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Terrifying QuestionsEpisode 48: Was Nietzsche a Proto-Fascist?Was Nietzsche a fascist? Does liking Nietzsche make you a fascist? If the bully boy heralds of MAGA are present-day fascists, does that make them latter-day Nietzscheans? Join Eric and Taylor as they distinguish several varieties of chest-thumping, bluster, and skepticism about truth. And as Nietzsche himself said, “If this podcast episode does not kill you, it will make you stronger.”
2025-03-0358 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 47: Are We Always at War with Ourselves?Did you ever want something and not want it, or love somebody and also hate them? If you did, does that mean there are two different things inside you and they are having a war? Or are there three? This week Eric and Taylor look at the idea of internal conflict, internal peace, what it all means, and what if anything can be done about it. They also reply to two letters from nonimaginary listeners.
2025-02-1758 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 46: Are We Living in a Cave? (Part 2)Are we still living in a cave? In this sequel episode Eric and Taylor contemplate what might happen if you got out of Plato’s cave. Would the sun blind you? And if you tried to convince the other prisoners to escape, would they kill you? Also this week, replies to some letters from listeners.
2025-02-1044 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 45: Will Intelligent Machines Destroy Us?Are computers becoming so supersmart that they might supersede all human intelligence and eat us for lunch? Or is the very idea of “machine intelligence” a sad blend of conceptual confusion, willful ignorance, magical thinking, and financial opportunism? If you’re not sure (and if you can’t get an LLM to give you a straight answer), have a listen and get back in touch with your humanity.
2025-02-031h 05Terrifying QuestionsEpisode 44: Are We Living in a Cave? (Part 1)Are ordinary experience and everyday life hopelessly benighted and delusional, a realm of shadows, full of spectacle and drama but signifying nothing? This week Eric and Taylor descend into the most famous four pages in the history of Western philosophy: Plato’s allegory of the cave. Tune in and overcome your fear of truth, wisdom, and the beautiful.
2025-01-271h 00
Coffin Talk#168 - Writer & Philosopher - Eric KaplanEric Kaplan is a writer and philosopher who has written for Futurama, The Flight of the Conchords, The Big Bang Theory, and Young Sheldon. His philosophy book, Does Santa Exist? deals with ontology, logic, mysticism, and the philosophy of religion. His comedy philosophy podcast “Terrifying Questions” (with Taylor Carman of Barnard College) is available on all apps, and he’s got a blog at ericlinuskaplan.wordpress.comPlease rate us on Apple and Spotify and subscribe for free at mikeyopp.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other...
2024-04-0725 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 43: Can You Learn Anything Important from Somebody Else?Eric and his temporary co-host, Tao Ruspoli (filmmaker, co-founder of the Bombay Beach Biennale) delve deep into what it is to teach and to learn... and they ask, "Can you learn anything really important from somebody else?"
2024-03-081h 01Terrifying QuestionsEpisode 42: Are There Human Beings Worthy of Worship? With Geoff DyerTao and Eric are joined by author Geoff Dyer to question whether certain individuals are worthy of worship. Dyer’s many books include But Beautiful (about jazz), the novel Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi and, most recently, The Last Days of Roger Federer. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Science and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, his books have been translated into twenty-four languages. He is currently a Writer in Residence at USC. A new book Homework (a memoir) will be published in spring 2025 by FSG in the US and Canongate in the UK.
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2024-02-291h 00Terrifying QuestionsEpisode 41: Is Entertainment a Seductive Lie?Eric Kaplan and Tao Ruspoli ask about how entertainment may or may not be "true". Tao substitutes for Taylor for the next several episodes. We've also just introduced video to the podcast! Let us know what you think.
2024-02-2353 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 40: Is Food Art?This week Julia Moskin, Pulitzer Prize winning food reporter for the New York Times, joins Eric and Taylor to ask whether food is (or can be) art, and how it manages to do that while also just being yummy. Should great food taste like nothing you’ve ever tasted before or should it taste like the best ever version of its ingredients? Is culinary quality subjective or objective? Why do critics write reviews? Tune in and find out.
2024-02-111h 11Terrifying QuestionsEpisode 15: Is There Any Such Thing as the Self?Another chestnut. Am I a self? Am I myself? Am I yourself? And if there is no such thing as the self, do I not exist? The Buddha and David Hume thought so – were they right? Join Taylor and Eric as they explore the conceptual labyrinth that is ourselves.
