Subscribe to Elucidations: This month, we discuss love and moral value with Mark Hopwood, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Sewanee: The University of the South, and former co-host of this podcast! Click here to listen to our conversation. In discussing rights, religion, politics, and much more, we ask: Who has moral value? Who are we obliged to accommodate, support, even love? ...
Subscribe to Elucidations: This month, we discuss conditionals with Anthony (Thony) Gillies, Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. Click here to listen to our conversation. Lately, philosophers have resurrected interest in formal theories of what’s meant by conditional statements, or if-then statements. Conditionals are basic, because they relate conditions – knowns and unknowns, actions and results, etc. But how do they relate them? Let’s examine one simple example that turns out to complicate this question. ...
Subscribe to Elucidations: Episode transcript here. This month, we discuss the categorical imperative with Stephen Engstrom, professor of philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh. Click here to listen to our conversation. True to the Chicago tradition, we philosophers spend a lot of time asking – but perhaps not so much time answering – an everyday question: What’s the right thing to do? ...
Those of you who are interested in following up on the topic of our previous episode can take a look at the following two papers: Mark Schroeder, “Stakes, Withholding, and Pragmatic Encroachment” Mark Schroeder, “The Unity of Reasons” Happy reading! Matt Teichman ...
Subscribe to Elucidations: This month, we discuss reasons for action and belief with Mark Schroeder, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California. Click here to listen to our conversation. Consider one question from this episode. Can we decide what to believe, the way we decide how to act? We can, for instance, decide to worship at a church or temple. But if we do so in January in Chicago, can we decide to believe that the weather on our way to worship is warm? Or, more significantly, can we decide to believe in God? Pascal (in)famously suggested that we should in fact decide to believe in God. He suggested that if we believe in God when we needn’t, we waste a bit of time; but that if we don’t believe and good when we need to, we condemn ourselves eternally. That reasoning may seem right, but many have noted that it does not much help one actually believe in God. Then again, if one finds oneself in a crisis, one may indeed find one’s self believing in God, if only for lack of other hope. In such circumstances, has one decided to believe in God? Does one have reason to? (Perhaps this helps explain why religion often looks beyond reason, to such “unreasonable” traditions as readings, rites, and roles.) ...
Those of you who are interested in picking up some of the threads from our last episode can take a look at the following article: ‘Being Helped and Being Grateful,’ Barbara Herman Happy reading! Matt Teichman ...
Subscribe to Elucidations: This month, we discuss gratitude with Barbara Herman, Griffin Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles. Click here to listen to our conversation. Is our subject this week, well, gratuitous? Given the dearth of philosophical attention to it in the last century or two, gratitude might not seem worth studying. But our guest argues that while gratitude might not itself comprise the most weighty moral phenomenon, it can be “telltale” of moral interactions and relationships, and of their complexification in modern moral philosophy. ...
For those of you who are interested in following up on Malte Willer’s recommended solution to the miners paradox, he recommends the following paper: ‘Dynamic Thoughts on Ifs and Oughts,’ Malte Willer Happy reading! Matt Teichman ...
Subscribe to Elucidations: This month, we discuss non-monotonic logic with Malte Willer, assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago. Click here to listen to our conversation. If you have been so lucky as to take an introductory logic class, then you will learn a conception of logic that is, well, downright logical. That conception of logic is monotonic. Here’s what we mean by “monotonic”: You will learn that if a conclusion follows from certain information, then more information won’t affect your conclusion. Consider this example: Suppose that per your college, if you take six philosophy classes, then you can minor in philosophy. Then if you know you’ve taken six philosophy classes, you should be able to conclude that you can minor in philosophy. Additional information – say, about the many other classes you have taken – should not affect your conclusion. Well and good. (After all, who wouldn’t want to study philosophy?) ...
Subscribe to Elucidations: This month, we discuss gender and medieval mysticism with Christina Van Dyke, professor of philosophy, director of gender studies, and executive director of the Society of Christian Philosophers at Calvin College. Click here to listen to our conversation. How might the notion of God to have meaning to us? God today can increasingly seem to us a mere historical phenomenon–a subject of past peoples’ energy, but presently only a subject of professors’ study. But of course, in the middle ages, God was both a subject of professorial study and popular energy. Scholars reasoned knowledge about God, but God meant more to many more people beyond the academy. To them, God was more than a notion. ...