Serious philosophy, book by book.
New Books in Philosophy is an academic interview channel built around serious recent work in contemporary philosophy. Its conversations move from justice and reciprocity and democracy without elections to racialization, emotion theory, biology, epistemic ecology, and the free energy principle.
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New Books in Philosophy is built for sustained attention. It takes the recent philosophy monograph seriously and gives it room to breathe. The episodes usually begin with an academic frame: the book, the author, the press, and the field of inquiry. Then the conversation starts doing the real work. Arguments are named, distinctions are tested, and the interviewer keeps the focus on how a book changes the problem it entered. The range is broad. One episode follows Kathryn Nave into the free energy principle and the meaning of life. Another turns to Andrew Lister's account of justice and reciprocity. Catherine Elgin's Epistemic Ecology brings questions of knowledge into a wider philosophical environment. Ellen Clarke's The Units of Life asks what counts as an individual in biology. Andrea Scarantino's Emotion Theory gives listeners a map of a crowded field. Political philosophy is a recurring strength, from Alexander Guerrero's lottocracy to debates over democratic structure and legitimacy. The show also reaches into aesthetics, racialization, and embodied life. Mariana Ortega's conversation on Latinidad treats images, art, affect, and racism as philosophically active, not merely illustrative. John Drabinski's work on Baldwin and the Black Atlantic brings literary and historical pressure to philosophical thought. The style is measured rather than performative. It assumes listeners can follow complex claims when those claims are presented carefully. That makes the channel especially useful for academics, students, serious readers, and anyone who wants to sample current philosophy without reducing it to slogans. It is not casual punditry. It is a library shelf in audio form, organized around new books and the thinkers willing to explain why they matter.
Made for: For philosophy readers, students, teachers, and intellectually curious listeners who enjoy academic conversations with patient conceptual detail. It especially suits people looking for new scholarly books across political philosophy, epistemology, aesthetics, biology, emotion, race, and culture.
What sets it apart: The show is distinguished by its new-book architecture: each episode anchors abstract philosophical debate in a specific recent publication and a scholar's developed argument. Its breadth also stands out, moving comfortably from technical theory to public questions of racism, democracy, embodiment, and justice.
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/philosophy
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Mariana Ortega follows the photograph beyond the eye, toward the affective force through which racialization takes hold.
Mariana Ortega's Carnalities: The Art of Living in Latinidad treats art as a way to feel racialization at work, not just to study it from a distance.
A careful case for sharpening emotion categories before trying to explain them.
Andrea Scarentino's conversation with Carrie Fingdor makes a precise case for slowing down before treating emotions as settled objects of study.
A clear, affecting animal-ethics discussion finds its force in the story of Norma and Nina.
Alice and Laurie take up the uneasy question of how animal lives are measured inside ethical systems built largely around human priorities. Their discussion of utilitarianism moves into the moral problem of killing, but the episode lands most sharply with Norma, a mother cow on…
Peter Boghossian applies street epistemology to guests debating free speech, immigration, and belief.
Vox's narrative reporting on factory farming, pandemic risk, and its Good Robot AI safety series.
Carrie Figdor interviews Andrea Scarantino about his two-volume edited collection 'Emotion Theory: The Routledge Comprehensive Guide.' Scarantino explains how the work brings together 101 theorists from multiple disciplines to address the question 'what is an emotion?' He identifies a fundamental split between natural kind and normative kind projects in emotion theory history.
An interview with Jan Westerhoff about his guide to Candrakirti's Introduction to the Middle Way, a key Buddhist philosophical text.
An interview with Krista K.
Sarah Tyson interviews philosophers Alice Crary and Lori Gruen about their book 'Animal Crisis: A New Critical Theory'.
New Books in Philosophy interviews Robert Wilson about Kin Matters, a 2026 Oxford University Press book on kinship across anthropology, biology, and cognitive science.
An interview with Kathryn Nave about her book 'A Drive to Survive' exploring the free energy principle and its implications for understanding life and meaning.
An interview with Andrew Lister about his book 'Justice and Reciprocity' on the NewBooks Network.
An interview with Catherine Elgin about her book 'Epistemic Ecology' published by MIT Press in 2025.
An interview with John Drabinski about his book on James Baldwin and the Black Atlantic.
An interview with Ellen Clarke about her book 'The Units of Life: Kinds of Individual in Biology' (Oxford UP, 2025), exploring philosophical and biological concepts of individuality.
Laura Aguilar’s photographs become “a carnal aesthetics” when she uses her body to “give birth to herself.”
Amie Thomasson’s Rethinking Metaphysics (Oxford University Press, 2025) argues that metaphysics should become "conceptual engineering" rather than a search for mysterious entities.
Orestes Palermos's Cyborg Rights examines how phones, neural implants, and other technologies may extend cognition beyond biological bodies.
An interview with Andrea Scarantino about his edited volume 'Emotion Theory: The Routledge Comprehensive Guide', covering interdisciplinary perspectives on emotion.
Alexander Guerrero discusses his book 'Lottocracy: Democracy Without Elections' on the NewBooks Network, proposing a system of governance based on random selection rather than elections.
An interview with Shannon Vallor about her book 'The AI Mirror' exploring how to reclaim humanity in an age of machine thinking.