Podcast

Subscribe to Elucidations:       In this episode of Elucidations, Matt sits down with Emily Dupree to learn about whether it’s rational or irrational to try to seek revenge. Click here to download episode 142 of Elucidations. As a culture, we kinda can’t decide what we think about revenge. Out of one side of our mouths, we talk a big game about letting bygones be bygones, about how revenge and retaliation lead to cycles of violence, and about how nothing good can really come of getting back at people....

Subscribe to Elucidations:       This time around, Matt sits down with Rob Goodman to talk about political eloquence. Goodman is the author of a new book on this topic called Words on Fire, which you can pick up a copy of wherever you like to get books. As for this interview, you can click here to download episode 141 of Elucidations....

Subscribe to Elucidations:       This month, Meghan Sullivan returns to Elucidations with her co-author Paul Blaschko to discuss their new book on how to live a good life. Click here to download episode 140 of Elucdiations. 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....

Subscribe to Elucidations:       This month, Jessica Tizzard (University of Tuebingen) makes her second appearance on Elucidations to talk to Matt about pregnancy. Click here to download episode 139 of Elucidations. 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....

Subscribe to Elucidations:       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’.) Click here to download episode 138 of Elucidations. 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....

Subscribe to Elucidations:       This month, I talk to Bryan Caplan (George Mason University) about what a world without immigration restrictions could look like. Click here to download episode 137 of Elucidations. 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....

Subscribe to Elucidations:       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. Click here to download episode 136 of Elucidations. ‘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....

Subscribe to Elucidations:       This month, Charlie Wiland and I sit down with Sara Protasi to talk about envy. Which she just came out with a whole book about! Awesome. Click here to download episode 135 of Elucidations. You might think that it’s pretty clear what envy is. Isn’t envy just when someone else has something you want, you don’t have it, and that makes you feel annoyed?...

Subscribe to Elucidations:       This month, Josh Kaufman and I talk to Claire Kirwin (Clemson University) about whether things are objectively good or bad, or whether it’s all in the eye of the beholder. Click here to download Episode 134 of Elucidations. Professor Kirwin is a fan of peanut butter cup ice cream, and Josh and I are fans of mint chocolate chip....

Subscribe to Elucidations:       Full transcript here. This month, Agnes Callard and I talk to Aristotle about his philosophy, including his work on physics, biology, and ethics. Featuring an introduction by our awesome intern, Noadia Steinmetz-Silber! Click here to download Episode 133 of Elucidations. Not everyone is familiar with Aristotle’s work today, but the case could be made that science, political theory, logic, ethics, and philosophy exist in their current form largely due to the precedent he set....