Posts

Subscribe to Elucidations:       This month, we are joined by R.A. Briggs (Stanford University), who is here to discuss an interdisciplinary area of study called epistemic decision theory. Click here to listen to our conversation. Epistemic decision theory is an area of study that brings together two sub-disciplines. The first is decision theory, which tries to mathematically study the best principles for deciding what to do: what are the costs and benefits of each option you’re considering, and how can you optimize the decision process so as to at least the worst options?...

Subscribe to Elucidations:       This month, we learn that there’s more to a person’s beliefs than just one big blob of information! Seth Yalcin (University of California, Berkeley) sits down with us to talk about how a person’s beliefs are sorted into answers to various questions. Click here to listen to our conversation. According to an influential picture of what a person’s belief state is–one that comes from philosophers like Jaakko Hintikka, David Lewis, and Robert Stalnaker--everything you believe can be encoded as a set of possible situations....

For those of you who would like to follow up on our conversation with Brian Leiter, his paper ‘Why Marxism Does Not Need Normative Theory’ goes through some of the questions we discussed in more detail. Matt Teichman...

Subscribe to Elucidations:       Full transcript here. This month, Brian Leiter (University of Chicago) makes his third (!) appearance on the program to talk about how Karl Marx can help us understand our current political moment. Click here to listen to our conversation. Karl Marx thought that industrial capitalism had an in-built self-destructive tendency. Capitalism would lead to great technological progress, which would in turn lead to more menial and repetitive careers being replaced by automation processes....

If you want to follow up on the research Josh Knobe has been doing with his colleagues on the true self, you can check out the following piece for the New York Times: ‘In Search of the True Self,’ Josh Knobe Or, for a more detailed presentation, you can read: “Beliefs About the True Self Explain Asymmetries Based on Moral Judgment,” George E. Newman, Julian De Freitas, and Joshua Knobe...

Subscribe to Elucidations:       This month, we get right into it with Josh Knobe (Yale University) about the notion of a person’s true self. Click here to listen to our conversation. Who are you, deep down, in your core? Maybe it isn’t fully clear what would count as an answer to that question, but it’s still a question we ask all the time....

For those of you who want to delve further into our esteemed guest’s views about blame and forgiveness, check out the following two papers: ‘What’s the Point of Blame?,’ Miranda Fricker ‘Forgiveness—an ordered pluralism,’ Miranda Fricker Happy reading! Matt Teichman...

Subscribe to Elucidations:       This month, Emily and Matt chat with Miranda Fricker (CUNY Graduate Center) about blame and forgiveness. Click here to listen to our conversation. We have a lot of conflicting feelings about blame. When someone does something bad, we feel a strong urge to blame them, and when it all goes down as intended, the person deserves the blame, and they learn that what they did was wrong, we intuitively feel that justice has been done....

To whet your appetite for Agnes Callard’s incredible forthcoming book on aspiration, here is a chapter-by-chapter summary. Happy reading! Matt Teichman...

Subscribe to Elucidations:       This month, we sit down with Agnes Callard (University of Chicago) to talk about aspiration. Click here to listen to our conversation. Have you ever wanted to get into something? Maybe you find it really boring to sit through an opera right now, but you think you might be missing something and want to learn how to appreciate opera....