Philosophy Bites

David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton have been doing something deceptively simple since 2007: sitting down with a professional philosopher for about 20 minutes and getting them to explain one idea clearly. That's it. No elaborate sound design, no six-part narrative arcs, no filler. And somehow, after 400 episodes, the formula hasn't gotten old. Edmonds works at Oxford's Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, and Warburton is a freelance philosopher and writer. Between them, they have enough contacts in academic philosophy to land interviews with people you'd otherwise only encounter through dense journal articles. Recent guests have covered everything from Africana philosophy with Chike Jeffers to Plato's views on power with Angie Hobbs. The global range is impressive — episodes on Mexican philosophy, Japanese philosophy, and philosophy in conflict zones show a genuine effort to move beyond the usual Western canon. The episodes are short. Most clock in under 25 minutes, and the hosts waste almost no time on pleasantries before getting into substance. That brevity is actually a strength. You can listen to two or three episodes back-to-back during a commute and come away with a solid introduction to ideas that might otherwise take weeks of reading to absorb. The show has earned 1,515 Apple ratings at a 4.5 star average, and Oxford University Press has published two books based on the interviews. It's self-funded, which means no ads interrupting a discussion about moral realism. If you want philosophy served straight, without padding, this is the gold standard for that format.