Talking to Thinkers series
This series of recorded dialogues is intended to make available to the public the ideas of a number of interesting and important thinkers. My plan is to include a broad range of thinkers on an equally wide range of ideas. I hope you enjoy them. Future guests will include William Galston, and Michael Laver
Anne Phillips
In this episode my guest is Anne Phillips FBA, feminist political theorist, Emeritus Professor in the Department of Government at the London School of Economics and Political Science and author of several acclaimed books including Engendering Democracy (1991), The Politics of Presence (1995), Multiculturalism without Culture (2007), The Politics of the Human (2015) and Unconditional Equals (2023).
Sally Sedgwick
This episode features the American philosopher Sally Sedgwick, Professor of Philosophy at Boston University. Professor Sedgwick has devoted her career to two towering philosophical figures, Kant and Hegel. The author of several scholarly books and multiple papers, her treatment of both philosophers is the result not only of deep study but of a commitment to illuminate their respective ideas in a uniquely clear, precise and nuanced way.
Stefan Collini
This episode features the English literary critic and academic Stefan Collini, Professor Emeritus of English Literature and Intellectual History at the University of Cambridge. Collini is a prolific author whose interest and expertise straddle several disciples including intellectual history, literature and literary culture and the history of political thought. He has contributed essays to such publications as The Times Literary Supplement, The Nation and the London Review of Books and is the author of over ten books including Public Moralists, Absent Minds, and What Are Universities For?
John Gray
This episode’s guest is the English political thinker, philosopher and public intellectual John Gray, Professor Emeritus of European Thought at the London School of Economics and former Professor of Politics at the University of Oxford. The author of several major academic works such as his monographs on Friedrich von Hayek, J.S. Mill and Isaiah Berlin and in later years a large number of best-selling works aimed at a wider audience such as Gray’s Anatomy, Straw Dogs, Seven Types of Atheism and, most recently, The New Leviathans: Thoughts After Liberalism, he also writes a regular column for the News Statesman.
Michael Walzer
This episode features the American political theorist Michael Walzer, Emeritus Professor in the School of Social Sciences at the Institute for Advances Studies, Princeton. Professor Walzer is also a prolific author, political activist and legendary editor of Dissent magazine. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Harvey Mansfield
My guest in this episode is Harvey Mansfield, William Kenan Professor of Government at Harvard University where he has taught since 1962. Professor Mansfield is the author of many books on political philosophy as well as a translator of works by Machiavelli and Tocqueville. He was a recipient of the US National Humanities Medal in 2004.
Philip Pettit
In this episode my guest is Philip Pettit, Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Politics and Human Values at Princeton University and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Australian National University. Professor Pettit is the author of numerous critically acclaimed and influential books, including The Common Mind, Republicanism, Group Agency, and The Birth of Ethics. He is a Companion of the Order of Australia, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, and Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy.
Raymond Geuss
This episode features the American-born philosopher, Raymond Geuss. After spells teaching at Columbia, Heidelberg, Princeton, Hamburg, Frankfurt and Chicago universities, Geuss took up permanent residence in the UK in 1993 when he was appointed professor of philosophy at the University of Cambridge. He has published over fifteen books, including his most recent Who Needs a World View? (2020) and Not Thinking Like a Liberal (2022).
Partha Dasgupta
In this episode my guest is the economist Sir Partha Dasgupta, FBA, FRS, Frank Ramsey Professor Emeritus of Economics and Fellow of St John’s College, University of Cambridge. Sir Partha has written numerous influential books and papers on the economics of welfare, sustainability and ecology and produced the recent 2021 Dasgupta Report into the economics of biodiversity which was sponsored by the UK Treasury. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Michael Ignatieff
My guest on this episode is the the Canadian writer, historian, professor, and politician Michael Ignatieff. My interview covers various (but far from all) of Ignatieff’s life from his ‘White’ Russian ancestry and Canadian childhood, his academic studies at the universities of Toronto, Harvard and Cambridge through his time as a freelance journalist and biographer of Isaiah Berlin, his career as leader of Liberal Party in his native country and his Rectorship of the Central European University (Budapest & Vienna) and, most recently, the publication of his latest book, On Consolation (2021).
Cheryl Misak
This episode features the distinguished Canadian philosopher and former Provost of the University of Toronto, Cheryl Misak. Professor Misak is an internationally renowned philosopher with a particular expertise in pragmatism in its American and British forms. She is also the author of a recent and widely acclaimed biography of the Cambridge genius, Frank Ramsey. She has held several prestigious academic appointments, including a University Professorship at the University of Toronto and a fellowship of All Souls College, Oxford and is the author of many academic books and papers.
