The Intellectual

Why do we care about equality? Is it an invention of the European Enlightenment? Or is it something rooted in human nature? If so, why does equality require constant fighting for?

Elizabeth Anderson is a philosopher at the University of Michigan. She is one of the essential egalitarian theorists of our times. Her essay What's the Point of Equality is one of the must-reads of the contemporary philosophy of political equality. And her recent essay on the history of equality and social justice is a tour-de-force on using the long view of history to shed light on our contemporary condition. 

In this episode, Prof Anderson talks with Ilari about topics such as:

• Are humans a naturally egalitarian species?
• Can human nature explain the logic of social justice movements?
• The ancient roots of democracy (beyond Athens)
• How Native American critique of European society shaped the French Enlightenment

The conversation then turns to the question of modernity. The 2nd half touches upon topics from 19th Century utopian communes to 20th Century Marxism, including:

• Challenges with anarchism, communalism, and Marxism.
• Is social democracy the answer?
• Are social benefits about pitying the poor?
• Are taxes on the rich about envying the rich?
• Economic equality versus other forms of equality

Names and work mentioned

• Christopher Boehm (author of Hierarchy in the Forest)
• David Graeber & David Wengrow (authors of Dawn of Everything)
• Kent Flannery & Joyce Marcus (authors of The Creation of Inequality)
• David Stasavage (author of The Decline and Rise of Democracy)
• Adam Smith (18th Century Scottish philosopher)
• Nathaniel Hawthorne & Louisa May Alcott (19th Century American authors)
• Thomas Piketty (author of Capital & Ideology, A Brief History of Equality, and Capital in the 21st Century)
• Väinö Linna (author of Under The North Star)
• Isabel Ferrares (author of Firms as Political Entities)
• John Rawls (20th Century American philosopher)
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau (18th Century Swiss philosopher)

Adeline Mueller discusses her book, Mozart and the Mediation of Childhood (University of Chicago Press, 2021) with Roe-Min Kok. This conversation originally appeared as a podcast of the American Musicological Association Study Group on Music, Childhood, and Youth in 2021. Read more here: https://www.amsmusicology.org/page/cysg

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How can the way we play change the way we live? How are creativity, collaboration, and change adaptation related, and why do these activities help people to thrive? In the third episode of the REWORLDING series, host Gaylene Gould speaks to artists and architects who are creating new possibilities through play spaces, games, and playable digital realities, and asking what these can teach us about how we will navigate the world to come.

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This episode features Gabriel Massan, Alvaro Barrington, Assemble, Penny Wilson & Assemble Play attendees, Tamar Clarke-Brown (Curator (Commissions), Arts Technologies, Serpentine), music and reflections from members of Material Institute, and sound created by LYZZA for Gabriel Massan's upcoming game, Third World: The Bottom Dimension.

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You can read more about REWORLDING and access a full transcript of this episode here.

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Credits

Serpentine Podcast: REWORLDING is presented by Gaylene Gould. The series was produced by Katie Callin, with production support from Nada Smiljanic at Reduced Listening, and curated by Serpentine's Editorial team, Hanna Girma and Fiona Glen. Thanks to all members of Serpentine's Programmes, Communications and Audiences teams for their direction and contribution. Special thanks to Serpentine's leadership team Bettina Korek, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Yesomi Umolu. The theme music for REWORLDING was conceived and produced by KMRU, and the visual identity is by the unloved. Jesse Lawson is Executive Producer at Reduced Listening, and Arlie Adlington is the sound mixer. Our thanks go to all guests, contributors and advisors on REWORLDING.

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Thanks to Rainy Miller (mastering engineer) for his support on LYZZA's sound from Gabriel Massan's Third World: The Bottom Dimension, which was commissioned by Serpentine Arts Technologies and features Castiel Vitorino Brasileiro, Novíssimo Edgar and LYZZA.

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Musicians from Material Institute heard jamming in the studio are: Jaida Stallworth (Adiaj), Nathan Watts (Sly Watts), Matthew Lee (HU$H), Andy Gross (sound engineer)

Reflections from members of Material Institute are by: François Boudreaux (Fashion Instructor), Riley Teahan (Fashion & Textiles), Eric Guerrero (Fashion), JDot Smith

Our sensory experiences make up the fabric of our worlds. It's a fabric that keeps us warm; a fabric that makes the world worth living in. If you couldn't hear the cry of your new-born child, if you couldn't taste your grandfather's famous brussels sprouts at Christmas, or feel the embrace of your lifelong partner, then your life wouldn't just include less experiences, but less meaning. Given the value we place on our sensory experiences, it seems important that we understand the nature of them. What is happening, exactly, when we hear, taste, and feel? What are sensory experiences made of?

In this episode, we'll be exploring the nature of sensory phenomenology with Dr Laura Gow, Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Liverpool. Formerly of Warwick University, Cambridge University, and the University of Antwerp, Dr Gow – whose work focuses on the philosophy of perception and the metaphysics of consciousness – is one of the UK's leading phenomenologists. From hallucinations and colour to empty space and silence, Laura's research covers a broad range of topics, but in this episode we'll be focusing on transparency.

According to the transparency view, when we undergo a perceptual experience, the only properties we're aware of are located externally. There are no perceptual properties, says Gow, inside of us – despite what it may seem.

This episode is produced in partnership with the Philosophy and the Future project at the University of Liverpool. For more information about philosophy at Liverpool, head over to www.liverpool.ac.uk/philosophy.

Contents

Part I. Everything is Clear

Part II. Further Analysis and Discussion

Links

Laura Gow (website)

Laura Gow, Colour (paper)

Laura Gow, Everything is Clear (paper)

Laura Gow, Empty Space, Silence, and Absence (paper)

Laura Gow, A New Theory of Absence Experience (paper)

Laura Gow, Perceptual Experience and Physicalism (paper)

Laura Gow, The Limitations of Perceptual Transparency (paper)

Patrick McCray, Professor of History at University of California, Santa Barbara, talks about his book, Making Art Work: How Cold War Engineers and Artists Forged a New Creative Culture, with Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel. The book shows how artists eagerly collaborated with engineers and scientists to explore new technologies and create visually and sonically compelling multimedia works after World War II. McCray and Vinsel also discuss how this history connects to more recent developments such as the creation of the MIT Media Lab and so-called “STEAM education.”

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A slice of lime in your cocktail, a lunchbox clementine, or a glass of OJ at breakfast: citrus is so common today that most of us have at least one lurking on the kitchen counter or in the back of the fridge. But don't be fooled: not only were these fruits so precious that they inspired both museums and the Mafia, they are also under attack by an incurable immune disease that is decimating citrus harvests around the world. Join us on a historical and scientific adventure, starting with a visit to the ark of citrus—a magical grove in California that contains hundreds of varieties you've never heard of, from the rose-scented yellow goo of a bael fruit to the Pop Rocks-sensation of a caviar lime. You'll see that lemon you're about to squeeze in a whole new light. (This is an encore presentation.)

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Robin delves into deeper ironies about America's Indigenous peoples. Special Guest: Robin Wall Kimmerer, author, botanist, Potawatomi activist, on the emerging "language" spoken by the natural world.

In this KEEN ON episode, Andrew talks to the distinguished Australian naturalist Danielle Clode, author of the new KOALA: A NATURAL HISTORY AND AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE. They discuss the crisis of the endangered Koala in Australia and what needs to be done to conserve the land in order to save this species. 

ABOUT DANIELLE CLODE: Danielle is an award winning author of Australian non-fiction books. Her writing includes natural history, essays, science-writing, historical fiction and best-selling children’s books as well as documentaries. Her books have won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for non-fiction, the Federation of Australian Writers award for excellence in nonfiction, a Whitley Award for popular zoology and been shortlisted for the Children’s Book Council of Australia and National Biography awards and longlisted for The Nib Literary Award. Danielle's latest book is Koala: A life in trees published in Australia by Black Inc and released in in the US and UK as Koala: A natural history and Uncertain Future by W. W. Norton. She has also written two biographies for adults, In Search of the Woman who Sailed the World and The Wasp and the Orchid, about pioneering women naturalists. Danielle's documentary based on her earlier book Voyages to the South Seas was recently screened on SBS-TV and is available for screening in French and English.

ABOUT ANDREW KEEN: Name as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Streaming feels like it's both at its height and on a precipice. Musicians are fed up at getting paid fractions of a penny, and the whole business model seems precarious. Switched On Pop co-host Charlie Harding was talking about the challenges for streaming future with my friend Nilay Patel, editor in chief of The Verge and host the podcast Decoder - a show about big ideas. And they taped a conversation about what’s next for streaming through the case study of Taylor Swift who has deftly navigated the transition from CDs to streaming, and whose era tour may mark the end of an era in music. 

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Breathe in, breathe out. In this speech David Abram talks about what usually stays unnoticed - the omnipresent invisible mass of air we are immersed in. He talks about the air as an organ of the Earth, its sacredness; about climate as the commonwealth of breath as well as about the affinity between air and awareness. Is consciousness really the special possession of our species, or is it rather a property of the breathing biosphere in which we all participate?

David Abram is a cultural ecologist and philosopher, founder and creative director of the Alliance for Wild Ethics. He is best known for his work bridging the philosophical tradition of phenomenology with environmental and ecological issues. David is the author of Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology, and The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-human World. His essays on the cultural causes and consequences of ecological disarray have appeared in a number of publications and anthologies. Abram coined the phrase “the more-than-human world” as a way of referring to earthly nature, a term that has become a key phrase within the lingua franca of the broad ecological movement.

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Nádech, výdech. V tomto díle hovoří David Abram o tom, co běžně zůstává nepovšimnuto - o všudypřítomné neviditelné mase vzduchu, ve které jsme ponořeni. Abram mluví o vzduchu jako o orgánu Země, o jeho posvátnosti; o klimatu jako společném bohatství dechu (commonwealth of breath), o spřízněnosti dechu a vědomí. Skutečně vědomí náleží výlučně našemu druhu? Nebo spíš patří dýchající biosféře, na níž jsme všichni účastni?

David Abram je kulturní ekolog a filozof, zakladatel a kreativní ředitel Aliance pro etiku divočiny. Je známý především díky své práci propojující filozofickou tradici fenomenologie s environmentálními a ekologickými tématy. Je autorem knih Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology a The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-human World. Jeho eseje o kulturních příčinách a důsledcích ekologického chaosu vyšly v řadě publikací a antologií. Je autorem slovního spojení „více než lidský svět“, kterým označuje pozemskou přírodu a který se stal klíčovým výrazem jazyka environmentalistů*ek po celém světě.

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