There is a puzzle about counterfactuals that parallels a more familiar puzzle about free will. The familiar puzzle is the apparent incompatibility between free will and determinism. Robert Stalnaker, Professor of Philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, argues, first, that the general puzzle gives us reason to look more closely at the details of the semantics for counterfactuals, and second, that the parallel with the standard argument for incompatibilism (labeled ‘the Consequence Ar...
Nov 24, 2021•1 hr 11 min
If having a gun really made you safer, then America would be one of the safest countries in the world. It's not. Gary Younge (Manchester University) explains that while Americans consistently favor more gun control, gun laws have generally become more lax. That is partly due to the material resources of the gun lobby. But it is also about the central role of the gun, what it represents in the American narrative, and the inability of gun control advocates to develop a counter-narrative. Series: "...
Apr 14, 2020•1 hr 25 min
Twentieth-Century African American Freedom Struggles transformed both US and World History. These seminal liberation struggles include the important yet relatively unknown series of early twentieth-century southern African American streetcar boycotts as well as the iconic Civil Rights-Black Power Insurgency (1935-75). First, Waldo Martin examines why and how these foundational freedom struggles proved essential to the making of the modern African American Freedom Movement. Second, he examines th...
Jan 15, 2020•1 hr 28 min
This lecture by South African writer, playwright and academic Jane Taylor considers Ludwig Wittgenstein’s paper, “On Certainty” in which the philosopher engages with the taken-for-granted in everyday thought. Taylor notes, “In our contemporary context of the precarious, on one hand, and the political vehemence of conviction, on the other, it seems timely to pay attention to the faltering and tentative mode of regard and thought of one of the twentieth century’s most enigmatic thinkers.” Series: ...
Jan 03, 2020•1 hr 29 min
By virtually any measure, prisons have not worked. They are sites of cruelty, dehumanization, and violence, as well as subordination by race, class, and gender. Prisons traumatize virtually all who come into contact with them. Abolition of prison could be the ultimate reform. Georgetown Law Professor Paul Bulter explores what would replace prisons, how people who cause harm could be dealt with in the absence of incarceration, and why abolition would make everyone safer and our society more just....
Dec 04, 2019•1 hr 35 min
It is widely held today on grounds of prudence if not realism that in designing public policy and legal systems, we should assume that people are entirely self-interested and amoral. But it is anything but prudent to let "Economic Man" be the behavioral assumption that underpins public policy. Samuel Bowles (Santa Fe Institute) supports his position using evidence from behavioral experiments mechanism design and other sources, and proposes an alternative paradigm for policy making. Series: "UC B...
Apr 09, 2019•1 hr 38 min
The view that the sciences make progress, while the arts do not, is extremely common. Philip Kitcher, John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, challenges it. Scientific progress has social dimensions. A socially embedded notion of scientific progress then allows for a parallel concept of progress applicable to the arts. Kitcher specializes in the areas of pragmatism (especially Dewey), science and social issues, naturalistic ethics, and philosophy in literature. Series: "UC Ber...
Mar 25, 2019•1 hr 38 min
Jennifer Granholm, former Governor of Michigan, identifies some of the most interesting policy ideas to address the problems of displaced workers, the skills gap and resulting inequality in an age of robots and artificial intelligence. Granholm teaches Public Policy at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School and is the chair of the American Jobs Project, a multi-state research initiative on creating industrial clusters in clean energy. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Public Affairs] [Business] [Sh...
Jan 02, 2019•1 hr 11 min
Myths symbolize ideas, values, history and other issues that are important to a people. They may be true or false, mundane or fantastic; their significance is their meaning, not their narrative content. Science is a way of knowing about the natural world. Its conclusions tentatively may be true or false, but its significance is its explanatory power: one has confidence in the process of science, even though some explanations change over time. Myth and science thus seem very different, but each h...
Nov 06, 2018•1 hr 13 min
Scientists are often puzzled when members of the public reject what we consider to be well-founded explanations. They can’t understand why the presentation of scientific data and theory doesn’t suffice to convince others of the validity of “controversial” topics like evolution and climate change. Eugenie Scott, Founding Executive Director, National Center for Science Education, highlights the importance of ideology in shaping what scientific conclusions are considered reliable and acceptable. Th...
Oct 31, 2018•1 hr 19 min
Deborah Tannen discusses how interacting via text messaging services challenges relationships. Tannen is on the faculty of Georgetown Universitys Department of Linguistics. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Humanities] [Show ID: 34069]
Sep 18, 2018•5 min
Sometimes the soul seems a more precise concept than the body. In this lecture Marilyn Strathern, goes to a place and time where all kinds of beings (including food plants) have souls and where the bodily basis of life is immortalized through cloning. She comments on the way present-day anthropology brings fresh illumination to what we thought we knew. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Humanities] [Show ID: 33308]
Jun 18, 2018•1 hr 25 min
The ACLU is committed to civil rights and civil liberties issue. David Cole, National Legal Director of the ACLU and Georgetown law professor, explores what Trump's first year as president tells us about about constitutional law and the future of civil liberties and civil rights in the United States. David Cole was named Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union in 2016. He oversees approximately 1,400 civil liberties lawsuits, both state and federal. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lec...
Apr 16, 2018•1 hr 38 min
The Trump Presidency is a symptom of the fracturing in American society that goes deeper than economics and politics to the meaning of being an American. George Packer, Staff Writer for the New Yorker, argues that none of the currently available narratives of national identity point a way out of our failure and asks if there is another way to think of ourselves as Americans. George Packer is a contributor for numerous journals and magazines, including The New York Times magazine, Dissent, Mother...
