Explore every episode of the podcast Elucidations
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Episode 150: Shruti Rajagopalan discusses talent in India | 20 Aug 2024 | 00:46:43 | |
In this episode, Matt sits down with Shruti Rajagopalan (Mercatus Center) to talk about what the future holds for India. We often have a tendency to think of the current economic and geopolitical situation as simply the way things are. Especially for people who grew up in the United States over the past 50 years, the fact that it is an economic and military superpower sorta feels set in stone. But in this episode, Shruti Rajagopalan encourages us to take the long view, regarding the current state of the US as just one phase in a decades or possibly centuries-long economic development life cycle. First, the country logs a certain number of decades as a manufacturing hub, under conditions of minimal top-down interference from regulatory bodies. This enables it to build wealth, which eventually pushes it away from being a manufacturing economy, but it’s a race against the clock. With economic growth comes a rise in average life expectancy, plus a lower birth rate, which together can lead to large aging population. Once the aging population increases, the country’s economy needs to be strong in order to accommodate all the caregiving that an aging population makes necessary. Interestingly, it’s starting to look like some other countries—particularly India—are currently poised to undergo a similar trajectory of economic development that the US did. What makes India stand out is that among the countries in the world with a large young population, they have an unusually high GDP per capita. They also have a pretty sizeable early-career, STEM-savvy middle class that is ready to move anywhere in the world, build a life wherever they end up, and culturally assimilate. Our esteemed guest argues a) that the relaxation of economic restrictions which took place in India in 1991 made this siutation possible, and that b) a few conditions still need to be met for the future to unfold in the optimal way. One is that India needs to build up its manufacturing sector that the country can get richer before the population gets too old. Another is that other countries need to take advantage of the fact that India’s young workforce is ready to emigrate. She even suggests that wealthier countries with a rising elderly population, low birthrate, or declining heritage language could perhaps address those issues by welcoming an incoming population of young workers from India. Join us as our guest outlines the (hopefully) upcoming rise of India on the world stage! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 149: Lainie Ross and Christos Lazaridis talk about defining death | 14 Apr 2024 | 00:42:01 | |
In this episode, we are joined by Lainie Ross (University of Rochester Medical Center) and (once again!) Christos Lazaridis (UChicago Medicine), this time to talk about the different ways of defining death. In our previous episode with Christos, we talked about death and the vexed history of attempts to define it. Prior to the advent of modern life support technology in the 1950s, it was usually enough to check whether a person had a heartbeat and could breathe to determine whether they were dead. But once machines were invented that could breathe and circulate blood in patients whose lungs or hearts were failing, a new moral conundrum was born: how do you decide whether a medical patient is dead when it is now possible to keep their lungs breathing and their heart beating indefinitely? In this episode, our distinguished guests talk about the actual criteria that physicians use to determine whether a patient is dead, as well as some possible criteria that no one has tried applying but which some doctors think would be more appropriate. Furthermore, Lainie Ross argues that every person has the right to choose which criteria will be used to determine whether they are dead. These two topics interact in interesting ways. For example, I might have a strong preference for my doctor to pronounce me dead only if I have permanently lost all consciousness, even if I can still spontaneously breathe. Although we currently have no good method of objectively measuring whether a patient has permanently lost consciousness, Dr. Ross argues that I have the moral right to sign an agreement stating my preferences. Specifically: the agreement could state that if, in the future, the technology for determining whether someone has permanently lost consciousness gets invented, and, at that time, I have permanently lost consciousness, then I should be declared dead. On the flipside, some patients prefer a stricter criterion, often for religious reasons. Perhaps it is my religious belief that if I am breathing, then I should be considered to be alive. Lainie Ross argues that in that case, I have the moral right to sign an agreement stating that that is the criterion that doctors will use on me, in the event that I lose consciousness but am still able to spontaneously breathe. As of right now, people only have the legal right to sign these types of agrreements in a handful of states in the US. Join us for this episode as Christos Lazaridis and Lainie Ross argue for making this legal right more widespread! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 140: Meghan Sullivan and Paul Blaschko discuss the good life | 10 Apr 2022 | 00:43:44 | |
