Society & Culture: Philosophy

Freddie Sayers sits down with renowned cognitive psychologist, author, and Harvard Professor of Psychology Steven Pinker to discuss his latest book, When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows... and explore how common knowledge shapes our social, political, and economic worlds. Their conversation delves into the power and

Note that this conversation took place before Hamas addressed some conditions of President Donald Trump’s proposed peace plan and said it agreed to release all remaining hostages. This was the most requested conversation I've ever had, and one of the longest and most challenging. Dave Smith—comedian, podcaster, and lib

Recorded live at the Comedy Cellar in New York City: I sat down with Steven Pinker, Harvard psychologist, best-selling author, and world-class debunker of doom, to talk about his new book, When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows…:Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life.  We got into this i

Getting along in society requires that we mostly adhere to certainly shared norms and customs. Often it's not enough that we all know what the rules are, but also that everyone else knows the rules, and that they know that we know the rules, and so on. Philosophers and game theorists refer to this as common knowledge.

Why are Super Bowl ads so good for launching certain kinds of new products? Why do we all drive on the same side of the road? And why, despite laughing and crying together, do we often misread what others think? According to bestselling author and Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, it all comes down to common knowledg

In this episode Stephen Wolfram, creator of Mathematica and the Wolfram Language, discusses his view of the universe as a computational system. We examine computational irreducibility, discrete space, multi‑way evolution, and how observers shape physical laws from thermodynamics to quantum mechanics. Wolfram also conne