Explaining Change: Aristotle and the Pandemic

This podcast episode is intended to help us think through our current situation during the global coronavirus pandemic. The focus of this episode is on understanding the phenomenon of change, or more specifically, how we understand the causes of change. This is a philosophical discussion, although I have prepared it in a way that presumes its listeners, namely all of you, do not necessarily have any philosophical background. It is also a discussion about how to think about living our lives – indeed about restructuring our lives – as a consequence of having had this collective experience. In sum, I will try to take you through how Aristotle might have understood the purpose of the pandemic.

Disaster & Change is a special series of Forum, a podcast produced by SHAPS, the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia.

This podcast was produced by the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne. We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the lands on which our University operates - lands of the Kulin peoples, which includes the Wurundjeri, Boonwurrung, Wathaurong, Dja Dja Wurrung and Taungurung peoples, as well as the Yorta Yorta nation. We pay our respects to their Elders, past and present and emerging, and acknowledge that sovereignty to these lands was never ceded.