Please like, share, comment, and subscribe. It helps grow the newsletter and podcast without a financial contribution on your part. Anything is very much appreciated. And thank you, as always, for reading and listening.About the AuthorJimmy Alfonso Licon is a philosophy professor at Arizona State University working on ignorance, ethics, cooperation and God. Before that, he taught at University of Maryland, Georgetown, and Towson University. He loves classic rock and Western, movies, and combat sports. He lives with his wife, a prosecutor, and family at the foot of the Superstition Mountains. He also abides.AI has the potential to change everything. Why not higher education? Few colleges and universities—with exceptions—appear to be taking AI seriously. So, I decided it was time to take charge and interview people on the cutting edge of AI and higher education, but with distinct visions of the future. Hollis Robbins is Professor of English and Special Advisor for Humanities Diplomacy at the University of Utah. Her Substack, Anecdotal Value, is a gold mine for forward thinking about AI, higher education, and a pedagogy for the future. Bryan Caplan is Professor of Economics at George Mason University and author of the book The Case against Education. His Substack, Bet on It, is a repository of economic thinking and contrarian takes.In this interview, Hollis Robbins treats AI as the first real threat to the university’s old claim to be the keeper and distributor of knowledge. Once students can learn faster, earlier, and on their own, the value of a semester suddenly looks arbitrary. What is left in her view is the ‘last mile,’ the part of education that AI can’t reach because it lives in the edges of expertise, in the unpublished, the contextual, the unsettled. Bryan Caplan pushes the opposite direction: most students are chasing a signal. And most universities are more invested in preserving graduation rates than in cultivating minds. Better tools won’t change that. Better incentives will.I push them both on whether any of this really counts as disruption or whether we’ve simply been here before with smarter software and bigger promises. My modest worry is that collapses often arrive late and suddenly, and almost never on schedule. Hollis thinks AI finally forces institutions to confront their inefficiencies; Bryan thinks the system’s dysfunction is exactly what keeps it together. The exchange leaves a picture of a sector stuck between real intellectual value and performative bureaucracy.Please like, share, comment, and subscribe. It helps grow the newsletter and podcast without a financial contribution on your part. Anything is very much appreciated. And thank you, as always, for reading and listening. Get full access to Uncommon Wisdom at jimmyalfonsolicon.substack.com/subscribe
Please like, share, comment, and subscribe. It helps grow the newsletter and podcast without a financial contribution on your part. Anything is very much appreciated. And thank you, as always, for reading and listening.About the AuthorJimmy Alfonso Licon is a philosophy professor at Arizona State University working on ignorance, ethics, cooperation and God. Before that, he taught at University of Maryland, Georgetown, and Towson University. He loves classic rock and Western, movies, and combat sports. He lives with his wife, a prosecutor, and family at the foot of the Superstition Mountains. He also abides.I recently sat down with Kurt Blankschaen (Philosophy, Daemen University) to talk about his new paper, co-authored with Travis Timmerman (Philosophy, Seton Hall University), in the Journal of Moral Philosophy (‘Acting Out’), on whether straight actors may permissibly play queer characters. It is one of those questions that looks trivial—just hire the best actor—until you realize that the public conversation is tangled up in worries about representation, lived experience, and online pressure campaigns that can force young performers to out themselves before they are ready.What I wanted to understand, and what we worked through over the course of the conversation, is why this debate got so moralized so quickly. Kurt and Travis argue that the real philosophical pressure point isn’t Who has the right identity? but What makes a portrayal good? Their distinction between performer authenticity and character authenticity is doing the real work here. You can have the “right” identity and still give a crappy performance. You can lack the lived experience but, through preparation, consultation, and craft, portray a character with real depth. Acting is a skill, not an autobiographical disclosure.If you insist that only queer actors can play queer characters, you get three bad results: you risk outing closeted performers; you shrink the available talent pool to the point of absurdity once intersectionality