Why do we punish people? How did our punishment practices evolve and what is their primary function? David and Tamler... more

David and Tamler face off with the Misfit in Flannery O’Connor’s classic short story “A Good Man is Hard to... more

David and Tamler share a few brief thoughts on the election and then raise some questions about Tucker Carlson being... more

David and Tamler hop into their Scooby Van and drive into Tobe Hooper’s mad and macabre horror classic The Texas... more

CD Broad called induction “the glory of science and the scandal of philosophy.” As a matter of habit, we’re all... more

David and Tamler crawl up a riverbank, kiss the mud, and dream a discussion of Borges’ “The Circular Ruins.” We sort... more

David and Tamler lead off with a breakdown of the new commercial for “friend (not imaginary)” a new AI necklace that... more

Cornell philosopher David Shoemaker joins us for a long winding journey up to the Overlook Hotel, a DEEP dive on... more

David and Tamler continue their discussion of Plato’s allegory of the cave. We talk about the connections with mystical traditions... more

Over the years we’ve referred repeatedly to Plato’s cave, Platonic forms, and phrases like “copies of copies” without ever really... more

David and Tamler conclude their discussion of Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death. We talk about Becker’s philosophy of science (does... more

David faces his greatest fear as he and Tamler dive into Ernest Becker’s 1973 Pulitzer Prize winner The Denial of Death.... more

David and Tamler dive into the mysteries at the heart of Park Chan-wook’s deeply disturbing masterpiece "Oldboy" (2003). An ordinary man, Oh... more

It’s an old-school episode as David and Tamler dive into some intriguing research on the origins of cultural differences. Two neighboring communities... more

David and Tamler choose an episode topic that will define the identity and meaning of the Very Bad Wizards podcast going... more

David and Tamler talk about Caitrin Keiper’s wonderful sprawling essay on elephant life and society and the many philosophical questions... more

A Rabbi is found dead in a hotel room, stabbed in the chest. The room is filled with Kabbalah texts and... more

We dig into the biggest rivalry in Tamler’s profession, analytic vs. continental philosophy. Are analytic philosophers truly the rigorous, precise, clear thinkers... more

Phil Ford and J.F. Martel from the great "Weird Studies" podcast join us for a whirling discussion of Edgar Allan... more

David and Tamler conclude their discussion of Lee Chang-dong’s "Burning" – we talk about the hunger dance at twilight, Ben’s... more

David and Tamler fall under the spell of Lee Chang-dong’s 2018 masterpiece Burning, a movie where nothing is what it seems,... more

David and Tamler play the old hits – Thomas Nagel and sex robots. In the main segment we talk about... more

David and Tamler are back for the new year and one of our resolutions was to do more episodes on... more

An episode interesting from every point of view, we train our eyes on Jorge Luis Borges’ “The Aleph.” The first... more

RETURNING guest Vlad Chituc joins us for a wide-ranging discussion about donating his kidney to a stranger, the effective altruism... more

David and Tamler board the train for Hayao Miyazaki’s mystical dreamy coming of age masterpiece Spirited Away. This is a... more

The morality of zoophilia has received shockingly little attention in contemporary ethical discourse…until now. David and Tamler break down the paper “Zoophilia... more

It’s the first annual “Concept-Con” – a not at all cringe episode where David and Tamler apply the methods and... more

David and Tamler conclude their three-part discussion of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. We talk about the Judge’s coin trick by... more

In part 2 of our journey into Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, Tamler and David talk about the kid and his form... more

In part one of our two-part episode on Cormac McCarthy’s blood-soaked phantasmagorical 1985 masterpiece Blood Meridian, David and Tamler talk... more

David and Tamler return to the work of old favorite William James and argue about the 6th lecture (inspired by... more

Last December, with Argentina minutes away from a World Cup championship, friend of the show Yoel texted David “congratulations.” David... more

The Summer of Cormac McCarthy continues – this time we dive into his one piece of non-fiction, the short essay “The... more

