The HBS hosts consider the possibility of sentient artificial intelligence with Dr. Regina Rini. The debate about the possibility of emergent AI sentience has staunch defenders both for an against, many more people shrugging their shoulders in the middle, with many, diverse, and non-interchangeable lexicons being used to discuss this phenomenon. Today, we’re going to try to untangle those discursive webs a little bit with Dr. Rini, not so much to settle the question “Is AI sentience possible?” b...
Sep 30, 2022•58 min•Season 5Ep. 73
The HBS hosts discuss legal personhood and rights for rivers, lakes, and mountains with Dr. Stewart Motha. In most discussions about extending rights or legal personhood to non-humans, the focus tends to be on robots/machines or non-human animals. However, given our current global climate crisis, we have good reason to ask: isn't it time to devote more attention to the rights-- and perhaps legal and moral "personhood"-- of natural entities? What sorts of protections might be extended by the law ...
Sep 23, 2022•1 hr•Season 5Ep. 72
The HBS hosts chat with A.O. Scott about the role and responsibilities of the critic. The critic is frequently seen as a parasite who lives of the creative life of others but not producing a work of art through their criticism. In this episode, we are honored to be joined by A.O. Scott to discuss the role of the critic, the creativity of criticism, and the mutual dependence of art and criticism. A.O. Scott is chief film critic (along with Manohla Dargis) for The New York Times. He also write for...
Sep 16, 2022•55 min•Season 5Ep. 71
The HBS hosts ask Dr. Linda Alcoff just how close to the edge of the bed is the United States sleeping? A year and a half ago, as an angry, armed mob stormed the U.S. Capitol building in what was, thankfully, an unsuccessful insurrection attempt, many of us watching the event unfold on television asked ourselves: is democracy itself in peril? This is, of course, a question we should have been asking for many years prior to Jan 6, 2021. And it is a question we should still be asking. At the feder...
Sep 09, 2022•57 min•Season 5Ep. 70
The HBS hosts wonder whether the call is coming from inside the house. Fear is a one of the most complex of human affects. It is both physical and psychological. It can be intensely private or shared by entire communities. It is sometimes paralyzing and other times exciting. Fear often seizes us without warning, but we can also "think ourselves into" being afraid. What, if anything, distinguishes fear from dread or anxiety? How are fears managed or overcome? Why do so many people share similar p...
Sep 02, 2022•56 min•Season 5Ep. 69
The HBS hosts chat with Caleb Cain about his experience being radicalized by the Alt-Right internet. In June 2019, the New York Times featured a story about Caleb Cain, entitled " The Making of a YouTube Radical .” That piece was meant to highlight the subtle, severe, and devastating IRL effects of YouTube’s recommendation algorithm, which has been proven many times over to promote what (in internet slang) is called “red-pilling”—that is, the conversion of users to far-right beliefs. Today, we’r...
Aug 26, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Season 5Ep. 68
The HBS hosts talk with Dr. Joel Michael Reynolds about what bodies are afforded and denied. As we come to recognize more and more the occlusions that occur in, and often constitute, philosophy and its history, attention to an ableist presupposition in philosophy has come to the fore. Much as with feminist theory or queer theory or race theory, disability theory not only works to expose the ableist presuppositions of philosophy but also to alter philosophy for the better by the inclusion of the ...
Aug 19, 2022•53 min•Season 5Ep. 67
The HBS hosts sit down with Dr. Kate Devlin to talk about social relationships between humans and machines. When most people think about our future with robots, they tend to ask the following three questions: (1) Will robots take my job?. (2) Will they kill us?, and (3) Can I have sex with them? This week, the HBS hosts are joined by Dr. Kate Devlin , Senior Lecturer in Social and Cultural Artificial Intelligence in the Department of Digital Humanities at King's College London and the author of ...
Aug 12, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Season 5Ep. 66
The HBS hosts ask Dr. Charles Hughes for water, and he gives them gasoline. According to co-host Charles Peterson, the blues is "as American as apple pie and as Black as the Funky Chicken." The blues is a genre of music, to be sure, but it's also an emotion, perhaps even an existential bearing. What makes blues music distinctive? What does it mean to have "the blues"? Can everyone have or play the blues? Should everyone? In this episode, the HBS co-hosts discuss these questions (and more!) with ...
Aug 05, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Season 5Ep. 65
The HBS hosts try to go viral with Andrew Baron, creator of KnowYourMeme. Memes: if you get them, you get them... and if you don't, you don't. But how is a meme created? How does it spread? And how does it die? In this episode, we dig into the complex dynamics of memes-- on Dawkins' account, the most rudimentary units of social information-- to see how they do (and don't) imitate so-called "natural" processes in their generation, mutation, adaptation, and replication. With our special guest, And...
