Nadine Dijkstra is a Principal Investigator at the Institute of Neurology at UCL. Her research in Imaging Neuroscience explores how the brain generates mental images and differentiates them from actual perception. Utilizing neuroimaging, psychophysics, machine learning, and computational modeling, Dijkstra addresses fundamental questions about the overlap between perception and imagery. Recently, Dijkstra has been leading the Imagine Reality Lab at UCL's Department of Imaging Neuroscience, focus...
May 12, 2026•14 min
Is the brain actually productive? Or is it instead permissive, simply acting as a filter through which consciousness passes? Can near death experiences help us to get closer to understanding the true nature of the brain? Neuroscientist and theoretical physicist Àlex Gómez-Marín argues that the brain may not produce consciousness, but instead filter or permit it. Tracing a provocative history from Galileo to modern consciousness science, he argues that scientific progress came by prioritising wha...
May 05, 2026•30 min
Is evolutionary psychology merely a way of excusing outdated behaviours? Is it instead culture which really defines how we behave? As with the animal kingdom, we see human behaviour as the product of elemental drives to survive and reproduce. Evolutionary psychology has taken this a stage further - seeing violence, social hierarchy, and sexual promiscuity as a product of evolutionary drives. But might this be a misleading and dangerous approach? Murder rates have fallen seventy-fold since the Mi...
Apr 28, 2026•45 min
Does the past even exist anymore? Quantum mechanics has long unsettled our understanding of matter and measurement. But what if its implications reach further — into history, politics, and the very structure of reality itself? If the present can retroactively reshape the past it emerged from, what does that mean for how we act, how we remember, and how we govern? These are not merely theoretical puzzles. In a world where liberal democracy appears to be fracturing, where AI and climate change def...
Apr 21, 2026•1 hr 26 min
Did analytic philosophy ruin the entire discipline? For more than a century there has been a divide in Western philosophy between two distinct approaches, often described as analytic and continental philosophy. Analytic philosophy is predominantly based in the English-speaking world taking its name from Bertrand Russell’s philosophy of logical analysis that overthrew the grand Hegelian metaphysics of the 19th century. It did so in favour of a focus on logic and linguistic precision, with the ass...
Apr 14, 2026•49 min
Do we need a moral reawakening? Is animal suffering simply a fact of life or can it be avoided? How did the US Navy break whale protection laws? Is there more to animal suffering than just pain? From the cruelty of the factory meat industry to hunting and habitat destruction, animals are in trouble all over the world. Some deem the treatment of animals in farms the worst crime in history, yet it still takes place all over the world. Join philosopher and renowned ethicist Martha Nussbaum, as she ...
Apr 06, 2026•27 min
Universities, long celebrated as sanctuaries of free thought and intellectual rigour, have for centuries been regarded as the best way to educate and conduct research. But increasingly, this assumption is being questioned. A recent study found that two-thirds of academics feel their freedom to teach and study is being curtailed. In 2022 alone, over 1,000 instances of content warnings or text removals were documented across UK universities. While some academics now criticise PhD programmes as a w...
Mar 31, 2026•47 min
What do the Soviet Union and the current British economy have in common? What can studying the philosophy of science reveal about our economic systems? Is the depoliticisation of economics a dangerous pipe dream? Join political economist Abby Innes as she argues that treating society as a closed system that can be controlled and regulated ignores man's unrelenting capacity for new ideas and technologies. Abby Innes is Associate Professor of Political Economy in the European Institute at the LSE....
Mar 24, 2026•26 min
Who are we? Why are we here? Does life have a meaning beyond itself? Join former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and groundbreaking psychiatrist, literary scholar and author of 'The Matter with Things', Iain McGilchrist, to explore the nature of meaning, and why we should move beyond the assumptions of a materialist worldview from radically divergent perspectives. Please feel free to email us at podcast@iai.tv with any of your thoughts or questions on the episode! To witness such debat...
Mar 17, 2026•34 min
Should everyone be treated equally? Many see populism with its focus on immigration and nationalism as not only politically dangerous but morally wrong. This reflects the universalist morality of the main Western moral frameworks. But critics argue moral universalism generates a case for favouring strangers over the interests of those close to us and that it is profoundly mistaken. In contrast, Chinese Confucian morality accepts partiality towards our nearest. Recent studies have shown that we d...
