Why? Radio Podcast Archive

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  An Argument for Moral Relativism

  Jack Russell Weinstein and David B. Wong

  Nothing could be more common than people asserting that their own ethical beliefs are right while others are wrong. From abortion, to vegetarianism, to pacifism, to democracy, people and cultures are convinced that their way of life is morally superior. But what happens when we consider the possibility that there is more than one way to live ethically? What happens when we are charitable about others’ way of life? On this episode we are going to do just that.

  David Wong is the Susan Fox Beischer and George D. Beischer Professor of Philosophy at Duke University. Before he moved to Duke, he was the Harry Austryn Wolfson Professor of Philosophy at Brandeis University and the John M. Findlay Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Boston University. His books include Moral Relativity (University of California Press, 1984) and Natural Moralities (Oxford University Press, 2006). A book of critical essays on Natural Moralities is Moral Relativism and Chinese Philosophy: David Wong and his Critics, ed. by Yang Xiao and Yong Huang, SUNY Press, 2014), with responses by Wong to the essays. Wong has co-edited with Kwong-loi Shun Confucian Ethics: a Comparative Study of Self, Autonomy and Community (Cambridge University Press, 2004).

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  Women and Men: Talking, Arguing, Loving, and Politicking

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Deborah Tannen

  Sixteen years ago, Deborah Tannen published the bestselling You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation, a book that ushered in a very public face to a prolific scholarly career. Her work on gender and communication has expanded to focus on romantic and work life, relations between mothers and daughters, siblings, and the role of argument in talking, all through the lens of gender. On this episode of Why? we look at her work over the last couple of decades and explore what it can tell us about our lives, our relationships, and our politics.

  Deborah Tannen is University Professor and Professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University and author of many books and articles about how the language of everyday conversation affects relationships. She is best known as the author of You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation, which was on the New York Times best seller list for nearly four years, including eight months as No. 1, and has been translated into 31 languages. Her most recent book, You Were Always Mom’s Favorite!: Sisters in Conversation Throughout Their Lives, also a New York Times best seller, received a Books for a Better Life Award and was featured on 20/20 and NPR’s Morning Edition.

  Among her other books, You’re Wearing THAT?: Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation spent ten weeks on the New York Times best seller list; Talking from 9 to 5: Women and Men at Work was a New York Times Business best seller; The Argument Culture: Stopping America’s War of Words received the Common Ground Book Award; and I Only Say This Because I Love You: Talking to Your Parents, Partner, Sibs, and Kids When You’re All Adults received a Books for a Better Life Award.

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  Should Prostitution be Legal?

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Peter De Marneffe

  We can all agree that forced prostitution is morally repugnant, but does it become more acceptable when it is voluntary? Many countries have legalized prostitution and many people think that the freedom to do what one wants with one’s own body should include the freedom to sell sex. But many others don’t, suggesting that no one can consent to sell their body, no matter how it might seem. Join Why? Radio for this controversial and interesting discussion.

  Peter de Marneffe is a Professor of Philosophy at Arizona State University. He writes about liberty and liberalism, individual rights, and government paternalism. He is the author of Liberalism and Prostitution (Oxford University Press, 2010) and The Legalization of Drugs with Doug Husak (Cambridge University Press, 2005). He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Harvard University in 1989, and wrote his dissertation, “Liberalism and Education,” under the direction of John Rawls and Thomas Scanlon. He has been a visiting fellow at the Princeton University Center for Human Values, the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard University, and a visiting assistant professor at Stanford University.

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  How to Think Philosophy About Black Identity

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Tommie Shelby

  In the face of the tremendous violence of the last few days, in an election season like the current one, and with movements like Black Lives Matters, America and the world are focused on issues related to the African-American experience. But what happens when ask about the deeper foundations of what it means to be black? On this episode of Why? We are going to focus on these questions and Africana philosophy, the new branch of philosophy that explores the experiences and concerns people of African descent.

  This episode begins with a discussion about where Black thought fits into philosophy and then expands into a general discussion of Black identity. Tommie Shelby is the Caldwell Titcomb Professor of African and African American Studies and of Philosophy at Harvard University. He is the author of We Who Are Dark: The Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity and the forthcoming book, Dark Ghettos: Injustice, Dissent and Reform. His website can be found at www.tommieshelby.com.

  The text of this episode’s monologue can be found here at our blog, PQED.