2024-02-0649 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 12: Are We Our Bodies?A command performance of a classic. Are we our bodies? Do we have sould? Do we have minds? Do haircuts diminish our true selves? Can our selves be hit by a bus or uploaded onto The Cloud? The French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty's body could’t be with us for this episode, but he joins us in spirit to tell us why we only meet people in the flesh.
2024-01-3048 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 39: Is Faith Good?Can we build a meaningful life on the shifting sands of irrational belief? Or if we refuse to make an infinite commitment, are we wasting our life, dog-paddling in a weak tea without hope or meaning? Is faith necessary or insane – or both? This week Eric and Taylor record their first ever episode before a live studio audience, namely the annual meeting of the American Society for Existential Phenomenology in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Tao Ruspoli, Iain Thomson, Mark Wrathall, Patricia and John Benner, Kaitlyn Creasy, Justin White, and B. Scot Rousse huddle together with them and ask, Is faith good...
2024-01-221h 01Terrifying QuestionsEpisode 8: Do We Need Other People?Another command performance. (Okay, rerun.) Are we utterly dependent on others or should we look inward and try to be true to ourselves? Can we do both? Or neither? This week Eric and Taylor look to Ralph Waldo Emerson for some help with this deeply unsettling question.
2024-01-1553 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 38: Is Justice Possible?Some things are obviously horribly bad and wrong. Is it possible to make them right? Do some people deserve satisfaction while others deserve punishment or mercy? When juries deliver verdicts and judges impose sentences, are they speaking the truth or just fumbling in the dark and settling on the least bad outcome? This week Taylor and Eric reflect on the possibility, the impossibility, and the necessity of justice.
2024-01-0754 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 37: Is It Okay to Be Fat?Do we owe it to anyone (even ourselves) to be thin? Is being thin always healthier, sexier, better looking, or somehow more praiseworthy? Is it easier to be a great philosopher or to get into heaven if you’re thin? This week Eric and Taylor are joined by philosopher Kate Manne, whose new book examines diet culture and fatphobia. The truth, as it often does, might surprise you.
2023-12-3157 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 36: Can You Succeed in the Music Business Without Selling Out?Does the lure of fame and fortune necessarily get in the way of making great music? Or is it okay to make some fun ear candy as a way of putting food on the table? This week Taylor and Eric chat about artistic integrity and the temptations of popularity and money with singer, songwriter, philosopher, violinist, and attorney at law, Andrew Choi – also known by musical nom de plume, St Lenox. As a bonus, find out how Bob Marley was inspired by the Banana Splits.
2023-12-181h 02Terrifying QuestionsEpisode 35: Can a Sound Look Like Something?Synesthesia! A weird thing experienced only by unusual people, or by ordinary people on unusual drugs, or – is it something everybody has all the time? Are very low musical notes literally “dark”? Can food sound like something, like hot peppers going “ping” on your tongue? Why does it make sense to call a fork a “zrickrick” and a pillow a “baobwab”? Or does it? In 1688 William Molyneux asked John Locke whether a blind person who regained her vision would be able to distinguish a square from a circle by sight. Locke said no. Leibniz said yes. Who was right? This week Eric and Ta...
2023-11-2732 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 34: Is Revenge Inevitable?Is revenge a dish best served cold, hot, or not at all? Should we all go on a revenge diet, or is it just too tasty? Could hitting back be so much fun that we can’t give it up? Or is the best revenge the serene feeling of being above revenge? Even if we know that vengeance inevitably leads to an endless cycle of vengeance, is it possible to get off the not-so-merry-go-round? How did Athena help the Furies become the Kindly Ones? Join Taylor and Eric as they confront the terrifying fact that human beings seem to be...
2023-11-2038 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 33: Do Things Happen for a Reason?Things happen. Sometimes you find a $10 bill. Sometimes a bird craps on your head. Are these events just the meaningless result of previous events or is there a hidden purpose behind everything? Does God’s plan underlie the chaos of experience? Is the idea that something was “meant to be” (or not meant to be) comforting or crippling? And is the idea that everything is possible liberating or paralyzing? This week Helen De Cruz makes a record-breaking second appearance on the podcast to help Taylor and Eric think through the idea that we might be better off not believing in providen
2023-11-0754 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 9: Is Free Will an Illusion?This week Taylor is grading mountains (mountains, I tell you) of student essays. We are proud therefore to offer you a “command performance” (rerun) of this terrifying yet edifying episode on the perennial problem of free will. Is it an illusion? Are we puppets? When we think we are thinking (or acting) freely, are we actually just cogs in a heartless, meaningless, deterministic cosmic machine? Listen and find out.
