The case for banning…millionaires?
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 too much and why limiting personal wealth benefits…
The joy of uncertainty
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 explore the uncertain mind, she discovered new scientific findings showing…
A pro-worker work ethic
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. Elizabeth Anderson explains how this evolved,…
How psychedelics can reinvent learning
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 brain capability and joins us to talk about…
Seeing ourselves through the darkness
When we find ourselves in a dark place, what if we didn’t “lighten things up”? Sean Illing talks with philosopher Mariana Alessandri, whose new book Night Vision offers a new way of understanding our dark…
Living Mindfully
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 Sean for a wide-ranging conversation about what it means to…
Taking anarchism seriously
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 that’s more focused on egalitarianism than it is on chaos.…
3,000 years of The Iliad
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 surrounding them and the significance of The Iliad…
Late-stage liberalism
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 and the origins of liberalism, the current state of democracy,…
The case against free will
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 of Life Without Free Will. They discuss the concept…