For an excellent introduction to the issues we discussed in Episode 36, you can read: Robert van Rooij, ‘Vagueness and Linguistics‘ If you’re curious to see the details of van Rooij’s solution to the sorites paradox, including the distinction between strict truth and tolerant truth, take a look at the following: Robert van Rooij, ‘Tolerant, Classical, Strict‘ Matt Teichman...
Subscribe to Elucidations: This month we’re joined by Robert van Rooij, Assistant Professor of Philosophy of Language at the Institute for Logic, Language, and Computation, at the University of Amsterdam. Click here to listen to our conversation with him. As it happens, nearly everything we say is imprecise. For example, when I indicate where I want you to stand while posing for a photo, I don’t give exact coordinates; I just point with my finger....
For those of you who’d like to read more about the issues we discussed with Martha Nussbaum in Episode 35, we recommend you check out her recent book, Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach (Belknap Press, 2011). The book provides a wonderful and concise presentation of the capabilities approach to human development, and contains an excellent bibliography. Matt Teichman...
Subscribe to Elucidations: This month, we speak with Martha Nussbaum, Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago. You can listen to our conversation here. What do we mean when we talk about nations being more or less developed? Is it simply a matter of being financially better-off? If not, then what would be a better measure of how well a country is doing?...
If you’d like to read up on the epistemology of moral disagreement, you can have a look at: Adam Elga, ‘Reflection and Disagreement‘ Tom Kelly, “Peer Disagreement and Higher-Order Evidence“ Those two articles set the stage for the following article by Kieran Setiya: Kieran Setiya, “Does Moral Theory Corrupt Youth?“ In addition, keep your eye open for his forthcoming monograph: Kieran Setiya, Knowing Right From Wrong Matt Teichman...
Subscribe to Elucidations: In this episode, we’re joined by Kieran Setiya, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh. Click here to listen to our conversation with him. Disagreement in ethical matters is a common enough phenomenon. Yet, what exactly is the appropriate way to respond when one is confronted with it in one’s own life?...
If you’re interested in reading about some of the issues that came up during our conversation with Daniel Sutherland, you can check out these articles: Paul Benacerraf, “Mathematical Truth”, The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 70, No. 19, (Nov. 8, 1973), pp. 661-679. W.D. Hart, “Benacerraf’s Dilemma”, CRÍTICA, Vol. XXIII, No. 68 (August 1991): 87-10 Unfortunately, you need online access to JSTOR to view those papers. Sorry we weren’t able to provide freely available background readings this time!...
Subscribe to Elucidations: In this episode, we’re joined by Daniel Sutherland, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Click here to listen to our conversation with him. In this technological age, most of our day-to-day tasks involve numbers and arithmetic. And yet, it can be difficult to say what a number is....
Subscribe to Elucidations: This month we’re joined by Jennifer Lockhart, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in the Humanities at Stanford University and recent graduate of the PhD program in Philosophy at the University of Chicago. Click here to listen to our conversation with her. You’re at a party. Some guy is dominating the conversation, holding forth loudly and at great length about the importance of politeness....
Anyone who’s curious to learn more about the fallacies of inductive reasoning covered in our last episode can take a look at the following: On the base rate fallacy, see Jonathan J. Koehle’s “The base rate fallacy reconsidered: Descriptive, normative, and methodological challenges” On the conjunction fallacy, see Vincenzo Crupi, Branden Fitelson, and Katya Tentori’s “Probability, confirmation, and the conjunction fallacy” Professor Fitelson has also kindly shared the following lecture notes, closely related to his conversation with us, and which include a very useful bibliography....