Elucidations

Amanda Greene, a lecturer in philosophy at UCL and Law and Philosophy Fellow at the University of Chicago, studies democratic theory and legitimacy. She discusses whether democracy endures or is a passing ideal. She compares equality and voting, examines majority rule versus minority protection, and considers when non‑democratic regimes can still claim legitimacy.

Bob Simpson, a philosophy lecturer at Monash University and visiting law professor at Chicago, speaks about genealogical anxiety and the origins of belief. He explores how upbringing can trigger doubt. Conversation covers cultural examples, Nietzsche and feminist genealogy, indoctrination tactics, when accidental beliefs can still be reliable, and how critical resources shape responses.

In this engaging discussion, Robert May, a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Linguistics at UC Davis, delves into Frege's groundbreaking ideas on identity. He unpacks how Frege seeks to reduce arithmetic to logic, exploring the intricate relationship between statements like 'A equals A' versus 'A equals B.' The conversation highlights Frege's distinctions between sense and reference, and how individual cognitive processes shape our understanding of truth. May emphasizes the overarching significance of identity in philosophy, touching upon its implications across logic, language, and metaphysics.

Cathy Legg, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Waikato and Peirce scholar, introduces Peirce's idea that existence is just one of three modes of being. She explains firstness as pure quality, secondness as interaction and resistance, and thirdness as mediation, concepts, and interpretation. The conversation contrasts Peirce with Quine and situates the sciences within Peirce's hierarchy.

Mark Hopwood, philosopher and assistant professor known for work on love and moral value, explores how valuing someone as a particular individual differs from general moral duties. He discusses tensions between inescapable personal commitments and universal obligations. Topics include projected versus responsive value, a threefold taxonomy of value, and why particularity matters in love and moral thought.

Anthony S. Gillies, associate professor of philosophy at Rutgers specializing in semantics and conditionals, unpacks what if/then statements do. He contrasts indicative and counterfactual conditionals. He presents dilemmas like the or-to-if problem and defends a strict conditional view. He explains how antecedents guide evaluation and how similarity plays into counterfactuals.

In this episode, Stephen Engstrom discusses the principle that Immanuel Kant thought to underlie all of ethics. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Mark Schroeder discusses an example of how something other than evidence against a claim can give you a reason not to believe that it's true. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Barbara Herman describes the intricacies of the relationship between two people that is created when one does a favor for the other. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Malte Willer discusses attempts to give a formal theory of commonsense reasoning, and how it differs from the kind of reasoning that has traditionally been studied. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.