In this episode, the game-theoretic and social choice-theoretic aspects of the popular TV series, “The Traitors” are discussed. Additionally, the asymmetric pliability of speech and accusation is explored. This is a special episode — a discussion with award-winning philosophy scholar, Euan Morgan.

Join Emma in conversation with London School of Economics classmate, Euan Morgan. Euan Morgan, award-winning philosophy scholar, takes us through his master’s dissertation, “Bending without Breaking: The Merits of Counterspeech.” The interview covers background on Speech Act Theory, Blocking as a counterspeech technique, Bending as a counterspeech technique, and the plausibility of unintentional bending as a form of counterspeech. Listen to the exclusive interview now!

It’s time to talk about my disseration. This short teaser introduces the 4-part series that explains my Master’s dissertation from the London School of Economics. The dissertation was titled, “Going for Gold: A Proposal to Raise the Evidentiary Standard of Mechanisms in Rare Disease Medicine.” The four part series will be released as detailed below:

Part 1: Introducing the Project & Offering a Brief Overview of Evidence in Medicine

Part 2: Establishing a Need for Recalibration of the Evidence Standard

Part 3: Arguing for Mechanisms Driving Epistemological Progress

Part 4: Providing the Implementation Plan & Concluding Remarks

In this episode, Mathias Risse’s 2004 claim that “unless majoritarians present a more complete defense, it is irrational to grant majority rule its default status” is evaluated. It is argues that it is rational to grant majority rule the default status that it occupies. This is defended through disarming Risse’s 4 objections (argumentative content, preference intensity, omission of relevant information, proportionate consideration), proposing new ideal desiderata of a default aggregation rule, and a statement on practicality regardless of justificatory power.

In this episode, manipulability in the conclave voting procedure is discussed. Rest in peace to Pope Francis. This podcast comes as a discussion of the aggregation method used by cardinals in electing the next pope. The sequential supermajority voting system allows for manipulability at several levels, where there are clear cases when cardinals (voters) have incentive to falsify or misrepresent their preferences. While supermajority rule can seem to numbers-wise (dictated by ‘experts’ in the faith) give a strong mandate for papal infallibility, potential for manipulability seems to contradict that consequential mandate.

In this episode, it is argued that the causal efficacy of an act is what matters to its evaluation, not its auspiciousness. Discussion of decision theories of Jeffrey and Savage are what motivates that claim. Further, an example of the Borough Market sandwich stand provides a nice illustration of act evaluation in practice.

In this episode, it is argued that no-platforming should be opposed on purely epistemic grounds because it deprives students of epistemic benefits that would have been realized had the contrarian (cancelled academic) been allowed to speak. This is motivated by raising the specific epistemic focus of higher education institutes. Also, the contrarian’s ability to push ‘apprentice’-like students to more deeply understand their axiomatic adherence in the discipline, their live intellectual agency, and paradigmatic display of epistemic humility all support the argument.