Jul 29, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Season 5Ep. 64
The HBS hosts investigate the limits of Reason alone and, more importantly, in real human history. Many, rightly, understand the discipline of Philosophy as primarily defined by its commitment to Reason. But, what is “Reason”? Is it universal? Is it some kind of fundamental human capacity that transcends class, culture, politics, religion, or any other iteration of human difference? What do we make of the fact that, since the 17th C., inheritors of “European Enlightenment” thinkers unilaterally ...
Jul 22, 2022•55 min•Season 5Ep. 63
The HBS hosts attempt to measure the real stakes of cheating. According to a recent study , almost 60% of college/university students in the United States admit to having cheated at least once during their studies. Around 15% of U.S. students admit to plagiarizing intentionally and, of those, less than 1 in 5 is caught or punished for academic dishonesty. Professors regularly report that cheating and plagiarism is on the rise; many blame remote learning for what feels like a "plagiarism pandemic...
Jul 15, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Season 5Ep. 62
The HBS hosts sit down with Dr. Eddie Glaude, Jr. to talk about what constitutes a "public intellectual." Dr. Eddie Glaude, Jr . is the James S. McDonnel Distinguished University Professor and Chair of the Department of African-American Studies at Princeton University, and one of America's leading public intellectuals. He is also on the Morehouse College Board of Trustees . He frequently appears in the media, as a columnist for TIME Magazine and as an MSNBC contributor on programs like Morning J...
Jul 08, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Season 5Ep. 61
The HBS hosts try to get to the truth of untruths. Mark Twain famously claimed that there are three kinds of untruth: lies, damned lies, and statistics. In an age of widespread misinformation, where it has become considerably more difficult to distinguish between truths and lies, the HBS hosts make an impassioned plea for us to think seriously about what a lie is, what it is not, and why it matters. We consider the whole menagerie of falsehoods: from trifling fibs ("you look great in those pants...
Jun 17, 2022•57 min•Season 4Ep. 60
The HBS hosts chat with Dr. Ladelle McWhorter about the evolution of "queer" as an identity category and a verb. Once only used as a slur with unambiguously negative valences, the noun "queer" has been reappropriated by (many) members of the LGBTQIA+ community as referring to a positive, even celebrated, notion of self-identity.... but the history of the term "queer" is complicated. In this episode, we talk with Dr. Ladelle McWhorter (University of Richmond) about that complicated history, inclu...
Jun 10, 2022•57 min•Season 4Ep. 59
The HBS hosts discuss the where, when, and how of utopic imagination. On the one hand, utopia as an ideal place, space, political arrangement, or future has been criticized because it delays action to some, perhaps impossible, future. On the other hand, something like utopia just might be necessary for political struggles. We begin with Cruising Utopia by José Esteban Muñoz and move on to discuss the importance, problems, and possibilities of utopia. Full episode notes at this link: http://hotel...
Jun 03, 2022•58 min•Season 4Ep. 58
The HBS hosts sit down with Justin Weinberg of the Daily Nous to talk about philosophers on the internet. While everyone is on the internet, many philosophers (some of whom may be on this podcast!) seem resistant to blogging, social media, and other forms of web presence. In this episode, we look at philosophers on the internet. What benefits does the internet bring to philosophy and/or philosophers? Is the internet our new “town square?” If so, should philosophy be brought to the town square? A...
May 27, 2022•56 min•Season 4Ep. 57
The HBS hosts chat with actor, dancer, and choreographer Blake Zolfo about what makes musical theater so unique. What could possibly make musical theater important or relevant to three philosophers? We all love musicals! The affective appeal of musical theater is clear, even though there are those (philistines?) who do not find it enjoyable. Although Hegel, in his Lectures on the Philosophy of Fine Art claims that opera puts text in the service of music, he also recognizes that the libretto of o...
May 20, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Season 4Ep. 56
The HBS hosts wrestle with Fukuyama's "Why National Identity Is Matters." In this episode, we will focus on questions of national identity. In the U.S., the contemporary political moment is riven with competing ideas of what the United States is or are. These ideas are based in various ways of knowing including ideological, political, racial, and generational. Using Francis Fukuyama’s essay “Why National Identity Matters” we will explore fundamental questions regarding the origins of national id...
May 13, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Season 4Ep. 55
The HBS hosts discuss the pervasiveness and perversity of algorithms in our lives. Algorithms measure, and increasingly influence/determine, our behaviors. Yet, most people don’t know or understand what an algorithm is! Algorithms are essential to the logic of late capitalism and people need to understand them in order to work toward more ethical AI. Full episode notes at this link: http://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-54-algorithms/ Support Hotel Bar Sessions on Patreon here: patreon.com/...