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  Is Religious Commitment Important

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Robert Audi

  Religious debate in the United States focuses on fanaticism and politics. But, do we really know what religion is and the difference between a good reason for believing something and a bad one? And what about religious commitment? What justifies it and what takes it over the top? On today’s episode of Why? Radio we are going to look at religion and ask the hard questions: Is it a good in itself? Should it remain private and what is its relationship to reason and rationality?

  Robert Audi is the John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of 16 books and hundreds of articles on ethics, political philosophy, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of religion.

  The text of this episode’s monologue can be found here at our blog, PQED.

  Robert mentioned a list of important feature any religion is likely to have. The list is as follows:

  I. Belief in one or more supernatural beings.
  2. A distinction between sacred and profane objects.
  3. Ritual acts focused on those objects.
  4. A moral code believed to be sanctioned by the god(s). 5. Religious feelings (awe, mystery, etc.) that tend to be aroused by the sacred objects and during rituals.
  6. Prayer and other communicative forms of conduct concerning the god(s).
  7. A world view according adherents a significant place in the universe.
  8. A more or less comprehensive organization of one’s life based on the world view.
  9. A social organization bound together by (1)-(8).

  The list of from his book Religious Commitment and Secular Reason, p. 35.

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  Do We Still Need The Eighteenth Century?

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Ryan Patrick Hanley

  The 18th century was a time of great change, both philosophically and politically. Yet many people reject its ideals, calling out the hypocrisy of Thomas Jefferson and the oppression that comes from being committed to Truth rather than the downtrodden. On this episode of Why?, we take another look at this exciting period of time and ask whether the enlightenment and its philosophers still have a place in today’s intellectual and political debate.

  Ryan Patrick Hanley is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Marquette University. His research in the history of political philosophy focuses on the Scottish Enlightenment. He is the author of Adam Smith and the Character of Virtue (Cambridge University Press, 2009), and co-editor, with Darrin M. McMahon, of The Enlightenment: Critical Concepts in History, 5 vols. (Routledge, 2010). In addition, Professor Hanley is the editor of the Penguin Classics edition of Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (Penguin, 2010), the editor of the forthcoming Adam Smith: A Princeton Guide (Princeton University Press), and current President of the International Adam Smith Society. His recent articles have appeared or are forthcoming in American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Political Theory, European Journal of Political Theory, Review of Politics, History of Political Thought and Journal of the History of Philosophy, among others. He is also the recipient of Fellowships from the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Arête Initiative, and is currently at work on a study of love and wisdom in Enlightenment moral and political philosophy.

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  How to Think Philosophically About Aging

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Sharona Hoffman

  Everyone gets older, but not everyone plans for it. Even fewer people think about that planning philosophically. On the next episode of Why?, we are going to look closely at one author’s practical guidebook for elder care and consider it, not as practical exercise, but as a philosophical inquiry into getting older.

  Sharona Hoffman is the Edgar A. Hahn Professor of Law, a Professor of Bioethics and the Co-Director of the Law-Medicine Center at Case Western Reserve University. In 2013, Sharona was selected by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for a scholar-in-residence fellowship in public health law. She has also twice spent a sabbatical semester as a Visiting Scholar at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2007 and 2014) and was a Visiting Scholar at Emory University in 2014 as well. She has published over sixty articles and book chapters on health law and civil rights issues. She is also the author of the book Aging with a Plan: How a Little Thought Today Can Vastly Improve Your Tomorrow (Praeger 2015).

  This is the second time Sharona has been on Why? Her first episode “The Morality (and Legality) of Universal Healthcare” can be found here.

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  Why Philosophy Won't Go Away

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein

  2500 years ago, Plato wrote the central texts of the discipline we call philosophy. He asked the questions that people still ask today and set the tone for a conversation that has continued, unabated, for two and a half millennia. On this episode we look at Plato’s work and ask why, despite all the threats, violence, censorship, and even the marginalization, philosophy still exists, why Plato is still at the center of it all, and what it would look like if he were still here, walking among us.Rebecca Newberger Goldstein is a novelist and philosopher. She received her Ph.D. from Princeton University. She is the author of ten books, including both novels and non-fiction, including the critically acclaimed The Mind-Body Problem and Thirty-Six Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction. The latter was named 2010’s best fiction book of the year by The Christian Science Monitor and among the top eleven best by The Washington Post. Her latest book is Plato at The Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away.