Hans Sluga
In this episode my guest is the German-born philosopher Hans Sluga, William and Trudy Ausfhal Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley. Professor Sluga studied philosophy at teh universities of Bonn and Munich before moving to Oxford where he worked under such luminaries as Gilbert Ryle, Richard Hare, and Michael Dummett. After a brief period as a lecturer at University College London, Sluga was invited by the logician, Alfred Tarski, to take up a lectureship at Berkeley which became his permanent philosophical home since 1970. His philosophical interests are deep and wide-ranging. He has published major works on Frege, Wittgenstein as well as political philosophy..
Simon Blackburn
This episode features the former Bertrand Russell Professor of Philosopher, Simon Blackburn. Blackburn is a rare bird - a philosopher’s philosopher as well as a thinker who has an extraordinary talent for making philosophical ideas accessible and engaging to non-philosophers. He has taught philosophy at Oxford, the US and Cambridge, produced over fifteen books of philosophy, edited the premier philosophical journal Mind, written one of the best introductions to philosophy called Think and is a regular guest on the BBC Radio 4 programme In Our Age as well as the popular podcast series PhilosophyBites. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
James Conant
The sixth episode is made up of two parts. In Part One, Professor Conant, Chester D. Tripp Professor of Humanities at the University of Chicago and Humboldt Professor at Leipzig University, talks about how he became a philosopher, what he thinks is special about philosophy, and the various ways he writes about philosophy and philosophers. In Part Two, the conversation focuses on several of Conant’s key philosophical influences including Kant, Wittgenstein, Putnam, Stroud and Rorty and closes with an exploration of his own philosophical odyssey and where it might take him next.
Quentin Skinner
In this fifth episode I talk to the prolific and distinguished historian and philosopher Quentin Skinner. Skinner was formerly Professor of Political Science and then Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge where he spent the majority of his professional career. He is currently Barber Beaumont Professor of Humanities at Queen Mary, University of London. He is the chief founder of the Cambridge School of the history of political thought. Among his honours are the Wolfson History Prize in 1979 and the Balzan Prize in 2006.
Peter McVerry
In this fourth episode I interview a person who has dedicated their life to living with and helping the homeless young in Dublin’s inner city and elsewhere. The person happens to be a Jesuit priest who is a radical Christian and a tireless advocate for the vulnerable and marginalised members of society. Peter McVerry has also written several books including The meaning is in the shadows and was given the Freedom of the City of Dublin in 2014. The Peter McVerry Trust, which was founded in 1983, has over 300 properties and growing, provides over 1,600 residential placements per night and had an operating budget of over €30 million in 2019. This interview was conducted on October 12, 2020.
Lord Alderdice
In this third episode I talk to the politician John Alderdice, former Leader of the Alliance Party in Northern Ireland, a key player in the Good Friday Agreement and one of the youngest people to be appointed a life peer in the House of Lords. John, Lord Alderdice is also a retired psychiatrist, a former President of Liberal International and currently Senior Research Fellow at Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford. This interview was recorded on September 2020.
Quassim Cassam
In this second episode I interview Quassim Cassam, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick. Professor Cassam is one of the most distinguished and politically engaged contemporary analytic philosophers. The interview explores why he became a philosopher and how he is applying his philosophical expertise to some of the most urgent and challenging political issues facing us today. His most recent books include Vices of the Mind and Conspiracy Theories. He is currently working on a book on political extremism. This interview took place in August 2020.
John Dunn
In this first episode I interview the Cambridge political theorist John Dunn about the nature and evolution of his understanding of political theory and practice. Professor Dunn is one of the most original and eminent thinkers about politics, especially democracy, over the last fifty years. He is also a prolific author and has published a number of notable works in the history of political philosophy as well as contemporary political theory including, The Political Though of John Locke, Western Political Theory in the Face of the Future, and Setting the People Free: The Story of Democracy.
Henry Hardy
In this interview I talk with Isaiah Berlin’s editor, Dr Henry Hardy, of Wolfson College, Oxford about his own life and ideas as well as his celebrated reputation as ‘Berlin’s Boswell’. Hardy talks about Berlin’s life and times before discussing how he became his editor and ended up producing over twenty volumes, including four hefty volumes of letters, of Berlin’s work.
Other Interviews
Philosophy in th Bookshop with Nigel Warburton
This is a talk I did with Henry Hardy on Isaiah Berlin as part of the philosopher Nigel Warburton’s series of Philosophy on eth Bookshop at Blackwells, Oxford in March 2020.
Casey in Conversation
In 2019 I was a guest on the philosopher Gerard Casey’s interview series where we talked about my philosophical development and interests..