Media & Blogs
After the publication of my Open Society book, I appeared on several podcasts to generate publicity for it. Links and descriptions of those podcast appearances are collected here, along with some other items. Please use the main link to access the podcast so that the host gets whatever click-through benefits they can from you listening to the audio via their official feed. In the event some of the podcast pages disappear from the internet, I’ve collected recordings of all of the podcasts — but please play the archived version only as a last resort.
Podcasts can be found immediately below, with blog posts found further down the page. I've also collected some research videos here, as well as news articles that mention my work.
Podcasts
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“The Open Society as an Enemy: A Critique of how Free Societies Turned Against Themselves,” appearing in the New Books Network podcast (under the topics of Critical Theory, General History, Intellectual History, European Politics, and Political Science), with host Morteza Hajizadeh, 14 June 2025.
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“The Open Society, with J. McKenzie Alexander,” appearing in The Phlexible Philosophy Podcast, hosted by Hamza King, 19 March 2025.
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“The Open Society as an Enemy:
How Free Societies turned against themselves. Talking with Professor J. McKenzie Alexander,” appearing in
The San Franciso Experience,
with host Jim Herlihy, 17 March 2025.
(The embedded recording below might take a little while to load.)
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“The Open Society as an Enemy,” appearing in The Philosopher & the News, hosted by Alexis Papazoglou, 14 January 2025.
In this discussion, I cover some of the main themes of my book, fielding questions from Alexis Papazoglou.
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“How did morality evolve? Game Theory, Evolution and Philosophy,” appearing in Game Changer: The Game Theory Podcast, 30 December 2024.
Here I provide a brief introduction to evolutionary game theory and then switch to talking about how it can be used to explain how certain proto-moral behaviours might have evolved. Although this largely concentrates on work from my first book The Structural Evolution of Morality, the hosts allowed me to draw connections to some of places where game theory appears in disguise in The Open Society as an Enemy. (This has to do with ways in which our intersectional identities can be targets for strategic intervention, allowing a third-party actor to encourage or discourage social conflict.)
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“The Open Society as an Enemy: Populism, Popper, and pessimism post-1989,” an LSE Public Events lecture, released as a podcast. I speak along with Dr Ilka Gleibs and Professor Alan Manning, in a discussion of some of the main themes of my book.
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“It’s the Thought That Counts,”
the altruism Christmas special of the Thinkative
podcast, hosted by Matt Parker and Tim Newton, with me as a guest speaker.
Originally streamed live on 12 December 2016.
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“The Open Society as an Enemy,” a talk hosted by the Forum for Philosophy, held on 3 December 2013. [Slides]
This is where the initial ideas for my Open Society book were given their first public airing. As you can hear, I was solely concerned with issues that would later form Part II of the book.
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“The Evolution of Morality,” A public event as part of the Consilience series, hosted by the Forum for European Philosophy, on 22 November 2011. This event, chaired by Dr Kristina Musholt, features a panel discussion between myself, Dr Keith Jensen (a lecturer in comparative and developmental psychology, Queen Mary, University of London), and Dr Andrew Pinsent (research director of the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion at the University of Oxford).
Research videos
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In this short video (recorded and mixed very professionally by the LSE Research team), I discuss the evolution of morality and how it can be studied using methods of game theory. It was released on 19 April 2010.
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This next short video was recorded as a “research profile” for the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, back in 2015. In it, I discuss how morality can be both objective and relative at the same time. It shows some computer simulations in action, too!
Blogs
Over the years, I’ve written a few blogs related to my philosophical views. I’ve gathered together all of the various places where they’ve been published below. Just in case the links break and the articles vanish from the web, I’ve also taken screenshots of the blogs in their original format, which you can access. (Remember that anything which looks like an embedded video, etc. will not work if you click on them because it's just an image!) However, as the image files of those screencaptures are quite large, you’ll need to click the button below in order to request that they be shown, as the image won’t be loaded automatically.
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“What future for truth?” LSE British Politics and Policy blog, published online 17 June 2025.
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“Can the Open Society survive the information age?” LSE Research for the World Magazine, published online 26 November 2024.
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“The Open Society and its Enemies: Karl Popper’s legacy,” LSE History blog, published online 20 November 2024.
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“Coronavirus and 5G towers: Why do people believe weird sh*t?” Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method blog, London School of Economics and Political Science, published online 19 May 2020.
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“Is There An Objective Morality?” Institute of Art and Ideas News blog, issue 73, 20 May 2019.
News articles
Occasionally, something I’ve written is cited in a newspaper. Below, I’ve gathered together links to where they’ve been published. However, in case the links break and the articles vanish from the web, I’ve also taken screenshots of the articles in their original format, which you can access. As the image files of those screencaptures can be quite large, you’ll need to click the button below in order to request that they be shown as the image won’t be loaded automatically.
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“The Cost of Lies: Why We Identify With Deadly Misinformation” Byline Times, published online 10 July 2025.