2023-10-2952 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 32: Is Almost Everyone a Failure?This week Taylor and Eric are joined by philosopher Kieran Setiya, author of Life Is Hard, which they agree it is. It’s especially hard if you think you’re doomed to failure. Are you? Not necessarily. But if you don’t worry about success and failure, are you just going to be swimming in a soup of nothing matters and who cares? Tune in and find out how and why we judge life projects, careers – and people themselves – as successes or failures. Should we be making these judgments? Would our lives be better if we didn’t?
2023-10-2355 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 31: Are We Always Just Acting?Is everything we do a kind of performance? Are we always reading from a script? And what makes bad acting bad? Do psychopaths make good actors? Do politicians make good psychopaths? And why do presidential candidates emphasize what they’re saying by pointing with their thumbs? Film and television actor Kevin Sussman joins Taylor and Eric to talk through these disturbing mysteries.
2023-10-1655 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 30: Was the Woke Mind Virus Created by French Philosophers?Were poststructuralist, postmodern, postrespectable French philosophers like Michel Foucault the real masterminds behind identity politics, critical race theory, cultural appropriation, and pumpkin spice latte? Will civilization survive the rampant, unchecked questioning of grand narratives? Join Taylor and Eric as they unravel this bundle of phone cords and contemplate equality, freedom, civility and mutual respect, Foucault’s historical counternarratives, pronouns, green hair, nose rings, and the myth of trigger warnings.
2023-10-0859 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 6: Is Being a Good Person Just a Matter of Luck?In this – repeat command performance (okay, rerun) – episode, Eric and Taylor grapple with the problem of moral luck. Are we in control of being decent human beings and doing the right thing or are we at the mercy of circumstance and maybe even of our own character? Listen, feel unsettled, then feel okay.
2023-10-0148 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 29: Can People Change?Can human beings change radically? And if they can, is that a good thing? What if we changed so much that we became strangers to each other? But if we couldn’t change at all, wouldn’t that mean we’re condemned to stagnation and despair? And hey, wouldn’t it be cool if we could sprout wings and fly? This week philosophers Melissa Shew (Marquette) and Kimberly Garchar (Kent State) help Taylor and Eric think about the possibility and desirability of radical human transformation.
2023-09-261h 10Terrifying QuestionsEpisode 28: Is It Bad to Judge People?Being “judgmental” sounds like something bad, yet refraining from all moral judgment seems pathetic, and also impossible. So, what should we do? Can we be truly compassionate without also being capable of anger, resentment, and maybe some occasional Schadenfreude? This week Eric and Taylor are joined by actor, writer, and television producer Andy Richter, who will help them sort out when it’s okay and when it’s not okay to be, as Jesus of Nazareth said, “judgy.”
2023-09-181h 03Terrifying QuestionsEpisode 27: Why Do We Like to Remember Things that Hurt?Is there any pain as great as recalling past happiness from present misery? If so, why do we do it? Do we get pleasure from tormenting ourselves about losing something (or someone) we loved? Was Socrates right that living well means learning how to die? Does being comforted too quickly mean we never really cared? And if so, how quick is too quick? Join Eric, Taylor, Dante, Dostoevsky, and William Blake for an unsettling yet strangely consoling meditation on the paradox of grief.
2023-09-1153 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 1: Does ChapGPT Mean Humanity Is Doomed?In this episode – returning here in a special command performance (rerun) – Eric and Taylor worry about whether ChatGPT might be a harbinger of total computer domination of the world and the looming obsolescence and expendability of human beings. Is that possible? Tune in and find out what it is about artificial intelligence that should really frighten you.
2023-09-0657 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 26: What Comes After Monotheism?Does belief in God lead to intolerance and violence? Is monotheism about the number of gods or is it, as Egyptologist Jan Assmann suggests, about “having no other gods” and stamping out idol worship and superstition? Are secular atheists really just monotheists fighting a holy war against religion? Does monotheism contribute anything good to psychology or politics, and if so, is it worth the price? Join Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Moses, and the pharaoh Akhenaten for a discussion of whether we should be zealous for a jealous God or have an open relationship with the divinities.
2023-08-281h 00Terrifying QuestionsEpisode 25: What Would a New Kind of Spirituality Look Like?Traditional religion has a been pretty rough ride. Some have felt saved by it. For others, it has been destructive and traumatizing. If you were going to build a new kind of spirituality from scratch, what would the ingredients be and how would you bake it? Sex worker, organizer, and memoirist Liara Roux joins us this week to talk about why Jesus was cool but evangelical rock music in restaurants, not so much. Also, how and why do images often communicate more deeply and powerfully than words?