Mar 10, 2026•50 min
How do we acquire knowledge? We tend to think that knowledge is produced by experts through established institutions, progressing over time towards a single truth. But Steve Fuller challenges this view, arguing that our contemporary "post-truth" order correctly recognises that the pursuit of knowledge is a socially dependent process, shaped by the communities that produce it. Steve Fuller is Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick, and a founding figure in the field of social epistem...
Mar 03, 2026•29 min
How can taking on the role of someone else help us to understand ourselves? Does the hermit know himself better than the socialite? And where is the line between our true, authentic selves and the multitude of characters we all play each and every day? Join actress and Creative Director of Shakespeare's Globe, Michelle Terry, as she draws on her experience as a performer to explore how acting can help us to understand the self. Please feel free to email us at podcast@iai.tv with any of your thou...
Feb 24, 2026•29 min
Alex Gómez-Marín is a controversial figure in contemporary neuroscience, known for challenging the materialist framework that dominates scientific accounts of consciousness. He argues that Near Death Experiences (NDEs) raise profound questions about the nature of reality and the limits of reductionist explanation. In this interview, Gómez-Marín reflects on the scientific evidence we have for NDEs and what they might mean for answering ultimate questions about the purpose of human existence. Àlex...
Feb 17, 2026•35 min
The self and the world We tend to think of ourselves as observers of the world and experience as something different from the material stuff that makes up reality. Yet at the same time as human beings, we are at once part of the universe and part of that reality. And this profoundly puzzling relationship, that we are both part of something and yet separate from it, has been at the centre of Western thought. Materialists claim there is only physical material. But if so, thought, experience, and c...
Feb 10, 2026•51 min
An individual "is responsible for everything he does," claimed Sartre. And from criminal justice to creative expression, free will and responsibility are central to our culture and our personal lives. Yet neuroscientists and materialist thinkers commonly maintain that freedom is an illusion. And it remains unknown how the core principles of freedom and responsibility can be reconciled with this outlook. Many attempts have been made to argue that the two seemingly contradictory frameworks can be ...
Jan 27, 2026•53 min
Are we living in the moment? Are we really free? How can we transcend the constant anxieties of our mind? Throughout history, certain people in the West and the East have claimed that the human mind could reach states of so-called higher consciousness. In the twentieth century, several thinkers like Heidegger and Nietzsche returned to this possibility, trying to find the higher regions of the mind. Join Oxford philosopher Jessica Frazier as she explores tales of higher states of mind, and debate...
Jan 13, 2026•38 min
The good, the bad, and the transgressive Is the transgression of norms and rules what brings history forward and allows for creativity and change? OR is the fetishization of transgression an ever-present danger that breaks down all structures of meaning and becomes totalizing in of itself? The limits and potentials of transgressiveness have been long debated, especially in rule-breaking Modernity. Listen to this lively conversation between three unlikely and profound thinkers - provocative cultu...
Jan 06, 2026•48 min
What is rationality? Why is it or is it not important? And where does perversity fit in? Join psychologist Paul Bloom in this interview where he discusses his research on these themes and defends his viewpoints. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .
Dec 30, 2025•23 min
Why is the world moving away from liberalism and towards conservatism? One of Britain’s most provocative thinkers, John Gray is a political philosopher known for dismantling liberalism and exposing the illusions of human progress. Former Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics, Gray has challenged orthodoxy across the political spectrum with a body of work that ranges from critiques of Enlightenment rationalism to meditations on the limits of secular humanism. He is the b...
Dec 16, 2025•36 min
The future of European thought What is analytic philosophy and what is continental philosophy? And, perhaps most importantly, does this distinction make any sense? The division between these two branches has divided Western philosophy for decades now, with the Anglo-Saxon world largely associated with the analytical school, and the European continent with the, well, continental one. In this panel, our speakers discuss the future of thought for Western philosophy and Europe. Is the division betwe...
