David Edmonds - Philosophy Bites Again

DAVID EDMONDS &
NIGEL WARBURTON

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom

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David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton 2014

The moral rights of the authors have been asserted

First Edition published in 2014

Impression: 1

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Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Data available

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014936064

ISBN 9780198702696

ebook ISBN 9780191007255

Printed in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

Philosophy Bites Again is the third volume of interviews based on our popular audio podcast Philosophy Bites. We are still amazed and delighted by the number of enthusiastic listeners this series has worldwide.

As with the earlier books, Philosophy Bites and Philosophy Bites Back, these are not verbatim transcripts of audio: in collaboration with the interviewees, weve adapted the interviews so that they work on the page. For some interviews, this has resulted in only minor tweaks; for others, the interviewees have suggested significant changes.

Philosophy Bites Back focused on the ideas of great dead philosophers, from Socrates to Derrida. This book returns to the format of the first, with topic-based interviews grouped under various themes.

Weve opened with a compilation of responses to the question, Who is the most impressive philosopher youve met? We sprang this question on our unsuspecting interviewees while making the series: these answers too have been edited for the book.

We launched Philosophy Bites in 2007, and since then weve made five spin-off series:

Ethics Bites ;

Bioethics Bites ;

Multiculturalism Bites ;

Free Speech Bites ; and

Social Science Bites .

We would like to thank the Open University for permission to use the Nancy Fraser and Sue Mendus interviews, which first appeared in the Multiculturalism Bites series. The Jeff McMahan interview is from Bioethics Bites, for which we received a grant from the Wellcome Trust.

But Philosophy Bites is parent to them all. At the time of going to press, we have conducted around 260 interviews and have had 21 million downloads. That success is largely down to the high quality of our contributors. For us, at least, the series continues to be both hugely enjoyable and educational. Its been a privilege to meet so many of the worlds leading philosophers, and to receive what amounts to private individual tuition on such a broad range of topics. Most of the people we have interviewed have been inspirational not just in the content of what they say, but in their contagious enthusiasm for thinking and ideas.

We have conducted many of our interviews at The Institute of Philosophy, part of London Universitythanks to Shahrar Ali and Barry Smith for arranging that. For a few of our interviews we have used office space at Oxfords Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, and would like to thank Rachel Gaminiratne, Nailya Nikitenko, Deborah Sheehan, and Miriam Wood, and the Director, Julian Savulescu. We would also like to thank Charles Styles, Hannah Warburton, Mollie Williamson, and Katrina Woolley for transcribing the interviews, and Hannah Edmonds for performing her traditional proofreading role. At the time of writing, Philosophy Bites the podcast series is self-funded; we are extremely grateful for donations that have come in via our website at , which have allowed us to keep on releasing episodes on a fortnightly basis.

Thanks to our partners Anna Motz and Liz Edmonds for putting up with our obsession with Philosophy Bites. The last time we dedicated a book in this series it was to three children. Another one has appeared on the scene. So this book is for Hannah, Joshua, Saul, and Isaac.

David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton