Elucidations

For this episode, Matt Teichman and Joseph Diller sit down with Oliver Traldi (University of Toledo, Mercatus Center) to talk about political expertise. What does it mean to be an expert in something? Our guest opens by noting that we use the term expert in two different ways: in the normal sense, a person is an expert in something if they know a lot about it, but in the social sense, a person is...

Last episode, we talked about free speech, and this time, we sit down with Rebecca Lowe (Mercatus Center) to discuss the related but slightly different topic of speaking freely. Speaking freely: the thing you feel entitled to do when a superior says to you: “you may speak freely.” But although speaking freely is the phenomenon our guest is interested in characterizing, rather than trying to charac...

In the latest episode of Elucidations,  Greg Salmieri  (University of Texas) joins us once again, this time to discuss freedom of speech. Free speech talk has been in the air, on the internet, for the past decade. But what exactly is going on with freedom of speech? Do I have the right to criticize my alderman’s second term on my blog without getting thrown in jail? Do I have the right t...

In the latest episode of Elucidations,  Sam Enright  ( Progress Ireland ,  The Fitzwilliam ) instructs us in the delicate art of learning forever.  If you’re one of those people who responds well to formal education, chances are you’ve spent 10-20 years of your life as a student. When you finally graduate, it can feel jarring, like you’re kissing all this efficient infrastructu...

This time around, Matt talks to  Luca Gattoni-Celli  about why it’s so expensive to buy a house. In the 80s, people from all sorts of socioeconomic backgrounds were able to afford apartments and houses in places like New York City, San Francisco, or London. Now, on the other hand, even many wealthy people are getting priced out of the city. And indeed, the issue is no longer specific to...

Note: this episode was recorded in August of 2022. In the latest Elucidation, Matt talks to  Witold Więcek  about the difficulties that come up for researchers who would like to draw upon statistics.  Lots of academic fields need to draw heavily on statistics, whether it’s economics, psychology, sociologym, linguistics, computer science, or data science. This means that a lot of peo...

In this episode, Matt sits down with  Shruti Rajagopalan  (Mercatus Center) to talk about what the future holds for India. We often have a tendency to think of the current economic and geopolitical situation as simply the way things are. Especially for people who grew up in the United States over the past 50 years, the fact that it is an economic and military superpower sorta feels set i...

In this episode, we are joined by  Lainie Ross  (University of Rochester Medical Center) and (once again!)  Christos Lazaridis  (UChicago Medicine), this time to talk about the different ways of defining death. In our  previous episode  with Christos, we talked about death and the vexed history of attempts to define it. Prior to the advent of modern life support techn...

In this episode, Matt sits down with  Christos Lazaridis  (University of Chicago Medicine) to chat about what brain death is and whether brain death should count as, like, death death. Modern life support technology really hits its stride in the 1960s, allowing doctors to buy themselves more time to save their patients by connecting them to machines that can assist with breathing, blood...

In this episode, Matt talks to  Gabriella Gonzalez  about how basic concepts from the branch of math known as  abstract algebra  can help us simplify our computer programs and organize our thoughts. Algebra. That thing they make us do in school. What was that again? Oh yeah, that’s right; it’s where you get to manipulate equations containing variables. Like, if I have an equati...

In this episode, Matt sits down with  Gaurav Vankataraman  ( Trisk Bio ) to talk about how human memory is physically realized. Where do your memories live? In the brain, right? They’re, like, imprinted there somehow? We often think of memories as analogous with recordings, like when you do an audio recording and the air vibrations get translated into an electrical signal which reorients...

This episode, Matt and  Joseph  sit down with  Andrew Sepielli  (University of Toronto) to talk about metaethical quietism. His new book on the topic,  Pragmatist Quietism , is out now from Oxford University Press.  Click here to listen to episode 145 of Elucidations . Metaethical quietism is the view that ethical statements—or anyway, a large portion of the ethical s...

This episode, Matt talks to  Christopher Beem  (Penn State University) about how we can cultivate those skills that conduce to having a functioning democracy. His book on the topic,  The Seven Democratic Virtues , is out now from Penn State University Press. The storming of the US Capitol Building in 2021 was an eyebrow-raising event, to say the least. It prompted historians, politi...

This episode, Matt Teichman talks to Mark Linsenmayer about alternative models of education. Mark is creator and host of the Partially Examined Life, Nakedly Examined Music, Pretty Much Pop, and Philosophy vs. Improv podcasts. He is also the author of the recent book, Philosophy For Teens. There’s going to college and there’s listening to podcasts. Both can give you a way to learn new things, so i...

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. As a culture, we kind 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...

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. Can you think of the last time you saw someone give a rousing speech? They step up to the podium with throngs of onlookers staring at them. Somehow, rather than nervously scamper...

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. Could be something like: Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Mill, and Nietzsche. Other types of intro classes go through a list of topics that contemporary philosophers feel...

This month,  Jessica Tizzard  (University of Tuebingen) makes her  second appearance  on Elucidations to talk to Matt about pregnancy. 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. But even when it comes to thinking about pregnancy at th...

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’.) 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. Get it while it’s hot! John Stuart Mill is probably one of the most influential intell...

This month, I talk to Bryan Caplan (George Mason University) about what a world without immigration restrictions could look like. 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...

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. ‘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. The idea behind a virtue is: there’s such a thing as being a good person and doing good th...

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? Well, kind of—bu...

This month,  Josh Kaufman  and I talk to  Claire Kirwin  about whether things are objectively good or bad, or whether it’s all in the eye of the beholder. Professor Kirwin is a fan of peanut butter cup ice cream, and Josh and I are fans of mint chocolate chip. Is there an objective fact of the matter about whether either is good, or whether one is better than the other? Or are...

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,...

This month, we sit down with  Rebecca Valentine  (co-founder of  Queerious Labs ) to talk about anarchism, feminism, tech culture, and creative hacking. Hack this, hack that. What is a hacker, anyway? In pop culture, it’s common to use the term ‘hacker’ as a synonym for ‘cybercriminal’—that is, a person who engages in illegal activity over a computer network, usually involving gaini...