Elucidations

Aug 20 2024 150 ep. 37 mins 5.5k

Elucidations Podcast artwork

Elucidations is an unexpected philosophy podcast produced in association with Emergent Ventures. Every episode, Matt Teichman temporarily transforms himself back into a student and tries to learn the basics of some topic from a person of philosophical interest.
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Episode 150: Shruti Rajagopalan discusses talent in India

Aug 20 2024 46 mins

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 sort

Episode 149: Lainie Ross and Christos Lazaridis talk about defining death

Apr 14 2024 42 mins

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 supp

Episode 148: Christos Lazaridis discusses brain death

Oct 20 2023 37 mins

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 brea

Episode 147: Gabriella Gonzalez discusses the intersection of algebra and programming

Jul 15 2023 40 mins

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

Episode 146: Gaurav Venkataraman discusses memory in DNA and RNA

Mar 30 2023 39 mins

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 wh

Episode 145: Andrew Sepielli discusses quietism and metaethics

Jan 21 2023 39 mins

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

Episode 144: Christopher Beem discusses democratic virtues

Nov 20 2022 37 mins

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 histori

Episode 143: Mark Linsenmayer discusses alternative models of education

Oct 05 2022 44 mins

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 lea

Episode 142: Emily Dupree discusses the rationality of revenge

Aug 02 2022 36 mins

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 nothin

Episode 141: Rob Goodman discusses eloquence

Jun 13 2022 35 mins

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 ne