Ok, it’s the last cast of the year, you all know the drill, I’m not sure I can be bothered this week so I’m just going to phone this one in if that’s ok with the rest of you? Right, so welcome, it’s Danny and Mike, listen to us talk about stuff. Sit in amazed silence as this happens, then that, then some other stuff, possibly about social construction, possibly about Luce Irigaray, to be honest I can’t rightly remember, we are just on the other side of Christmas here, cut us some slack for pity ...
Dec 29, 2021•32 min•Ep. 158
This week, as we approach that festive time of the year, join Mike and Danny as they invite a few friends over for drinks and nibbles. Listen in as de Beauvoir tries to bogart all the vol-au-vents while arguing that she is free to range with absolutely liberty across the entire buffet and who are we to try to constrain her with our fascist party hosting ideologies. Well, there is always at least one guest like that, right? They bring the cheap ass supermarket larger and drink all your Prosecco. ...
Dec 22, 2021•25 min•Ep. 156
This week, join Mike and Danny here in our bodies where we feel safest of all, we can lock all the doors, it’s the only way to live in bodies… or is it? Certainly Merleau Ponty would agree. Yes, it’s time for the physical body to not only take centre stage but to actually become the stage upon which we strut and fret and access the world. Bet you wish you’d kept it in better shape now don’t you? But don’t worry, Mike and Danny are on hand to socially reconstruct your entire reality. Gather round...
Dec 15, 2021•18 min•Ep. 155
This week Mike confuses Danny with someone else, after all, how is Danny to be distinguished from anyone else? One needs to be tolerant of each other, right? Or perhaps, as Popper tells us, the tolerant society can only be tolerant by not tolerating the intolerant. To secure the essence of humanity what must we deny? How do we police our fundamental identity? What are we prepared to go to the stake for? Human dignity? Human freedom? Gender distinctions? Pineapple on pizza?? Where do we draw the ...
Dec 08, 2021•20 min•Ep. 154
This week Mike and Danny get down to essentials but where do they take us? What is a good Danny? Who is it that decides on the “Danniness” of a thing? Yes we are coming after you Plato, we have a guzungada and we are not afraid to use it. Also, in todays cast, beer - what is it? Is there an essential beer or is it simply a label we hang on a particular beverage? To be honest, who cares as long as it's Wittgenstein’s round, right? But who have we here traveling towards us at a reckless pace? Why ...
Dec 01, 2021•20 min•Ep. 153
This week join Mike and Danny in the Philosopher’s Kitchen as they seek to impress the judges with their philo-culinary delights. Will the guest diners enjoy Danny’s Wittgenstein soufflé or will it collapse at the last minute proving to be insubstantial and nothing more than hot air? Will Mike’s Platonic pie flavoured with 'essence of human form' and served with a side of totalitarian taurine pique palates or send people scurrying to the toilet? As our conceptual cooks round off the evening with...
Nov 24, 2021•18 min•Ep. 152
This week join Mike and Danny as they attempt to build a scale model of Danny from bits of information gleaned by rummaging through his bins during the hours of darkness. Is it possible to create an accurate scale model of the world using nothing but words and statistics? Develop a new found respect for data analytics as we identify Danny’s perfect partner by noting his preference for whisky, Wittgenstein and women and concluding from this that he is ideally paired with a drunken Scottish lady w...
Oct 20, 2021•28 min•Ep. 147
This week, who knows what’s going on because we certainly don’t. Danny has been struck down by the virus (he’s fine and recovering so don’t pander to him, he’s just looking for attention) and Mike can’t recall what they talked about when this cast was recorded. All we can say with any certainty is that the whole thing will be its usual mixture of insight and delight - which is more than most of use deserve. I think we talk about a couple of films, oh yes, and a book … or was it a cat? No, I reme...
Oct 13, 2021•15 min•Ep. 146
This week join Mike and Danny as they get just what they deserve. Yes, who are you and what do you want? Is there an ontology behind consumerism? What do we need to own in order to be complete? Join us as we ride into town on the mule of philosophy and play what we deserve off against what we lack. Yes, it’s an anthropological showdown with everything to play for if we get caught. What are we being told about ourselves when the marketplace tells us what we need to be truly complete? If money can...
Sep 29, 2021•17 min•Ep. 145
This week join us as Mike and Danny bunk off school to hide behind the bike sheds and talk lifestyles. Yes, you heard right, we’re bucking the system and biting the very hand that feeds us. Listen in mute disbelief as your two cheeky chappies from the lower 6th sass their teachers and serve up shade to their betters. What do you mean you don’t want to take your place in the market? You can’t fly kites and feed birds all day! Stay after school and write 1000 times “I must not question the status ...
