Posted on Thursday, January 18, 2018

Inviting International Philosophical Dialogue with Iran

On November 16th of 2017, many around the world celebrated World Philosophy Day, a UNESCO initiative. For years, Javad Hieran-Nia and colleagues at the Mehr News Agency in Tehran, who publish The Tehran Times, have interviewed philosophers from around the world. SOPHIA’s Executive Director Eric Weber has given quite a few interviews, including some that ended up on the front page. The Tehran Times is Iran’s major English language newspaper.

Mr. Hieran-Nia prepared remarks that were delivered digitally via a video message partly presented to faculty and students at St. Olaf College, but also with a more general audience. In addition to having rich thoughts to offer about peace and international intellectual engagement, Hieran-Nia also shares the message that The Tehran Times has committed to expanding its space for intellectual dialogue with philosophers from around the world with readers online and in Iran via the newspaper. Hieran-Nia and the chief editor of The Tehran Times, Mohammad Ghaderi, both have called for more open and engaged dialogue with philosophers from all around the world and their newspaper.

If you are interested in writing Mr. Hieran-Nia and Mr. Ghaderi, reach out to SOPHIA’s Executive Director, Eric Weber, and let us know. Here is the video of Mr. Hieran-Nia’s remarks, along with Chief Editor’s Ghaderi’s invitation to engage in international philosophical dialogue via the forum of The Tehran Times (transcript of Mr. Hieran-Nia’s remarks here):

If you’re interested in learning more, read The Tehran Times‘s piece on their interaction with St. Olaf College and their World Philosophy Day celebration here.

Posted on Thursday, December 21, 2017

059: Ep55 – Evaluating Public Philosophy

Philosophy Bakes Bread radio show & podcast

In this fifty-fifth episode of the Philosophy Bakes Bread radio show and podcast, Anthony and Eric talk about “Evaluating Public Philosophy,” in an episode based upon their recently co-authored paper, titled “Lessons Learned Baking Bread.” In this episode and in our paper, Anthony and Eric propose four criteria by which public philosophy can be evaluated: substance, accessibility, invitingness, and community building.

Anthony and Eric presented this paper in the summer of 2017 at the Future of Philosophical Practice conference at UNC Asheville, in the beautiful hills of Asheville, North Carolina. We are grateful to Brian Butler for hosting a great event there, as well as for all the great feedback that we received at the event. In fact, that is where we met and interviewed Cole Nasrallah, our guest from episode 36, “Quality Philosophy for Everyone.” While we were there, we also interviewed John Shook and Randy Auxier for episode 34, on “Saving American Culture in a Yurt.”

Listen for our “You Tell Me!” questions and for some jokes in one of our concluding segments, called “Philosophunnies.” Reach out to us on Facebook @PhilosophyBakesBread and on Twitter @PhilosophyBB; email us at philosophybakesbread@gmail.com; or call and record a voicemail that we play on the show, at 859.257.1849. Philosophy Bakes Bread is a production of the Society of Philosophers in America (SOPHIA). Check us out online at PhilosophyBakesBread.com and check out SOPHIA at PhilosophersInAmerica.com.

(1 hr 8 mins)

Click here for a list of all the episodes of Philosophy Bakes Bread.

Subscribe to the podcast!

We’re on iTunes and Google Play, and we’ve got a regular RSS feed too!

Notes

UPDATE: As of this podcast release, our updated numbers are: 27,500 downloads from 99 countries!
Freeman Dyson, “What Can You Really Know,” The New York Review of Books, November 8, 2012. In that review essay, Dyson asks, “When and why did philosophy lose its bite? How did it become a toothless relic of past glories?”
Our episode with Nancy McHugh, on “Philosophy and Social Change,” episode 47.
Our episode with Amy Leask, on “Philosophy at Home,” episode 46.

You Tell Me!

For our future “You Tell Me!” segments, Anthony and Eric posed the following questions in this episode:

“Whom should we have on the show? It doesn’t have to be a philosopher, just someone thoughtful and fun to talk to, from any walk of life.”

“What rewards would be attractive for people who might want to support the show?”

Let us know what you think! Via Twitter, Facebook, Email, or by commenting here below.

Posted on Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Looking Back on 11 Months of Philosophy Bakes Bread

Click here to visit PhilosophyBakesBread.com.

SOPHIA released our first episode of the Philosophy Bakes Bread in our podcast series on January 19th of 2017. We had a handful of pilot episodes that now-co-host Eric Thomas Weber had made on his own. But in the third week of January, the show launched on the internet for the first time in its present form, with Anthony Cashio serving as our first guest. From then on, Cashio and Weber have to date released and aired 59 episodes on the radio, and 53 in the podcast. As we round the bend and think back on the year, we are also hopeful that this last month leading up to January 19th of 2018 will garner the 2,700 downloads remaining to mark 30,000 for our first year.