Intro philosophy classes often get stuck in a rut. Some philosophy classes go through a list of old dead people and try to understand excerpts from some of their most influential writings, over the course of a semester. Could be something like: Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Mill, and Nietzsche. Other types of intro classes go through a list of topics that contemporary philosophers feel are canonical and have students read papers on those topics. Could be something like: the problem of evil, the mind-body problem, arguments for the existence (or non-existence) of God, the is/ought distinction, and external world skepticism. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with that type of class per se—I’d bet a lot of listeners tune into Elucidations precisely because of a kickass class they took on those lines. But sometimes, an instructor will quickly throw a syllabus like that together just out of a general feeling that that’s what you’re supposed to do. Not because the syllabus consists of material that they personally feel excited about. When that happens, what we often end up with is a room full of people who kinda don’t know what they’re doing there, including both the teacher and the students. This month’s Elucidations guests have a different approach. Their first-year students come from all different backgrounds and majors, and when they walk in, Sullivan and Blaschko immediately ask them: what are you planning to do with your life? Why? What do you hope to get out of it? What is it that makes this plan superior to others? This format still gives the usual suspects like Aristotle, Mill, etc. a seat at the table, but now they’re brought in specifically to help students figure out what they’re going to do when they graduate. Part of what makes this work is that Sullivan and Blaschko are completely open about sharing their own life stories, including big decisions from their past and the reasoning that went into them. With these background conditions in place, the class turns into a vibrant debate about how to make a future for yourself, thus bringing philosophy back into contact with its original mission from 2500 years ago in ancient Athens. Namely: to give everyone the skills they need to live a good life, to understand what makes the life they’re living good, and to define what a good life is going to look like for them personally, as opposed to for other people. Their course at The University of Notre Dame, God and the Good Life, has taken the higher education world by storm, and in order to bring some of what they’re up to to a bigger audience, they have adapted it into a new book from Penguin Press, called The Good Life Method. Tune into this month’s episode to learn all about how to live your best life! If you’re interested in getting a glimpse of the book, you can look at excerpts from it here: The Good Life Method, Meghan Sullivan and Paul Blashcko You can also take a look at the authors' personal website, which contain links to many of their writings on this and other topics: Happy reading! Matt Teichman Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 50: Greg Salmieri discusses the Aristotelian good life and productive work | 21 Aug 2013 | 00:36:28 | |
In this episode, Greg Salmieri looks at the attitudes ancient philosophers used to take towards craftsmanship. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 49: Hans Kamp discusses discourse representation theory | 17 Jul 2013 | 00:47:13 | |
In this episode, Hans Kamp discusses his influential dynamic theory of linguistic meaning. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 48: Jennifer Frey discusses the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas | 10 Jun 2013 | 00:31:30 | |
In this episode, Jennifer Frey discusses the medieval philosopher Thomas Aquinas' idea that what's ethically right or wrong is determined by our nature as human beings. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 47: Alexandru Baltag discusses the logic of knowledge | 14 May 2013 | 00:39:50 | |
In this episode, Alexandru Baltag gives us a tour through a number of formal definitions of knowledge that have been proposed in recent years. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 46: Frank Veltman discusses normality | 19 Apr 2013 | 00:27:26 | |
In this episode, Frank Veltman discusses the central role that the idea of normality (along with abnormality) plays in our everyday reasoning. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 45: Anubav Vasudevan discusses probability and determinism | 22 Mar 2013 | 00:32:02 | |
In this episode, Anubav Vasudevan argues that there is no conflict between the belief that the future is completely determined by the past and the belief that some things truly happen by chance. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 44: Joelle Proust discusses metacognition | 15 Feb 2013 | 00:34:13 | |
In this episode, Joelle Proust discusses whether you need to have the concept of memory in order to evaluate your ability to remember things. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 43: Peter Adamson discusses the philosophy of Al-Kindi | 01 Jan 2013 | 00:41:41 | |