Sep 22, 2021•17 min•Ep. 144
This week, join Mike and Danny as they delve into the depths of the fridge, behind the the milk, cheese and other fresh dairy products to rummage amongst the fetid remains of dinners past. Yes, stand amazed, and slightly nauseated as your two ragged philosophical gastronauts engage in the thinking persons equivalent of coming home late from the pub and prodding at dangerously out of date pizza in the hope that it is just this side of toxic. Is the best philosophy conducted by poking around at th...
Sep 15, 2021•13 min•Ep. 143
This week join Mike and Danny as they scavenge through the philosophical skips and bins in search of discarded gold. Yes, we are up-cycling preowned and well used ideas that others have simply thrown out. I mean really, senseless waste. Look at this passing phrase from a 1940’s film - still plenty of good ontological wear in that. And here, see that? A sentence from Jane Austin that with a little invisible mending will continue to do solid epistemic service. It’s a disgrace what people chuck out...
Sep 08, 2021•18 min•Ep. 142
This week join Mike and Danny simply because they tell you too. Yes, that’s right, you can trust us, we’re reliable, when have we ever steered you wrong? I mean, who else are you going to believe? After all, what do you really know? A handful of shabby first hand experiences mediated through highly questionable sense organs and the rest is all hearsay, am I right? So, who ya gonna trust? Wikipedia? The evening news? The government? Dave from down the pub (he seems to know everything). No, you st...
Sep 01, 2021•18 min•Ep. 141
This week join Mike and Danny as they question your life style, yes YOURS! After all, who are you people to come in here with your uniqueness, strutting your difference around like it was no thing? I mean, it’s taken us ages to sort things out and to figure out the how and why of things and then in you people trot with your thinking and opinions and various sexualities and throw the whole delicate edifice into jeopardy. You people sicken me, why can’t you be like us? Why rock the boat with your ...
Aug 25, 2021•15 min•Ep. 140
This week; being here, being there, being neither one thing or another, being in, being out, being real, being fake. To be, or not to be and bebop a Lula, she's my baby. Yes, it's ontology week at WTF mansions where Mike and Danny are being themselves and loving it. Existence is very much as you find it and we find it everywhere but what is it? Do things exist because we perceive them and stop when we aren't looking. Do trees ever really fall in the forest? Questions like this, and others, must ...
Aug 18, 2021•16 min•Ep. 139
This week join Mike and Danny as they dare to tug at the knicker elastic that alone holds up the underwear of Reality. Will the boxer shorts of infinity be found to be adequately supported or will we be left with faces scarlet with shame, our ontologies around our ankles? What, exactly, covers up our philosophical modesty? Are our epistemological private parts tastefully held in place by the comforting infrastructure of a flexible metaphysic or are they left swinging in the breeze, the objects o...
Aug 11, 2021•16 min•Ep. 138
This week, join Mike and Danny as they examine the very foundations of reality because it looks like there are some nasty cracks appearing in your plaster work. What’s it all built on, eh? What sort of cowboy builders did you get in to do the original work? Listen in as your two philosophical construction workers don their hard hats and high vis vest and go at it with pneumatic drills to see what lies beneath the surface. When your philosophical pipes burst who ya gonna call? When your very onto...
Aug 04, 2021•17 min•Ep. 137
This week join Mike and Danny, back in the lab again, as they tentatively extract dangerous metaphysic from the safety of its lead lined container. Have they instituted all necessary safety protocols or are they being recklessly cavalier with this most dangerous of philosophical substances? Catch your breath as Danny dons a protective suit and attempts to hold the highly volatile raw metaphysic stable using nothing but a pair of bbq tongs as Mike seeks to guide it into the Philoso-genorator (TM)...
Jul 28, 2021•15 min•Ep. 136
This week join Mike and Danny as they lay out their tools and scavenged resources and commence construction. Yes, what, exactly is required to build a philosophy? The toe bone's connected to the heel bone, the heel bone's connected to the foot bone, the foot bone's connected to the leg bone, the leg bone's connected to the knee bone… but what is the ontology connected to and where are the Allen keys clearly indicated as present in the instructions? So, by all means join us as we begin or explora...
Jul 21, 2021•17 min•Ep. 135
This week something unnatural stalks the corridors of WTF Mansions. Join Mike and Danny as they set themselves against the gods in a mad bid to create a philosophy from nothing but spare parts and hubris. Yes, this week we prepare the lab, provide instructions to our hideous underlings and power up those things that go buzz buzz. Dare we fly in the face of nature? Is it possible to breath life into that which never lived? Let us pull the lever together whilst the storm is at its height and find ...
