Episode 22: Elizabeth Anderson - A new equality and the philosopher for this moment in American life

Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghan

Show Notes:

• Marx Philosophic and Economic manuscript of 1844 (3:30)
• Changed by exposure to systematic class privilege (7:10)
• ‘Cubilcle’-ization revolution (8:10)
• Normative aspects of economics and markets (11:30)
• The American Economic Journal (15:00)
• Being intellectually curious (16:00)
• Hugh Lacey History of Philosophy and Science - Swarthmore (16:00)
• Thomas Kuhn - Structure of Scientific Revolutions (18:30)
  • How scientific ‘controversies’ arise and how they are resolved
• Intellectual fruitfulness of doing philosophy of X where X can be any discipline or problem (20:00)
  • Turning point: do this from political and economic philosophy
• Normative inquiry has to be responsive to the actual experiences of people (22:00)
• Early life as a contemporary philosopher (24:00)
• John Dewey and privatism (25:00)
• Max Weber “Science as a Vocation" (26:30)
  • Any vocation is ‘Wissenschaft’ (knowledge-making)
• Sustaining moments are those when the big questions arise
• Why it is hard to ask people what matters to them (32:00)
• Ethnography and human-centered design - how your ideas impact on the ground (33:20)
• Read broadly (34:00)
• "The Island Of Stone Money” - Island of Yap (36:30)
• Creative process (38:20)
  • “The key is always to keep reading"
  • How she decides what to read - have a research question in mind (39:20)
• What is populism? By Jan-Werner Müller (42:20)
• Landmark paper “What is the point of equality” (42:30)
• Quest for equality is a quest for justice, to get rid of oppressive social relations (46:20)
• MacArthur Foundation ‘Genius Grants’ (47:25)
• Cecilia Conrad Origins episode (48:20)
• Future book (50:30)
• Research into how different disciplines attributes ‘genius’ (51:30)
• Definitions of genius (52:00)
• How she organizes information (52:30)
• Thomas Piketty Capital in the Twenty-First Century (1:00:00)
• Morning routine (1:07:10)
• Locke’s Second Treatise (1:09:50)
• Lightning Round (1:17:00)
  • Book: The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ series
  • Guest’s list