Meaningoflife.tv: Sophia (fast)

Dan's in-progress book, Prolegomena for a Pluralist Metaphysics ... Avoiding the "crazy positions" ... A stereoscopic view of the "scientific" and "manifest" images ... Dan: A world with people in it is only explainable in fragmentary terms ... Crispin sees the leading edge of the new dualism ... On the ontological status of coming-of-age stories ... Previewing future fights ...

The continuing battle over gender in philosophy ... Harm avoidance vs. competing interests ... Jesse: There's disagreement within the trans community over what it means to be trans ... Dan: "This is madness to everyone other than the people inside the tent" ... The social dynamics of philosophy ... Ordinary language and "they" ... Will the trans movement moderate? ... Dan: Philosophy is in trouble and the pandemic is making it worse ...

How to model an epidemic ... The costs and benefits of cost-benefit analysis ... Turning coronavirus models into coronavirus policy ... Eric: Your intuitions about the virus’s spread are "useless" ... The use and abuse of epidemiological models ... Pandemic models and failures of political leadership ... Our scandalous lack of infection-rate data ... Why suppressing the virus “is a marathon, not a sprint” ...

Will the pandemic forever change college education? ... Laying out the "hard problem" of consciousness ... Why panpsychism is not a solution to the problem ... The battle between radicals and conservatives in physics ... Physicalism vs. idealism ... Massimo explains "scientific metaphysics" ... Why illusionism is not a solution to the problem ... Misrepresentations vs. useful representations ...

Robert's new book, Overdoing Democracy ... The revealing differences between Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts ... The diminishing importance of place in American culture ... How homogeneity distorts groups ... Partisan identity has become the core of our social selves ... Is this the inevitable product of late capitalism? ... What happens after Trumpism runs its course? ... Robert finds optimism in a Nashville bluegrass club ...

Helen's forthcoming book on gender ... Why are younger women attracted to novel gender theories? ... Social constructivism vs. self-constructivism ... Did feminists bring this upon themselves? ... Helen: Immigration caused Britain's political realignment ... Helen's narrative of the evolution of trans identity ... Why is it harder to be a girl now, when society is less sexist? ... Dan: Online porn has made teenage boys undateable ...

Robert's essay examining whether pansexuality is obligatory ... Orientation vs. desire ... Is the push for trans rights undermining gay and lesbian rights? ... Dan: Sexual attractions can't be subject to moral scrutiny ... Kant and the malleability of sexual consciousness ... Dan fears the totalitarian impulse ... Trans activists vs. lesbians ...

In praise of Uncut Gems ... Why does Adam Sandler's dirtbag character evince such sympathy? ... Punishment and forgiveness in narrative storytelling ... In praise of Dolemite Is My Name ... Eddie Murphy's triumphant return to SNL ... Is offensive comedy coming back? ... Why were these two films snubbed by the Oscars? ... Expertise vs. experience in cultural criticism ...

Spencer describes being quarantined in Wuhan, China ... What is "moral realism"? ... Can you be a moral realist and a moral subjectivist at the same time? ... Revisiting Plato's Ring of Gyges ... Dan: There's no evidence of morality beyond performances ... The trouble with giving advice ... "All things considered," what ought you to do? ... What we lost in the Scientific Revolution ...

Why Joe left academia ... Bemoaning the apathy of today's college students ... Joe's nonprofit, the Gotham Philosophical Society ... How can philosophers help improve a place like New York City? ... Should philosophy be parochial or universalist? ... Philosophical anti-realism and parochialism ... Neighborhood pride in the cosmopolitan city ...

In praise of non-elite institutions ... Spencer’s journey from Mormonism to professional philosophy ... Does philosophy matter? ... The role of temperament in shaping philosophers’ views ... Does moral philosophy contribute to moral progress? ... Dan: It doesn’t matter whether God exists ... Dan and Spencer’s concerns about the role of activism in philosophy ... Does it matter if philosophy matters? ... Spencer: Trying to live with integrity is central to philosophy ...

Are philosophers experts? ... Socrates didn't have a PhD ... Massimo hates when teachers claim to learn "just as much" from their students ... What does philosophers' expertise actually consist of? ... How much is philosophy like mathematics? ... What philosophers of science can teach scientists ... The disappointing personal morality of moral philosophers ... Grandmothers, the examined life, and the people who live best ...

How should we define censorship? ... The sort of censorship that has no inherent moral valence ... Various ways non-state actors can censor ... When private censorship has moral stakes ... Examining moral grandstanding ... A changed heart vs. a false front ... Could we ever resolve all our disagreements? ... Reason, passion, and the founding of the Republic ...

Meghan’s new book, The Problem with Everything ... The premature obsolescence of Generation X ... Meghan’s positive reaction to negative reviews of her book ... Joan Didion’s critique of the Women’s Movement ... The effect of online porn on Millennials ... Why do institutions capitulate to Twitter mobs? ... How Gen Xers are dealing with aging ...

Why Crispin loves writing takedowns of cultural icons ... Crispin: Ludwig Wittgenstein is overrated ... Dan objects to people who try to live their lives philosophically ... Hume and the limits of human reason ... Wittgenstein's critique of representationalism ... Did Wittgenstein debunk philosophical skepticism? ... Crispin: I want my metaphysics to be compatible with my common sense ...

What are “natural kinds”? ... What the former planet Pluto can teach us about natural kinds ... Massimo’s changing views on theoretical entities ... Is there a paradigm shift on the horizon in evolutionary biology? ... Is skepticism toward natural kinds the same as skepticism toward essential properties? ... Why Massimo is skeptical of the concept of "laws of nature" ... Describing “ultimate reality” ... Can we distinguish between sex and gender without natural kinds? ... Can we have a conception of “normal” without natural kinds? ...

Our era of boycotts, from Jimmy Johns to Uber to Nike ... The ethics and political philosophy of boycotts ... "Society is not a person" ... Waheed Hussein's concept of social change economic consumerism ... Group power and coercion ... Why boycotts usually fail ... How can we judge the worthiness of a boycott's goals? ...

The fight, and meta-fight, in philosophy over trans issues ... David's essay on philosophy and activism ... The admonition to "go read the literature" ... Dan: The profession needs to push back against the mob ... Should philosophers avoid signing petitions? ... David regrets the "neglect of the ordinary virtues" in this battle ... How professors should teach controversial subjects ...

A brief history of 20th-century literary criticism ... John's battles against radical feminists as a grad student at SUNY Albany ... Post-structuralism and "how modernity failed itself" ... English department politics ... John: "Postmodernity is all around us" ... Postmodernity in the world vs. in the academy ... Post-postmodernism and cultural stagnancy ...

Crispin's recent essay, "Western Philosophy as White Supremacism" ... Dan accuses Crispin of ahistorical revisionism ... Descartes as a product of his age ... Privileging the intellectual over the physical ... Is "the conquest of nature" a good or bad thing? ... Crispin: Metaphysics and racism feed each other ... Is self-mastery a key to freedom, or antithetical to it? ... The worst political philosophy, except for all the others? ...