  In 1996, Rebecca became a MacArthur Fellow, receiving the “Genius Award.” In 2005, she was elected to The American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2006, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Radcliffe Fellowship. In 2008, she was designated a Humanist Laureate by the International Academy of Humanism. In 2015, she was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Obama in a ceremony at the White House.

  Rebecca has been on Why? before, discussing the relationship between Philosophy and Fiction. You can hear that episode here. Her personal webpage is here

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  Are Sports Destroying American Universities?

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Murray A. Sperber

  When we think of college, we think of sports: of the big 10, of the NCAA, of the draft. We identify schools by their colors and mascots. Yet, the more money college sports earns and the more professionalized it becomes, the more horrified many are by the impact they have on universities. On the next episode of Why? Radio we’re going to examine this head on, asking about the impact of sports on academics, looking at how they have complete changed student culture.Murray Sperber is a Visiting Professor in the Cultural Studies of Sport in Education program At the University of California, Berkeley; he taught for many years at Indiana University, Bloomington, and is now a Professor Emeritus of English and American Studies. Sperber has authored seven books, including Beer & Circus: How Big-Time College Sports is Crippling Undergraduate Education, which Sports Illustrated placed on its list of “100 Best Sports Books of All-time.” His book Shake Down the Thunder: The Creation of Notre Dame Football, was named by Sports Illustrated as the second best sports history book.

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  What Does Buddhism Offer an African-American Woman?

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Janice Dean Willis

  Jan Willis was raised in the Jim Crow south and had crosses burnt on her lawn when she received a scholarship for Cornell University. But her life didn’t just take her through the civil rights movement and the Ivy League, it also took her to India which led her to become a professor of Buddhism and a practicing Buddhist. How did her new religion fit with her Baptist upbringing? How does being a religious scholar relate to being a practitioner? Should we think of Buddhism as an “Eastern” religion with little to do with Western philosophy? On this next episode of Why?, we’ll ask these and other related questions, as we talk memoir, belief, and religious experience with a foremost scholar of Tibetan Buddhism.Janice D. Willis is Emerita Professor of Religion and East Asian Studies at Wesleyan University. One of the earliest American scholar-practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism, Willis has published numerous essays and articles on Buddhist meditation, hagiography, women and Buddhism, and Buddhism and race. She has studied with Tibetan Buddhists in India, Nepal, Switzerland and the U.S. for four decades, and has taught courses in Buddhism for 32 years. In December 2000, “Time” magazine named Willis one of six “spiritual innovators for the new millennium.” In 2003, she was a recipient of Wesleyan University’s Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching, and she was profiled in a 2005 “Newsweek” article about “Spirituality in America.”The text of this episode’s monologue can be found here at our blog, PQED.

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  Metaphors We Live By: A Classic Revisited

  Jack Russell Weinstein, George Lakoff, and Mark Johnson

  We use metaphors all the time, from describing friends as two peas in a pod, to old age as a chapter in someone’s life. We think of argument as war and move forward into the future. Would our understanding of friendship, argument and the future change if we used different metaphors? Could we even talk about them if we didn’t use metaphors at all? On this episode, we ask these questions and consider how deeply metaphors influence our understanding.

  George Lakoff is the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California, Berkley and Mark Johnson is the Philip H. Knight Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Oregon. They are the authors together and separately of more than a dozen books.

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  What is Courage?

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Ryan K. Balot

  We describe people as brave all the time, but what do we really mean? Does the bravery of a firefighter have anything in common with the courage of reading books that challenge our deepest beliefs? Is there a specific kind of courage that comes from living in a democracy? What do we learn from looking at the Greek roots of the word and how is their experience relevant to ours? On this episode of Why? we’re going to look at the classical roots of courage and examine its meaning in modern democracies.Ryan Balot Ryan Balot is Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto. He is the author of many books and articles, including Courage in the Democratic Polis: Ideology and Critique in Classical Athens and A Companion to Greek and Roman Political Thought.

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  Text as Image, Image as Text: How One Artist Uses Language to Combine Art and Literature

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Alexandria Grant

  What happens when you combine abstract art with texts for poems and books? What can a painter do in collaboration with authors, people who work in an entirely different medium and whose writing may have no connection to the visual arts at all? On this s episode of Why? we talk with Alexandra Grant about her use of text in her paintings and her explorations with writers of all stripes.

