If you want to hear my philosophical opinions – whether that be on the nonexistence of free will or the nature of morality – phrased with greater clarity, elegance, and precision than I could ever muster, you should probably just listen to Alex O’Connor. He put it best himself, after we met on King’s Parade, in an exchange with two passing fans: “It’s crazy how long I’ve been doing this for.”

And what exactly is “this” for O’Connor? A YouTuber, Substack writer, and debater, he has mediated high-profile discussion and hosts the successful podcast ‘Within Reason’, which has featured guests like Rory Stewart and Richard Dawkins. I’ve followed O’Connor’s work since his early videos on the paradox of prayer and intelligent design, back when he was finishing his A-Levels. Those videos sparked my own love for theology and philosophy, eventually leading me to study them at Cambridge. While preparing for this interview, I even unearthed an email I sent him in 2021, saying, “I hope to one day study theology at Oxford, like yourself.”

In other words, this conversation felt personally significant to me. But O’Connor couldn’t have been more welcoming. Our interview took place outside Michaelhouse Café – a church and a coffee house –an irony I, of course, pointed out, given his views on religion. As we spoke under the clear sky, a magician practiced tricks for a couple behind us. Watching sleight of hand while listening to O’Connor’s carefully-crafted turns of phrase, I couldn’t help but notice a parallel. Both trades, in their own way, dealing in the art of persuasion.

“I’m an agnostic about so many things”

And yet, for someone who is so good at persuasion and philosophical rhetoric, his podcasts are refreshing in their directness. When I ask why he doesn’t begin his episodes with guest biographies, as many interviewers do, he’s blunt: “I get bored listening to other people do that. I don’t really care who you are. And if I do, then I’ll look it up […] the content’s what’s important.”

Before becoming the YouTuber CosmicSceptic that many know today, O’Connor was always creative. “I’ve been excited about putting things into the world for as long as I can remember.” It was skateboarding that led him behind the camera. “That’s one of the ways I got into videography and photography. Skateboarders were always looking for somebody to hold a camera.” While this would prove invaluable for his YouTube career, ironically, he “never had any ambition to be the guy in front of the camera.”

And yet, somehow O’Connor ended up as a 17-year-old commenting on theology and philosophy and, in a video published after the 2016 US election, politics. However, while he now confidently navigates the philosophical, O’Connor approaches political affairs with deliberate caution. He describes himself, with self-deprecating honesty, as “a professional fence sitter” in many regards. “I’m an agnostic about so many things that I don’t think I have what it takes to be an effective communicator on current affairs.”

This restraint dissolves, however, when discussing the British monarchy, an institution he critiques with surgical precision. He challenges readers to “imagine as best you can the United Kingdom without a monarchy, which is not difficult to do,” arguing that the institution forces a political charade. By requiring parliamentarians to swear allegiance to “King Charles and his as yet unborn successors,” O’Connor contends, “you are forcing every single parliamentarian to lie under oath,” perpetuating a pretence that “no MP seriously thinks” is genuine.

Our discussion moves on to free will, perhaps his most thoroughly explored philosophical territory. Here, O’Connor condenses years of contemplation into one elegant argument: “Well, all actions are either determined by something or they’re not. If they’re not determined by anything, then they’re random and you’re not in control. If they are determined by something, then you must ask the same question of the thing: is that thing determined by something or is it random? And if it’s random, and you’re not in control, it is determined then you push the problem back.”

“I’ve been excited about putting things into the world for as long as I can remember”

Indeed, despite persuasively explaining his view on the monarchy, free will and, at one point, a philosophical position called ‘mereological nihilism’, he admitted, “I talk about this a lot because I think it’s interesting […] but to actually commit myself to it as a view, I think would require some more reading.”

Perhaps the most revealing moment comes when I ask what book everyone should read. After contemplating the Bible, particularly the New Testament, he ultimately resists the premise of the question itself: “The responsibility of putting one person’s views into the ears of every single person would, I think, be too hubristic.”

As our conversation concludes in the shadow of the church-turned-café’s imposing presence, with the magician still performing nearby, what initially seemed parallel reveals itself as profound contrast. Where the magician deliberately misleads through artful deception, O’Connor refuses to present certainty where none exists.

For someone whose career began as a teenager recording theological critiques in his bedroom, this intellectual honesty – the anti-magic of refusing to conjure false certainty – may be precisely what our discourse needs most desperately today. In a world increasingly divided by ideological sleight of hand, O’Connor reminds us that the most trustworthy voice might be the one that knows exactly when to say, “I don’t know.”

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