As a non-believer, Devin Moss never thought he would become a chaplain or a spiritual adviser, much less one who counsels hospital patients with terminal ...

Journalist Rhaina Cohen believes that modern culture undervalues friendships and discusses the ways in which deep friendships are distinct from but no less ...

Stephen Markley’s novel, “The Deluge,” is an ambitious and terrifyingly realistic look at our collective future on a warming planet. He joins Sean to talk ...

It’s been 50 years since Ernest Becker’s breakthrough book The Denial of Death was first published, and its thesis has become more relevant than ever. ...

Silicon Valley is in the middle of an AI frenzy, and many of its leaders believe this technology could eventually result in human extinction. Tyler Austin ...

America solidified its dominant posture in the international order following World War II and largely held that position for the following half-century. But as ...

Sean Illing talks with economic historian Brad DeLong about his new book Slouching Towards Utopia. In it, DeLong claims that the “long twentieth ...

Musician Laraaji joins Sean to talk about improvisation as meditation, the transcendent nature of laughter, and lessons from a long life in sound and spirit.  ...

Political philosopher Ingrid Robeyns believes that there should be a maximum amount of money and resources that one person can have. She tells Sean how much is ...

For much of her life, author Maggie Jackson disliked uncertainty and thought of it as something to eradicate as quickly as possible. But when she began to ...

Americans have absorbed the “Protestant work ethic” — the idea that our value as human beings is determined by how hard we work and how much money we make. ...

If you’ve felt that learning new information or developing a new skill seems harder as you get older, you are not wrong. Neuroscientist Gul Dolen has studied ...

When we find ourselves in a dark place, what if we didn’t “lighten things up”? Sean Illing talks with philosopher Mariana Alessandri, whose ...

Jon Kabat-Zinn helped kick off the American mindfulness movement with his bestselling book Wherever You Go, There You Are. On its 30th anniversary, he joins ...

Most people think anarchists want to live in a lawless society devoid of any structure or order. But anarchism is actually a serious political philosophy ...

Constance Grady, a culture writer at Vox, is joined by Emily Wilson to discuss her bestselling translations of The Iliad and The Odyssey. They unpack the buzz ...

Sean Illing is joined by John Gray, political philosopher and author of the new book, The New Leviathans: Thoughts After Liberalism. They discuss Thomas Hobbes ...

Sean Illing speaks with Robert Sapolsky, a professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University and the author of a new book called Determined: A Science ...

Zack Beauchamp, a Vox senior correspondent who writes about democracy and Israel, speaks with Shadi Hamid, a columnist at The Washington Post, research ...

Sean Illing is joined by Matt Gutman, the chief national correspondent for ABC News, to talk about his new book, No Time to Panic: How I Curbed My Anxiety and ...