Hello and welcome to Episode 0 of The Panpsycast, I’m Jack Symes, and I’m here to say hello and tell you a little bit about the podcast. Hello. Right, that’s one job done.
In a word, The Panpsycast is an 'informal and informative' weekly philosophy podcast inspiring and supporting students, teachers, academics and free-thinkers worldwide.
What started off as just myself, Olly and Andrew (my co-hosts) talking philosophy at the University of Birmingham in the early episodes, has blossomed into something extraordinary. Bear in mind, that when this project started, we had never podcasted before. So, expect some poor audio quality, and some even poorer jokes in the first 15-16 episodes. Now, The Panpsycast team goes beyond the original three. Greg Miller, Emily Rose Ogland, Phoebe Light and Thom Atkinson have joined the club, and as a consequence, we've produced some amazing content.
From our humble beginnings, we have gone from strength to strength and looking back, we’ve been lucky enough to interview some of the biggest names in philosophy - A. C. Grayling, Daniel C. Dennett, Peter Singer, Yujin Nagasawa, Bence Nanay, Alison Stone, Christian B Miller, Rebecca Roache, Galen Strawson, Steven Pinker - and the list goes on.
Not only do we interview big thinkers, but we also release informal discussions focusing on a broad range of areas within philosophy - existentialism, moral philosophy, political philosophy, philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion - there really is something for everyone, and we always pitch our discussions at non-specialists.
Every episode, we want somebody who is completely unfamiliar with a particular topic or thinker, to come out the other end at the forefront of the contemporary discussion - but most importantly, come out of the other end with a smile on their face.
To quote William James, “Good-humor is a philosophic state of mind; it seems to say to Nature that we take her no more seriously than she takes us. I maintain that one should always talk of philosophy with a smile.”
Thank you, we hope you enjoy the show.
