Episodes

Episodes

• Episode 335: The Wright Stuff 2026-06-30
  The great Robert Wright returns to the podcast to talk about his new book T he God Test: Artificial Intelligence and Our Coming Cosmic Reckoning. We…
• Episode 334: Let's Get Metaphysical 2026-06-16
  What are the legitimate ways to inquire about the nature of the universe? We have science, metaphysics, phenomenological inquiry, but what about…
• Episode 333: P-hacking the Mind 2026-05-26
  David and Tamler do another tier ranking--this time on philosophical thought experiments, so as not to further alienate our chemistry-adjacent…
• Episode 332: Talking to Myself ("The Other" by Jorge Luis Borges) 2026-05-12
  David and Tamler talk about Jorge Luis Borges' disorienting short story "The Other." A 70-year-old Borges sits on a bench by the Charles River and…
• Episode 331: Who's Your Law Daddy? (Plato's "Crito") 2026-04-28
  In another Back 2 Basics episode, David and Tamler talk about Plato's "Crito," a dialogue that takes place two days before Socrates' death by…
• Episode 330: A Fact-Based Podcast (Gogol's "The Overcoat") 2026-04-14
  David and Tamler return to the strange world of Nikolai Gogol and discuss his absurdist masterpiece "The Overcoat," a story that both calls for and…
• Episode 329: Why We Suffer 2026-03-31
  David and Tamler return to the work of Richard Shweder and colleagues, focusing this time on his foundational paper "The "Big Three" of Morality…
• Episode 328: Weapons Free 2026-03-17
  David and Tamler cross the border into Denis Villeneuve's taut and propulsive thriller Sicario , the story of an FBI agent who gets pulled into a…
• Episode 327: You Ain't So Smart (Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People") 2026-02-24
  David and Tamler return to the Southern Gothic well and talk about Flannery O'Connor's short story masterpiece "Good Country People." A nihilistic…
• Episode 326: The Most Important Episode of Your (Academic) Life 2026-02-10
  Are you a college student or about to be one? Do you have friends or family in college? This is the most important episode of your life. David and…
• Episode 325: It Is Happening Again 2026-01-27
  David and Tamler return to Mircea Eliade's The Sacred and Profane and discuss the chapter "Sacred Time and Myths." How does viewing time as circular…
• Episode 324: Irruption of the Sacred 2026-01-13
  David and Tamler consecrate their podcast with a discussion of "The Sacred and the Profane" by Mircea Eliade. We focus on the first chapter on…
• Episode 323: Debate Me 'Phro 2025-12-23
  David and Tamler dive into Plato's Euthyphro, part of our intermittent Back 2 Basics series. A young cocksure priest, confident in his holiness,…
• Episode 322: A Theater of Simultaneous Possibilities (William James' "The Stream of Thought") 2025-12-09
  David and Tamler return to William James' monumental "Principles of Psychology", this time wading through his famous chapter "The Stream of…
• Episode 321: The Journey Begins (Plus Blind Ranking Philosophers) 2025-11-25
  David and Tamler begin their long journey home to Homer's Odyssey , the tale of king Odysseus' 10 year journey home after the Trojan war (maybe the…
• Episode 320: Forgive Me (Kafka's "A Hunger Artist") 2025-11-11
  David and Tamler return to one of their favorites, Frans Kafka, this time on his beautiful and distressing short story "The Hunger Artist," a story…
• Episode 319: The Shadow of the Object (Freud's "Mourning and Melancholia") 2025-10-28
  David and Tamler transfer their libidinal energy to Freud's 1917 article "Mourning and Melancholia," in which he tries to understand what's going on…
• Episode 318: A PTA Meeting 2025-10-14
  David and Tamler share some brief thoughts about Paul Thomas Anderson's latest masterpiece One Battle After Another before going deep on his most…
• Episode 317: For Shame 2025-09-30
  What is the psychology of shame? Is the experience of shame a human universal? How can we investigate the nature of shame across cultures? David and…
• Episode 316: A Four-Letter Man (Hemingway's "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber") 2025-09-16
  David and Tamler go big game hunting and explore their first Hemingway short story "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." We dig into his…