enters the picture; and you block actors, whether straight or queer, from roles they’d otherwise excel at. Because Hollywood is already a brutal, low-probability career lottery, the idea that “missing out on a part” is a distinct moral harm is less compelling here than it would be in ordinary employment contexts. But it still matters when people are treated unfairly, regardless of their sexuality.Finally, I also pressed Kurt on cases like obesity, disability, conservative Christians, and other groups that either lack media sympathy or are represented through caricature. Why do some identities get treated as inviolable while others get ignored or mocked? There is no neat answer. History and politics shape which groups we treat as requiring authenticity, and those patterns aren’t always consistent.An overall great conversation!Please like, share, comment, and subscribe. It helps grow the newsletter and podcast without a financial contribution on your part. Anything is very much appreciated. And thank you, as always, for reading and listening. Get full access to Uncommon Wisdom at jimmyalfonsolicon.substack.com/subscribe
Please like, share, comment, and subscribe. It helps grow the newsletter and podcast without a financial contribution on your part. Anything is very much appreciated. And thank you, as always, for reading and listening.About the AuthorJimmy Alfonso Licon is a philosophy professor at Arizona State University working on ignorance, ethics, cooperation and God. Before that, he taught at University of Maryland, Georgetown, and Towson University. He loves classic rock and Western, movies, and combat sports. He lives with his wife, a prosecutor, and family at the foot of the Superstition Mountains. He also abides.I had anxieties about AI and the future. So I decided to sit down with Cyril Hédoin of The Archimedean Point to hash out our thoughts together. Talking with Cyril, I kept coming back to two linked worries: displacement and disempowerment. He traced his path from institutional economics into philosophy and admitted the same professional anxiety: AI doing more and more of the work we once took to be distinctly human. Neither of us thinks anyone can predict the labor-market fallout. The historical record makes forecasts laughable. But he’s right that whoever owns the AI infrastructure will hold enormous economic power, and that is a shift worth taking seriously.Cyril’s worry about “uniformization” struck me. If people increasingly rely on broadly similar models for writing, thinking, and making decisions, the range of genuine variation shrinks. Because these systems are trained to be agreeable, even sycophantic, we risk reinforcing the worst aspects of our epistemic bubbles.We ended on the personal terrain: loneliness, synthetic intimacy, and the temptation to treat AI as a partner or companion. I don’t think this becomes the norm soon, but the cultural pressures are obvious. It feels like relational junk food—immediately gratifying, ultimately hollow. Yet there is a genuinely hopeful angle too. If used well, AI might revive a kind of synthetic Socratic method—an always-on dialectical partner that sharpens arguments rather than dulls them. The real question is whether we use the tool without quietly surrendering ourselves to it.Please like, share, comment, and subscribe. It helps grow the newsletter and podcast without a financial contribution on your part. Anything is very much appreciated. And thank you, as always, for reading and listening. Get full access to Uncommon Wisdom at jimmyalfonsolicon.substack.com/subscribe
Please like, share, comment, and subscribe. It helps grow the newsletter and podcast without a financial contribution on your part. Anything is very much appreciated. And thank you, as always, for reading and listening.About the AuthorJimmy Alfonso Licon is a philosophy professor at Arizona State University working on ignorance, ethics, cooperation and God. Before that, he taught at University of Maryland, Georgetown, and Towson University. He loves classic rock and Western, movies, and combat sports. He lives with his wife, a prosecutor, and family at the foot of the Superstition Mountains. He also abides.In this special video episode of Uncommon Wisdom, I talk with philosophers Michael T. Hicks and Joe Slater of the University of Glasgow about their paper “ChatGPT is b******t” (Ethics and Information Technology) and my companion piece “ChatGPT is b******t (partly) because people are bullshitters” (Philosophy & Technology). Here we unpack what Harry Frankfurt meant by b******t, how large language models exemplify it, why the line between “soft” and “hard” b******t matters, and a little bit whether human b******t plays a role here. Along the way we discuss AI design, the attention economy, and why both humans and machines seem wired to sound smart even when they don’t know what they’re talking about.My apologies for the video quality on my end. I shot the video underwater. Just kidding, but who can tell the difference? In any case enjoy!Please like, share, comment, and subscribe. It helps grow the newsletter and podcast without a financial contribution on your part. Anything is very much appreciated. And thank you, as always, for reading and listening. Get full access to Uncommon Wisdom at jimmyalfonsolicon.substack.com/subscribe
