Descartes Before the Horse

On this new season of Descartes Before the Horse, Dr Liam Miller takes on the role of dungeon master and throwing an unwitting Dr Luke Zaphir up against Plato's Cave. Can he escape the cave and gain true knowledge of things? And while role playing as the folksy Immanuel Kant no less! It's a tough job to escape the Cave to perceive the truth of the universe while still maintaining his rigid morality? Or will he throw Plato out of a window and not bother?Theme music:"Aquarium" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Should we be worried about ChatGPT? What is it good at? What should we let it do? Should we let AI make decisions for us?

In order to how we can best discover ourselves, Dr Zaphir and Dr Miller explore a variety of psychological and philosophical tests and their value for self-reflection. The mini IPIP test for the big five personality traits everyone has (Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, Openness to Experience, Extraversion)The Myers-Briggs test for 16 personalitiesThe RIASEC career and personality testThe Kinsey Scale for sexual orientationThe Autism Test (should not be taken as indicative or diagnostic)Goofy tests for fun like Lord of the Rings

What is masculinity anyway? Is gender identity is under siege from an onslaught of feminist propaganda? We take a charitable look at Jordan Petersen, Andrew Tate, Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro – and examine the stated beliefs and rhetoric of some of the most influential speakers in the conservative movement. Where is it that men should go from here?To see the sources used in this episode:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5jN8c8UEChWYcPUJ7LjiNrSGSgTBObusIf you have questions, comments, or a topic you'd like to share, email us at horsedescartes@gmail.com

Should we be teaching students how to protest? Should a teacher get involved in political discussions with students and reveal their biases? Is it better to teach practical skills that will be of immediate tangible benefit to students? Or perhaps it’s better to teach controversy, not values? All of these ideas, good and bad are discussed with Dr Peter Ellerton from the Critical Thinking Project.

Luke and Liam explore what love is. Are we obliged to love our parents? Must declarations of love be met with actions of love? What do we owe to our children? To our parents? Must we be grateful for being born? We didn’t ask for it after all.

Liam and Luke explore whether there are any good reasons to (not) call someone by their preferred gender pronouns.

Luke and Liam look at whether disobeying social etiquette is a form of unethical behaviour. They explore some philosophically dense and problematic questions such as ‘are we bad people if we don’t return a shopping trolley to the corral?’, ‘are we obligated to delete someone’s search history?’, and ‘is it rude to leave our headphones on to discourage talking to people?