2023-08-2149 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 24: Is Being Deep Better than Being Shallow?What does it mean to be deep? Is profundity something good or is it pretentious and boring? Are there different kinds of deepness? Is shallowness itself a kind of depth? Is it only shallow people who try to sound deep? Are profound utterances dark oceans or plastic mirrors? Join Eric and Taylor on this, their first video episode as they plum the depths of shallowness and skate the surface of the abyss.
2023-08-1453 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 23: Are There Monsters Among Us?What are monsters? Do they lurk among us? Are some of us monsters? How would we know? What’s really frightening about monsters – that they’re inhuman or that they’re all too human? If a shark could speak, would you climb into its tank to talk to it? And what exactly is so creepy about the dad in The Shining? Tune in and get the lowdown about monsters, monstrosity, and human monstrousness.
2023-08-0849 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 22: Is Being Unintelligible?What is it to be? We be, and we be jammin’ but what about other things? Is a hole a thing? Or just a lack of dirt? Unicorns aren’t real, but are they in some other way? Perhaps unicorns are, but don’t exist. But if so, what about non-existent unicorns? What’s their deal? What is the “metaphysics of presence,” and why did it annoy Martin Heidegger? Do all why questions have answers? If so, why? If not, why not? Tune in and turn on and help Taylor and Eric grapple with the question (and the mystery) of being.
2023-07-3152 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 21: Are All Human Relationships Struggles for Domination?Was Jean-Paul Sartre right that hell is other people? Are all human relationships an attempt to beat the Other before the Other beats the Us? Is every person coming down the road a potential master of a potential slave? Is all love either masochism or sadism? Is love a war? Or is war love by other means? Will listening to this podcast mean a battle of interpretations between you and us? If it is, who will surrender first?
2023-07-2456 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 20: Would You Do Bad Things if You Knew You Could Get Away With It?Actor, comedian, writer, producer, and musician Fred Armisen joins Eric and Taylor this week to ponder the twin mysteries of morality and moral motivation. Do we do good only out of a fear of blame and punishment? Would most people do wrong, if they knew no one was looking? Tune in and learn what Plato said Gyges did with the invisibility ring he found in a ditch. Also find out what Fred thinks Stone Age comedy probably looked like.
2023-07-1756 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 19: Does Desire Lead to Suffering?This week Eric and Taylor are joined by journalist and adult industry activist Laura Desirée as they wonder whether desire inevitably leads to suffering. Or maybe desiring just is suffering. Is desire therefore bad? Maybe some kinds of suffering are good because they keep us from becoming numb to pains and pleasures of all kinds. Join us and confront the terror.
2023-07-1158 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 18: Does Technology Endanger Something Important About Being Human?This week Eric and Taylor are joined by Michael Thaddeus, professor of mathematics at Columbia University, as they ponder the worrisome thought that technological progress might threaten something essential and/or precious about human existence. Are we sacrificing quality for efficiency? Are distraction and shallowness replacing focus and depth of thought and feeling? And why do phones sound so much worse now than they did in the 1970s?
2023-07-0359 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 17: Do We Have to Lie?Is lying unavoidable? Should you always tell the truth, no matter what? Even if an axe murderer asks you where your sister is hiding? What if a flounder asks you, “Does this place on the sea floor make me look flat?” This week Eric and Taylor are joined by TV writer and executive producer Tara Hernandez, creator of Mrs. Davis. Together they discuss honesty and deception in life, the universe, and Hollywood.
2023-06-2558 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 16: Is It Impossible to Be Cool by Trying?Can we try to become cool, or is trying to be cool by definition like totally uncool man? Is it like keeping yourself up trying to fall asleep? Maybe it’s impossible, like trying to look at the edge of your visual field. If you make a deliberate effort to be happy, or to be a loving person, are you doomed to fail? Join Eric and Taylor as they (try to) confront these unsettling questions head on.
2023-06-1947 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 15: Is There Any Such Thing as the Self?Am I a self? Am I myself? Am I yourself? And if there is no such thing as the self, do I not exist? The Buddha and David Hume thought so – were they right? Join Taylor and Eric as they explore the conceptual labyrinth that is ourselves.
2023-06-1249 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 14: Are We Trapped by Tradition?Are we prisoners of the past or is radical revolution possible? Revolutionaries say we can get out. Conservatives say we shouldn’t even want to. But maybe both sides get it wrong! Do we need a past to have a future? Join Taylor, Eric, and special guest Professor Bryan Van Norden, an expert in traditional Chinese philosophy, as we take a hard look at tradition. What is it? And what, if anything, is it good for?