Please like, share, comment, and subscribe. It helps grow the newsletter and podcast without a financial contribution on your part. Anything is very much appreciated. And thank you, as always, for reading and listening.In this episode of the Uncommon Wisdom Podcast, host Jimmy Licon talks with professor, theologian, and author Joshua Ryan Farris about the nature of the soul and consciousness. They examine the debate between materialism, which sees mental states as purely physical, and dualism, which holds that there is more to the mind than the brain. Farris critiques materialist arguments, highlighting the gap between brain states and subjective experiences (qualia), and drawing on thought experiments like Frank Jackson’s “Mary.” We also discusses near-death experiences as possible evidence for dualism and responds to common materialist appeals to neuroscience, causal closure, and simplicity, offering listeners a rich, accessible overview of this philosophical divide. Do not miss out!Please like, share, comment, and subscribe. It helps grow the newsletter and podcast without a financial contribution on your part. Anything is very much appreciated. And thank you, as always, for reading and listening. Get full access to Uncommon Wisdom at jimmyalfonsolicon.substack.com/subscribe
Please like, share, comment, and subscribe. It grows the newsletter and podcast without a financial contribution on your part. Anything is very much appreciated. And thank you, as always, for reading and listening!This is an AI-generated podcast discussing an article of mine on the issue of personal identity. Who are you? What makes you who you are? These are central questions in the philosophy of personal identity. My article adds to the debate by arguing that the simple fact that we can see ourselves in the mirror is well-explained by, and so evidence for, the metaphysical theory that we are merely biological organisms—or, ‘human animals’ according to the philosophical terminology. The article can be found online HERE. Or, to get around the paywall, visit HERE.I checked the audio for accuracy, but the level of rigor ain't great. In any case, if you would prefer to listen to audiobots — that sound like NPR hosts — discussing my work in an easy to digest format, then enjoy!Uncommon Wisdom is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Uncommon Wisdom at jimmyalfonsolicon.substack.com/subscribe
Please like, share, comment, and subscribe. It helps grow the newsletter and podcast without a financial contribution on your part. Anything is very much appreciated. And thank you, as always, for reading and listening.Many people believe that free speech is dead (or on life support) in higher education. My guest for this episode—Assistant Professor of Business, Matt Burgess—disagrees, arguing instead that not only is one’s speech freer in higher education than many other places, but that freedom may strengthen as political polarization burns itself out. Matt and I also discuss why higher education would be advised to reform itself and how integrity and principled stances remain good signals of integrity and sincere engagement. Our conversation in this episode is based on Matt’s wonderful article of the same title.Matthew Burgess is Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Wyoming. He works on issues related to economic growth futures and their implications for the environment and society, political polarization of environmental issues, and mathematical modeling of human-environment systems, especially as it relates to natural resource management and conservation. He runs the Substack newsletter Guided Civic Revival and podcast Grounded, Not Divided.Uncommon Wisdom is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Uncommon Wisdom at jimmyalfonsolicon.substack.com/subscribe
Two AI podcast hosts discuss a recent article of mine—the invisible hand of partisan irrationality—where I argue that a little acknowledged benefit of political irrationality is that people are forced to act consistent with their virtue signaling and rationalizations or be credibly charged with hypocrisy. The full paper can be found HERE.I checked the audio for accuracy, but the level of rigor ain't great. In any case, if you would prefer to listen to audiobots discussing my work in an easy to understand format, then enjoy!Uncommon Wisdom is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Uncommon Wisdom at jimmyalfonsolicon.substack.com/subscribe
