Making Sense with Sam Harris  By  cover art

Making Sense with Sam Harris

By: Sam Harris
  • Summary

  • Join neuroscientist, philosopher, and five-time New York Times best-selling author Sam Harris as he explores important and controversial questions about the mind, society, current events, moral philosophy, religion, and rationality—with an overarching focus on how a growing understanding of ourselves and the world is changing our sense of how we should live. Sam is also the creator of the Waking Up app. Combining Sam’s decades of mindfulness practice, profound wisdom from varied philosophical and contemplative traditions, and a commitment to a secular, scientific worldview, Waking Up is a resource for anyone interested in living a more examined, fulfilling life—and a new operating system for the mind. Waking Up offers free subscriptions to anyone who can’t afford one, and donates a minimum of 10% of profits to the most effective charities around the world. To learn more, please go to WakingUp.com. Sam Harris received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA.
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Episodes
  • #360 — We Really Don’t Have Free Will?
    Mar 27 2024

    Sam Harris speaks with Robert Sapolsky about the widespread belief in free will. They discuss the limits of intuition, the views of Dan Dennett, complexity and emergence, downward causation, abstraction, epigenetics, predictability, fatalism, Benjamin Libet, the primacy of luck, historical change in attitudes about free will, implications for ethics and criminal justice, the psychological satisfaction of punishing bad people, understanding evil, punishment and reward as tools, meritocracy, the consequences of physical beauty, the logic of reasoning, and other topics.

    If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.


    Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

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    39 mins
  • #359 — Getting Used to It
    Mar 19 2024

    Sam Harris speaks with Cass Sunstein about habituation and its consequences. They discuss habituation to positive and negative experiences, marriage, happiness, meaning, variety, doing good vs feeling good, midlife crises, kids, wealth and happiness, things vs experience, the “illusory truth effect,” misinformation and social media, echo chambers and extremism, what governments can do to respond to misinformation, free speech on college campuses, the 2024 Presidential election, and other topics.

    If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.


    Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

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    31 mins
  • #358 — The War in Ukraine
    Mar 11 2024

    Sam Harris speaks with Yaroslav Trofimov about the War in Ukraine. They discuss the widespread false assumptions that Russia would win a swift victory, Ukrainian attitudes toward Russia, the transformation of the Ukrainian military, Russian incompetence, Russian public opinion, the Azov Battalion and the “de-Nazification” of Ukraine, the role of the Orthodox Church, conspiracy thinking and Russian propaganda, Putin’s popularity on the Right, NATO membership, the Minsk 2 agreement, alleged failures of Western diplomacy, Zelensky’s leadership, the moral clarity of the war, Russian war crimes, the new cult of WW2 victory in Russia, the numbers of casualties and displaced people in Ukraine, delays in US aid to Ukraine, nuclear blackmail, long-range weaponry, the weakness of western sanctions, the sabotage of the Nordstream pipeline, how the war might end, the complicated prospects of a Trump presidency, and other topics.

    If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.

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    36 mins

What listeners say about Making Sense with Sam Harris

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

There Is a Better Way

Amazing podcast, but Spotify needs to add the "subscribers only" version. So much more content.

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1 person found this helpful

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Sam Harris

Sam is super smart and knows how to ask the right questions.
it's a pleasure to listen to him.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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Great Learning

excellent to listen to - growing brain cells - thanks for this lpodcast and speakers.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

One of the consistently best podcasts available

The only issue is that the full episodes should be available to members on Audible.

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Someone isn’t fully awake

Sam’s book is amazing but this is telling of the inability to see what’s really inside him.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Love This Podcast

Thank you, thank you, thank you Sam for your words about and for Joe!
Your podcast is fantastic. I may not agree with you 100% of the time, but I thoroughly enjoy listening to the point of views of both yourself and your guests.

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    5 out of 5 stars

Great listen

listened right through to the end. Thoroughly enjoyed the concepts around the topic and the depth to which they were discussed by Sam and Chris. Highly recommended #Episode270.

not sure why but it seems the one review pulls to all.
Love the podcast overall and Sam in general is just fantastic. Thoroughly enjoy his work

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