In this episode, Peter Adamson gives us a tour through the impressively wide-ranging work of Al-Kindi, including his arguments for the unity of God and against the eternity of the universe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 42: Agustin Rayo discusses the construction of logical space | 12 Dec 2012 | 00:37:11 | |
In this episode, Agustin Rayo considers whether the number of dinosaurs being zero is the same thing as there being no dinosaurs, whether some wood blocks being nailed together into the shape of a table is the same thing as there being a table, and similar matters. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 41: David Enoch discusses metaethics | 09 Nov 2012 | 00:39:39 | |
In this episode, David Enoch argues that there are real facts of the matter about whether something is right or wrong, and that our ability to deliberate about what to do depends on this. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 139: Jessica Tizzard discusses the philosophy of pregnancy | 13 Feb 2022 | 00:31:57 | |
This month, Jessica Tizzard (University of Tuebingen) makes her second appearance on Elucidations to talk to Matt about pregnancy. Human pregnancy is weird. Try talking to a reproductive endochrinologist about it, and you’ll soon find that there’s a lot we don’t really understand about it even at the scientific level. But even when it comes to thinking about pregnancy at the commonsense reasoning level, puzzles begin popping up the second you start trying to think about it systematically. Like, consider the commonsense idea that a fetus is ‘inside’ the person who is pregant with it. They clearly are, in the sense that they aren’t out and about in the world the way a marsupial fetus is. But if you think about how containment and interiority are defined mathematically, there’s also a sense in which the fetus can’t literally be inside the womb, because in order for one thing to be inside another they have to be physically disconnected. In this episode, Jessica Tizzard argues that our commonsense thinking about pregnancy is dominated by ‘container’ metaphors: i.e. we think about a fetus inside a womb the way we think about a cookie inside a jar. However, she thinks that ‘parthood’ analogies are often an equally good fit for how a fetus relates to the person pregnant with it. That is, there are also biological analogies you could draw between a fetus and a body part: a body part is seamlessly physically connected to the body it’s a part of, and a body part is subject the same organism-level system of homeostatic regulation that the rest of the body is. The next step is to start thinking about how these observations ramify morally. Can acknowledging that the ‘parthood’ way of thinking is at least as biologically accurate as the ‘container’ way of thinking help shed light on what kinds of duties a pregnant person has to their as-yet unborn fetus? Join Matt and Jessica as they dive right into these thorny but important questions! Our distinguished guest recommends the following literature on pregnancy, which she draws on heavily in her own work: ‘Lady Parts’, Elselijn Kingma ‘Were You a Part of Your Mother?’, Elselijn Kingma ‘9 Months’, Elselijn Kingma ‘Neonatal Incubator or Artifical Womb?’, Elselijn Kingma and Suki Finn ‘Abortion, Intimacy, and the Duty to Gestate’, Margaret Olivia Little Happy reading! Matt Teichman Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 40: Johan van Benthem discusses logical dynamics | 08 Oct 2012 | 00:36:15 | |
In this episode, Johan van Benthem argues that the subject matter of logic should be broadened to encompass not only processes of inference performed by individuals, but also the sharing of information among groups of people. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 39: Nicholas Asher discusses the philosophy of language | 04 Sep 2012 | 00:31:11 | |
In this episode, Nicholas Asher discusses some of the challenges faced by philosophers, linguists, and computer scientists when it comes to developing a formal theory of meaning that (for example) a computer could understand. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 38: Christopher Frey discusses Aristotle on living organisms and their parts | 08 Aug 2012 | 00:25:29 | |
In this episode, Christopher Frey explains why Aristotle thought that after you sever a person's hand, it isn't really a hand anymore. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 37: Catarina Dutilh Novaes discusses methods in philosophy | 10 Jul 2012 | 00:25:29 | |
In this episode, Catarina Dutilh Novaes talks about whether there is any one method that's specific to philosophy, the way there is (for example) something we call the scientific method. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 36: Robert van Rooij discusses vagueness | 15 Jun 2012 | 00:32:37 | |
In this episode, Robert van Rooij talks about a paradox that arises when you try to decide exactly how many millimeters high someone has to be in order to count as tall. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 35: Martha Nussbaum discusses the capabilities approach | 07 May 2012 | 00:28:42 | |
In this episode, Martha Nussbaum proposes a new set of criteria for determining the overall health and prosperity of a country. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 34: Kieran Setiya discusses moral disagreement | 09 Apr 2012 | 00:31:06 | |
