Synesthesia! A weird thing experienced only by unusual people, or by ordinary people on unusual drugs, or – is it something everybody has all the time? Are very low musical notes literally “dark”? Can food sound like something, like hot peppers going “ping” on your tongue? Why does it make sense to call a fork a “zrickrick” and a pillow a “baobwab”? Or does it? In 1688 William Molyneux asked John Locke whether a blind person who regained her vision would be able to distinguish a square from a circle by sight. Locke said no. Leibniz said yes. Who was right? This week Eric and Taylor puzzle over Molyneux’s question and a variety of other related and unrelated matters to do with musical temperament, linear perspective, and octopuses. 

Is revenge a dish best served cold, hot, or not at all? Should we all go on a revenge diet, or is it just too tasty? Could hitting back be so much fun that we can’t give it up? Or is the best revenge the serene feeling of being above revenge? Even if we know that vengeance inevitably leads to an endless cycle of vengeance, is it possible to get off the not-so-merry-go-round? How did Athena help the Furies become the Kindly Ones? Join Taylor and Eric as they confront the terrifying fact that human beings seem to be addicted to revenge. 

Things happen. Sometimes you find a ten dollar bill. Sometimes a bird craps on your head. Are these events just the meaningless result of previous events or is there a hidden purpose behind everything? Does God’s plan underlie the chaos of experience? Is the idea that something was “meant to be” (or not meant to be) comforting or crippling? And is the idea that everything is possible liberating or paralyzing? This week Helen De Cruz makes a record-breaking second appearance on the podcast to help Taylor and Eric think through the idea that we might be better off not believing in providence. 

This week Taylor is grading mountains (mountains, I tell you) of student essays. We are proud therefore to offer you a “command performance” (rerun) of this terrifying yet edifying episode on the perennial problem of free will. Is it an illusion? Are we puppets? When we think we are thinking (or acting) freely, are we actually just cogs in a heartless, meaningless, deterministic cosmic machine? Listen and find out.

This week Taylor and Eric are joined by philosopher Kieran Setiya, author of Life Is Hard, which they agree it is. It’s especially hard if you think you’re doomed to failure. Are you? Not necessarily. But if you don’t worry about success and failure, are you just going to be swimming in a soup of nothing matters and who cares? Tune in and find out how and why we judge life projects, careers – and people themselves – as successes or failures. Should we be making these judgments? Would our lives be better if we didn’t? 

Is everything we do a kind of performance? Are we always reading from a script? And what makes bad acting bad? Do psychopaths make good actors? Do politicians make good psychopaths? And why do presidential candidates emphasize what they’re saying by pointing with their thumbs? Film and television actor Kevin Sussman joins Taylor and Eric to talk through these disturbing mysteries. 

Were poststructuralist, postmodern, postrespectable French philosophers like Michel Foucault the real masterminds behind identity politics, critical race theory, cultural appropriation, and pumpkin spice latte? Will civilization survive the rampant, unchecked questioning of grand narratives? Join Taylor and Eric as they unravel this bundle of phone cords and contemplate equality, freedom, civility and mutual respect, Foucault’s historical counternarratives, pronouns, green hair, nose rings, and the myth of trigger warnings. 

In this – repeat command performance (okay, rerun) – episode, Eric and Taylor grapple with the problem of moral luck. Are we in control of being decent human beings and doing the right thing or are we at the mercy of circumstance and maybe even of our own character? Listen, feel unsettled, then feel okay.

Can human beings change radically? And if they can, is that a good thing? What if we changed so much that we became strangers to each other? But if we couldn’t change at all, wouldn’t that mean we’re condemned to stagnation and despair? And hey, wouldn’t it be cool if we could sprout wings and fly? This week philosophers Melissa Shew (Marquette) and Kimberly Garchar (Kent State) help Taylor and Eric think about the possibility and desirability of radical human transformation. 

Being “judgmental” sounds like something bad, yet refraining from all moral judgment seems pathetic, and also impossible. So, what should we do? Can we be truly compassionate without also being capable of anger, resentment, and maybe some occasional Schadenfreude? This week Eric and Taylor are joined by actor, writer, and television producer Andy Richter, who will help them sort out when it’s okay and when it’s not okay to be, as Jesus of Nazareth said, “judgy.” 

Is there any pain as great as recalling past happiness from present misery? If so, why do we do it? Do we get pleasure from tormenting ourselves about losing something (or someone) we loved? Was Socrates right that living well means learning how to die? Does being comforted too quickly mean we never really cared? And if so, how quick is too quick? Join Eric, Taylor, Dante, Dostoevsky, and William Blake for an unsettling yet strangely consoling meditation on the paradox of grief. 

In this episode – returning here in a special command performance (rerun) – Eric and Taylor worry about whether ChatGPT might be a harbinger of total computer domination of the world and the looming obsolescence and expendability of human beings. Is that possible? Tune in and find out what it is about artificial intelligence that should really frighten you.

Does belief in God lead to intolerance and violence? Is monotheism about the number of gods or is it, as Egyptologist Jan Assmann suggests, about “having no other gods” and stamping out idol worship and superstition? Are secular atheists really just monotheists fighting a holy war against religion? Does monotheism contribute anything good to psychology or politics, and if so, is it worth the price? Join Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Moses, and the pharaoh Akhenaten for a discussion of whether we should be zealous for a jealous God or have an open relationship with the divinities.