Jan 08, 2018•1 hr 20 min
Deborah Tannen draws on her interviews with eighty women, ranging in age from 9 to 97, and on years of research examining how ways of talking affect relationships, to explore the role of talk among friends, with particular focus on women’s friendships, how they compare to men’s, and the consequences of such differences. Tannen is on the faculty of Georgetown University’s Department of Linguistics Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Humanities] [Show ID: 32998]
Dec 25, 2017•1 hr 10 min
Deborah Tannen discusses how interacting over social media is changing and challenging relationships, amplifying both the risks and the gifts of voice-to-voice conversations. Tannen is on the faculty of Georgetown University’s Department of Linguistics. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Humanities] [Show ID: 32999]
Dec 18, 2017•1 hr 15 min
Arlie Hochschild describes her journey from Berkeley, her own liberal cultural enclave, to Louisiana, a conservative one. She explores her choice of research site, her effort to remove her own political alarm system, and during five years of research, to climb over what she calls an “empathy wall.” She focuses on her concept of the “deep story” – a version of which underlies all political belief, she argues, and will end with the possibilities of finding common ground across the political divide...
Dec 11, 2017•1 hr 10 min
Large and growing food movements in the United States seek policy changes to promote healthier and more environmentally sound food choices. Marion Nestle reflects on recent progress. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Public Affairs] [Health and Medicine] [Agriculture] [Show ID: 32980]
Oct 16, 2017•4 min
Gisela Striker shows how the Stoic philosopher Panaetius, on whose work Cicero based his own treatise, actually presented what might be seen as a complete version of Stoic ethics without the theological and cosmological elements for which Cicero and other Stoics are sometimes criticized. Striker is Professor of Philosophy and of the Classics, Emerita, at Harvard University. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Humanities] [Show ID: 32263]
Jun 12, 2017•1 hr 21 min
The paradox of today’s global food system is that food insecurity or obesity threaten the health and welfare of half the world’s population. Underlying these problems is an overabundant and overly competitive food system in which companies are forced to expand market channels to meet corporate growth targets. The contradiction between the goals of public health and food corporations has led to a large and growing food movement in the United States, which seeks policy changes to promote healthier...
May 15, 2017•1 hr 12 min
Nina Jablonski explores the nature and sequence of changes in human skin through prehistory, and the consequences of these changes for the lives of people today. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Public Affairs] [Science] [Show ID: 32130]
Apr 24, 2017•1 hr 18 min
Skin is the primary interface between ourselves and our environment. Nina Jablonski, Pennsylvania State University, looks at what makes our skin unique and, perhaps, more important than we realize. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Science] [Show ID: 32129]
Apr 17, 2017•1 hr 22 min
Ann Swidler first inquires as to what makes institutions good before questioning how such institutions might be achieved given our current political, social, and economic conditions. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Humanities] [Show ID: 31680]
Jan 09, 2017•1 hr 27 min
Thomas Jefferson had a vision for the United States of America but race and slavery complicated his views of what kind of society was possible on the American continent. One of the foremost scholars on Jefferson, Pulitzer prize winner Annette Gordon-Reed is a professor of American Legal History at Harvard University. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Humanities] [Show ID: 31530]
Dec 26, 2016•1 hr 22 min
There are two questions pertaining to the self – the metaphysical and empirical - that are often confounded. The latter is best approached through neurology as V.S. Ramachandran, Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at UC San Diego, illustrates in this fascinating lecture at UC Berkeley. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Health and Medicine] [Humanities] [Show ID: 30558]
May 02, 2016•1 hr 13 min
Power, money, gold and wine in the making of California. All that, and what it’s like to write best-selling books and operate Berkleyside, the respected local online news site. Award-winning author and journalist Frances Dinkelspiel is in conversation with Deirdre English of Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 30555]
Apr 25, 2016•1 hr 16 min
The Montreal Protocol has limited global uses of chemicals that deplete stratospheric ozone. Ralph Cicerone, President of the National Academy of Sciences, compares its features and success with unsuccessful (to date) efforts to stabilize global climate by limiting greenhouse gas concentrations such as carbon dioxide. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Public Affairs] [Science] [Show ID: 30557]
Apr 11, 2016•1 hr 16 min
Ralph Cicerone, President of the National Academy of Sciences,reviews up-to-date data on temperatures of air and water, rates of ice losses and of sea-level rise and illustrate the driving forces of greenhouse gases in an energy-balance model of Earth. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Public Affairs] [Science] [Show ID: 30556]
Apr 04, 2016•1 hr 19 min
Although many recent advances, such as building codes and construction techniques, have reduced some aspects of risk to natural disasters, other features of modern society— including population density and the networking of transportation, power facilities, and communications systems—have led to increased vulnerability in California and beyond. Lucy Jones, Science Advisor for Risk Reduction, U.S. Geological Survey, discusses and answers questions about interdisciplinary research to measure the v...
Dec 21, 2015•1 hr 8 min
The Egyptians believed Pharaoh to be a god on earth who after his death would fly up to heaven and unite with the sun, his father. After the collapse of the Old Kingdom, this idea of royal immortality became accessible for non-royal persons but dependent on justification before a divine tribunal, the judgment of the dead. Immortality became a question, not of royalty but of morals. Jan Assmann, Professor Emeritus of Egyptology, University of Heidelberg, explores the origins and evolution of thes...
Dec 21, 2015•1 hr 19 min
