Dialogues, Meditations, and Analyses

In this episode, Drs. Lindsey Fiorelli and Rob Willison rejoin the podcast to continue our conversation about the meaning of life. The three of us break down and argue about Susan Wolf's Fitting Fulfillment View of meaning in life, as well as Willison's own alternative view. I then point out that both Wolf and Willison's views (and ways of arguing for their views) are paradigmatically philosophical, according to influential accounts of the nature of philosophy offered by Wilfrid Sellars and Kristie Dotson.

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In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Rob Willison and Dr. Lindsey Fiorelli to discuss Albert Camus and Thomas Nagel's respective takes on the meaning (or meaninglessness) of life, and especially the question of how we ought to live upon being confronted with the recognition that life is absurd.

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In this episode, Dr. Lindsey Fiorelli and Dr. Justin Bernstein rejoin the podcast to figure out whether we've all done a morally horrible thing by becoming professors rather than making bank as Wall Street bankers. Even if we reject his utilitarian view of morality, Peter Singer has a strong argument that we should dramatically restructure our lives in order to give as much as we can to charity.

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In this episode, I'm rejoined by returning champions Dr. Ben Baker and Dr. Justin Bernstein to discuss Kwame Anthony Appiah's arguments against racism in all of its guises. We focus on two questions. First, should we consider most racism in our society to be a result of cognitive failings, moral failings, or something else? Second, is race a morally tenable basis for solidarity?

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In this episode, I introduce Eddington's infamous "two tables"—his table made out of solid oak (according to sense perception and dendrology) and his table made up mostly of empty space (according to fundamental physics)—and discuss how Gilbert Ryle's dissolution of this supposed conflict between the "everyday world" and the "world of science" opens more philosophical cans of worms than it closes.

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In this episode, Dr. Nabeel Hamid returns to delve deeper into the relationship between faith and reason, discussing Alvin Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism, Daniel Dennett's faith in science in a Godless world, and the promises and pitfalls of Plantinga and Dennett's respective epistemologies.

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In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Nabeel Hamid and Dr. Ben Baker to discuss the design argument for God's existence, the relationship between faith and reason, and other themes from David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.

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In this episode, I discuss Descartes's truth rule--that everything he clearly and distinctly perceives is true--and how he leverages that rule (along with the existence of a non-deceiving God) to establish a metaphysical distinction between mind and body. I then discuss the Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia's incisive critique of Descartes's substance dualism, as well as the more nuanced dualism that Elisabeth prefers.

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In this episode, I discuss the Aristotelian worldview that Descartes attempted to overthrow, and introduce the listener to the Cogito: Descartes's famous, purportedly indubitable claim that "I think, therefore I am".

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In this episode, I invite you, the listener, to meditate with me on reasons to doubt everything you thought you knew.

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