83 | Kwame Anthony Appiah on Identity, Stories, and Cosmopolitanism

83 | Kwame Anthony Appiah on Identity, Stories, and Cosmopolitanism

The Greek statesman Demosthenes is credited with saying "I am a citizen of the world," and the idea that we should take a cosmopolitan view of our common humanity is a compelling one. Not everyone agrees, however; in the words of former British Prime Minister Theresa May, "If you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere." On the other side of the political spectrum, groups who share a feature of identity — race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and others — find it useful to band together to make political progress. Kwame Anthony Appiah is a leading philosopher and cultural theorist who has thought carefully about the tricky issues of cosmopolitanism and identity. We talk about how identities form, why they matter, and how to negotiate the difficult balance between being human and being your particular self.

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Kwame Anthony Appiah received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Cambridge University. He is currently Professor of Philosophy and of Law at New York University. He is the author of numerous academic books as well as several novels. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is the recipient of a number of major awards, including the National Humanities Medal of the United States. He currently writes the New York Times Magazine column "The Ethicist", and frequently writes for The New York Review of Books. (Note that in the podcast intro I mistakenly said he was "born and raised" in Ghana; he was actually born in London, moving to Ghana when he was six months old.)


Jaksot(415)

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284 | Doris Tsao on How the Brain Turns Vision Into the World

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283 | Daron Acemoglu on Technology, Inequality, and Power

283 | Daron Acemoglu on Technology, Inequality, and Power

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282 | Joel David Hamkins on Puzzles of Reality and Infinity

282 | Joel David Hamkins on Puzzles of Reality and Infinity

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Ask Me Anything | July 2024

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281 | Samir Okasha on the Philosophy of Agency and Evolution

281 | Samir Okasha on the Philosophy of Agency and Evolution

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280 | François Chollet on Deep Learning and the Meaning of Intelligence

280 | François Chollet on Deep Learning and the Meaning of Intelligence

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279 | Ellen Langer on Mindfulness and the Body

279 | Ellen Langer on Mindfulness and the Body

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