• Episode 315: Ceaseless Striving (Schopenhauer's Pessimism) 2025-09-02
  David and Tamler tackle the topic chosen by our beloved Patreon supporters in the first VBW madness tournament – Schopenhauer. We discuss his essays…
• Episode 314: The In-Betweeny Place 2025-08-12
  David and Tamler go long on McDonagh's 2008 masterpiece "In Bruges." We talk about the terrific performances and all the weighty themes - sin,…
• Episode 313: The Spontaneous Eruption of Now 2025-07-29
  David and Tamler try to wrap their heads around the metaphysics of past and future via the Borges essay(s) "A New Refutation of Time." What does it…
• Episode 312: MechaSkeptic 2025-07-15
  David and Tamler return to David Hume's somewhat slippery brand of skepticism, this time focusing Chapter 12 of his Enquiry Concerning Human…
• Episode 311: The Way to Dusty Death (Shakespeare's "Macbeth") 2025-07-01
  David and Tamler screw their courage to the sticking place and talk about their first Shakespeare play – The Tragedy of Macbeth. Plus we select 16…
• Episode 310: Bayes, Brains, and Buddhists 2025-06-10
  David and Tamler try to wrap their heads around the predictive processing theory of the mind and brain function and talk about a paper that applies…
• Episode 309: Dissolving Into the One 2025-05-27
  David and Tamler heed the call to journey into the realm of Joseph Campbell. What are the unifying elements shared by myths and religions across…
• Episode 308: The Gray Man who Dreamed (Borges' "Shakespeare's Memory") 2025-05-06
  David and Tamler return to their happy place and talk about two pieces by JL Borges – the story "Shakespeare's Memory" and the…
• Episode 307: What's in the BOX? 2025-04-22
  David and Tamler talk about two famous puzzles that for different reasons have bedeviled the rationalist community – The Monty Hall Problem and…
• Episode 306: What to Expect When You're Expecting (David Lynch's "Eraserhead" with Barry Lam) 2025-04-08
  David and Tamler welcome Barry Lam back to the show. In the first segment we violate one of our own rules by talking about his new book "Fewer…
• Episode 305: Emile Is the Name of the Goat (with Paul Bloom) 2025-03-25
  VBW favorite Paul Bloom joins us to break down the Severance season finale and season 2 in general. We all agree that it's a much-needed return to…
• Episode 304: The Planes Don't Land 2025-03-11
  What has four thumbs and can effortlessly glide from the a priori to the a posteriori in a single episode? These guys. In the first segment we…
• Episode 303: Measure This 2025-02-25
  Everyone knows Tamler hates numbers but he's not the only one who worries about them. We talk about the philosopher C. Thi Nguyen's excellent paper…
• Episode 302: Metaphysical Edging 2025-02-11
  What makes something weird? What makes something eerie? David and Tamler wander into Mark Fisher's The Weird and the Eerie to learn more about these…
• Episode 301: Believing is Seeing? 2025-01-28
  It's Back 2 Basics: Psychology edition! Do coins look bigger to poor people? Do hills look steeper to people wearing heavy backpacks? What's the…
• Episode 300: If We Only Had A Brain 2025-01-14
  David and Tamler celebrate their 300th episode with a deep dive into the movie that inspired the podcast's title. Why is "The Wizard of Oz" the most…
• Episode 299: Oh the Humility! 2024-12-24
  David and Tamler wrap up the new year talking about intellectual virtues and Rachel Fraser's excellent essay "Against Humility." What is…
• Episode 298: Pass the Peace Pipe 2024-12-10
  Why do we punish people? How did our punishment practices evolve and what is their primary function? David and Tamler talk about a new paper that…
• Episode 297: No Pleasure in Meanness (Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find") 2024-11-26
  David and Tamler face off with the Misfit in Flannery O'Connor's classic short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find." We sort through the biblical…
• Episode 296: The Other CRT 2024-11-12
  David and Tamler share a few brief thoughts on the election and then raise some questions about Tucker Carlson being attacked by a demon as he slept…