Dec 09, 2025•49 min
Language shapes how we think, remember, and reason. But does it help us to uncover the fundamental nature of reality? Join the author of Language vs. Reality and linguistic anthropologist, Nick Enfield, as he explores why language excels at persuasion but falters at faithfully representing reality. From media spin to courtroom rhetoric, he reveals how words reframe our world, often without us noticing. Drawing on two decades of research, Enfield shows why understanding the limits and power of la...
Dec 04, 2025•33 min
Philosophers cannot stop talking about consciousness - what are its limits? What is it made of? What does it allow us? This podcast is part of that conversation, but from a more experimental perspective. Join biologist and researcher Rupert Sheldrake as he discusses consciousness with philosopher Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes from the lens of psychedelics. Once on the fringes of academic and popular interest, psychedelics have recently moved towards the mainstream as their potential in expanding our awa...
Nov 28, 2025•32 min
Why we worship without knowing it What should be included within the remit of philosophy? Religion? Love? Hair? Join well-known public speakers and writers Alain de Botton and Alex O'Connor as they talk through what philosophy can offer us, why we should study love, and what the role of religion is in philosophy and in our lives. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info ....
Nov 25, 2025•26 min
Over the past decades, neuroscience has blossomed, positioning itself as a kind of master discipline over everything else. For who understands the brain surely understands all of human activity and creation? Or not? Neuroscience's reach has extended past its scientific remit and into the world of philosophy and its major questions. What is a human? What is consciousness? Are we free? And so on. Yet its utility in this field, and in general, is still being fiercely debated, with its proponents an...
Nov 12, 2025•48 min
What is nothing? Can it be defined, either philosophically or scientifically? Or will the exploration of nothing bring, ultimately, to nothing? The philosophical exploration of nothingness is an ancient one, from the mysterious number zero through theological understandings of the absence of God right to modern physics and ideas of the void. Join leading theoretical physicists David Deutsch and Lee Smolin, alongside science writer Amanda Gefter, as they discuss the edges of their understanding o...
Nov 06, 2025•1 hr
Why are we fascinated by apocalyptic stories? Join the team at the IAI for a reading of four Halloween-themed articles, written by historian and philosopher Natalie Lawrence, professor of political philosophy Matthew Festenstein, and professor of comparative literature Florian Mussgnug. From the allure of the end times to the symbolic value of monsters, this episode is a spooky journey through all things macabre. Natalie Lawrence is a researcher in history and the philosophy of science at the Un...
Oct 31, 2025•44 min
Einstein was called “slow” at school, J. K. Rowling collected a dozen rejections, and Walt Disney was once fired for “lacking imagination.” We love stories of perseverance—but what’s the cost of never letting go? In this conversation, psychoanalyst Adam Phillips argues that our obsession with endurance can have hidden, corrosive effects. He invites us to consider giving up not as failure, but as a creative act: a way to revise who we are, resist the tyranny of completion, and make room for lives...
Oct 28, 2025•27 min
Slavoj Žižek is back in a new interview where he takes us through his thoughts on the role of philosophy, the future of sex, his fear and love of AI and, as always, so much more. Tune in to hear one of contemporary philosophy's most original and darkly comedic minds expose his thoughts on the present and where we are heading - though that is impossible to know. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info ....
Oct 20, 2025•38 min
What should time mean to us? Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes is a philosopher of mind who specialises in the thought of Alfred North Whitehead, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Benedict de Spinoza, and in fields pertaining to panpsychism and altered states of mind. In this talk, he combines insights from psychedelic experiences with an intriguing view put forward by Spinoza: that the mind can enter a rare state of eternity, not as a spirit enduring beyond the corpse, but as a mind collapsing into the eternal. Don...
Oct 14, 2025•31 min
Hugely influential in the latter decades of the 20th century, postmodernism transformed many academic disciplines and culture at large. Associated with an attack on objective truth and the uniqueness of meaning, it called into question the whole edifice of knowledge which Western culture had previously glorified. But it left many lost, and in the wake of a polarising post-truth world, there is a widespread recognition that we need to move on. Feminist and post-colonial critics though claim there...
Oct 10, 2025•47 min