May 06, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Season 4Ep. 54
The HBS hosts get to the bottom of what is real, what exists, and what is virtual. In this episode, we take head on the question of whether an analysis, understanding, and assumption of reality, in other words, metaphysics, is a crucial task for philosophy. We argue about whether metaphysics should come before social and political theory, political engagement, and ethics. We come clean about our own positions on what is real. In short, we get real with reality. Full episode notes at this link : ...
Apr 29, 2022•56 min•Season 4Ep. 53
The HBS hosts talk about the striving to live forever in physical, psychical, and social dimensions. Immortality seems to be a spoken and unspoken obsession within contemporary culture, whether through the obsession with maintaining youthful looks through diet, exercise or, medical procedure or the hope for a future where people can live on as memories or even as digital intelligences. We talk about the underlying motivations for this hope, what it may say about the underlying dynamics of our cu...
Apr 22, 2022•54 min•Season 4Ep. 52
The HBS hosts unpack Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals , Section 13, to uncover how we arrived at morality and moral subjectivity. There are conditions that seem to be necessary in order for our whole moral outlook and values, conditions that are not found in nature. What must be the case in order for one to be said to be morally responsible? In this episode, we take Section 13 of Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals as our guide to uncover the conditions of moral subjectivity. Full episode notes avail...
Apr 15, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Season 4Ep. 51
The HBS hosts look under the hood, inspect the engine, and try to figure out what drives us. Perhaps more than any other affect, desire is put to work in so many areas of philosophy. For Plato, it is the beginning of knowledge (or the soul’s search for truth), for Augustine, it is what marks post-lapsarian humanity–“Our hears are restless until they rest in you.” For Hobbes, it is one of the root affects and, perhaps, the root of the war of all against all. More recently, desire has become a foc...
Apr 08, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Season 4Ep. 50
The HBS hosts discuss the role of memory in the constitution of human intelligence, subjectivity and culture/civilization. As we age, we often lose the ability to retain our past experiences. In doing so, we seem to lose a part (or even all) of our selves. What is the role of memory in the constitution of human intelligence, subjectivity and culture/civilization? In this episode, the HBS hosts discuss memory and its relation to personal identity and social identity. This means that we also confr...
Apr 01, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Season 4Ep. 49
The HBS hosts take the red pill. Are we "living" in a computer simulation? What difference would that make? Why would it ever occur to anyone that we are in a simulation? In this episode, the HBS hosts discuss the hypothesis that we are just playing out another being's computer simulation. Full episode notes at this link: http://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-48-the-simulation-hypothesis Support HOTEL BAR SESSIONS podcast at Patreon here: patron.com/hotelbarsessions ★ Support this podcast o...
Mar 25, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Season 4Ep. 48
The HBS hosts talk about style. Style can simply mean a way of doing something, like dressing, decorating, writing, singing, painting. Often, it seems as if style is an “add on,” something not essential, and often seems closely akin to fakery (we can say someone is “all style, no substance”). But is there something more significant about style? Full episode notes at this link : http://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-47-style Support HOTEL BAR SESSIONS podcast at Patreon . As we often say, we...
Mar 18, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Season 4Ep. 47
The HBS hosts go where people know troubles are all the same. In this episode, the HBS hosts discuss Bars—as a social, cultural and communal space, bars as a space removed from the regular function of society, yet at the center of essential social discussions. Why are we “Hotel bar sessions?” Let’s talk about the role the bar plays at conferences and why we say “this is where the real philosophy happens?” What does that say about the bar. Full episode notes at this link : http://hotelbarpodcast....
Mar 10, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Season 4Ep. 46
The HBS hosts take turns in the "hot seat" as they fire questions at one another. Can we be honest? Each week the HBS hosts say that one of us is in the "hot seat." But they never get "grilled." This last episode of Season 3, we grill one another through a series of questions. Some are rapid fire with the clock ticking down, some are "would you rather?" questions. And others we take some time to talk. Maybe it is a bit self-indulgent, but it surely will provide more insight into the lives and pe...
Feb 11, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Season 3Ep. 45
The HBS hosts discuss The Godfather Trilogy. The Godfather and The God Father: Part II often make it to lists of the best films. It can be argued The Godfather is America’s response to Shakespearean drama. The complexity of character, deft use of language, and the themes of the film interrogate fundamental historical, social and human concerns of American life. Full episode notes at this link: http://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-44-the-godfather-trilogy/ ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ...
Feb 04, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Season 3Ep. 44