A new mini-series with Tamler Sommers and Robert Wright on the range of politically acceptable discourse for a given topic and... more

David and Tamler dive into the Coen brothers’ bleak and beautiful adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s 2005 novel "No Country for... more

A VBW exclusive report! For years David and Tamler have been a little dismissive of fears about cancel culture in... more

David and Tamler dive into the first two parts of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil which contain some of Nietzsche’s... more

What’s the meaning of a work of art? Does the text mean just what the author intends it to mean?... more

David and Tamler take the first excursion into the work of Haruki Murakami and talk about his short story “Sleep.”... more

The great Paul Bloom returns to the show to explore the many mysteries of Todd Field’s 2022 film “Tár.” Is... more

David and Tamler talk about William James’ chapter on mysticism from his book "Varieties of Religious Experience." What defines a... more

David and Tamler deliver a PODCAST episode, one of many that comes from the INTERNET, that you’ll probably listen to... more

Here’s an episode with something for both of us – a healthy serving of Kantian rationalism for David with a... more

David and Tamler get lost in the world of Susanna Clarke’s "Piranesi," a hauntingly beautiful and thrilling novel with echoes... more

Tamler’s earlier self committed to doing an episode on Parfit, and David holds his current self to that promise, which... more

It’s the episode that Tamler has been waiting for – a long deep dive into Andrei Tarkovsky’s mysterious masterpiece "Stalker."... more

David and Tamler dive into Seneca’s “On the Happy Life” and stoicism, the topic selected by our beloved patreon supporters.... more

David and Tamler wind their way through another Borges story - "The Immortal"- about a Roman soldier who seeks the... more

We often think of metaphors as poetic flourishes, a nice way to punctuate your ideas and make them more relatable.... more

David and Tamler gild and stain David Hume’s essay “The Sceptic†with their sentiments. If nothing is inherently valuable or... more

In this podcast we examine a recent argument for the view that chess is not, in fact, a game. We... more

We welcome Sam Harris back to the show for a deep dive into Stanley Kubrick’s confounding 1968 masterpiece "2001: A... more

We dive into David Foster Wallace’s sprawling 1993 essay “E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction.” How do TV and... more

David and Tamler take their first real look at pragmatism via Richard Rorty’s “Solidarity or Objectivity.” Can we discover facts... more

David and Tamler return to Borges land to get lost in the infinite, this time with his legendary and tragic... more

David and Tamler continue their discussion of Leo Tolstoy’s 'Confession.' When we left him last time, the famous author had... more

We have a sneak peek for our listeners--the first episode our new Patreon bonus series on David Milch's brilliant (but... more

David and Tamler find themselves unable to attach rational meaning to a single act in their entire lives. Let’s say... more

David and Tamler mask up and wander through the audio and visual orgy of Stanley Kubrick’s final masterpiece Eyes Wide... more

David and Tamler descend into the dark pits of Hell to look Satan in the eyes and discover the nature... more

David and Tamler lose themselves in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s (pr. ‘chick sent me high’) classic paper on the concept of flow.... more

Ivan Ilyich is a man. All men are mortal. So Ivan Ilyich is mortal. Sure absolutely, that’s true for Ivan... more

David and Tamler explore the many variations of simulation theory, the view that our universe is just a computer generated... more

We welcome Paul Bloom to talk about the first season of "Severance," the new mind-bending and mind-splitting TV series on... more

Panpsychism didn't give us river spirits or mischievous sootballs, so this time we go straight to the source - a... more

David and Tamler conclude their discussion of "The Trial," Franz Kafka's darkly comic vision of an opaque and impenetrable bureaucracy... more

David and Tamler wander through the bewildering dream-like world of Franz Kafka’s "The Trial." In part one of a two-part... more

It’s the topic voted on by our beloved Patreon patrons, panpsychism! David and Tamler delve into the resurgent debate over... more

Many of us think that art is subjective, but at the same time it seems like some artistic judgments are... more