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The Gallery of Debates

The Dialogues.

History's greatest minds, staged face to face — debating faith, reason, and existence as if they shared one candlelit room.

 Neuroscience vs. Existentialism: The Illusion of Choice?
No. I
Metaphysics & Mind Contemporary Western Modern

Neuroscience vs. Existentialism: The Illusion of Choice?

When neuroscience maps the brain and finds no ghost in the machine, what becomes of freedom? A collision between Daniel Dennett's materialist theory of mind and Jean-Paul...

Featuring — Daniel Dennett & Jean-Paul Sartre

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Chalmers vs. Dennett: The Hard Problem of Consciousness
No. II
Metaphysics & Mind Contemporary Western Modern

Chalmers vs. Dennett: The Hard Problem of Consciousness

Is there genuinely something it feels like to be conscious — or is that feeling itself an illusion? David Chalmers and Daniel Dennett debate the hardest problem in all of...

Featuring — David Chalmers & Daniel Dennett

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Kant vs. Mill: Duty or Consequences
No. III
Ethics & Morality Modern Western Modern

Kant vs. Mill: Duty or Consequences

What truly makes an action right — the principle behind it, or the happiness it produces? Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill meet across two centuries to argue the deepest...

Featuring — Immanuel Kant & John Stuart Mill

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Monotheism vs. Symbolism
No. IV
Philosophy of Religion Medieval Comparative

Monotheism vs. Symbolism

Islam forbids every image of God; Hinduism places sacred icons at the heart of worship. Ibn Sīnā, Al-Ghazālī, and Ibn Taymiyyah argue that any finite representation of the...

Featuring — Ibn Sīnā, Shankara & more

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Nagarjuna vs. Ibn Sīnā: Does Reality Need a Ground?
No. V
Philosophy of Religion Medieval Comparative

Nagarjuna vs. Ibn Sīnā: Does Reality Need a Ground?

One philosopher argues that everything that exists depends on something else — and so there must be a Necessary Being whose existence needs no explanation: the God of Tawhid....

Featuring — Nāgārjuna & Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna)

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Nagarjuna vs. Shankara: Emptiness vs. Non-Duality
No. VI
Eastern Philosophy Medieval Indic

Nagarjuna vs. Shankara: Emptiness vs. Non-Duality

Two of India's greatest philosophical minds — separated by five centuries — meet on the most contested question in Indian metaphysics. Nagarjuna teaches that all things are...

Featuring — Nagarjuna & Adi Shankaracharya

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Shankara vs. Ramanuja: Is God Personal or Impersonal?
No. VII
Eastern Philosophy Medieval Indic

Shankara vs. Ramanuja: Is God Personal or Impersonal?

Is God personal or impersonal? Is the world real or an appearance? Two of India's greatest philosophers — Shankara and Ramanuja — argue the deepest question in Hindu...

Featuring — Adi Shankaracharya & Ramanujacharya

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Socrates and Buddha
No. VIII
Ancient Wisdom Ancient Comparative

Socrates and Buddha

Two of history's most transformative minds meet across civilisations. Socrates pursued the immortal soul through relentless questioning. The Buddha taught that the self is the...

Featuring — Socrates & Siddhartha Gautama

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Tawhid vs. Advaita Vedanta
No. IX
Philosophy of Religion Medieval Comparative

Tawhid vs. Advaita Vedanta

Both traditions say ultimate reality is One — but they do not mean the same thing. Adi Shankarācārya teaches that Brahman alone is real, and the world's multiplicity is māyā —...

Featuring — Ibn Sīnā, Shankara & more

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The Digital Soul
No. X
Modern Thought & Consciousness Contemporary Western Modern

The Digital Soul

If a machine could think, feel, and remember everything you do — would it be you? A collision between Nick Bostrom's transhumanist vision of radically enhanced humanity and...

Featuring — Nick Bostrom & Shannon Vallor

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The God Debate: Atheism vs. Theism
No. XI
Philosophy of Religion Modern Western Modern

The God Debate: Atheism vs. Theism

Five voices from modern atheism — Russell, Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, and Nietzsche — meet four architects of Islamic philosophical theology: Ibn Sīnā, Al-Ghazālī, Ibn Rushd,...

Featuring — Russell, Ibn Sīnā, Dawkins, Al-Ghazālī & more

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The One and the Three: Maimonides vs. Aquinas
No. XII
Philosophy of Religion Medieval Comparative

The One and the Three: Maimonides vs. Aquinas

Maimonides holds that God is absolutely simple: any distinction of persons within the divine shatters the unity the Shema demands. Aquinas replies that Father, Son, and Spirit...

Featuring — Moses ben Maimon & Thomas Aquinas

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The Purpose of Pain
No. XIII
Ethics & Morality Modern Western Modern

The Purpose of Pain

Two of the 19th century's most daring minds — both of whom knew suffering intimately — face each other on the question no philosophy can avoid. Does pain make us stronger, or...

Featuring — Friedrich Nietzsche & Søren Kierkegaard

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The Soul and the Self: Avicenna vs. Neuroscience
No. XIV
Metaphysics & Mind Medieval Islamic

The Soul and the Self: Avicenna vs. Neuroscience

Ibn Sīnā argues that the self is irreducible: strip away every sensation, every perception, every memory — and pure awareness remains, untouched. Modern neuroscience replies...

Featuring — Ibn Sīnā & A Modern Neuroscientist

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The Stoic's Path to Peace
No. XV
Ethics & Morality Ancient Greek

The Stoic's Path to Peace

Two thousand years before cognitive therapy, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Seneca offered a single diagnosis: suffering arises not from events but from our judgements about...

Featuring — A Stoic & A Modern Seeker

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The World Above and the World Within: Plato vs. Aristotle
No. XVI
Ancient Wisdom Ancient Greek

The World Above and the World Within: Plato vs. Aristotle

Plato taught that the visible world is a shadow — that truth, beauty, and the good exist eternally in a realm beyond the senses, accessible only to the philosophical mind....

Featuring — Plato & Aristotle

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Zen, Art, and Minimalism
No. XVII
Eastern Philosophy Medieval Japanese

Zen, Art, and Minimalism

Modern minimalism says less is more; Zen Buddhism says the empty room is a consequence of the empty mind — not its cause. A Zen Master and an Art Historian trace where these...

Featuring — A Zen Master & An Art Historian

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