Curated Video
Interpreting the Law - An Example
Philosopher Scott Soames (USC) uses the celebrated example of the Smith gun case to illustrate the relation between linguistic ambiguity and legal interpretation.
Curated Video
Not So Bad After All?
Primatologist Frans de Waal (Emory) describes how conventional wisdom has moved from believing that humans were inherently selfish to now viewing us as “super-cooperators.”
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Making Decisions
Political scientist Mark Bevir (UC Berkeley) describes how decisions in the social sciences necessarily involve interpreting intentionality.
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Losing The Sharp Edges
Sign language linguist Carol Padden describes how smaller languages are often much more impenetrable to outsiders than larger languages, due to a combination of grammatical structure and common sense of reference.
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Legal Rationale
Philosopher Scott Soames (USC) presents us with a methodology for developing an appropriate legal interpretation in the face of vagueness.
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Jewish Values
Rabbi Emeritus David J. Goldberg describes two core values that he believes to have been associated with the Jewish people over the past three and a half thousand years: freedom and justice.
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The Role of Philosophy
Philosopher Scott Soames (USC) passionately speaks of the importance of philosophical thinking.
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The Origins of Analytic Philosophy
Philosopher Scott Soames (USC) gives us a brief introduction to Gottlob Frege and the origins of analytic philosophy.
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Squandering Big Data?
Tufts University philosopher Brian Epstein relates how, by making false assumptions about the nature of the social world, most social scientists are running a serious risk of squandering the impressive model-building possibilities that...
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Punishment
Duke University legal scholar Nita Farahany describes the varying and evolving societal rationales for punishment in our legal systems.
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Proof by Picture
Philosopher of science James Robert Brown, University of Toronto, demonstrates a compelling “picture proof” of a basic result of number theory that appears to give us equal certainty to the standard mathematical proof by induction.
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Philosophical Thinking
UC Berkeley political theorist Mark Bevir relates his belief in the importance of thinking philosophically in order to make vital progress in the social sciences.
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Mysterious Mountain Man
Author and independent scholar Matthew Stewart recounts his puzzlement when first confronted with Ethan Allen’s 477-page philosophical tract.
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Metaphysics Today
Philosopher Scott Soames (USC), gives a brief description of contemporary attitudes towards metaphysics.
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Mathematical Naturalism
Philosopher of science James Robert Brown, University of Toronto, describes how the philosophical view of “naturalism” - that only the natural sciences can provide knowledge about the world - raises difficulty when addressing the...
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Keeping an Open Mind
Intellectual historian Quentin Skinner (QMUL), describes how he is unconvinced by the still-lingering Early Modern motivation to tie knowledge to certainty.
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Frege and Functions
Philosopher Scott Soames (USC) traces the origins of our modern computer age to Gottlob Frege’s application of functions to logic.
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Drifting Towards Metaphysics
Philosopher Brian Epstein (Tufts University) describes the tensions between the field of philosophy of language and metaphysics.
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Camus and Suicide
Poet and independent scholar Jennifer Michael Hecht gives background to her book, Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It, while invoking some of Camus’ ideas on suicide.
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Appeals to Authority
Philosopher of science and unapologetic mathematical Platonist James Robert Brown, University of Toronto, highlights an impressive array of brilliant mathematical minds who also strongly believed that mathematical truths are “out there”,...
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All in the Same Boat
James Robert Brown, University of Toronto, describes how, despite our impressive knowledge about the biomechanics of our brains and sense, how we produce our corresponding belief about the natural world is just as mysterious as how a...
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The Merits of Philosophy
Political scientist Mark Bevir (UC Berkeley) makes a plea for the reintroduction of philosophical thinking across a wide range of other disciplines.
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The Merits of Dissent
Stanford University classicist and political scientist Josiah Ober describes the vital role public dissent plays in a democracy, forcing us to continually reassess how well we are promoting our values, or even if those values are the...
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The Deist Revolutionary Payoff
Author and independent scholar Matthew Stewart describes how rationalist notions from Epicurus down through Spinoza and Locke strongly influenced the American Revolution.