Podcast Episodes

Episode 95: On Morality, Moralizing, and Elephant Jockeys (Round Table)

Season 1 Episode 95

This time we invited some of the coolest and smartest people we know to have a freewheeling discussion on morality loosely centered on Jonathan Haidt's “rider and the elephant” metaphor. We take a de…

Published on 1 year, 2 months ago

Episode 94: Stephen Hicks on Critical Rationalism vs Objectivism

Season 1 Episode 94

This episode we interview Professor of Philosophy Stephen Hicks. In his excellent books Explaining Postmodernism and Nietzsche and the Nazis it becomes clear that the history of bad and good ideas—wh…

Published on 1 year, 2 months ago

Episode 93: Philosophical Theories vs Bad Explanations

Season 1 Episode 93

Can philosophical theories be refuted? What is a bad explanation? Can all theories be made more empirical?

In search of an answer to these questions, Bruce takes a deep dive into what he believes i…

Published on 1 year, 2 months ago

Episode 92: Popper on Philosophical Theories

Season 1 Episode 92

Continuing from episode 91, we continue our deep dive into Popper's Conjectures and Refutations Chapter 8 where Popper explains how to use his epistemology on philosophical theories that (by definiti…

Published on 1 year, 3 months ago

Episode 91: The Critical Rationalist Case For Induction!?

Season 1 Episode 91

Forgive the clickbait title. The episode should probably actually be called "The (Lack of) Problem of Induction" because we primarily cover Popper's refutation of induction in C&R Chapter 8.

This ep…

Published on 1 year, 3 months ago

Episode 90: Bayesianism for Critical Rationalists!?

Season 1 Episode 90

Today our guest Ivan Phillips methodically explains what Bayesianism is and is not. Along the way we discuss the validity of critiques made by critical rationalists of the worldview that is derived f…

Published on 1 year, 4 months ago

Episode 89: Tradition as a Source of Knowledge: Popper vs. Chesterton

Season 1 Episode 89

This week we discuss the book Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton (1908), perhaps the most famous defense of the Christian tradition. We contrast this with Karl Popper’s talk, “Towards a Rational Theory of …

Published on 1 year, 5 months ago

Episode 88: The Myth of the Objective

Season 1 Episode 88

Here Bruce reflects on AI researcher Kenneth Stanley’s assertion that setting specific, measurable goals may actually hinder discovery and innovation, which he writes about in his book, Why Greatness…

Published on 1 year, 5 months ago

Episode 87: Is the Universal Explainer Hypothesis Falsifiable?

Season 1 Episode 87

Is the universal explainer hypothesis falsifiable? How does the concept of universality relate to human minds? Is anything truly beyond human comprehension? And how would you frame universality as an…

Published on 1 year, 6 months ago

Episode 86: Fuzzy Categories, Essentialism, and Epistemology (Hofstadter Part 2)

Season 1 Episode 86

How do humans form 'fuzzy categories'? How does this all relate to essentialism? Is essentialism false? Or is it partially true? And how does this all relate to Critical Rationalism?

Picking up wher…

Published on 1 year, 6 months ago