The Two Philosophers, One Podcast, No Problems Podcast: Philosophy Outside Academia

I’m Liv and I am a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh. My research involves the philosophy of time travel, looking at how traditional theories of free will are affected by the logical possibility of time travel. Yes, that is as niche as it sounds. The topic is notable because time travel is a common device used in films, television shows and books. Most of us are pretty accustomed to the concept as an idea. However, something I’ve found intriguing on my philosophical journey is that though many people know what time travel is (and can identify it in popular culture contexts), few understand what studying it in a philosophical context entails.

This seems to me a common theme amongst most philosophical disciplines. As a result, I’ve been interested in determining both why philosophy is such a scary, alien subject to the public, and why people often find it difficult to engage with, despite it being everywhere. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do about it but ultimately I knew I wanted to bridge the gap between terrifying academic philosophy culture and the general public. I know that everyone can benefit in some way from a basic knowledge of philosophical issues and why they are important.

I approached my good friend Elliott, a final year undergraduate student doing a joint honors in philosophy and economics. He is also, like me, a big fan of time travel. I wanted to collaborate together on something that would hopefully make philosophy more accessible to the general public.

The podcast, The Two Philosophers, One Podcast, No Problems, was Elliott’s idea, and I was sceptical. I had no idea how to go about making a podcast, whether it would be well received, how it would be structured. Quite luckily, Elliott mentioned the podcast to a member of staff at Edinburgh who ended up being very encouraging and helpful. She helped us sort out the basics of how to set up a podcast, how to book studio space, and most importantly pushed us towards various funding opportunities we could apply for (one of which we ended up attaining!) at Edinburgh University. We ended up having a relatively popular podcast taking off.

How has it worked so well? Partly, because Elliott and I do not claim to be experts in all philosophical topics. Sure, the first episode we did was on time travel and that is our specialty, but the following episodes have consisted in subjects ranging from death to AI. Quite often we are as new to the topics as many of the listeners. What we can bring is our ability to understand philosophical literature and apply its methodology, and then communicate that to a wide audience. The fact that so many non-philosophers have found it accessible and enjoyable (and have even learnt something new) is beyond rewarding. My aim, to show non-philosophers that philosophy is not scary, that it is in the films we watch, the books we read, even the songs we sing, feels all the more fulfilled with every episode released. Its all the more amazing when we get comments and emails from listeners. Getting to engage with an interested community is a gift, and goes to show that philosophy really is everywhere and can be enjoyed and engaged with by any interested person.

The format of the podcast is pretty simple. We revolve each episode around a broad philosophical issue. More specifically, we spend a little time talking about the philosophical topic and some common intuitions about it before relating the philosophical topic to an example in popular culture, usually a film. We speak about the how the topic is brought out in the film and whether the film does a good/bad job of exploring it. We finally talk about a piece of academic literature relating to the topic. For example, in our time travel episode we begin the podcast by introducing time travel as a concept and talk about some common problems and assumptions that come with it philosophically. These range from assumptions about which theories of time we assume, to classic philosophical paradoxes like the popular “Grandfather Paradox”. We then start looking at a film that illustrates the topic. For the time travel episode, we chose Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, as it’s probably the best illustration of logically consistent time travel. We show how the philosophical issue is portrayed in the film and under what light it shows it. The final element of the podcast is to relate all the issues we have spoken about to a piece of academic literature, tying the topic together. We normally release the reading/watching list before we release the podcast. The format of bringing an academic text towards the end tries to ensure that we don’t alienate anyone right at the beginning. We always explain terms fully and never rely on unnecessary jargon, and try and make the way that we interact with each other as informal as possible. There’s a culture in academia of seriousness and stoicism which I think is partially responsible for some alienation of the public, hence Elliott and I make an effort to be silly and informal.

Getting into public philosophy was a lot easier than I originally imagined. Obviously Elliott and I have been incredibly lucky with the help and guidance we have been given by Edinburgh University. However, quite often those who wish to do public philosophy happen to be affiliated with a higher education established so my main suggestion would be to really make use of the resources that are on offer, and if you’re unsure about what your establishment can give you, ask! Elliott and I were originally going to record our podcasts at his house, had we not spoken to some of the staff members at the university. Using university resources like the recording studio meant that, rather than worrying about costs and practical issues, we could focus on the structure and content of our podcast and what we wanted to achieve. Understandably not everyone had access to the university resources that we do so (we are completely aware of how lucky we are), so I will outline some more general suggestions. First, I think Twitter and social media more generally are really important for public philosophy nowadays. It has been such a valuable resource for us in just getting our podcast out there and for people to track our progress. Also, it allows us to keep up to date with any developments in public philosophy which made be useful to us. Second and more importantly I think people will be surprised by what they can do if they are passionate. If you want to do something and are invested in that thing then the obstacles tend to be manageable. Finally, be realistic. For us, creating a podcast was a realistic goal because of the resources we had available at the university, but if you don’t have those resources on offer then perhaps try something that involves less, blog posts and forums are a great place to start.

Ultimately, my main aim has always been to bridge the gap between philosophy and the public and to get people excited about philosophical issues. Elliott and I believed that the most accessible way to do this is via the medium of film, but obviously this does not exhaust the ways of making philosophy more accessible. Overall, even if the podcast only gets a handful of people interested in philosophical issues I will consider it an achievement.

Liv Coombes

Liv Coombes is a PhD student at The University of Edinburgh specialising in the relationship between time travel and ability. Her Twitter account is @Livcoombes. She is currently working on developing her own analysis of ability which is consistent with the possibility of time travel and podcasting in her spare time.