In this episode, Kieran Setiya discusses the difference between disagreeing with someone about how you should live your life and disagreeing with someone about what you just saw (like, for example, who was the winner of a very close race). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 33: Daniel Sutherland discusses the philosophy of mathematics | 14 Mar 2012 | 00:31:06 | |
In this episode, Daniel Sutherland explains some of the difficulties involved in trying to say what numbers are. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 32: Jennifer Lockhart discusses ignorant knowledge | 09 Feb 2012 | 00:24:00 | |
In this episode, Jennifer Lockhart tells us what happens when a person is unable to go ahead and do something they know how to do in theory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 31: Branden Fitelson discusses reasoning fallacies | 11 Jan 2012 | 00:44:09 | |
In this episode, Branden Fitelson discusses some mistakes we often make when reasoning about probabilities, and explains why we may even have evolved to make these mistakes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 138: Toby Buckle discusses Mill's liberty principle | 23 Jan 2022 | 00:43:05 | |
This month, Toby Buckle, host of the Political Philosophy Podcast, returns to talk about John Stuart Mill’s liberty principle! (Also sometimes called the ‘harm principle’.) The occasion for the episode is the recent release of Toby’s cool new book, What is Freedom?, which is out now from Oxford University Press. Get it while it’s hot! John Stuart Mill is probably one of the most influential intellectuals of the 19th century, having penned treatises on markets, logic, feminism, utilitarianism, and freedom of speech that people continue to pick up and read today. In this episode, we talk about how he had one foot in the free market-oriented tradition of liberalism and another in the more social justice-oriented type of liberalism, how he was raised under the world’s most ambitious parenting/education regime, and how he had a lifelong collaboration with Harriet Taylor. We also introduce what gets called his ‘liberty princple’. The idea behind the liberty principle is that we want as much freedom for each person as possible: they should have the ability to set their own agenda and carry it out. But we also need to limit it somewhat, because if everyone was completely unconstrained in how they set their agenda and carried it out, they’d interfere with each other. We’d have one person’s freedom detracting from other people’s freedom. So in order to achieve the perfect equilibrium we want, the thing to do is aim for sort of a greatest lower bound: every person should be allowed to do whatever they want for whatever reason they want, only stopping shy once they reach the point where doing whatever they want would harm another person. It might seem like an obvious principle to us now, but arguably that’s because we’re all living in the shadow of Mill! Part of the background context for this principle is a worry about paternalism. There’s a natural tendency for Person A to prevent Person B from doing what they want because Person A thinks it’s obvious that what Person B wants to do right now is harmful to them. The liberty principle tells us that that’s not a good reason to have laws prohibiting some course of action. We should only have a law prohibiting some course of action if allowing that course of action would interfere with other people’s freedom. That way, Mill argued, we keep the decision about whether to pass a law prohibiting something grounded in empirical facts about what would actually happen if it were passed. He also wanted to emphasize that each person has the right to be their own arbiter of what kinds of risk they will assume. I hope you enjoy our discussion! It was a fun one. If you’d like to hear more along the lines of what Toby and I discuss in this episode, you can do no better than to take a look at Mill’s exquisite On Liberty, which you can get for free here: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34901 And if you missed the link up at the top, definitely check out Toby’s edited volume, which gathers together a number of the interviews from his own podcast. The overarching theme is what freedom is and what it can be. What is Freedom?: Conversations with Historians, Philosophers, and Activists, Toby Buckle Happy reading! Matt Teichman Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 30: Marko Malink discusses modal syllogistic | 12 Dec 2011 | 00:30:34 | |
In this episode, Marko Malink discusses what Aristotle meant by words like 'every' and 'some,' and how his use of these words differs subtly from ours. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 29: Peter Kail discusses Hume's legacy | 08 Nov 2011 | 00:33:47 | |
In this episode, Peter Kail discusses the importance of David Hume's contributions to philosophy, including his thoughts on the scientific method, human psychology, and religious belief. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 28: John Searle discusses human reality and basic reality | 18 Oct 2011 | 00:38:55 | |
In this episode, John Searle explores some of the problems that come up when we try to reconcile what's obvious and self-evident about human experience with what we know about how the world works. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 27: Emma Borg discusses semantic minimalism | 26 Sep 2011 | 00:32:13 | |
