About the Book
Brought to you by Penguin.
“Civilization rests on a series of successful conversations.” —Sam Harris
Neuroscientist, philosopher, podcaster and bestselling author Sam Harris, has been exploring some of the greatest questions concerning the human mind, society, and the events that shape our world.
Harris’ search for deeper understanding of how we think has led him to engage and exchange with some of our most brilliant and controversial contemporary minds - Daniel Kahneman, Robert Sapolsky, Anil Seth and Max Tegmark - in order to unpack and understand ideas of consciousness, free will, extremism, and ethical living.
For Harris, honest conversation, no matter how difficult or contentious, represents the only path to moral and intellectual progress.
Featuring eleven conversations from the hit podcast, these electric exchanges fuse wisdom with rigorous interrogation to shine a light on what it means to make sense of our world today.
"I don’t have many can’t miss podcasts, but Making Sense is right at the top of that short list" Stephen Fry
"Sam Harris is the most intellectually courageous man I know" Richard Dawkins
© Sam Harris 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020
About the Author :
Sam Harris (Author, Reader)
Sam Harris is the author of five New York Times bestsellers. His books include The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, The Moral Landscape, Free Will, Lying, and Waking Up. The End of Faith won the 2005 PEN/Martha Albrand Award for Nonfiction. His work has been published in more than twenty languages. Harris has written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Economist, The Times, the Boston Globe, the Atlantic, Annals of Neurology, and other outlets. He received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a PhD in neuroscience from UCLA. Please visit his website at SamHarris.org.
David J. Chalmers (Reader)
David J. Chalmers is University Professor of Philosophy and Co-Director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness at New York University. His previous books include The Conscious Mind and Constructing the World. He has given the John Locke lectures and has been awarded the Jean Nicod Prize. He is known for formulating the 'hard problem' of consciousness, which inspired Tom Stoppard's play The Hard Problem, and for the idea of the 'extended mind', which says that the tools we use can become parts of our minds.
Timothy Snyder (Reader)
Timothy Snyder has been called ‘the leading interpreter of our dark times’. As a historian, he has given us startling reinterpretations of political collapse and mass killing. As a public intellectual, he has turned that knowledge towards counsel and prediction, working against authoritarians and populists. After a quarter century at Yale, he now teaches history at the Munk School in the University of Toronto and his books, which have been published in over forty languages, include Bloodlands, Black Earth, On Tyranny, Road to Unfreedom, Our Malady and On Freedom. His work has inspired poster campaigns and exhibitions, sculptures, a punk rock song, a rap song, a play and an opera, and he has appeared in over fifty films and documentaries.
Robert M Sapolsky (Reader)
Robert M. Sapolsky is a professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University and the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation 'Genius Grant'. His previous books includes the international bestseller Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst, The Trouble with Testosterone, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers and A Primate's Memoir.
Daniel Kahneman (Reader)
Daniel Kahneman was a Senior Scholar at Princeton University, and a former Emeritus Professor of Public Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002. He died in 2024.
Max Tegmark (Reader)
Max Tegmark is a professor of physics at MIT and president of the Future of Life Institute. He is the author of Our Mathematical Universe, and he has featured in dozens of science documentaries. His passion for ideas, adventure, and an inspiring future is infectious.
Review :
I don’t have many can’t miss podcasts, but Making Sense is right at the top of that short list. Sam Harris and his varied and fascinating guests generate light but not heat. The choir is neither preached to nor pointlessly provoked. I have never finished a single episode without having learned something and being given pause for real thought.
Even in casual discussion, Sam is intelligent, educated, honest, considered and brave. He’s really not cut out for the Internet.
Sam Harris is the most intellectually courageous man I know, not afraid to speak truths out in the open where others keep those very same thoughts buried, fearful of the modish thought police. His literate intelligence and fluency with words has transferred from the written to the spoken medium, and in his podcast he brings out the best in his guests, including those with whom he disagrees.
Do yourself a favor, broaden your perspectives and listen to the Making Sense podcast. Whatever your politics, you will find ideas and points of views you've never considered before, in fields you don't know, from neuroscience to computer science to culture.
Of all the podcasts available, the one nobody should miss is Making Sense. Every episode is stimulating. In an era when everyone seems to have lost their reason, here is one of the few places where reason remains safe.
In the rapidly expanding universe of podcasts, Sam Harris's Making Sense is a firmly established galaxy of brilliant minds orbiting Sam's shrewd but solar intelligence. I am frequently late for work because I start listening while shaving and can't bring myself to hit pause.
I’ve been an avid listener to Sam's podcast from the beginning and not one episode goes by without me learning something new about life, culture, politics, religion, history, and especially the human mind. Sam is an enlightened, rational voice in a world that needs it now, perhaps more than ever, especially if we are to survive, or thrive, in spite of the collective weaknesses that make us human.
There's only one podcast I never miss, and it’s the one that has the most appropriate title in all of broadcasting. Does anyone simply make more sense than Sam Harris?
One of the most consistently intelligent and thought-provoking shows out there, and not just in the podcast space. Sam’s is a much-needed voice during these unprecedented times.
Sam Harris is a genius and his podcast explores many of the important issues of our time. (Yes it’s as good as that sounds.) Sam is a voice of reason and science in an era that needs both more than ever. The Making Sense podcast essentially launched my presidential campaign.
