Philosophy Bites Again

by David Edmonds, Nigel Warburton

Overview

Philosophy Bites Again is a brand new selection of interviews from the popular podcast of the same name. It offers engaging and thought-provoking conversations with leading philosophers on a selection of major philosophical issues that affect our lives. Their subjects include pleasure, pain, and humour; consciousness and the self; free will, responsibility, and punishment; the meaning of life and the afterlife. Everyone will find ideas in this book to fascinate, provoke, and inspire them. Philosophy Bites was set up in 2007 by David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton. It has, to date, over 20 million downloads, and is listened to all over the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780191007255
Publisher:	OUP Oxford
Publication date:	10/30/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	914,017
File size:	548 KB

About the Author

David Edmonds is an award-winning documentary maker for the BBC World Service. He is the author or co-author (with John Eidinow) of several books, including Wittgenstein's Poker (short-listed for the Guardian First Book Award), Bobby Fischer Goes To War (long-listed for the Samuel Johnson prize), and Rousseau's Dog (about the relationship between Jean-Jacques Rousseau and David Hume). He is currently a Research Associate at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at Oxford University and an Associate Editor for Prospect Magazine. Nigel Warburton is a freelance philosopher, podcaster, and writer. His books include A Little History of Philosophy, Philosophy: the Basics, Thinking from A to Z, Philosophy: the Classics, The Art Question, and Free Speech: A Very Short Introduction. He runs several weblogs including virtualphilosopher.com and artandallusion.com, and tweets regularly at @philosophybites.

Table of Contents

The most impressive philosopher I've met..., David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton
Joy and Pain
1. Thomas Hurka on Pleasure
2. Michael Tye on Pain
3. Noel Carroll on Humour
Morality
4. Jeff McMahan on Moral Status
5. John Mikhail on Universal Moral Grammar
6. Raimond Gaita on Torture
7. Gary Francione on Animal Abolitionism
Mind, Self, and Imagination
8. Ned Block on Consciousness
9. Pat Churchland on Eliminative Materialism
10. Frank Jackson on What Mary Knew
11. Galen Strawson on the Sense of Self
12. Alison Gopnik on the Imagination
Free Will, Responsibility, and Punishment
13. Daniel Dennett on Free Will Worth Wanting
14. Fiery Cushman on Moral Luck
15. Nicola Lacey on Criminal Responsibility
16. Victor Tadros on Punishment
17. Philip Pettit on Group Agency
Politics
18. Susan Mendus on Toleration
19. Hillel Steiner on Exploitation
20. Rae Langton on Hate Speech
21. Nancy Fraser on Recognition
22. Tony Coady on Dirty Hands
Metaphysics, Meaning, and Reason
23. Kit Fine on What is Metaphysics?
24. Dan Sperber on the Enigma of Reason
25. Stephen Neale on Meaning and Interpretation
26. Susan Wolf on Meaning in Life
27. Samuel Scheffler on the Afterlife

Editorial Reviews

09/29/2014
This third collection of conversations from Edmonds and Warburton’s popular “Philosophy Bites” podcast is a testament to the vivacity and draw of contemporary philosophy. The book is composed of 27 lively, thematic interviews with contemporary scholars from around the globe, providing an entry point for those interested in the philosophical implications of such eclectic issues as pain, free will, punishment, and a meaningful life. Each brief conversation pithily summarizes its respective thinkers’ positions, relieving readers of the onerous and daunting task of reading titanic and abstruse tomes. Yet this virtue comes with an implicit drawback. We get the rough synopsis of 500 pages of thought rendering philosophy accessible, entertaining, and easily ingested, but perhaps something essential is lost by avoiding the more unwieldy intricacies of an extensive argument. Still, this book provides the insight and the terms used by today’s living philosophers to treat issues that are pertinent to every individual, including such questions as “How do we determine who qualifies as a human being?” or “Is torture ever just?” Through deep exploration of these issues, philosophy becomes less esoteric and more closely tied to analyzing the unexamined premises that imbue our everyday life, ideas, and decisions with meaning. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly