New Books in Philosophy

Mar 10 2025 396 ep. 66 mins 3.8k

New Books in Philosophy Podcast artwork

Interview with Philosophers about their New Books

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M. Chirimuuta, "The Brain Abstracted: Simplification in the History and Philosophy of Neuroscience" (MIT Press, 2024)

Mar 10 2025 52 mins

This book is available open access here. The Brain Abstracted: Simplification in the History and Philosophy of Neuroscience (MIT Press, 2024), Mazviita Chirimuuta argues that the standard ways neuroscientists simplify the human brain to build models for their research purposes mislead us about how the brain actually works. The key issue, instead, is to figure out which details of

Omar Dahbour, "Ecosovereignty: A Political Principle for the Environmental Crisis" (Routledge, 2024)

Mar 01 2025 67 mins

Part of what makes the challenges that collectively are called the “environmental crisis” so difficult is that the vocabulary we deploy in thinking and discussing the issues emerged under social conditions that are far removed from our present. The familiar idiom of nation states, borders, jurisdiction, and so on seems inadequate for addressing a crisis that concerns global con

William M. Paris, "Race, Time, and Utopia: Critical Theory and the Process of Emancipation" (Oxford UP, 2024)

Feb 20 2025 72 mins

How does time figure in racial domination? What is the relationship between the capitalist organization of time and racial domination? Could utopian thinking give us ways of understanding our own time and its dominations? In Race, Time, and Utopia: Critical Theory and the Process of Emancipation (Oxford University Press, 2025), William Paris uses the tools of critical theory to dra

David Pitt, "The Quality of Thought" (Oxford UP, 2024)

Feb 13 2025 62 mins

The idea that there is a distinct phenemenology of thought – that there is thinking experience just as there is visual experience or auditory experience – is a radical position in philosophy of mind. David Pitt is one of its foremost proponents. In The Quality of Thought (Oxford University Press, 2024), Pitt provides an extended defense of the position and its implications: if

John D. Norton, "The Large-Scale Structure of Inductive Inference" (U Calgary Press, 2024)

Jan 11 2025 72 mins

This book is free to download here. Science depends essentially on inductive inferences – inferences that go beyond the evidence on which they are based. But inductive inferences have historically been modeled on deductive inferences, which are valid if and only if they satisfy a valid argument form. In The Large-Scale Structure of Inductive Inference (BSPS Open/University of C

Michael Fuerstein, "Experiments in Living Together: How Democracy Drives Social Progress" (Oxford UP, 2024)

Jan 01 2025 70 mins

Various kind of philosophical considerations have been offered in favor of democracy. By some accounts, democracy realizes some intrinsic value, such as equality or collective autonomy. According to other views, democracy’s value is more instrumental: it tends to produce or promote certain social goods like stability, prosperity, and peace. However, a longstanding alternative tra

Ege Selin Islekel, "Nightmare Remains: The Politics of Mourning and Epistemologies of Disappearance" (Northwestern UP, 2024)

Dec 20 2024 66 mins

What does mourning have to do with politics? How do practices of forced disappearance and improper burial shape subjects, spaces, and what is intelligible? What are people doing in movements across the globe when they gather in public space and recount nightmares of their disappeared loved ones? In Nightmare Remains: The Politics of Mourning and Epistemologies of Disappearance (No

Andrea Scarantino, "Emotion Theory: The Routledge Comprehensive Guide" (Routledge, 2024)

Dec 10 2024 72 mins

This interview is an exception to our “single author monographs” rule, because the edited collection that is its topic is an intellectual achievement worth making an exception for in over 12 years of New Books in Philosophy podcasts. Emotion Theory: The Routledge Comprehensive Guide: Volume I and Volume II (Routledge, 2024) is a two-volume compendium of 62 chapters on emotion t

Alexander Guerrero, "Lottocracy: Democracy Without Elections" (Oxford UP, 2024)

Dec 04 2024 69 mins

Elections loom large in our everyday understanding of democracy. Yet we also acknowledge that our familiar electoral apparatus is questionable from a democratic point of view. Very few citizens have access to the kinds of resources that could enable them to stand for election; consequently, political candidates (thus officeholders) tend to come from elite social backgrounds. Moreov

Robert B. Talisse, "Civic Solitude: Why Democracy Needs Distance" (Oxford UP, 2024)

Nov 21 2024 97 mins

An internet search of the phrase "this is what democracy looks like" returns thousands of images of people assembled in public for the purpose of collective action. But is group collaboration truly the defining feature of effective democracy? In Civic Solitude: Why Democracy Needs Distance (Oxford UP, 2024), Robert B. Talisse suggests that while group action is essential to democra