In this episode, Emma Borg explains why it's important to have a sharp distinction between what a person literally means when they say something and what they merely imply. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 26: Robert Richards discusses evolutionary ethics | 08 Sep 2011 | 00:36:09 | |
In this episode, Robert Richards argues that we have evolved an instinct to act for the benefit of other people. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 25: Robert Stalnaker discusses conversational context | 18 Jul 2011 | 00:28:49 | |
In this episode, Robert Stalnaker draws a distinction between two different meanings of the word 'context,' then explores some of its philosophical ramifications. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 24: Christopher Peacocke discusses the perception of music | 13 Jun 2011 | 00:31:16 | |
In this episode, Christopher Peacocke discusses what it is to hear emotion in music. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 23: Quassim Cassam discusses transcendental arguments | 17 May 2011 | 00:31:46 | |
In this episode, Quassim Cassam discusses an influential strategy for arguing against the idea that (for example) we're all in the Matrix. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 22: Ben Laurence discusses collective action | 06 Apr 2011 | 00:29:36 | |
In this episode, Ben Laurence discusses the difference between what an individual person does and what a group of people does. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 21: Raymond Geuss discusses political liberalism | 07 Mar 2011 | 00:32:34 | |
In this episode, Raymond Geuss critiques the idea that we should always look to what the general consensus is when deciding which political policies to adopt. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 137: Bryan Caplan discusses open borders | 02 Jan 2022 | 01:13:13 | |
This month, I talk to Bryan Caplan (George Mason University) about what a world without immigration restrictions could look like. The work discussed in this episode comes out of Bryan’s incredible non-fiction graphic novel, Open Borders, which I highly recommend checking out. Don’t let the comic-book-iness of it fool you; it is 100% accessible and entertaining, but it is also written at the level of detail you’d normally expect to see in a peer-reviewed research paper. One basic fact about the world today is that it’s kind of a pain to move from country to country. You can maybe pull it off if you’ve already landed a fancy job where you want to move and if you’re coming from a first-world country, but even then, there are more complications than you might think: work visas, sponsorships, visa renewal, permanent residency, possible eventual citizenship. Basically just a ton of red tape. And if you’re coming from a third-world country, forget it: you typically either have to be a political refugee or enter a lottery that leaves you with a vanishingly small chance of getting in. So although it is technically possible to immigrate, assuming that planets are aligned, the fact remains that in most situations, there are strong legal pressures locking us into whatever country we live in right now. Bryan Caplan thinks that we should essentially just eliminate the bureaucratic machine that makes it so difficult to live wherever you please. Sure, there can still be customs, and nation states, and basic security checks—but other than that, make it as easy as possible for everyone to move around. Let’s take the US as an example. One obvious benefit of opening up our borders is humanitarian: anyone living in poverty would be able to come here and with no difficulty whatsoever be able to start earning ten times as much money as they could back home. But far beyond that, there is a growing body of research within economics which suggests that having a large influx of formerly poor, newly productive people will lead to a boost in our economy. So everybody wins. And it isn’t just any old boost; it’s a massive boost. If these models are correct, everybody wins big time. Tune in to hear our guest run through some of the empirical evidence for this prediction and find out why, according to him, the supposed dangers of an open boders policy are greatly exaggerated! Further Reading If you’re curious to learn more about the arguments discussed in this episode, you can do no better than to turn to the book: Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration, Bryan Caplan and Zach Weinersmith You might also enjoy Bryan’s blog post at Econlib running through the many topics the book covers. Finally, our distinguished guest recommends the following paper by Michael Clemens, which was part of the inspiration for his work on open borders: ‘Economics and Emigration: Trillion-Dollar Bills on the Sidewalk?', Michael A. Clemens Happy reading! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 20: Simon Critchley discusses faith | 08 Feb 2011 | 00:33:06 | |
In this episode, Simon Critchley considers whether religious faith can serve as a model for faith in ethical principles. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 19: Dan Sperber discusses epistemic vigilance | 12 Jan 2011 | 00:35:07 | |
