Episode 67: Experimental Philosophy
Listen here or wherever you pod:
Watch the video interview on YouTube:
Looking Outside is for curious people looking for a fresh take on familiar topics, in business and beyond.
The very best philosophy is equal parts exhilarating and distressing. As one of the most profound pursuits towards greater understanding, through the love of wisdom, philosophy employs logic and demands critical thinking. But at worst it is left in the esoteric world of theory: disconnected from the world we live in. Out of touch. While philosophy is the practice of asking questions, experimental philosopher Jonathon Keats asks questions of it back. On this episode of Looking Outside we explore active, participatory thinking through real world experimentation with philosophical hypotheses and ideas. Jonathon shares how he pursues curiosity by creating tangible artefacts that others can interact with. By "doing" philosophy, Jonathon argues, we can create pathways into rabbit holes and an invitation to deeper exploration.
To look outside, Jonathon daydreams, looking up at the sky but not looking for anything in particular. Indulging in daydreams is as important to Jonathon as any of his articulated ideas.
Jonathon Keats is an experimental philosopher, artist, and writer whose multidisciplinary projects explore all aspects of society, adapting methods from the sciences and the humanities. He is a research associate at the University of Arizona’s College of Fine Arts, a fellow at the Berggruen Institute, a research fellow at the Highland Institute and the Long Now Foundation, principal philosopher at Earth Law Center, and an artist-in-residence at the SETI Institute and Biosphere 2. He advises the University of Zürich on metadisciplinary studies and co-directs the Consortium for Climate-Adapted Architectural Heritage at the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics.
He has exhibited and lectured at dozens of institutions worldwide, from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to Stanford University to the Triennale di Milano, and from SXSW to CERN to UNESCO. He is the author of six books on subjects ranging from science and technology to art and design – most recently You Belong to the Universe: Buckminster Fuller and the Future, published by Oxford University Press – and is the author of an online art column for Forbes. He is currently writing a field guide to more-than-human governance, which will be published by the Berggruen Institute Press.
A monograph about Keats’ artwork, Thought Experiments, was recently published by Hirmer Verlag. His archive is held by the Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art.
Learn more about Jonathon & follow him on X
Read Jonathon's writing on Forbes
Watch Jonathon's panel at the 2024 Dubai Future Forum
Explore Jonathon's experiments: A Clock in the Forest, Centuries of the Bristlecone, Millennium Camera, Tasting Tomorrow, Alaska River Time.
All views are that of the host and guests and don’t necessarily reflect those of their employers. Copyright 2025. Theme song by Azteca X.
