What is hot on 20 January 2011

In Our Time
The Mexican Revolution
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Mexican Revolution of 1910. The revolution last for the next ten years and included the radical peasants’ revolt of Zapata in the south, the warlord banditry of Villa in the north, and a succession of presidents who often tried to put in place remarkably modern constitutions, but usually failed. But was the revolution ultimately successful and how did it actually change things for the people? Melvyn is joined by Alan Knight, Professor of the History of Latin America at the University of Oxford; Paul Garner, Cowdray Professor of Spanish at the University of Leeds; and Patience Schell, Senior Lecturer in Latin American Cultural Studies at the University of Manchester.
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Forum Network
Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates
Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein discuss Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates: Using Philosophy (and Jokes!) to Explore Life, Death, the Afterlife, and Everything in Between. Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein achieved bestselling fame with their first book, Plato and a Platypus Walked Into a Bar, a survey of key philosophical concepts through jokes. This newest book is a hilarious take on the philosophy, theology, and psychology of mortality and immortality. That is, Death. Philosophers such as Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Camus, and Sartre have been wrestling with the meaning of death for as long as they have been wrestling with the meaning of life. Fortunately, humorists have been keeping pace with the major thinkers by creating gags about dying. Death's funny that way--it gets everybody's attention.
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Making Love in the Kitchen
Tap Your Worries Away
Title: Tap Your Worries Away Guest: Nick Ortner, the founder of Try It Productions and the Producer of "The Tapping Solution." Nick is a "searcher" constantly reading, exploring, experimenting with the incredible information all around that can change lives. When he found Tapping, and was startled by the results, he knew he had to find a way to get this information into the mainstream. He also produced the worldwide online event, "The Tapping World Summit" which has been attended by over 75,000 (all for free!). Check out The Tapping Solution
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Justice according to Michael Sandel - Philosophy Bites

Philosophy Bites just had a show in which they had Michael Sandel explain the ideas of Justice. The best podcast on philosophy with the most clear mind in the field of Justice - what more do you want? (feed)

If you have followed Sandel's vodcast about Justice (at Harvard), what he says is not new. Yet he manages to sum up in twenty minutes what takes hours in the series. The two polar approaches to justice are consequentialist utilitarianism on the one hand, which tries to capture justice by looking at the outcome of behavior and law and the measure to which the outcome is worthy or not. On the other side is the idea of fundamental right and wrong, which tries to find justice in a priori values. Sandel chooses neither side nor makes a suggestion for a third way as the one right approach, but rather comes up with the third approach in order to further inform and balance out the polarity.

The remaining thought then is that the search for Justice continues yet Sandel has enriched our tool box which helps us on the way.

More Philosophy Bites:
Three issues of Philosophy Bites,
Morality,
The genocide and the trial,
Dirty Hands,
Understanding decisions.