Did you really want to eat that last piece of cake, or were you secretly thinking about your mother? Sigmund Freud, who might have suggested the latter, established the unconscious mind as a legitimate domain for scientific research. He was the first to seriously study dreams and slips of the tongue, and he proposed that neurotic behavior could be explained by beliefs and desires that we repress. However, many of Freud’s theories have been rejected as unscientific, and his particular brand of psychoanalysis is all but obsolete. So why is Freud still worth remembering? John and Ken get Oedipal with Stanford historian Paul Robinson, author of "Freud and His Critics."

http://philosophytalk.org/shows/legacy-freud

Sunday 10 am / Tuesday 12 pm on KALW 91.7 FM in San Francisco. Worldwide at www.philosophytalk.org.

The Legacy of Freud (outtake)

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/whats-next-death-and-afterlife.

The question of what happens to us after we die remains as mysterious now as it always was. Some think that death amounts to total annihilation of the self; others adhere to certain religious traditions, which teach that the immaterial soul (and, in some traditions, the resurrected body) can ultimately survive death. So how are we to judge between these radically different views of what happens to us in death? What would it mean for the self to persist beyond the destruction of the body? Is there room in a scientific account of the mind for the existence of an immaterial soul? John and Ken see the light with Richard Swinburne from the University of Oxford, author of "Mind, Brain, and Free Will."

What's Next? Death and the Afterlife

More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/driverless-cars-moral-crossroads.

Autonomous vehicles are quickly emerging as the next innovation that will change society in radical ways. Champions of this new technology say that driverless cars, which are programed to obey the law and avoid collisions, will be safer than human controlled vehicles. But how do we program these vehicles to act ethically? Should we trust computer programmers to determine the most ethical response to all possible scenarios the vehicle might encounter? And who should be held responsible for the bad − potentially lethal − decisions these cars make? Our hosts take the wheel with Harvard psychologist Joshua Greene, author of "Our Driverless Dilemma: When Should Your Car be Willing to Kill You?"

Recorded live at Cubberley Auditorium on the Stanford campus with support from the Symbolic Systems Program and the McCoy Center for Ethics in Society.

Driverless Cars at the Moral Crossroads

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/will-innovation-kill-us

Innovation, be it social, economic, or technological, is often hailed as the panacea for all our troubles. Our obsession with innovation leads us to constantly want new things and to want them now. But past innovations are arguably the main reason for many of our current predicaments, which in turn creates a further need to innovate to solve those problems. So is innovation – and our obsession with it – ultimately a force for good or ill? Is our constant need to innovate a function of our biology, or just a product of various cultural forces? Can we ever escape the innovation loop? Should we try before it kills us? John and Ken find new ways to talk to Christian Seelos, author of "Innovation and Scaling for Impact: How Effective Social Enterprises Do It."

Will Innovation Kill Us?

Instrumental Piano Cover, Att älska är större by Lisa Ekdahl.

Att älska är större (Lisa Ekdahl) - 2019 - 04 - 03 11.22

More at www.philosophytalk.org/shows/hobbes-and-ideal-citizen.

Seventeenth century philosopher Thomas Hobbes believed that without government to control our worst impulses, life would be 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.' Consequently, he thought that absolute monarchy is the best form of government. So is Hobbes’ ideal citizen simply someone who is willing to submit to absolute authority, or are there other features the ideal citizen must have? What flaws would make a subject bad, or worse, a threat to peace in the realm? And are there any lessons modern democracies can learn from Hobbes’ political philosophy? The Philosophers submit to Stanford political scientist Alison McQueen, author of "Political Realism in Apocalyptic Times."

Hobbes and the Ideal Citizen

"The program that questions everything -- except your intelligence."

Philosophy on the radio? You've got to be kidding? Well, sometimes we do (kid, that is). Mostly we look at today's important ideas with an eye to thinking them through.

Philosophy Talk is a weekly, one-hour radio series. The hosts' down-to-earth and no-nonsense approach brings the richness of philosophic thought to everyday subjects. Topics are lofty (Truth, Beauty, Justice), arresting (Terrorism, Intelligent Design, Suicide), and engaging (Baseball, Love, Happiness).

This is not a lecture or a college course; it's philosophy in action!

Philosophy Talk is a fun opportunity to explore issues of importance to your audience in a thoughtful, friendly fashion, where thinking is encouraged.