2023-06-0549 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 13: What If Wisdom Does Not Make Us Blessed?Philosopher Helen De Cruz joins Eric and Taylor this week to discuss the unsettling possibility that insight and understanding might not actually make us happier or more at peace with our existence. Maybe they just bum us out. Tune in and hear what the heretical Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza had to say about this three and a half centuries ago.
2023-05-2951 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 12: Are We Our Bodies?Are we our bodies? Do we also have souls? Do we have minds? Do haircuts diminish our true selves? Can our selves be hit by a bus or uploaded onto The Cloud? The French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s body couldn’t be with us for this episode, but he joins us in spirit to tell us why we only meet people in the flesh.
2023-05-2248 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 11: Is God Dead?Is God Dead? If He is, did we kill Him? If God is dead does that mean Humanity is dead too -- or at least that the category of being a human being is in need of some serious re-appraisal? Taylor and Eric discuss these questions and both theism and atheism get re-evaluated. Along the way, we discuss Nietzsche and the most famous sponge in the history of philosophy.
2023-05-1553 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 10: What If the Best I Can Do Just Isn’t Good Enough?This week Eric and Taylor wonder and worry about what it means to try hard and still feel like you’re falling short. Are there objective standards of excellence or does happiness require just staying in your comfort zone?
2023-05-0844 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 9: Is Free Will an Illusion?Is free will an illusion? Are we puppets? When we think we are thinking (or acting) freely, are we actually just cogs in a heartless, meaningless, deterministic cosmic machine?
2023-05-0152 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 8: Do We Need Other People?Are we utterly dependent on others or should we look inward and try to be true to ourselves? Can we do both? Or neither? This week Eric and Taylor look to Ralph Waldo Emerson for some help with this deeply unsettling question.
2023-04-2453 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 7: Should Masculinity Be Abolished?This week Eric and Taylor talk with Cristen Conger, host of the podcast Unladylike, about whether we might all be better off without masculinity, or maybe femininity, or maybe gender altogether. Would this be possible? Would it be a step forward? Tune in and find out.
2023-04-1752 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 6: Is Being a Good Person Just a Matter of Luck?In this episode Eric and Taylor grapple with the problem of moral luck. Are we in control of being decent human beings and doing the right thing or are we at the mercy of circumstance and maybe even of our own character? Listen, feel unsettled, then feel okay.
2023-04-1048 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 5: Is Enlightenment Fake?In this week’s episode, Taylor and Eric chat with Pete Mandik, who teaches philosophy and psychology at William Paterson University, about whether spiritual enlightenment is a thing – and if it is a thing, whether it’s a good thing. Are you worried or upset by this question? Don’t be. Just tune in and listen.
2023-04-0353 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 4: Is It Possible to Have a Truly Meaningful Conversation?In this week’s episode, Eric and Taylor wonder whether truly meaningful conversation with another person is possible, or if everything is just a matter of objective fact or subjective opinion, so that there’s nothing really to talk about. Tune in and find out what the German philosopher Immanuel Kant had to say about this.
2023-03-2750 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 3: Are We Living in a Simulation?This week Eric and Taylor wonder if we might be living in a simulation. Are we brains in a vat? Are we dreaming? Could all of our beliefs be false? Take a deep breath, tune in, and find out.
2023-03-2052 min
Terrifying QuestionsEpisode 2: Do Only Fools Fall in Love?This week Eric and Taylor wonder whether it’s dumb to fall in love. Or maybe only a fool would refuse to fall in love. Can cool reason triumph over blind passion? How is love different from lust -- if it is? Tune in and find out.
2023-03-1350 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 1: Does ChatGPT Mean Humanity Is Doomed?In this episode, Eric and Taylor worry about whether ChatGPT might be a harbinger of total computer domination of the world and the looming obsolescence and expendability of human beings. Is that possible? Tune in and find out what it is about artificial intelligence that should really frighten you.
2023-03-0658 minTerrifying QuestionsEpisode 0: TrailerEric Kaplan, a comedy writer (Futurama, Big Bang Theory) and doctor of philosophy, and Taylor Carman (Barnard College, Columbia University), a distinguished but humble authority on matters of existence and existentialism, host a philosophy podcast that addresses the most unsettling questions concerning human life and the nature of things and finds a path to courage using comedy, imagination, and far-ranging intellectual philosophical investigation. Along the way they grapple with the deep uncanniness of being.
2023-03-0510 min