Podcast
Aeon Magazine
Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant ideas, told through essays that help us make sense of ourselves and the world. We ask the big, existentially significant questions and find the freshest, most original answers, provided by leading thinkers on philosophy, science, psychology, society and culture. Each episode features a narrated Aeon essay, a journey into expert concepts and stories that provoke, enrich and expand our horizons. Aeon is a nonprofit digital magazine publishing essays and videos that seek to illuminate the big questions of life. Free to read and now free to listen, Aeon’s mission is to share knowledge and insight with everyone, everywhere. Discover essays and videos at Aeon.co. Aeon essays are only ever written and edited by human experts. We use AI for audio narration only.
- Philosophy chart
- #128
- Episodes
- 204
- Releases
- Twice a week
- Typical length
- 25 min
- On air since
- 2025
- Latest episode
- 16 hours ago
Episodes
204 episodes, newest first
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26 min
Believing and thinking
Show notes
The separation of church and state has an unspoken psychological basis: we choose what we believe, but not what we think.
Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant ideas, told through essays that help us make sense of ourselves and the world. We ask the big, existentially significant questions and find the freshest, most original answers, provided by leading thinkers on philosophy, science, psychology, society and culture. Each episode features a narrated Aeon essay, a journey into expert concepts and stories that provoke, enrich and expand our horizons.
Aeon is a nonprofit digital magazine publishing essays and videos that seek to illuminate the big questions of life. Free to read and now free to listen, Aeon’s mission is to share knowledge and insight with everyone, everywhere. Discover essays and videos at https://aeon.co.
Aeon essays are only ever written and edited by human experts. We use AI for audio narration only.
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29 min
The self-making world
Show notes
Long mocked and misunderstood, Lamarck’s radical idea that organisms shape themselves and their world is making a comeback.
Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant ideas, told through essays that help us make sense of ourselves and the world. We ask the big, existentially significant questions and find the freshest, most original answers, provided by leading thinkers on philosophy, science, psychology, society and culture. Each episode features a narrated Aeon essay, a journey into expert concepts and stories that provoke, enrich and expand our horizons.
Aeon is a nonprofit digital magazine publishing essays and videos that seek to illuminate the big questions of life. Free to read and now free to listen, Aeon’s mission is to share knowledge and insight with everyone, everywhere. Discover essays and videos at https://aeon.co.
Aeon essays are only ever written and edited by human experts. We use AI for audio narration only.
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21 min
In praise of the dilettante
Show notes
A wayfaring cosmopolitan who never gets stuck, the dilettante is the right anti-hero for our hyper-specialised age.
Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant ideas, told through essays that help us make sense of ourselves and the world. We ask the big, existentially significant questions and find the freshest, most original answers, provided by leading thinkers on philosophy, science, psychology, society and culture. Each episode features a narrated Aeon essay, a journey into expert concepts and stories that provoke, enrich and expand our horizons.
Aeon is a nonprofit digital magazine publishing essays and videos that seek to illuminate the big questions of life. Free to read and now free to listen, Aeon’s mission is to share knowledge and insight with everyone, everywhere. Discover essays and videos at https://aeon.co.
Aeon essays are only ever written and edited by human experts. We use AI for audio narration only.
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21 min
The physics of getting fired
Show notes
Physics offered me a sense of order and purpose. But when life got messy I realised it had a much deeper insight to give.
Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant ideas, told through essays that help us make sense of ourselves and the world. We ask the big, existentially significant questions and find the freshest, most original answers, provided by leading thinkers on philosophy, science, psychology, society and culture. Each episode features a narrated Aeon essay, a journey into expert concepts and stories that provoke, enrich and expand our horizons.
Aeon is a nonprofit digital magazine publishing essays and videos that seek to illuminate the big questions of life. Free to read and now free to listen, Aeon’s mission is to share knowledge and insight with everyone, everywhere. Discover essays and videos at https://aeon.co.
Aeon essays are only ever written and edited by human experts. We use AI for audio narration only.
-
23 min
Love with nowhere to go
Show notes
Grief is not only for the dead. When we are unable to honour other profound losses, we become strangers to ourselves.
Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant ideas, told through essays that help us make sense of ourselves and the world. We ask the big, existentially significant questions and find the freshest, most original answers, provided by leading thinkers on philosophy, science, psychology, society and culture. Each episode features a narrated Aeon essay, a journey into expert concepts and stories that provoke, enrich and expand our horizons.
Aeon is a nonprofit digital magazine publishing essays and videos that seek to illuminate the big questions of life. Free to read and now free to listen, Aeon’s mission is to share knowledge and insight with everyone, everywhere. Discover essays and videos at https://aeon.co.
Aeon essays are only ever written and edited by human experts. We use AI for audio narration only.
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27 min
How to build real peace
Show notes
From Colombia to Syria, I’ve seen that capitalist logic can’t help to rebuild postwar countries but cooperatives can.
Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant ideas, told through essays that help us make sense of ourselves and the world. We ask the big, existentially significant questions and find the freshest, most original answers, provided by leading thinkers on philosophy, science, psychology, society and culture. Each episode features a narrated Aeon essay, a journey into expert concepts and stories that provoke, enrich and expand our horizons.
Aeon is a nonprofit digital magazine publishing essays and videos that seek to illuminate the big questions of life. Free to read and now free to listen, Aeon’s mission is to share knowledge and insight with everyone, everywhere. Discover essays and videos at https://aeon.co.
Aeon essays are only ever written and edited by human experts. We use AI for audio narration only.
-
16 min
Traction!
Show notes
Tribologists study friction: what happens when things rub together. It’s indispensable, from the wheel to the paths of stars.
Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant ideas, told through essays that help us make sense of ourselves and the world. We ask the big, existentially significant questions and find the freshest, most original answers, provided by leading thinkers on philosophy, science, psychology, society and culture. Each episode features a narrated Aeon essay, a journey into expert concepts and stories that provoke, enrich and expand our horizons.
Aeon is a nonprofit digital magazine publishing essays and videos that seek to illuminate the big questions of life. Free to read and now free to listen, Aeon’s mission is to share knowledge and insight with everyone, everywhere. Discover essays and videos at https://aeon.co.
Aeon essays are only ever written and edited by human experts. We use AI for audio narration only.
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31 min
Other people
Show notes
Disconnection is at the heart of today’s crises. So my husband and I chose a radical and revealing remedy: living communally.
Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant ideas, told through essays that help us make sense of ourselves and the world. We ask the big, existentially significant questions and find the freshest, most original answers, provided by leading thinkers on philosophy, science, psychology, society and culture. Each episode features a narrated Aeon essay, a journey into expert concepts and stories that provoke, enrich and expand our horizons.
Aeon is a nonprofit digital magazine publishing essays and videos that seek to illuminate the big questions of life. Free to read and now free to listen, Aeon’s mission is to share knowledge and insight with everyone, everywhere. Discover essays and videos at https://aeon.co.
Aeon essays are only ever written and edited by human experts. We use AI for audio narration only.
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29 min
How intuitions work
Show notes
Just as seeing a tree gives you reason to believe it’s there, sensing that a stranger is creepy gives you reason to walk away.
Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant ideas, told through essays that help us make sense of ourselves and the world. We ask the big, existentially significant questions and find the freshest, most original answers, provided by leading thinkers on philosophy, science, psychology, society and culture. Each episode features a narrated Aeon essay, a journey into expert concepts and stories that provoke, enrich and expand our horizons.
Aeon is a nonprofit digital magazine publishing essays and videos that seek to illuminate the big questions of life. Free to read and now free to listen, Aeon’s mission is to share knowledge and insight with everyone, everywhere. Discover essays and videos at https://aeon.co.
Aeon essays are only ever written and edited by human experts. We use AI for audio narration only.
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27 min
Horrible, unmanly, indispensable
Show notes
Renaissance Italians saw the gun as the Devil’s work. But soon they embraced this unchivalrous – and necessary – weapon.
Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant ideas, told through essays that help us make sense of ourselves and the world. We ask the big, existentially significant questions and find the freshest, most original answers, provided by leading thinkers on philosophy, science, psychology, society and culture. Each episode features a narrated Aeon essay, a journey into expert concepts and stories that provoke, enrich and expand our horizons.