China is shrinking demographically and economically (relative to the United States). Some cheer this development, thinking it lowers the chance of military conflict with the United States and her allies. Professor of Political Science at Tufts University, Michael Beckley, the author of the recent and excellent book, Danger Zone, argues that the opposite is true: for the next five to ten years, a fading China will likely be even more dangerous. The United States and the West would do well to keep that in mind. So, for the next few years especially, the United States is in the danger zone.Uncommon Wisdom is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Uncommon Wisdom at jimmyalfonsolicon.substack.com/subscribe
Become a paid subscriber. This Substack is a labor of love, but the coffee it takes to write the Substack ain't free. Did I mention I'm a poor professor? Thanks! ☕Should we consume dangerous sports where people are hurt and take serious risks for the money? Is it wrong to be a fan of football or boxing? Are sports a kind of pretend for adults? These questions and more are featured in my latest episode with Professor Shawn Klein, Associate Teaching Professor at Arizona State University. Disclaimer: he is my colleague. He is also the editor of several books on philosophy of sports and fiction franchises.Uncommon Wisdom is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Uncommon Wisdom at jimmyalfonsolicon.substack.com/subscribe
Become a paid subscriber. This Substack is a labor of love, but the coffee it takes to write the Substack ain't free. Did I mention I'm a poor professor? Thanks! ☕In a world in which only the present moment exists, travel to the past would be impossible, no? And perhaps even suicidal since time travel in such a universe would be leaving the whole of reality? Steven and I begin the episode by debating these questions. (You can find Steven's original article here, my reply here, Steven’s counter here, and my final reply here). Our conversation then turns to the question of abortion and father's rights, why luck is a myth, and the disastrous effects of AI on teaching in higher education. And just like myself, Steven likes to work on topics that come from left field—the baseball examples help too!Steven Hales is Professor of Philosophy at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. He also is the author of, account other books, The Myth of Luck: Philosophy, Fate, and Fortune. Uncommon Wisdom is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Uncommon Wisdom at jimmyalfonsolicon.substack.com/subscribe
Become a paid subscriber. This Substack is a labor of love, but the coffee ☕ it takes to write the Substack ain't free. Did I mention I'm a poor professor? Thanks! 🙏In a fun and freewheeling conversation, philosopher Andrew M. Bailey and I discuss his current book Resistance Money: A Philosophical Case for Bitcoin about the power of Bitcoin as a resistance money, the basics of how bitcoin works, and why you as an ordinary consumer should consider Bitcoin as a form of currency. Bitcoin is for anyone who values autonomy and privacy — more and more so into the future!Andrew M. Bailey is a former philosophy professor at Yale-NUS in Singapore, and soon to be an Associate Professor of Philosophy at University of Wyoming and a senior fellow at the Bitcoin Policy Institute.Uncommon Wisdom is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Uncommon Wisdom at jimmyalfonsolicon.substack.com/subscribe
Become a paid 💰 subscriber. This Substack is a labor of love, but the coffee ☕ it takes to write the Substack ain't free. Did I mention I'm only a poor professor? Thanks! 🙏This post is experimental. It is an AI-generated podcast with two ‘hosts’ discussing a published article on mine—which I no longer endorse, but which is fun to discuss regardless—arguing that procreation (having children) is wrong most, if not all, the time. You can find a copy of the published article HERE. It was also the subject of a reddit thread a few years ago HERE.I checked the audio for accuracy, but the level of rigor ain't great. In any case, if you would prefer to listen to audiobots — that sound like NPR hosts — discussing my work in an easy to understand and digest format, then listen away!If subscribers like this feature, then I will add it as a regular on Uncommon Wisdom. If so, then let me know in the comments. Enjoy!Uncommon Wisdom is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Uncommon Wisdom at jimmyalfonsolicon.substack.com/subscribe
