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Almost exactly a year ago I had Spencer Case on the show from Wuhan, China, where he had a front row seat to the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Spencer is now back in Wuhan, finishing up a post-doc fellowship at Wuhan University, where he is working on two books and a pile of academic articles. Spencer has also started his own podcast, Micro-Digressions, and it is worth a listen if you have even a passing interest in philosophy.
In this episode we not only talk about Spencer's ordeal getting out of China last year, but his ordeal getting back into China a few weeks ago, and what Wuhan is like today. From there we take a brief tour of heroes and villains among modern philosophers.
You can find Spencer's excellent commentaries at Quillette, National Review Online, and elsewhere.
Hosted by Steve Hayward, with guest Spencer Case
Discussion (7)
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I'm perfectly willing to accept things like razor wire as a quarantine method in case of actual plague. This cheap Chinese knockoff virus doesn't rise to that level of danger.
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I was recently thinking of your first interview with Spencer and wondering where he was these days. Thanks for the update.
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Philosopher in Hong Kong here. I too would have named David Hume first. He's why we have Logical Positivism.
If Alasdair MacIntyre in After Virtue or C. S. Lewis in Abolition of Man is even half right, that makes Hume a massively destructive philosopher.
Still, there's a pretty dang insightful insight wrapped up in Hume's most colossal mistake. I introduce both topics in the Hume series available on this playlist.
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Absolutely right about CS Peirce and the philosophy is Science. It is a needed antidote to the current fad of “settled science.” “Do not block the way of inquiry.”
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Second time you've mentioned Peirce recently. I should remember that. You and, as I recall, @MackTheMike are fans of that guy.
Sometime (you know, with all my spare time) I should get back to Peirce. I probably have notes on a couple of the key essays and could throw together a short YouTube intro that would help me remember some basics for a couple of years.
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