Aeon is a nonprofit digital magazine publishing essays and videos that seek to illuminate the big questions of life. Free to read and now free to listen, Aeon’s mission is to share knowledge and insight with everyone, everywhere. Discover essays and videos at https://aeon.co.
Aeon essays are only ever written and edited by human experts. We use AI for audio narration only.
-
25 min
How to be a (Roman) man
Show notes
Cicero’s ideal of manly virtue stressed the performance of self-control and bravery, not boastful egotism and domination.
Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant ideas, told through essays that help us make sense of ourselves and the world. We ask the big, existentially significant questions and find the freshest, most original answers, provided by leading thinkers on philosophy, science, psychology, society and culture. Each episode features a narrated Aeon essay, a journey into expert concepts and stories that provoke, enrich and expand our horizons.
Aeon is a nonprofit digital magazine publishing essays and videos that seek to illuminate the big questions of life. Free to read and now free to listen, Aeon’s mission is to share knowledge and insight with everyone, everywhere. Discover essays and videos at https://aeon.co.
Aeon essays are only ever written and edited by human experts. We use AI for audio narration only.
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20 min
The ladder of knowledge
Show notes
What we claim as ‘true’ is not a ceiling we are forever failing to reach but something that changes as we climb toward it.
Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant ideas, told through essays that help us make sense of ourselves and the world. We ask the big, existentially significant questions and find the freshest, most original answers, provided by leading thinkers on philosophy, science, psychology, society and culture. Each episode features a narrated Aeon essay, a journey into expert concepts and stories that provoke, enrich and expand our horizons.
Aeon is a nonprofit digital magazine publishing essays and videos that seek to illuminate the big questions of life. Free to read and now free to listen, Aeon’s mission is to share knowledge and insight with everyone, everywhere. Discover essays and videos at https://aeon.co.
Aeon essays are only ever written and edited by human experts. We use AI for audio narration only.
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24 min
Deskilling the body
Show notes
We are, moment by moment, doing less sensing, navigating, remembering, walking, choosing, and attending.
Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant ideas, told through essays that help us make sense of ourselves and the world. We ask the big, existentially significant questions and find the freshest, most original answers, provided by leading thinkers on philosophy, science, psychology, society and culture. Each episode features a narrated Aeon essay, a journey into expert concepts and stories that provoke, enrich and expand our horizons.
Aeon is a nonprofit digital magazine publishing essays and videos that seek to illuminate the big questions of life. Free to read and now free to listen, Aeon’s mission is to share knowledge and insight with everyone, everywhere. Discover essays and videos at https://aeon.co.
Aeon essays are only ever written and edited by human experts. We use AI for audio narration only.
-
29 min
Is everything conscious?
Show notes
If the question makes no sense to you, try spending some time with the principle of sufficient reason.
Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant ideas, told through essays that help us make sense of ourselves and the world. We ask the big, existentially significant questions and find the freshest, most original answers, provided by leading thinkers on philosophy, science, psychology, society and culture. Each episode features a narrated Aeon essay, a journey into expert concepts and stories that provoke, enrich and expand our horizons.
Aeon is a nonprofit digital magazine publishing essays and videos that seek to illuminate the big questions of life. Free to read and now free to listen, Aeon’s mission is to share knowledge and insight with everyone, everywhere. Discover essays and videos at https://aeon.co.
Aeon essays are only ever written and edited by human experts. We use AI for audio narration only.
-
25 min
The ghetto on the lagoon
Show notes
Sixteenth-century Venice wanted to expel its Jews but couldn’t do without them. Its compromise was the world’s first ghetto.
Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant ideas, told through essays that help us make sense of ourselves and the world. We ask the big, existentially significant questions and find the freshest, most original answers, provided by leading thinkers on philosophy, science, psychology, society and culture. Each episode features a narrated Aeon essay, a journey into expert concepts and stories that provoke, enrich and expand our horizons.