Traditional religion has a been pretty rough ride. Some have felt saved by it. For others, it has been destructive and traumatizing. If you were going to build a new kind of spirituality from scratch, what would the ingredients be and how would you bake it? Sex worker, organizer, and memoirist Liara Roux joins us this week to talk about why Jesus was cool but evangelical rock music in restaurants, not so much. Also, how and why do images often communicate more deeply and powerfully than words? 

What does it mean to be deep? Is profundity something good or is it pretentious and boring? Are there different kinds of deepness? Is shallowness itself a kind of depth? Is it only shallow people who try to sound deep? Are profound utterances dark oceans or plastic mirrors? Join Eric and Taylor on this, their first video episode as they plum the depths of shallowness and skate the surface of the abyss. 

What are monsters? Do they lurk among us? Are some of us monsters? How would we know? What’s really frightening about monsters – that they’re inhuman or that they’re all too human? If a shark could speak, would you climb into its tank to talk to it? And what exactly is so creepy about the dad in The Shining? Tune in and get the lowdown about monsters, monstrosity, and human monstrousness. 

Actor, comedian, writer, producer, and musician Fred Armisen joins Eric and Taylor this week to ponder the twin mysteries of morality and moral motivation. Do we do good only out of a fear of blame and punishment? Would most people do wrong, if they knew no one was looking? Tune in and learn what Plato said Gyges did with the invisibility ring he found in a ditch. Also find out what Fred thinks Stone Age comedy probably looked like. 

This week Eric and Taylor are joined by journalist and adult industry activist Laura Desirée as they wonder whether desire inevitably leads to suffering. Or maybe desiring just is suffering. Is desire therefore bad? Maybe some kinds of suffering are good because they keep us from becoming numb to pains and pleasures of all kinds. Join us and confront the terror. 

This week Eric and Taylor are joined by Michael Thaddeus, professor of mathematics at Columbia University, as they ponder the worrisome thought that technological progress might threaten something essential and/or precious about human existence. Are we sacrificing quality for efficiency? Are distraction and shallowness replacing focus and depth of thought and feeling? And why do phones sound so much worse now than they did in the 1970s?

Is lying unavoidable? Should you always tell the truth, no matter what? Even if an axe murderer asks you where your sister is hiding? What if a flounder asks you, “Does this place on the sea floor make me look flat?” This week Eric and Taylor are joined by TV writer and executive producer Tara Hernandez, creator of Mrs. Davis. Together they discuss honesty and deception in life, the universe, and Hollywood.

Can we try to become cool, or is trying to be cool by definition like totally uncool man? Is it like keeping yourself up trying to fall asleep? Maybe it’s impossible, like trying to look at the edge of your visual field. If you make a deliberate effort to be happy, or to be a loving person, are you doomed to fail? Join Eric and Taylor as they (try to) confront these unsettling questions head on. 

Am I a self? Am I myself? Am I yourself? And if there is no such thing as the self, do I not exist? The Buddha and David Hume thought so – were they right? Join Taylor and Eric as they explore the conceptual labyrinth that is ourselves.

Are we prisoners of the past or is radical revolution possible? Revolutionaries say we can get out. Conservatives say we shouldn’t even want to. But maybe both sides get it wrong! Do we need a past to have a future? Join Taylor, Eric, and special guest Professor Bryan Van Norden, an expert in traditional Chinese philosophy, as we take a hard look at tradition. What is it? And what, if anything, is it good for?

Philosopher Helen De Cruz joins Eric and Taylor this week to discuss the unsettling possibility that insight and understanding might not actually make us happier or more at peace with our existence. Maybe they just bum us out. Tune in and hear what the heretical Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza had to say about this three and a half centuries ago. 

Are we our bodies? Do we also have souls? Do we have minds? Do haircuts diminish our true selves? Can our selves be hit by a bus or uploaded onto The Cloud? The French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s body couldn’t be with us for this episode, but he joins us in spirit to tell us why we only meet people in the flesh.

This week Eric and Taylor talk with Cristen Conger, host of the podcast Unladylike, about whether we might all be better off without masculinity, or maybe femininity, or maybe gender altogether. Would this be possible? Would it be a step forward? Tune in and find out. 

In this week’s episode, Taylor and Eric chat with Pete Mandik, who teaches philosophy and psychology at William Paterson University, about whether spiritual enlightenment is a thing – and if it is a thing, whether it’s a good thing. Are you worried or upset by this question? Don’t be. Just tune in and listen.

In this week’s episode, Eric and Taylor wonder whether truly meaningful conversation with another person is possible, or if everything is just a matter of objective fact or subjective opinion, so that there’s nothing really to talk about. Tune in and find out what the German philosopher Immanuel Kant had to say about this.

This week Eric and Taylor wonder if we might be living in a simulation. Are we brains in a vat? Are we dreaming? Could all of our beliefs be false? Take a deep breath, tune in, and find out.

This week Eric and Taylor wonder whether it’s dumb to fall in love. Or maybe only a fool would refuse to fall in love. Can cool reason triumph over blind passion? How is love different from lust -- if it is? Tune in and find out.

Eric Kaplan, a comedy writer (Futurama, Big Bang Theory) and doctor of philosophy, and Taylor Carman (Barnard College, Columbia University), a distinguished but humble authority on matters of existence and existentialism, host a philosophy podcast that addresses the most unsettling questions concerning human life and the nature of things and finds a path to courage using comedy, imagination, and far-ranging intellectual philosophical investigation. Along the way they grapple with the deep uncanniness of being.

In this episode, Eric and Taylor worry about whether ChatGPT might be a harbinger of total computer domination of the world and the looming obsolescence and expendability of human beings. Is that possible? Tune in and find out what it is about artificial intelligence that should really frighten you.