  Alexandra Grant is a text-based artist who uses language and networks of words as the basis for her work in painting, drawing and sculpture. She has been the subject of shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), the Contemporary Museum (Baltimore), and galleries in the US and abroad. Grant has explored ideas of translation, identity, and dis/location not only in drawings, painting and sculpture, but also in conversation with other artists and writers, such as her long-term collaborator, hypertext author Michael Joyce, the actor Keanu Reeves, artist Channing Hansen, and the philosopher Hélène Cixous. Grant maps language in different media: from intricate wire filigree sculptures to large scale drawing/paintings on paper. She investigates translation not only from language to language, but also from text to image, spoken language to written word, and representations in two dimensions to three dimensional objects. Some of the basic queries that fuel her work are: How do we “read” and “write” images? How does language place us? What is the role of the hand in a world dominated by electronic communication?

  See Alexandra’s work at her website: www.alexandragrant.com

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  Are we Morally Obligated to Live in a Racially-Integrated Society?

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Elizabeth Anderson

  Are we living in a post-racial America? How important is integration to democracy and why do we tend to live in such segregated enclaves? Do we have a moral obligation to integrate our society, even if it means some people might not want to live next to the neighbors they end up with?
  Elizabeth Anderson is the John Dewey Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy and Women’s Studies and the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She is the author The Imperative of Integration and Value in Ethics and Economics, and numerous scholarly articles. She is currently working on a history of egalitarianism, with a special focus on the social epistemology of moral learning, taking the history of abolitionism as a central case study.

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  Are we Morally Obligated to Live in a Racially-Integrated Society?

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Elizabeth Anderson

  Are we living in a post-racial America? How important is integration to democracy and why do we tend to live in such segregated enclaves? Do we have a moral obligation to integrate our society, even if it means some people might not want to live next to the neighbors they end up with?
  Elizabeth Anderson is the John Dewey Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy and Women’s Studies and the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She is the author The Imperative of Integration and Value in Ethics and Economics, and numerous scholarly articles. She is currently working on a history of egalitarianism, with a special focus on the social epistemology of moral learning, taking the history of abolitionism as a central case study.

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  Why Don't People Believe Science?

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Dan M. Kahan

  Every day, people reject evolution and climate change, arguing instead for their personal beliefs over evidence. Despite years of education and more access to information than any time in history, people are rejecting vaccinations and forsaking personal savings for the lottery. On this episode of Why? Radio we look at the science of science communication and the patterns behind why people reject science.

  Dan Kahan is the Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Law and Professor of Psychology at Yale Law School. In addition to risk perception, his areas of research include criminal law and evidence. Prior to coming to Yale in 1999, Professor Kahan was on the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School. He also served as a law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court (1990-91) and to Judge Harry Edwards of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (1989-90). He received his B.A. from Middlebury College and his J.D. from Harvard University.

  Dan is a lead researcher for The Cultural Cognition Project, a group of scholars interested in studying how cultural values shape public risk perceptions and related policy beliefs. Visit that webpage here: http://www.culturalcognition.net/

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  How do Muslims, Christians, and Jews See Each Other?

  Jack Russell Weinstein and David Nirenberg

  Muslims, Jews, Christians: they’ve been fighting for millennia and living next to each other for just as long. They share the same prophet—Abraham—and have many of the same beliefs. Yet, they define themselves in opposition to one another, demonizing and even killing each other along the way. Is this intrinsic to who they are or is this something that can be changed? Can they coexist or must they be enemies? These questions are the focus of this episode of Why? Radio.

  David Nirenberg is Dean of the Division of Social Sciences; Deborah R. and Edgar D. Jannotta Professor of Medieval History and Social Thought, a Professor in the Department of History, and the Roman Family Director of the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society at the University of Chicago. Much of his work focuses on the ways in which Jewish, Christian, and Islamic cultures constitute themselves by interrelating with or thinking about each other. He has written Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages; Neighboring Faiths: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism Medieval and Modern, and Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition. His work on these three religious traditions ranges across literary, artistic, historiographic, and philosophical genres. But even more generally, he is interested in the history of how the possibilities and limits of community and communication have been imagined.

  His website can be found here: http://www.davidnirenberg.com/

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  The Moral Argument For Revenge

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Thane Rosenbaum

  We’ve been told time and time again that revenge is wrong, but is it? We’ve been taught that it’s savage, but if so, why do people turn to it so frequently? And, we’ve been encouraged to demand justice, even though most of us can’t tell the difference between it and vengeance. On this episode of Why? we’ll take a fresh look at one of the oldest practices in history, asking about the nature of revenge, honor, and the emotions that surround them both.