In this episode, Dan Sperber discusses the psychological habits we develop in order to figure out whether the information we hear from other people is trustworthy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 18: Mark Lance discusses language and power | 06 Dec 2010 | 00:33:43 | |
In this episode, Mark Lance discusses how the conventions by which we address one another verbally define the roles we play in society. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 17: Brandon Fogel discusses mechanism and causation | 08 Nov 2010 | 00:33:56 | |
In this episode, Brandon Fogel discusses how attitudes toward the idea of action at a distance have changed over the course of history. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 16: Amartya Sen discusses justice | 06 Oct 2010 | 00:27:38 | |
In this episode, Amartya Sen critiques the idea that in order to make our society more just, we have to model it on an ideal. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 15: Brian Leiter discusses religious toleration | 08 Sep 2010 | 00:36:49 | |
In this episode, Brian Leiter considers whether claims of religious conscience--as opposed to claims of other matters of conscience--should be given special status under the law. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 14: Edward Witherspoon discusses skepticism | 02 Aug 2010 | 00:33:03 | |
In this episode, Edward Witherspoon considers whether a disembodied brain could, in principle, have the ability to think. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 13: Fabrizio Cariani discusses judgment aggregation | 09 Jul 2010 | 00:23:03 | |
In this episode, Fabrizio Cariani discusses how the beliefs held by a single person in a group relate to the beliefs held by that group as a whole. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 12: Jason Bridges discusses contextualism | 03 Jun 2010 | 00:40:08 | |
In this episode, Jason Bridges discusses how a single sentence can mean completely different things in different contexts, and why this is of particular interest to philosophers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 11: Martin Gustafsson discusses philosophical pictures | 07 May 2010 | 00:23:12 | |
In this episode, Martin Gustafsson discusses Ludwig Wittgenstein's thoughts on the commonsense belief that the meaning of a word is the thing for which the word stands. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 136: Christian Miller discusses virtue and character | 25 Oct 2021 | 00:42:18 | |
This month, Yuezhen Li and I sit down with Christian Miller (Wake Forest University) to talk about how to be virtuous. Also known as how to be good. ‘Virtue’ is sort of an old-timey word. But the concept is still alive and well today, even though we tend to use different words for it. The idea behind a virtue is: there’s such a thing as being a good person and doing good things, and that there are different ways of being a good person and doing good things. For example, you can be good in the sense that you’re honest, or you can be good in the sense that you’re brave, and you can definitely be one of those things without being the other. In philosophy, the name we give to character traits like being honest or brave is ‘virtues’. We talk a big game about being great people. Maybe I love to tell my friends about how I donated money to a charitable cause, or how I forgive people who did bad things when they apologize, or how I like to help people when they’re in trouble, or whatever. Blah blah blah. Christian Miller wants to cut through the all the talk and find out how virtuous we actually are, as a whole. What does the empirical evidence from psychology suggest? In his book, The Character Gap, Christian Miller finds that we are, on the whole, a mixed bag. On average, we aren’t particularly good people, which is maybe a bit of a bummer. But on the plus side, we also aren’t particularly bad people. We’re all sorta meh, in the middle. And there is a full range of variation in the population, with small numbers of extraordinarily good people and small numbers extraordinarily bad people at each of the tails. What should we do about all this? I guess all you ever can do is follow your bliss. But the fact is that most of us want to think of ourselves as good, regardless of how good we actually are, so why not try to be our best selves? Join us for this episode, as Christian Miller discusses some strategies we can employ to nudge ourselves in the direction of being a bit more honest, or a bit more brave, or a bit more whatever we want to be. Matt Teichman Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 10: Richard Kraut discusses goodness | 05 Apr 2010 | 00:22:33 | |
In this episode, Richard Kraut discusses the contrast between being good for someone and simply being good. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 9: Ted Cohen discusses metaphor | 04 Mar 2010 | 00:31:32 | |
In this episode, Ted Cohen argues that metaphorical language is a tool we use to identify with other people. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Episode 8: Chris Haufe discusses evolutionary psychology | 12 Feb 2010 | 00:23:16 | |
In this episode, Chris Haufe discusses the problems involved in trying to give an evolutionary account of our psychological traits. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||