Become a paid 💰 subscriber. This Substack is a labor of love, but the coffee ☕ it takes to write the Substack ain't free. Did I mention I'm only a poor professor? Thanks! 🙏This post is experimental. It is an AI-generated podcast with two ‘hosts’ discussing a published article on mine on the dark sides of political and legislative transparency. Sunlight ain't all good folks! There's a reason that the Founders wrote and debated the Constitution behind closed doors. This podcast is based on an article that can be found HERE. I checked the audio for accuracy, but the level of rigor ain't great. In any case, if you would prefer to listen to audiobots — that sound like NPR hosts — discussing my work in an easy to understand and digest format, then listen away!If subscribers like this feature, then I will add it as a regular on Uncommon Wisdom. If so, then let me know in the comments. Enjoy!Uncommon Wisdom is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Uncommon Wisdom at jimmyalfonsolicon.substack.com/subscribe
Consider becoming a paid 💰 subscriber. This Substack is a labor of love, but the coffee ☕ it takes to write the Substack ain't free. Thanks! 🙏This post is experimental. It is an AI-generated podcast with two ‘hosts’ discussing a published article on mine on the implications of moral mediocrity on how just a society can be. You can find the official article linked HERE. I have checked the audio for accuracy, though the level of rigor is somewhat lacking. In any case, if you would prefer to listen to audiobots — that sound like NPR hosts — discussing my work in an easy to understand and digest format, then listen away!If subscribers like this feature, then I will add it as a regular on Uncommon Wisdom. If so, then let me know in the comments. Enjoy!Uncommon Wisdom is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Uncommon Wisdom at jimmyalfonsolicon.substack.com/subscribe
In this episode, Peter and I discuss the value and benefits of voting at the margins, the ethics and efficacy of censorship, and why having children is better and more nuanced than the debate over natalism would have one believe.Peter Ryan Brookes (Oxford) is a PPE (philosophy, politics, economics) tutor in the UK. He writes the persistent ruminator on Substack. Uncommon Wisdom is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Uncommon Wisdom at jimmyalfonsolicon.substack.com/subscribe
In this episode, Prof. Morris and I discuss the problem of evil, skeptical theism (God’s reasons are beyond our ability to understand), and how to think about suffering in a Christian context. We also discuss her recent paper on the topic, and her book on the basics of Christian philosophy. Prof. Morris is an associate professor of instruction in the philosophy department at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida. She received her PhD in Philosophy from the University of Notre Dame in 2010. Her current research interests are philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, philosophy of religion, and the intersection thereof.Uncommon Wisdom is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Uncommon Wisdom at jimmyalfonsolicon.substack.com/subscribe
The infamous economist, Bryan Caplan, and I discuss the potential impact of AI across domains like immigration, national security, employment, and much much more! He’s much more sanguine about AI than I am, but he makes good points, as per usual. Enjoy the show!Bryan Caplan is a professor of economics at George Mason University, research fellow at the Mercatus Center, and adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. His Substack is Bet On It. Get full access to Uncommon Wisdom at jimmyalfonsolicon.substack.com/subscribe
In this episode, Eric and I discuss his theory of jerks, moral mediocrity, death bed regrets, the extent of our conscious experience, and much more! Eric Schwitzgebel is Professor of Philosophy at University of California, Riverside. He works on topics in the philosophy of psychology, philosophy of mind, and moral psychology. He has many publications to his credit. Get full access to Uncommon Wisdom at jimmyalfonsolicon.substack.com/subscribe
In this episode, Prof. Morris Kleiner and I discuss the nature of occupational licensing, why occupational licensing is more about excluding competition than quality or competence, why licensing requirements need to be reformed, and much more besides. Everything you wanted to know about occupational licensing!Morris M. Kleiner is professor and AFL-CIO Chair in Labor Policy at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs. He also teaches at the University's Center for Human Resources and Labor Studies. He has received many teaching awards including University and school-wide ones for classes in public affairs, business, and economics. He is an expert on labor issues for the government, labor, nonprofits, and business. Get full access to Uncommon Wisdom at jimmyalfonsolicon.substack.com/subscribe