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Struggle to Understand

Struggle to Understand

Written by: Stephen Clouse
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About this listen

 Driven by Aristotle's opening line of the Metaphysics, that all human beings desire to know, this podcast is aimed at helping us better understand a small piece of what it means to be human and the struggle we all have to understand.Stephen Clouse Philosophy Social Sciences
Episodes
  • Episode 32 - Xavier Bonilla and Angel Eduardo

    Episode 32 - Xavier Bonilla and Angel Eduardo
    Jul 1 2022

    Welcome back. Today’s episode features two returning guests:  Xavier Bonilla and Angel Eduardo. Xavier has a doctorate in psychology and is a professor of psychology in Maryland. Xavier is also the host of a podcast called "Converging Dialogues" which can be found here. Angel is an Advisory Board member and Director of Messaging and Editorial for the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR). In addition, Angel is a co-host of the FAIR perspectives podcast with Melissa Chen and a columnist at the Center For Inquiry.

    This conversation is a marathon - both in length and subject matter. Trying to construct a cohesive summary of the contents would require a laundry list of subjects that would only add to the impressive run-time of this conversation. But a few highlights include a rather lengthy conversation about fandoms - including a rather protracted discussion of Star Wars and its fandom. We also discuss, as we did in prior conversations, topics surrounding identity, representation, and the role of art in constructing meaning and the truth. As the podcast comes to a close, we discuss some elements of identity politics and the pitfalls that may befall those who argue that demography is destiny, particularly among Latino voters in the United States.

    It was wonderful having Xavier and Angel back on to give their shared perspectives on salient topics in our seemingly never-ending cultural quagmire. I hope you enjoy our marathon conversation!

    Xavier can be found on Twitter @xaverbonilla87.

    Angel can be found on Twitter @StrangelEdweird

    Introductory music was written by Alex Yoder. Find him here

    Please consider supporting the podcast here and following it on Twitter. Thank you for your support!
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    2 hrs and 52 mins
  • Episode 31 - Brian Earp

    Episode 31 - Brian Earp
    Sep 20 2021
    In this episode, I speak with Brian Earp. Brian is the Associate Director of the Yale-Hastings Program in Ethics and Health Policy at Yale University and The Hastings Center, and a Research Fellow for Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford and is currently finishing a joint Philosophy and Psychology PhD at Yale University. Given Brian’s wide experience, this conversation traverses a wide range of topics. We first speak about graduate school: its promise, problems, and our experiences with it. We then transition into a discussion about ethics and social science, taking up what’s been called the replicability crisis in social science as well as some of the perennial questions within the subfield of bioethics. The combination of these two elements leads us to a topic that is close to Brian’s heart: circumcision. We speak about male and female circumcision, why the latter is often called female genital mutilation but the former is rarely spoken of at all, as well as some of the myths and bad science that surround this topic. As you will see toward the end of our conversation, we seemingly have just begun to explore some of these topics when the reality of time intervenes in our conversation. Brian was tremendously gracious with his time and I hope to speak with him again soon, picking up from where we left off here. Find Love and Other Drugs here. Brian's other work can be found here. He can also be found on Twitter here.  Introductory music was written by Alex Yoder. Find him here Please consider supporting the podcast here and following it on Twitter. Thank you for your support!
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    2 hrs and 7 mins
  • Episode 30 - Matt Dinan and Andrew Moore

    Episode 30 - Matt Dinan and Andrew Moore
    Sep 6 2021

    In this episode, I speak with Matt Dinan and Andrew Moore. Matt has a PhD from Baylor University and is an associate professor in the Great Books program at St. Thomas University. Andrew has a PhD from Western University and is an associate professor in the Great Books program also at St. Thomas University. We explore what is a liberal arts education and how it relates to the “great books” of the Western intellectual canon, the purpose of engaging with the great texts produced by human civilization, and ultimately why liberal arts education may be understood as an education in a kind of friendship. Liberal arts education can be defined both broadly and narrowly and this episode highlights how important it is to understand both facets of liberal arts and how, ultimately, the goal is facilitating people to live a more fully human life.

    Introductory music was written by Alex Yoder. Find him here

    Please consider supporting the podcast here and following it on Twitter. Thank you for your support!
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    1 hr and 9 mins
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