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sleepyphilosophyradio

sleepyphilosophyradio

slphilosophy 44 Episodes Sep 18, 2026

Long-form philosophy content for late-night listening and deep focus. We cover the big thinkers - from the Stoics and Aristotle to Camus, Nietzsche, and Dostoevsky - explained in a calm, steady voice that keeps things interesting without being overstimulating. If you want something substantial to think about during quiet hours, or just appreciate philosophy delivered at a relaxed pace, this is for you.

Episodes

Life Is Worth Living | William James and the Sick Soul
Life Is Worth Living | William James and the Sick Soul Sep 18, 2026 02:23:17 Fall asleep to the life of William James, the invalid who became America's great philosopher of hope and belief.As a young man William James was so ill in body and mind that he could barely leave his room, and one spring evening he made a private decision that would shape everything after it. This episode follows the whole arc of his life and thought, from a wandering childhood in the most gifted
Is Change Real? | Heraclitus vs Parmenides | Philosophy for Sleep
Is Change Real? | Heraclitus vs Parmenides | Philosophy for Sleep Sep 13, 2026 02:17:52 Fall asleep to the oldest quarrel in philosophy, whether all things flow or nothing ever moves at all.Twenty-five centuries ago, two Greek thinkers gave opposite answers to the same question, and nearly every philosopher since has stood somewhere between them. This episode follows the quarrel from its beginning. We meet Heraclitus, the lonely riddler of Ephesus who hid his one book in a temple and
No One Is Free Alone | Hegel and the Need to Be Seen
No One Is Free Alone | Hegel and the Need to Be Seen Sep 9, 2026 02:17:58 Fall asleep to Hegel, who watched an old world end and swore reason was moving through the ruin.Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born into a modest world and rose, against long odds, to become the most commanding philosopher of his age, the last great thinker who dared to explain nearly everything as a single unfolding whole. This episode opens in a burning town, with an unknown lecturer carrying
Those Who Know Do Not Speak | The Hidden Teachings of Lao Tzu
Those Who Know Do Not Speak | The Hidden Teachings of Lao Tzu Sep 4, 2026 02:17:15 Fall asleep to the ancient Chinese way of yielding, water, and the wisdom of doing without forcing.More than two thousand years ago, in a China torn apart by endless war, an old man rode west on an ox, handed a gatekeeper a small book of verses, and disappeared into the mountains. That book, and the tradition it founded, is the subject of this long, slow episode. We begin with its legendary author
The Most Reluctant Convert | C.S. Lewis for Deep Sleep
The Most Reluctant Convert | C.S. Lewis for Deep Sleep Aug 29, 2026 02:22:46 Fall asleep to the life and mind of C.S. Lewis, the atheist who became Christianity's most beloved modern voice.Over more than two hours, this longform episode traces the whole arc of a remarkable life and mind. We begin in a cold Belfast childhood and a wartime trench, follow a brilliant young atheist through the long, reluctant argument that led him back to belief, and settle in among the Oxford
The Sword Was Never the Point | Miyamoto Musashi for Deep Sleep
The Sword Was Never the Point | Miyamoto Musashi for Deep Sleep Aug 23, 2026 02:07:44 Fall asleep to the story of Miyamoto Musashi, the undefeated swordsman who laid down his blade to write.Born into the last years of Japan's long civil wars, a rough, motherless boy killed his first opponent in a duel at the age of thirteen and walked out onto the open road to test himself against the finest swordsmen in the land. This is the story of what he was really looking for. We follow him t
Why We Fear Death | Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death for Sleep
Why We Fear Death | Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death for Sleep Aug 19, 2026 02:28:03 Fall asleep to the story of Ernest Becker, who traced all human striving back to the fear of death.In a hospital bed on the Canadian coast, a dying man agreed to be recorded talking about death, the subject he had spent his whole life studying. This episode follows Ernest Becker, the anthropologist and outsider who was pushed from one university to the next and died at forty-nine, only weeks befor
Man Is Not a Piano Key | Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground for Sleep
Man Is Not a Piano Key | Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground for Sleep Aug 13, 2026 02:18:58 Fall asleep to the story of literature's first anti-hero, the sick and spiteful man who spoke the modern mind's secret.In the winter of a year that would take almost everyone he loved, a broke and grieving writer set loose the strangest voice in Russian literature, a nameless man in a rented corner who declares himself sick, spiteful, and free. This episode stays inside that single short book, Not
Is Life Worth Living? | Nietzsche vs Schopenhauer | Philosophy for Sleep
Is Life Worth Living? | Nietzsche vs Schopenhauer | Philosophy for Sleep Aug 7, 2026 02:17:52 Fall asleep to the story of the young Nietzsche, who worshipped Schopenhauer and spent his life trying to prove him wrong.As a lonely student, Friedrich Nietzsche found a dead philosopher's book on a bookshop table and fell under a spell that would shape everything he became. This episode follows the long, strange bond between Nietzsche and his first master, Arthur Schopenhauer, from devotion to o
The Power of Your Subconscious Mind | Joseph Murphy for Sleep
The Power of Your Subconscious Mind | Joseph Murphy for Sleep Aug 1, 2026 02:27:27 An Irish boy left the priesthood, crossed an ocean, and built a new faith out of the human mind.This is the story of Joseph Murphy, the Irish-born minister whose single book on the subconscious mind has sold in the millions and has never left print. We begin with the boy who trained for the priesthood and lost his faith, the chemist who crossed an ocean, and the quiet preacher who found in a New Y
The Odyssey Explained: The Full Story and What It Really Means | For Sleep
The Odyssey Explained: The Full Story and What It Really Means | For Sleep Jul 24, 2026 02:25:59 Fall asleep to Homer's Odyssey, a voyage through mortality, memory, identity, and the difficult meaning of home.Beginning with a man who refuses immortality, then entering the mystery of Homer and the firelit halls where singers carried the poem in memory, this longform episode follows Odysseus through the great trials of his return. It explores the dangerous power of names, the guest law, the cos
If You Gaze Long Into an Abyss | A Complete Philosophy of the Existential Crisis
If You Gaze Long Into an Abyss | A Complete Philosophy of the Existential Crisis Jul 18, 2026 03:27:13 Why do people who have everything still wake at three in the morning certain that none of it means anything?This is a long, unhurried history of the moment the floor of ordinary life gives way. It begins with a celebrated novelist who, at the height of his fame and fortune, quietly hid a rope from himself, and from that single human crisis it opens outward across the centuries. We follow the confr

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