In this video from the interview series Closer to Truth, the US presenter Robert Lawrence Kuhn and the UK philosopher A C Grayling peel back the layers of a question that’s been bandied about in many a Philosophy 101 classroom – ‘Why is there something instead of nothing?’ With Kuhn defending the question as a legitimate line of enquiry, and Grayling arguing that the question is ‘strictly meaningless, and for that reason unanswerable’, their discussion launches into a compelling exploration of logic and language, and the ways they intertwine.
Video by Closer to Truth
video
Human rights and justice
Can providing humanitarian aid be illegal? A troubling case from the US-Mexico border
17 minutes
video
Information and communication
Coverage of the ‘balloon boy’ hoax forms a withering indictment of for-profit news
17 minutes
video
Meaning and the good life
Wander through the English countryside with two teens trying to make sense of the world
10 minutes
video
Personality
A ‘dumpster archeologist’ reconstructs strangers’ stories via what they’ve discarded
14 minutes
video
Meaning and the good life
A Japanese religious community makes an unlikely home in the mountains of Colorado
9 minutes
video
Bioethics
Is it ethical to have a second child so that your first might live?
10 minutes
video
Meaning and the good life
‘Everydayness is the enemy’ – excerpts from the existentialist novel ‘The Moviegoer’
2 minutes
video
Knowledge
An Indigenous myth and a geological survey elicit two ways of knowing one place
4 minutes
video
Neuroscience
Dog vision is a trendy topic, but what can we really know about how they see?
11 minutes