Children's impossible questions addressed by the greatest minds in philosophy. With jokes.
Hosted by philosopher Christabel Cane and comedian Steve Cross.
Over the next two episodes, Steve and Christabel will serve up a mind-melting mixture of psychoanalysis, osteology, theory fiction, evolutionary biology, hypergeneology (and maybe even a little bit of philosophy) to answer whether we should sit up straight. The answer is a resounding NO: or at least, it is if you ask the hyperstitional entity Professor Daniel Charles Barker. Christabel spends this first instalment of this two-parter recounting the circumstances under which she fell down the rabbit hole that is Spinal Catastrophism, Thomas Moynihan’s tour de force of a treatise – or rather, a spoof of a treatise – about how orthograde posture is not only the human race’s greatest triumph, but also its terrible downfall; one that will eventually doom us all.
Christabel takes us on a whistle-stop tour through Nick Land’s accelerationism, Kant’s thoughts about orientation, Sadie Plant’s cyberfeminism, and Sándor Ferenczi’s work on the Freudian death drive. Steve explains parental brain depletion, ret-cons R2D2’s omniscience, and completely undermines the way our mothers taught us to tell right from left. Together, our hosts reveal buckets of arcane law spanning from the search for intelligent life, to football huddle tactics, to J.G. Ballard’s hypothesis that all beings harbour an innate desire to return to glorious radial symmetry.
Confused yet? Listeners, you don’t know that half of it!
Email us the impossible questions children ask you at philosophyplaydate@gmail.com
Find Steve at https://drstevecross.squarespace.com
Find Christabel at https://christabelcane.com/
Philosophy Playdate theme by Piers Cane
5 Oct 2026
Episode 32 - "Why do people keep secrets?"
This week, Christabel comes back (with a vengeance) to have another jab at Immanuel Kant as she and Steve set about answering Steve’s daughter’s question “Why do people keep secrets?” Steve rebuts Christabel’s accusation of being a Kant apologist (but does accept that there are some secrets – like, for instance, the exact cost of the very expensive guitar they might have purchased – that shouldn’t see the light of day). Christabel surveys Cicero’s and Aristotle’s conceptions of loyalty, and the duties of fidelity we might owe to our friends.
The duo then move on to what Michel Foucault described as the 18th Century rejection of political opacity, and one of its thought leaders, Jeremy Bentham. UCL’s corpse mascot was a complicated man: he described transparency as ‘antiseptic’, but he also thought that some degree of military secrecy could be justified on utilitarian grounds. Christabel explores Sissela Bok’s critique of this picture, and Steve lets us in on what we’re likely to find in a nuclear submarine’s safe at the very bottom of the sea.
Finally, our hosts take a look at the secrets that the gods might keep from us. Christabel points out that myths involving divine secret names can be found across a range of different cultures, paying particular attention to initial reluctance that both Yahweh and Amun-Ra exhibited before disclosing their names to Moses and Isis. Steve points out that both keeping and learning secrets can be a double-edged sword (or more appropriately, kitchen knife).
So can you keep a secret? Because we think you’ll want to hear this…
Email us the impossible questions children ask you at philosophyplaydate@gmail.com
Find Steve at https://drstevecross.squarespace.com
Find Christabel at https://christabelcane.com/
Philosophy Playdate theme by Piers Cane
28 Sept 2026
Episode 31 - "Is dobbing bad?"
In this episode, Steve and Christabel answer Steve’s son’s question “Is dobbing bad?” To get the skinny on snitching, Christabel revisits friend of the podcast, Immanuel Kant. She also draws on the Kantian scholarship of Helga Varden, Mary J. Gregor, James Mahon and Annette Baier (not to name names). We learn about the sneaky trick the father of deontology played on King Frederick William II, Steve tells us of his own real-life ‘murderer at the door’ case, and Christabel expresses her great relief at the fact that Kant remained a lifelong bachelor.
The duo then drop in on ancient China get the straight dope on the Confucian conception of dobbing. They find out what Confucius thought of sheep rustling, and what Mencius – the second sage of Confucianism – thought it was permissible to do to get your dad out of a bind. They survey Liu Qingping’s critical approach to Confucian emphasis on the virtue of filial piety, and William Sin’s ‘liberal’ reading of these philosophers. In the process Steve reveals the link between esoteric philosophy and Ted Baker’s corporate management strategy, Christabel relays what Pierre Ladot thought about Socratic dialogue, and we are made privy to some genius-level medical marketing.
So go ahead and give it a listen. But if anyone asks, you didn’t learn anything from us…
Email us the impossible questions children ask you at philosophyplaydate@gmail.com
Find Steve at https://drstevecross.squarespace.com
Find Christabel at https://christabelcane.com/
Philosophy Playdate theme by Piers Cane
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