Is a blobfish beautiful or ugly? Science, aesthetics and the natural world
The 2019 bushfires that devastated the east coast of Australia had one upside: the smoke in the atmosphere made for some stunning sunsets. But is a beautiful sunset caused by bushfire smoke really beautiful? Or consider the blobfish: crowned the world's ugliest animal in 2013 by the Ugly Animal Preservation Society, the blobfish is actually a miracle of evolution, perfectly adapted to its deep-sea environment. But does that feature make it attractive? This week we're looking at how the aesthetic appreciation of nature and scientific knowledge can be at odds with each other.
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Who's responsible for solving the world's problems—me, or The System?
When it comes to global problems like climate change, it can be easy to feel as though your own individual efforts to stop it are too small to make a difference. But then when you consider the big players whose efforts could make a difference—the corporations, the political parties—making them do the right thing just seems too daunting and complicated a task. What to do when individual efforts seem too small to matter, but structural change seems too big to effect? This week, the authors of a new book talk about taking a middle path.
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Disability, discrimination and disgust: why gut issues are a philosophical problem
Digestive disorders are a common source of distress and social anxiety - which might seem to be an odd topic for philosophy, until you start to think about why we attach such stigma, shame and silence to issues of the gut. What does the gut tell us about our own experience of embodiment - and how can disability theory be used to shape healthier attitudes to the gut issues that plague so many of us?
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Nature, gender and discomfort with 'woke' language
When someone complains about feeling pressure to use 'woke' language, their discomfort is that of a stranger in an unfamiliar world. For people in marginalised communities, travelling between 'worlds' is an everyday experience, albeit not always a voluntary or a safe one. This week we're talking about the language of trans identity, the category of the natural and the experience of 'world' travel.
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What's the time? Indigenous temporalities and the 'Everywhen'
We tend to think of time as a universal experience, something that carries us all along in the same direction at the same pace. So it might seem strange to think of time in terms of 'temporalities', different concepts and experiences of time that reflect different cultural values. In Australia, Indigenous temporalities are deeply interwoven with notions of justice, sovereignty and care for country - but these temporalities exist in tension with settler-colonial notions of time.
The simplest questions often have the most complex answers. The Philosopher's Zone is your guide through the strange thickets of logic, metaphysics and ethics.
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