Jul 14, 2021•3 min•Ep. 134
This week, take your pick and join Danny down in the WTF mines digging for pure philosophy or leave your pick behind and take your leave with Mike by the seaside. Yes, it's Morlocks and Eloi at WTF Mansions today as we continue to explore the masks we wear. As Danny slaves beneath the earth Mike labours to engage with true human identity behind a succession of masked automata whose only wish is to provide him with beer, food and other services. The struggle is real.
Jul 07, 2021•24 min•Ep. 133
This week join Mike and Danny - but not the same Mike and Danny as you joined last week by any means - as they grow a beard, change their look and adopt posher accents. Yes, it's time to flip the script and change costume as we ask the question, "wtf do you think you are?" As we all intermingle at the grand masquerade of life what have you come as? Who is the dude in the gorilla suit? When the clock chimes midnight and the masks come off who will we appear to be? Will there just be another mask ...
Jun 30, 2021•12 min•Ep. 132
This week Danny tells us about Wittgenstein’s penchant for gumshoe detective magazines and films. Join Mike and Danny on a dark and stormy night as they hit the streets playing the hunches and collecting 50 bucks a week plus expenses. Listen in as Sherlock Holmes pits his abstract intellect against Marlow's gut in an attempt to figure out which of the Vienna Circle killed British philosophy. Whose pipe is that still smouldering in the ashtray? Is that a size 10 boot print by the window?? What do...
Jun 23, 2021•18 min•Ep. 131
Saturday night at the movies, who cares what picture you see? Yes, Mike and Danny are talking too loudly in the cinema again and pissing everybody off. Join us this week as we plot spoil and comment through every scene while checking our podcast stats on our phones and kicking the seats in front. Listen in as Danny covertly accuses Mike of dissing the romantic novel. Yes, life is a cathartic performance and there is always someone sat in front of you wearing a big hat. If theatre allow us to con...
Jun 16, 2021•16 min•Ep. 130
This week listen in as Mike and Danny order up a mess of popcorn and broccoli and head to the movies. But who do we find protesting outside? Yes it’s Plato waving a “Down with This Sort of Thing” placard. Yes, once again Plato shines his torch into the dark corners of the cave which is theatre and tells us to stop doing that. Do theatre and the arts hold a mirror up to nature or lead us further away from the ideal forms? Is all of existence nothing more than a series of performances for specific...
Jun 09, 2021•7 min•Ep. 129
There’s no business like show business, there’s no business I know! Yes, this week listen in as Mike and Danny strut and fret their hour upon the stage. Are we nothing but wastrels, slatterns and ne'er-do-wells or glittering celebrities admired and envied by the masses? If all the world really is a stage then are we constantly pretending to be who we are simply to be what we are? Yes, the pressure to perform weighs heavily upon us all but who writes the script and provides the costumes? Are ther...
Jun 02, 2021•16 min•Ep. 128
This week you say potato and I say er...potato (no it doesn't really work when written down does it?). Yes, who is to say which one of us is right? This week Danny and Mike pitch their stall in the WTF farmers market and seek to tempt you with there virtuous produce. Lovely juicy honesty, ripe courage, only £1 a scoop, plump self-sacrifice picked fresh today! But what's this? Another stall has pitched up trying to undercut us with their over ripe greed and past its best self serving duplicity, w...
May 26, 2021•30 min•Ep. 127
This week listen in as Mike and Danny give up and simply do what works. Yes, it’s enlightened self interest time here where what is right plays second fiddle to what happens to do the job. Yes, it’s big fish verses bigger fish in the turbulent waters of ethical theory as we carefully avoid gobbling up the tiny clown fish just in case it happens to be good friends with a gang of whale sharks. I mean, where are the gods when you genuinely need someone around to make an absolute judgement about som...
May 19, 2021•27 min•Ep. 126
Join us as Danny presents his virtue for all to see. Go on, have a good long look, take a photo, it will last longer. Meanwhile, and across town, Mike is prepared to settle for simply appearing virtuous. As long as people consider us to be “good people” does it matter if we actually are? Why do even bastards prefer not to be seen as bastards? Why do politicians still make the effort to appear to be decent human beings rather than just own their sleazy and duplicitous characters? Yes, this week l...
May 12, 2021•27 min•Ep. 125
This week, listen in as Mike finally confesses to delusions of godhood and his complicity in a slew of failed student relationships. How many cooks does it really take to spoil the broth? Who actually still eats broth these days?? Yes, the recipe for the perfect life, too much salt and the whole thing goes straight into the bin. Join us as we work through the spice rack of virtue - a little bit of honesty, a smidge of courage and the merest soupçon of temperance. Ok, now little it simmer gently ...
May 05, 2021•21 min•Ep. 124
