Egg Timer Philosophy

Herbert Spencer was an extremely influential 19th century thinker but his ideas exist in relative obscurity today.  He coined the phrase 'survival of the fittest' and wrote extensively on a variety of topics within evolutionary theory, political thought, sociology, psychology, and ethics.  Tune in to learn more about Spencer's ideas and how they are still plenty relevant today.

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Tune in to learn more about Charles Darwin's idea of Natural Selection and how that idea was impactful well beyond the biological sciences.  

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Image Attribution: By Julia Margaret Cameron - Reprinted in Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of His Published Letters, edited by Francis Darwin. London: John Murray, Albemarle Street. 1892.Scanned by User:Davepape, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3560761

In 1643 Elisabeth, Princess of Bohemia, wrote a series of letters to Descartes which posed a strong objection to his dualism.  Tune in to learn more about that objection and how Descartes responded in a lively correspondence with the Princess.

You can find the correspondences between Elisabeth and Descartes about dualism here: https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/descartes1643_1.pdf

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In 1963 Edmund Gettier's short paper offering counterexamples to the idea that knowledge amounts to justified true belief sent shock waves around the philosophical world.  Tune in to learn more about Gettier's influential ideas that still garner a great deal of attention today.

You can find a copy of Gettier's paper here: https://fitelson.org/proseminar/gettier.pdf

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Knowledge is often defined today as justified true belief.  This episode is devoted to taking a look at each part of this influential approach to understanding what knowledge amounts to.

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Do people have natural procedural rights to be judged by fair and reliable processes?  That's the topic for this episode of the egg timer.  Tune in for an application of natural rights to an age old question.  

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Why does inequality exist?  That's the question that Jean Jacques Rousseau set out to answer in the mid 18th century.  Tune in to find out the answer he gives and why his ideas about inequality still hold significant relevance today.

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Today's episode takes a look at the nuanced idea of egalitarianism.  Tune in to find out why the view is much more than simply giving everyone the same.

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If a person found a ring that gave them the ability to be invisible and face no consequences for how they acted would they have any reason to act justly?  This is the Ring of Gyges example found in the second book of Plato's Republic.   Tune in as this long standing philosophical thought experiment is cracked open.

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For this episode of the egg timer a look at the classic prisoner's dilemma.  This is the game that ushered in contemporary game theory in the 1950's and it remains highly relevant today.

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