Author: Devon

Born and raised in Montreal, Devon studied medieval Judeo-Portuguese manuscripts and earned a PhD in Linguistics from Cornell University before becoming Producer for Philosophy Talk. He has helped produce many other national radio features, including "Inside the National Recording Registry" (in association with the Library of Congress), which won a Peabody Award in 2013. Devon also hosts his own weekly blues show, "Fog City Blues," on KALW 91.7 FM in San Francisco.

  • Remembering Dan Dennett

    This Sunday, on the second anniversary of his passing, we’ll be rebroadcasting the special retrospective…

  • Summer Reading Extended

    This year’s Summer Reading special (our 18th!) was a relatively orderly one, with a trio of interviews that shared some common ground in pop culture, exploring philosophical issues in popular TV series, fictional movie universes, and semi-obscure sci-fi stories.

  • Quiz Night: The Slides

    For those of you following along at home, here are the slides from our 20th Anniversary Quiz Night, held November 9, 2023 at KALW’s popup event space in downtown in San Francisco.

  • Summer Reading Uncut

    We’re most most eager for you to listen to the edited broadcast and podcast, but there’s always good stuff from the conversations we record for these multi-guest episodes that had to be left on the cutting-room floor.

  • 2022: The Year in Sound

    Following up on last year’s not-so-new experiment, here’s a little behind-the-scenes look into the brief audio montages (produced by yours truly) that we included in this year’s episode in lieu of the usual Roving Philosophical Report.

  • 2021: The Year in Sound

    Every once in a while I like to step out from behind the mixing board to give a behind-the-scenes look at some aspect of the program. For our annual end-of-year special, we tried something a bit different, though not unprecedented.

  • Summer Dylan Reading

    Every once in a while, I sneak out from behind the mixing board to offer some insights into the process of producing the program. This week, however, I’m chiming in as part of our annual Summer Reading special to let you in on some of my own reading plans.

  • [AUDIO] Love Is on the Air

    What’s a producer to say about love? I’ll leave the heavy philosophical lifting to John…

  • [AUDIO] Black History Month: A Playlist

    On February 5, John and Ken will talk to Michael Dawson from the University of Chicago about Reparations. February is, of course, Black History Month, and we often try to schedule programs in that month that question our assumptions about African-American history, politics, and culture.

  • Hail to the Chief of Philosophy

    Today is Barack Obama’s last full day in office as the 44th President of the United States. As Producer I’ll leave the philosophical implications of that to John an Ken, and instead offer a sample of one of my favorites parts of working on Philosophy Talk, the one-minute billboard that opens each program.

  • R.I.P. Derek Parfit

    The eminent British philosopher Derek Parfit passed away earlier this week. Although he had never joined…

  • Election Special 2016 – Uncut

    Happy Labor Day from your friendly neighboorhood producer. This weekend we present our first Election Special, a pre-produced…