purpose. However, in the West, very few people have considered alternative concepts of God credible. That, though, may be beginning to change. One such alternative – pantheism – tells us that the universe and God are one and the same thing. It challenges conventional ideas about divine agency and the coherence of traditional theism, and invites us to reconsider what we mean when we speak of 'God'. To explore God's nature, in this special episode, I'll be joined by two guests: Tim Mawson and Asha Lancaster-Thomas. Dr Mawson is Edgar Jones Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at St Peter's College, University of Oxford. He has published five books and over fifty papers in the philosophy of religion. Dr Lancaster-Thomas is Teacher of Philosophy at Atlanta Classical Academy, USA, and has published widely on the philosophy of religion – most recently exploring alternative concepts of God, including the one we'll be debating today. Tim Mawson will be arguing in favour of traditional theism – the view that God and the world are not identical. Asha Lancaster-Thomas will be defending pantheism – the view that they are. What are the implications of identifying God with the universe? Can such a view still provide the kind of moral and metaphysical grounding traditionally associated with belief in a transcendent creator? Or – by dragging God down from the heaven's – do we diminish the divine and its explanatory power? This episode is generously supported by The John Templeton Foundation, through The Panpsychism and Pan(en)theism Project (62683). Links Asha Lancaster-Thomas (PhilPapers, website) Tim Mawson (Oxford University, website) The Panpsychism and Pan(en)theism Project (website)

In 2021, Netflix released His Dark Material, a Christmas stand-up special by Irish–British comedian Jimmy Carr. The show sparked international outrage. Toward the end of the set, Carr delivered what he called a 'career ender' – a joke about the Holocaust, in which he described the Nazis' murder of thousands of 'Gypsies' as a 'positive'. The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, the Auschwitz Memorial, and the UK government condemned the joke as 'appalling', 'abhorrent', and 'racist'; Carr, critics said, was trading on the 'last acceptable form of racism'. Comedy touches every part of our lives. We tell jokes at the pub, around the dinner table, and by the office coffee machine. We all know someone who makes us laugh – and someone who seems to take things too far. But is there a line when it comes to humour? And if there is, who gets to draw it? Should we suspend our moral judgements when the lights go down and the curtain goes up? Or do jokes, like most speech acts, carry moral weight? To answer these questions, we need to understand the nature of comedy itself – what exactly it is we're responding to when we laugh. Humour might be a release of nervous tension, a playful disruption of expectations, or – more troublingly, if it applies to Carr's joke – a means of asserting social superiority. No doubt, comedy has the power to shape our culture and perceptions. But, as we'll find out, it also tells us something about who we are, who we ought to be, and the things we value most. Links Abrahams, Daniel – Winning Over the Audience: Trust and Humor in Stand‐Up Comedy (paper) Anderson, Luvell – Roasting Ethics (paper) Bergson, Henri – Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic (book) Carroll, Noël – Ethics and Comic Amusement (paper) Carroll, Noël – Humour: A Very Short Introduction (book) Carroll, Noël – I'm Only Kidding: On Racist and Ethnic Jokes (paper) Carroll, Noël – Cruelty and Humour (paper) Critchley, Simon – On Humour (book) Deen, Phillip – What Could It Mean to Say That Today's Stand‐Up Audiences Are Too Sensitive? (paper) Gimbel, Steven (ed.) – The Philosophy of Comedy (book) Hick, Darren Hudson – Why Can't You Take a Joke? The Several Moral Dimensions of Pilfering a Ha‐Ha (paper) Morreall, John – Comic Relief: A Comprehensive Philosophy of Humor (book) Morreall, John – Philosophy of Laughter and Humor (book) Morreall, John – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Philosophy of Humor (article) Smuts, Aaron – Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Comedy (article)

In 2021, Netflix released His Dark Material, a Christmas stand-up special by Irish–British comedian Jimmy Carr. The show sparked international outrage. Toward the end of the set, Carr delivered what he called a 'career ender' – a joke about the Holocaust, in which he described the Nazis' murder of thousands of 'Gypsies' as a 'positive'. The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, the Auschwitz Memorial, and the UK government condemned the joke as 'appalling', 'abhorrent', and 'racist'; Carr, critics said, was trading on the 'last acceptable form of racism'. Comedy touches every part of our lives. We tell jokes at the pub, around the dinner table, and by the office coffee machine. We all know someone who makes us laugh – and someone who seems to take things too far. But is there a line when it comes to humour? And if there is, who gets to draw it? Should we suspend our moral judgements when the lights go down and the curtain goes up? Or do jokes, like most speech acts, carry moral weight? To answer these questions, we need to understand the nature of comedy itself – what exactly it is we're responding to when we laugh. Humour might be a release of nervous tension, a playful disruption of expectations, or – more troublingly, if it applies to Carr's joke – a means of asserting social superiority. No doubt, comedy has the power to shape our culture and perceptions. But, as we'll find out, it also tells us something about who we are, who we ought to be, and the things we value most. Links Abrahams, Daniel – Winning Over the Audience: Trust and Humor in Stand‐Up Comedy (paper) Anderson, Luvell – Roasting Ethics (paper) Bergson, Henri – Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic (book) Carroll, Noël – Ethics and Comic Amusement (paper) Carroll, Noël – Humour: A Very Short Introduction (book) Carroll, Noël – I'm Only Kidding: On Racist and Ethnic Jokes (paper) Carroll, Noël – Cruelty and Humour (paper) Critchley, Simon – On Humour (book) Deen, Phillip – What Could It Mean to Say That Today's Stand‐Up Audiences Are Too Sensitive? (paper) Gimbel, Steven (ed.) – The Philosophy of Comedy (book) Hick, Darren Hudson – Why Can't You Take a Joke? The Several Moral Dimensions of Pilfering a Ha‐Ha (paper) Morreall, John – Comic Relief: A Comprehensive Philosophy of Humor (book) Morreall, John – Philosophy of Laughter and Humor (book) Morreall, John – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Philosophy of Humor (article) Smuts, Aaron – Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Comedy (article)

'"Hello – it's Olly here! For Episode 145, we have another very special show for you: the recording from our live event – The Mystery of Morality – held on 12 June 2025 at London's Royal Institution Theatre. The event was a conversation between four of our previous guests: Richard Swinburne, Jessica Frazier, Alex O'Connor and Peter Singer. The question at the heart of the discussion: where does morality come from, and who (or what) counts morally? It's a brilliant discussion filled with humorous moments, but also some very serious moments and topics, such as same-sex relationships and animal rights. I think it's one of our best shows yet. Thank you to everyone who came along to make it such a special evening. The first part of this podcast is their free-flowing conversation; the second is a Q&A with the audience. Without further ado, I'll pass you over to Jack, live from The Royal Institution Theatre – we hope you enjoy the show." Links Richard Swinburne, Website Jessica Frazier, Website Alex O'Connor, Website Peter Singer, Website