• Episode 295: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner 2024-10-29
  David and Tamler hop into their Scooby Van and drive into Tobe Hooper's mad and macabre horror classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre . How does this…
• Episode 294: The Scandal of Philosophy (Hume's Problem of Induction) 2024-10-08
  CD Broad called induction "the glory of science and the scandal of philosophy." As a matter of habit, we're all confident that the sun will rise…
• Episode 293: Who Is the Dreamer? (Borges' "The Circular Ruins") 2024-09-24
  David and Tamler crawl up a riverbank, kiss the mud, and dream a discussion of Borges' "The Circular Ruins." We sort through various interpretations…
• Episode 292: Boundary Issues 2024-09-10
  David and Tamler lead off with a breakdown of the new commercial for "friend (not imaginary)" a new AI necklace that takes hikes with you,…
• Episode 291: Shoe Shining 2024-08-27
  Cornell philosopher David Shoemaker joins us for a long winding journey up to the Overlook Hotel, a DEEP dive on Stanley Kubrick's The Shining . We…
• Episode 290: Blinded by the Light (Plato's Cave Pt. 2) 2024-08-06
  David and Tamler continue their discussion of Plato's allegory of the cave. We talk about the connections with mystical traditions including…
• Episode 289: Shadows on the Wall (Plato's Cave Pt. 1) 2024-07-23
  Over the years we've referred repeatedly to Plato's cave, Platonic forms, and phrases like "copies of copies" without ever really explaining what we…
• Episode 288: The Despised Foot (The Denial of Death Pt. 2) 2024-07-09
  David and Tamler conclude their discussion of Ernest Becker's The Denial of Death . We talk about Becker's philosophy of science (does he have…
• Episode 287: Gods With Anuses (The Denial of Death Pt. 1) 2024-06-25
  David faces his greatest fear as he and Tamler dive into Ernest Becker's 1973 Pulitzer Prize winner The Denial of Death . Blending existentialist…
• Episode 286: Laugh and the World Laughs With You 2024-06-11
  David and Tamler dive into the mysteries at the heart of Park Chan-wook's deeply disturbing masterpiece "Oldboy" (2003). An ordinary man, Oh Dae-su,…
• Episode 285: On Culture and Agriculture 2024-05-28
  It's an old-school episode as David and Tamler dive into some intriguing research on the origins of cultural differences. Two neighboring…
• Episode 284: Reel Choices 2024-05-15
  David and Tamler choose an episode topic that will define the identity and meaning of the Very Bad Wizards podcast going forward – our top 3…
• Episode 283: When Elephants Podcast 2024-04-30
  David and Tamler talk about Caitrin Keiper's wonderful sprawling essay on elephant life and society and the many philosophical questions surrounding…
• Episode 282: Fearful Symmetry (Borges' "Death and the Compass") 2024-04-16
  A Rabbi is found dead in a hotel room, stabbed in the chest. The room is filled with Kabbalah texts and a single page in an typewriter that reads…
• Episode 281: Choose Your Fighter 2024-03-26
  We dig into the biggest rivalry in Tamler's profession, analytic vs. continental philosophy. Are analytic philosophers truly the rigorous, precise,…
• Episode 280: Mad Masque (with Phil Ford and J.F. Martel) 2024-03-12
  Phil Ford and J.F. Martel from the great "Weird Studies" podcast join us for a whirling discussion of Edgar Allan Poe's mesmerizing tale of…
• Episode 279: The Greenhouses We Burned Along the Way (Lee Chang-dong's "Burning" Pt. 2) 2024-02-27
  David and Tamler conclude their discussion of Lee Chang-dong's "Burning" – we talk about the hunger dance at twilight, Ben's greenhouse burning…
• Episode 278: Schrödinger's Everything (Lee Chang-dong's "Burning" Pt. 1) 2024-02-13
  David and Tamler fall under the spell of Lee Chang-dong's 2018 masterpiece Burning , a movie where nothing is what it seems, or maybe it is. An…
• Episode 277: The Merits of Buggery (Nagel's "Sexual Perversion") 2024-01-30
  David and Tamler play the old hits – Thomas Nagel and sex robots. In the main segment we talk about Nagel's essay "Sexual Perversion", a surprising…
• Episode 276: Attention Please 2024-01-16
  David and Tamler are back for the new year and one of our resolutions was to do more episodes on William James. Today we talk about his account of…
