reeducated

Chapter One: Introduction | Beyond Small Talk: A Modern Framework for Understanding Someone Deeply

In this episode, I speak with Lisa Wade, Associate Professor of Sociology at Tulane University, whose research examines gender, sexuality, and culture. She is best known for her groundbreaking book American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus, which explores how social norms, power, and inequality shape the way young people learn about intimacy. We talk about what it means to live in a societ...

In this episode, I speak with Talbot Brewer, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Virginia, whose work bridges moral philosophy, political theory, and moral psychology. His writing challenges the way modern philosophy and education have reduced human life to a series of goals and transactions. At the center of his thought is a radical and revitalizing idea: that the most meaningful human a...

In this episode, I explore how sexuality evolves over time and what aging reveals about pleasure, gender, and identity. My guest, Dr. Lisa R. Miller, is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Discipline Coordinator at Eckerd College, whose research examines how women’s sexual well-being transforms across the life course. Her work highlights how experience, confidence, and agency can expand desire...

In this episode, I speak with Roy F. Baumeister, one of the world’s most influential psychologists, whose work has shaped how we understand self-control, motivation, and the search for meaning. Author of over 700 scientific publications and nearly 40 books, including The Cultural Animal and Meanings of Life, Roy has spent his career asking some of the most profound questions about human purpose an...

In this second conversation with Julie Walsh, the Whitehead Associate Professor of Critical Thought and Director of the Suzy Newhouse Center for the Humanities at Wellesley College, we explore what it truly means to be free. Building on our earlier discussion about embodiment and ethics, Julie takes us through the philosophical history of freedom from Augustine to Descartes to early modern women t...

In this episode, I sit down with Julie Walsh, the Whitehead Associate Professor of Critical Thought and Director of the Suzy Newhouse Center for the Humanities at Wellesley College. Her work bridges early modern philosophy, feminist thought, and the ethics of digital technology. At the heart of her research lies a single question: what does it mean to be free? We explore how philosophy has histori...

In this episode, I sit down with Paul Thagard, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and Professor Emeritus at the University of Waterloo, whose career has bridged philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and computer modeling. Paul has spent decades exploring how humans think, feel, and make sense of the world. From scientific reasoning and creativity to consciousness and the meaning of life, his work h...

In this episode, I speak with Brandon Smith , an FRQSC postdoctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Institute for Research in the Humanities, who earned his PhD in Philosophy from McGill University in 2024. His research examines the history and applicability of philosophical accounts of happiness, and his first book, The Search for Mind-Body Flourishing in Spinoza’s Eudaimonism , i...

In this episode, I speak with Terry E. Robinson, one of the world’s leading neuroscientists on addiction and reward. A Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Michigan, Robinson’s work has transformed how we understand compulsion, motivation, and brain plasticity. His pioneering research on the Incentive Sensitization Theory of Addiction—developed with Kent Berridge—...

In this episode, I sit down with David Sulzer, known in the music world as Dave Soldier, a neuroscientist and composer whose work lives at the intersection of art and science. As a Columbia University professor with over 200 research papers and a prolific musical career, Sulzer has spent decades exploring how the brain learns, remembers, and creates. Our conversation flows through his current read...

In this episode, I sit down with historian Barbara H. Rosenwein to talk about how emotions, far from being timeless or universal, are shaped by the cultures and communities we live in. Drawing from her influential concept of emotional communities , Barbara helps me understand how emotions like anger, shame, pride, and love have been expressed, suppressed, and moralized across history. We explore h...

In this episode, I speak with Kent C. Berridge, the James Olds Distinguished University Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Michigan, whose pioneering work has reshaped how we understand pleasure, motivation, and addiction. Kent explains the crucial distinction between “liking” and “wanting,” showing how dopamine drives craving and desire rather than pleasure itself. We t...

In this episode, I talk with Gautam Kaul about how we learn, make decisions, and deal with risk. Gautam, a finance professor at the University of Michigan, has spent much of his career studying markets, uncertainty, and how people respond to them. But what makes his approach unique is the way he frames finance not only as numbers and equations, but as stories about human behavior and responsibilit...

In this episode, I sit down with Michael Treadway, a clinical psychologist and neuroscientist whose work focuses on how the brain makes decisions about effort and reward. We explore why motivation sometimes feels elusive and how conditions like depression and anxiety can shift the way people weigh costs and benefits. Michael explains how his lab uses tasks and brain imaging to study the decisions...

In this episode, I talk with Keith Sawyer about how creativity really works, especially when it happens in groups. We begin by challenging the common image of creativity as the result of a lone genius working in isolation. Keith explains how innovation often grows out of collaboration, improvisation, and the back-and-forth exchange of ideas. Drawing examples from jazz ensembles and brainstorming s...

In this episode, I sit down with Georg Northoff to explore the complex relationship between the brain, consciousness, and the self. We start by questioning the assumption that neuroscience alone can fully explain who we are. Georg points out the limitations of reductionist approaches, showing why studying neurons and brain regions in isolation isn’t enough to answer fundamental questions about exp...

In this episode, I speak with Roger Crisp, Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford, about the role of ethics in our personal lives and society. We start with a discussion of Aristotle’s ideas on human flourishing and compare them with utilitarian approaches that focus on maximizing happiness. Roger explains how different ethical traditions address the question of what it means to...

Season 9 Summarized: Art, Beauty, & Complexity.

In this episode, I talk with Aaron Meskin, a philosopher of aesthetics whose work spans comics, food, popular culture, and the philosophy of art. We begin by talking about architecture, cultural memory, and the feeling of living in spaces that carry historical weight. From there, we explore what it means to care about beauty in different domains, why some people care deeply about buildings or fash...

In this episode, I sit down with Jonathan Gilmore professor of philosophy and co-editor of The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism to explore how we experience fiction, art, and museums in ways that often blur the line between imagination and reality. We talk about why fictional stories can feel so emotionally true, and what’s happening in the brain and mind when we respond to imagined worlds....

In this episode, I talk with Sherri Irvin, a philosopher whose work explores aesthetics, contemporary art, and embodiment. We begin by discussing her entry into the philosophy of art and how artists challenge traditional rules to express new forms of meaning. Sherri explains how rules are not just constraints, but frameworks for communication, and how breaking them intentionally can create powerfu...

In this episode, I sat down again with David Goldblatt, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, to talk about how philosophy moves from theory to practice and why that movement often doesn't happen. We reflected on how routine and academic settings can limit our thinking, and why breaking out through travel, art, or even a conversation in a roadside bar can shift our sense of what matters. David sha...

In this episode, I speak with David Goldblatt, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Denison University, who has spent decades redefining how we think about aesthetics and art. Unlike traditional philosophers who primarily focus on "high art," David has expanded the boundaries of aesthetics to include overlooked yet culturally significant areas such as sports, ventriloquism, and jazz music...

In this enriching episode, I sit down with Mohan Matthen, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Toronto and an esteemed figure in contemporary philosophy of perception, aesthetics, and the nature of time. Our conversation takes us from his personal journey transitioning from mathematics and physics into philosophy, highlighting his unique cross-disciplinary approach and his deep ex...