  Thane Rosenbaum is an essayist, law professor, and author of the novels, How Sweet It Is!, The Stranger Within Sarah Stein, The Golems of Gotham, Second Hand Smoke, and Elijah Visible. His articles, reviews and essays appear frequently in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Haaretz, Huffington Post and Daily Beast, among other national publications. He moderates an annual series of discussions on culture, world events and politics at the 92nd Street Y called The Talk Show. He is a Senior Fellow at New York University School of Law where he directs the Forum on Law, Culture & Society. He is the author of Payback: The Case for Revenge and The Myth of Moral Justice: Why Our Legal System Fails to Do What’s Right. He is the editor of the anthology, Law Lit, from Atticus Finch to “The Practice,”: A Collection of Great Writing about the Law. His forthcoming book is entitled The High Cost of Free Speech: Rethinking the First Amendment.

  Thane’s website can be found at www.thanerosenbaum.com

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  How to Think About Dance

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Helanius J. Wilkins

  Human beings dance for every reason imaginable: to protest, to pray, to court one another, to explore nature, to find truth, and simply to explore dance itself. But what makes dance “dance” and how are we to interpret the performances we watch? How theoretical are dancers when they perform and how well can they realize a choreographer’s vision? These questions are just a part of a wide-ranging discussion as we welcome choreographer, performance artist, scholar, and of course, dancer Helanius J. Wilkins.

  Helanius, a native of Lafayette, Louisiana, is an award-winning choreographer, performance artist, and instructor based in Washington, D.C. He is the Founder & Artistic Director of EDGEWORKS Dance Theater, an all-male dance company of predominantly African-American men that existed for thirteen (13) years, from 2001 – 2013. His honors include the 2008 Pola Nirenska Award for Contemporary Achievement in Dance, D.C.’s highest honor given by the Washington Performing Arts Society; the 2002 and 2006 Kennedy Center Local Dance Commissioning Project Award; and Metro D.C. Dance Awards. In addition he was a three times finalist for the D.C. Mayor’s Arts Awards and Bates Dance Festival, one of the premiere festivals in the United States, named him their 2002 Emerging Choreographer. Most recently, he was a lecturer at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

  Helanius’s website can be found at www.helaniusj.com

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  Cuisine and Empire: What Does Food Tell Us About Culture?

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Rachel Laudan

  Do you know anyone who is following the paleo diet? How much do they really know about what people ate in our early history? Do you know people who are carb free? If so, what would they say to about the fact that grains have been the centerpiece of almost all human diets? Do you know anyone who loves Chinese food? Well, what makes food Chinese in the first place and why do the Chinese eat so little meat compared to Europeans? This episode looks at the history of cooking and examines its political and, of course, philosophical implications.

  Rachel Laudan is a food historian with a PhD from the University of London. She has taught history, philosophy, and science at Carnegie Mellon, She is the author of Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History and the prizewinning book, The Food of Paradise: Exploring Hawaii’s Culinary History. She has served as Scholar-in-Residence for the International Association of Culinary Professionals, written for Saveur, Utne Reader, the Boston Globe, and given keynote addresses for many academic, business, and culinary conferences. After fifteen years in Mexico, she now lives in Austin, Texas.

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  The Rise of Writing: What Happens When People Write More Than They Read?

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Deborah Brandt

  Have you noticed how much you’ve been writing lately? How many emails, texts, and Facebook posts you compose on any given day? Have you realized how much more you write than you read? Deb Brandt has and she wants us to all understand that we are experiencing a mass-writing revolution that will change our culture forever. On this episode we discuss the shift of focus from reading to writing and look at how it has changed both the workplace and the ways in which people express themselves.

  Deborah Brandt is professor emerita of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the author most recently of The Rise of Writing: Redefining Mass Literacy(Cambridge University Press, 2015). For nearly 30 years at UW-Madison she taught undergraduate writing at all levels, as well as graduate courses in literacy studies, contemporary writing theory, and research methodology. Her research has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies, the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, the Spencer Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Education, among other sources. In 2003 she was awarded the Grawemeyer Award in Education for her book Literacy in American Lives (Cambridge University Press, 2001).

