Adaptation to Reality

Anytime we try to learn to learn something--whether in a classroom or out in the world--we have to decide whether we trust whoever is teaching us. Trust is, however, hard to find here in 2024, a mere two weeks before an election that pits two seemingly contradictory visions of reality in competition with one another.

In this episode, we speak with the philosopher Jennifer Nagel about knowledge itself: What counts as knowledge? Who has it? What makes it possible for us to share it? And how can we reason our way toward a future we actually want to live in?

We also talk with the artist Alfred Dudley III, who challenges listeners to think hard about how students experience the truth claims teachers make. What happens if students can tell the teacher doesn't trust them?