• Episode 275: The Ineffable Center (Borges' "The Aleph") 2023-12-26
  An episode interesting from every point of view, we train our eyes on Jorge Luis Borges' "The Aleph." The first segment wins the kudos of the…
• Episode 274: Can I Get a Kidney Voucher? (with Vlad Chituc) 2023-12-13
  RETURNING guest Vlad Chituc joins us for a wide-ranging discussion about donating his kidney to a stranger, the effective altruism movement, and his…
• Episode 273: Ah. Ah. (Miyazaki's "Spirited Away") 2023-11-29
  David and Tamler board the train for Hayao Miyazaki's mystical dreamy coming of age masterpiece Spirited Away . This is a true VBW deep dive. Plus a…
• Episode 272: Neigh Means Yay 2023-11-15
  The morality of zoophilia has received shockingly little attention in contemporary ethical discourse…until now. David and Tamler break down the…
• Episode 271: Concept-Con 2023 2023-11-13
  It's the first annual "Concept-Con" – a not at all cringe episode where David and Tamler apply the methods and rigor of analytic philosophy to…
• Episode 270: Take Me to the River (Blood Meridian, Pt. 3) 2023-10-10
  David and Tamler conclude their three-part discussion of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. We talk about the Judge's coin trick by the fire and the…
• Episode 269: Death Hilarious (Blood Meridian, Pt. 2) 2023-10-10
  In part 2 of our journey into Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian , Tamler and David talk about the kid and his form of resistance to the judge's…
• Episode 268: Blood Meridian, Part 1 2023-09-12
  In part one of our two-part episode on Cormac McCarthy's blood-soaked phantasmagorical 1985 masterpiece Blood Meridian, David and Tamler talk about…
• Episode 267: The Thickness of Reality 2023-08-22
  David and Tamler return to the work of old favorite William James and argue about the 6th lecture (inspired by the French philosopher Henri Bergson)…
• Episode 266: I Want to Half-Believe 2023-08-08
  Last December, with Argentina minutes away from a World Cup championship, friend of the show Yoel texted David "congratulations." David was furious,…
• Episode 265: Kekulé (Oh Yeah!) 2023-07-25
  The Summer of Cormac McCarthy continues – this time we dive into his one piece of non-fiction, the short essay "The Kekulé Problem." How does our…
• Episode 264: The Rule You Follow (The Coen Brothers' "No Country for Old Men") 2023-07-11
  David and Tamler dive into the Coen brothers' bleak and beautiful adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel "No Country for Old Men." What's the…
• Episode 263: Free Yoel 2023-06-27
  A VBW exclusive report! For years David and Tamler have been a little dismissive of fears about cancel culture in academia but now the SJWs have…
• Episode 262: Supposing Truth is a Woman (Nietzsche's "Beyond Good and Evil") 2023-06-13
  David and Tamler dive into the first two parts of Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil which contain some of Nietzsche's best drive-bys on philosophers…
• Episode 261: Death of the Author 2023-05-30
  What's the meaning of a work of art? Does the text mean just what the author intends it to mean? Does it matter what Kubrick and Arthur C. Clark…
• Episode 260: The Scream That Never Found a Voice (Murakami's "Sleep") 2023-05-09
  David and Tamler take the first excursion into the work of Haruki Murakami and talk about his short story "Sleep." A thirty-year-old woman, the wife…
• Episode 259: Losing Time ("Tár" with Paul Bloom) 2023-04-25
  The great Paul Bloom returns to the show to explore the many mysteries of Todd Field's 2022 film "Tár." Is it a ghost story? A movie about cancel…
• Episode 258: Mystic Peeza 2023-04-11
  David and Tamler talk about William James' chapter on mysticism from his book "Varieties of Religious Experience." What defines a mystical…
• Episode 257: Aural Fixation 2023-03-28
  David and Tamler deliver a PODCAST episode, one of many that comes from the INTERNET, that you'll probably listen to through Air Pods or some other…
• Episode 256: The Right to Punish? 2023-03-14
  Here's an episode with something for both of us – a healthy serving of Kantian rationalism for David with a dollop of Marxist criminology for…