Josh, Tim, and Rachel answer questions from Ian McGinniss, the president of Dukes for Life at James Madison University.
This episode includes an intro to epistemology (theory of knowledge; the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion.) So this is a pretty philosophically heavy episode, but it’s worth it. Just thinking about epistemology can really help you to think more clearly in general!
Questions:
- 8:56: How long do your outreach conversations usually last?
- 11:18: How would you describe ERI’s approach to dialogue?
- 15:02: Is it intellectually honest to start with one conclusion to bring us to another? For example, in the Equal Rights Argument, it is assumed that infants are persons. Is that fair?
- 35:28: How do you initially respond when you realize that you’re talking to an extreme skeptic?
- 47:05: So if you know you’re about to go into “philosophy hell” with someone because there aren’t any other people to talk to, how do you approach that?
- 53:32: When discussing this with my club, it was pointed out that it feels like an argument to convince someone that elephants should have more rights.
- 58:22: Do you think some animal rights activists overly anthropomorphize animals that can feel pain?
Related Links:
- Timothy Brahm for the ERI Blog: Circumventing Philosophy Hell
- Equipped for Life Podcast Episode One: When They Bite the Bullet
- Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Gettier Problems
- The Cove Documentary
- Black Fish Documentary
- Timothy Brahm for the ERI Blog: On Virtue-Signaling