The hope is realistic. The month of November saw 3,500 downloads, and August saw more than 4,500. So, we’re excited. 30,000 seems like a nice round number that also has been mentioned in some of the podcasts that Weber and Cashio listen to regularly, and is considered an important milestone in bigger shows’ growth. Our 59th aired episode was actually our first one recorded entirely while live on the radio in Lexington, at WRFL, 88.1 FM. Anthony had to call in half way through the episode for family reasons. It worked and was a lot of fun. He says that he liked being able to pace as he spoke. That’s not usually an option when you’re in front of a condenser microphone.

In our most recent episode, we took a moment and [spoilers] talked about our most downloaded episodes, as well as which were the favorites for Anthony, Eric, and our returning guest, Dr. Annie Davis Weber. Annie has seen the mountains of work that have gone on behind the scenes to put the show together, edit it, and get it out to you all. Plus, the very first pilot episode of the show (not counting Weber’s roughly recorded speech), Ep0.1, had focused on how philosophy profoundly helped him to be happy despite challenges for the Webers’ daughter, Helen. Given that the episode was recorded so long ago, and was told from Eric’s perspective, Anthony and Eric decided to interview Annie about the matter. She was also helped by philosophical thinking. For Eric, it was stoicism that helped most. For Annie, Buddhist philosophy. We’ll have that episode out in the podcast in a few weeks, but as we round out the year, we thought we’d provide some spoilers about which were our favorite episodes, as well as which have been the most downloaded.

For anyone who hasn’t heard the following episodes, here’s your chance to catch up on them and to help us reach our target milestone of 30,000 downloads by January 19th, 2018. Let’s start with our most downloaded episodes and then we’ll share with you which ones we said were our favorites.

Our most downloaded episodes:

#5 of Our Most Downloaded Episodes

Our fifth most downloaded episode featured Drs. Seth Vannatta and Daniel Brunson! The episode was the first part of a two part series:

Episode 6: “Part I of II – Teaching Philosophy to First-Generation College Students”

As of December 20th, 2017, this episode has had 826 downloads. To listen alongside show notes and a transcript, you can click on the link here above, or just listen to it right here:

(1hr 5 mins)

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Posted on Thursday, December 14, 2017

057: Ep53 – Kneeling and Civil Protest

Philosophy Bakes Bread radio show & podcast

In this fifty-third episode of the Philosophy Bakes Bread radio show and podcast, we interview Dr. Arnold Farr about “Kneeling and Civil Protest,” concerning the conflicts that have arisen in the last few months about football star Colin Kaepernick and many others who followed his example.

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Arnold is a professor of philosophy at The University of Kentucky. He authored Critical Theory and Democratic Vision: Herbert Marcuse and Recent Liberation Philosophies. He is currently writing a new book on The New White Supremacy. He is focusing on race and African Philosophy. In addition to these works, Arnold has written numerous articles and book chapters on subjects like German idealism, Marxism, critical theory, and philosophy of race. In addition to his writings, Arnold is the founder of the International Herbert Marcuse Society.

(1 hr 4 mins)

Click here for a list of all the episodes of Philosophy Bakes Bread.

Subscribe to the podcast!

We’re on iTunes and Google Play, and we’ve got a regular RSS feed too!

Notes

John Branch, “The Awakening of Colin Kaepernick,” The New York Times, September 7, 2017.
The Editors of GQ, “Colin Kaepernick Is GQ‘s 2017 Citizen of the Year,” and “Colin Kaepernick Will Not Be Silenced,” GQ, November 13, 2017.
The International Herbert Marcuse Society.

You Tell Me!

For our future “You Tell Me!” segments, Arnold posed the following question in this episode:

“What is democracy and how can we achieve it?”

Let us know what you think! Via Twitter, Facebook, Email, or by commenting here below.

Transcript

(more…)

Posted on Saturday, December 9, 2017

056: Ep 52 – Against the Common Core

Philosophy Bakes Bread radio show & podcast

In this fifty-second episode of the Philosophy Bakes Bread radio show and podcast, we interview Dr. Nicholas Tampio, author of Common Core: National Education Standards and the Threat to Democracy.

Nicholas is Associate Professor of Political Science at Fordham University. In addition to his forthcoming book, he has also authored a book titled Kantian Courage, and another titled Deleuze’s Political Vision. More recently, he has authored a number of essays for popular audiences for such venues as the Huffington Post, Aeon, and CNN.com.

(1 hr 5 mins)

Click here for a list of all the episodes of Philosophy Bakes Bread.

Subscribe to the podcast!

We’re on iTunes and Google Play, and we’ve got a regular RSS feed too!

Notes

Nicholas Tampio, Common Core: National Education Standards and the Threat to Democracy (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018), available for pre-order.
Nicholas Tampio, “In Praise of Dewey,” Aeon, July 28, 2016.
Nicholas Tampio, “Why Common Core Tests Are Bad,” CNN.com, April 24, 2014.
Lindsay Layden, “How Bill Gates Pulled Off the Swift Common Core Revolution,” The Washington Post, June 7, 2014.