Aeon is a nonprofit digital magazine publishing essays and videos that seek to illuminate the big questions of life. Free to read and now free to listen, Aeon’s mission is to share knowledge and insight with everyone, everywhere. Discover essays and videos at https://aeon.co.
Aeon essays are only ever written and edited by human experts. We use AI for audio narration only.
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26 min
How to assemble science
Show notes
Humanity produces a staggering amount of new knowledge every day. The question is how to make sense of it all.
Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant ideas, told through essays that help us make sense of ourselves and the world. We ask the big, existentially significant questions and find the freshest, most original answers, provided by leading thinkers on philosophy, science, psychology, society and culture. Each episode features a narrated Aeon essay, a journey into expert concepts and stories that provoke, enrich and expand our horizons.
Aeon is a nonprofit digital magazine publishing essays and videos that seek to illuminate the big questions of life. Free to read and now free to listen, Aeon’s mission is to share knowledge and insight with everyone, everywhere. Discover essays and videos at https://aeon.co.
Aeon essays are only ever written and edited by human experts. We use AI for audio narration only.
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34 min
A life in episodes
Show notes
For a decade, I’ve posted episodes of my memoir to Facebook. My readers correct my understanding of my past.
Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant ideas, told through essays that help us make sense of ourselves and the world. We ask the big, existentially significant questions and find the freshest, most original answers, provided by leading thinkers on philosophy, science, psychology, society and culture. Each episode features a narrated Aeon essay, a journey into expert concepts and stories that provoke, enrich and expand our horizons.
Aeon is a nonprofit digital magazine publishing essays and videos that seek to illuminate the big questions of life. Free to read and now free to listen, Aeon’s mission is to share knowledge and insight with everyone, everywhere. Discover essays and videos at https://aeon.co.
Aeon essays are only ever written and edited by human experts. We use AI for audio narration only.
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25 min
Life on a hair trigger
Show notes
A world of violence sustains itself through guns, poverty and other social ills, but also through the minds it creates.
Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant ideas, told through essays that help us make sense of ourselves and the world. We ask the big, existentially significant questions and find the freshest, most original answers, provided by leading thinkers on philosophy, science, psychology, society and culture. Each episode features a narrated Aeon essay, a journey into expert concepts and stories that provoke, enrich and expand our horizons.
Aeon is a nonprofit digital magazine publishing essays and videos that seek to illuminate the big questions of life. Free to read and now free to listen, Aeon’s mission is to share knowledge and insight with everyone, everywhere. Discover essays and videos at https://aeon.co.
Aeon essays are only ever written and edited by human experts. We use AI for audio narration only.
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24 min
Reason is more than a tool
Show notes
If intelligence is merely optimisation then machines will outrun us. Kant tells us why human reason is so much more.
Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant ideas, told through essays that help us make sense of ourselves and the world. We ask the big, existentially significant questions and find the freshest, most original answers, provided by leading thinkers on philosophy, science, psychology, society and culture. Each episode features a narrated Aeon essay, a journey into expert concepts and stories that provoke, enrich and expand our horizons.
Aeon is a nonprofit digital magazine publishing essays and videos that seek to illuminate the big questions of life. Free to read and now free to listen, Aeon’s mission is to share knowledge and insight with everyone, everywhere. Discover essays and videos at https://aeon.co.
Aeon essays are only ever written and edited by human experts. We use AI for audio narration only.
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30 min
Don’t use the ‘C-word’
Show notes
A cancer diagnosis carries with it fear and upheaval. For many patients the cellular changes do not warrant the label.
Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant ideas, told through essays that help us make sense of ourselves and the world. We ask the big, existentially significant questions and find the freshest, most original answers, provided by leading thinkers on philosophy, science, psychology, society and culture. Each episode features a narrated Aeon essay, a journey into expert concepts and stories that provoke, enrich and expand our horizons.
Aeon is a nonprofit digital magazine publishing essays and videos that seek to illuminate the big questions of life. Free to read and now free to listen, Aeon’s mission is to share knowledge and insight with everyone, everywhere. Discover essays and videos at https://aeon.co.
Aeon essays are only ever written and edited by human experts. We use AI for audio narration only.
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