  This is Deb’s second appearance on Why? Radio, listen to the first, “Is Ghostwriting Ethical” by clicking here.

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  Equality and Dialogue in American High Schools

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Nel Noddings

  If you believe the news, you would think that American children are stupid and that schools only make them worse. Is this true? And, more importantly, what should learning look like? Do we continue to teach a specialized and standardized program or can we find a more integrated way to teach students about home and family, their future occupation, and civic life, all at the same time? On this episode of Why?, we discuss the future of education and what High Schools can do to education the whole person.

  Nel Noddings is Lee L. Jacks Professor of Education, Emerita, at Stanford University. She is also a past president of the National Academy of Education, the Philosophy of Education Society, and the John Dewey Society. Her most recent book is Education and Democracy in the 21st Century. She has written numerous others, including: Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education, Women and Evil, The Challenge to Care in Schools, Educating for Intelligent Belief or Unbelief, and Philosophy of Education, and more than 200 articles and book chapters on various topics ranging from the ethics of care to mathematical problem solving.

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  Why Not Socialism?

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Robert Paul Wolff

  Anyone who lived through the 20th century will have a complex relationship with Karl Marx; some will see socialism as the glorious road not traveled and others will see him as the folly we defeated. Those who came to political consciousness in the 21st century, though, will have virtually no notion of him at all, he’s a relic, a demon from the past, and socialism is simply an epithet used during political debate.

  Robert Paul Wolff, emeritus professor of African American Studies and Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, is the author of twenty-one books on the history of modern philosophy, social and political philosophy, the philosophy of education, economics, and Afro-American Studies. His is one of philosophy’s most powerful voices articulating alternatives to capitalism including reconsiderations of socialism and anarchism.

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  Can a Philosopher Govern the United States? The Case of F.A. Hayek

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Bruce Caldwell

  If you’ve paid any attention to politics, you’ll know that libertarians are convinced they have a better way to govern. Much of their philosophy is built on the work of Friedrich Hayek, an Austrian philosopher and economist who saw the free market as an antidote to Nazism and the Soviet Union. Those threats are gone, does that mean Hayek is no longer relevant? On this episode we ask about Hayek, about the nature of economics, and whether specialized researchers have a duty to be relevant.

  Bruce Caldwell is a Research Professor and the Director of the newly Center for the History of Political Economy at Duke University. He is the author of “Beyond Positivism: Economic Methodology in the 20th Century”, first published in 1982. For the past two decades his research has focused on the multi-faceted writings of the Nobel prize-winning economist and social theorist Friedrich A. Hayek. Caldwell’s intellectual biography of Hayek, “Hayek’s Challenge”, was published in 2004 by the University of Chicago Press. Since 2002 he has been the General Editor of “The Collected Works of F.A. Hayek”, a collection of Hayek’s writings published jointly by the University of Chicago Press and Routledge. Caldwell has held research fellowships at New York University, Cambridge University, and the London School of Economics. He is a past president of the History of Economics Society and of the Southern Economic Association, a past Executive Director of the International Network for Economic Method, and a Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge.

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  The Intelligence in Everyday Work

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Mike (Michael Anthony) Rose

  Mike Rose’s mother was a waitress. She worked for years negotiating the complex world of planning around, strategizing about, delivering to, and socializing with customers. She had to master timing, memory, efficiency, and psychology, but if you asked just about anyone, they would have said her work involved no deep thought at all. In his important book The Mind at Work, Mike challenges the idea that waitressing is thoughtless, while also looking at the complex intellect of hairdressers, electricians, carpenters, and others in similar professions. This episode of Why? asks us to relearn everything we claim to know about manual laborers and reexamine our assumptions about the role of thinking in jobs.

  The son of Italian immigrants, Mike Rose was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania, and raised in Los Angeles, California. He is a graduate of Loyola University (B.A.), the University of Southern California (M.S.), and the University of California, Los Angeles (M.A. and Ph.D.). Over the last forty years, he has taught in a range of educational settings, from kindergarten to job training and adult literacy programs. He is currently on the faculty of the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies.

  He is the author of eleven books including Lives on the Boundary: the Struggles and Achievements of America’s Underprepared, Possible Lives: The Promise of Public Education in America, The Mind at Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker, Why School?: Reclaiming Education for All of Us, and Back to School: Why Everyone Deserves a Second Chance at Education.

  His website can be found here.