1 00:00:08,430 --> 00:00:10,710 Hello, welcome to the OPV, 2 00:00:10,710 --> 00:00:19,800 African and South Asian Fox News broadcast series This Joiner's Till Everything Is Roundabout's by the Subthemes African Nation. 3 00:00:19,800 --> 00:00:24,970 Gorski's Anybody's Imagination of our Public Policy Genoese. 4 00:00:24,970 --> 00:00:28,980 This week was November 2020. 5 00:00:28,980 --> 00:00:38,040 Working together, we as students begin to acquire our traditions and to study in your American philosophical institutions 6 00:00:38,040 --> 00:00:45,720 while investigating our own assumptions and the way our traditions present these recipes and beyond. 7 00:00:45,720 --> 00:00:54,360 We intend to participate in meteoritic the tax and spend representation, respect and resources required to transform our minds. 8 00:00:54,360 --> 00:01:09,860 The. And actually. Welcome to Oxford Public Philosophy's podcast series in continuation of the discussion girls have hosted this year, 9 00:01:09,860 --> 00:01:14,920 Oxford Public Philosophy is a student life journalist based thought critically questioning what 10 00:01:14,920 --> 00:01:20,440 philosophy is and how we are doing it in form and content for the second turn of the journal. 11 00:01:20,440 --> 00:01:26,080 The focus has been on African philosophy, South Asian philosophy and critical pedagogy. 12 00:01:26,080 --> 00:01:32,110 As part of our ethos of public philosophy, we hosted a series of discussion groups engaging with these fields of thought. 13 00:01:32,110 --> 00:01:40,060 We're now hosting the series of podcast interviews, conversations critically reflecting on our engagement with African and South Asian philosophies. 14 00:01:40,060 --> 00:01:48,250 My name is Ruth and today I'll be talking to Professor Peter Adamson and Professor Teekay Jeffries about the History Philosophy podcast, 15 00:01:48,250 --> 00:01:52,810 which has been enormously influential in guiding terms of our journal. 16 00:01:52,810 --> 00:01:57,100 Professor Adamson is the host of the podcast History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps. 17 00:01:57,100 --> 00:02:04,750 The series looks at the ideas, lives and historical context of major philosophers, as well as the lesser known figures of the tradition. 18 00:02:04,750 --> 00:02:09,040 Professor Cheekier Jeffers co-wrote the series for this podcast. 19 00:02:09,040 --> 00:02:14,590 The series of episodes examines philosophy originating from Africa and the African Diaspora. 20 00:02:14,590 --> 00:02:17,260 So thank you for being here, sir. 21 00:02:17,260 --> 00:02:25,150 I thought we could get started with the history of this dreadful history podcast and maybe talk about how you came up 22 00:02:25,150 --> 00:02:33,640 with the idea and how you got started and how you decided what episodes you're going to make and things like that. 23 00:02:33,640 --> 00:02:41,950 Well, I guess that one would be for me, since I was involved before G.K was high cheek, by the way, or Guzzi. 24 00:02:41,950 --> 00:02:47,530 Well, it started in two thousand and ten, so it's been running for more than ten years now. 25 00:02:47,530 --> 00:02:53,920 And it really started because I was listening to a lot of podcasts myself, 26 00:02:53,920 --> 00:02:59,290 including some with some philosophy podcasts like philosophy bites, for example. 27 00:02:59,290 --> 00:03:04,990 And I also was listening to a lot of podcasts that were just about history. 28 00:03:04,990 --> 00:03:10,810 So I was particularly influenced by one called The History of Rome, which is hosted by someone named Mike Duncan, 29 00:03:10,810 --> 00:03:15,970 who's gone on to do another really brilliant podcast about the history of political revolutions. 30 00:03:15,970 --> 00:03:26,080 And it sort of struck me that it would be really cool if someone did a podcast that dealt with philosophy in the style of a history podcast. 31 00:03:26,080 --> 00:03:32,500 I sort of started at the beginning and moved forward inch by inch without leaving anything out. 32 00:03:32,500 --> 00:03:40,870 And then I thought, well, even though what I really want is that someone else would make this podcast so I could listen to it. 33 00:03:40,870 --> 00:03:46,810 Probably no one will. And I'm a specialist in ancient and mediaeval philosophy, which is the first thing that would have to be covered. 34 00:03:46,810 --> 00:03:51,250 So maybe I should do it. And I actually hesitated for quite a long time. 35 00:03:51,250 --> 00:03:54,400 I don't know if I've ever told this to Chieko, but I mean, 36 00:03:54,400 --> 00:04:01,690 I spend almost a full year wondering if I should do it because I thought oh this will be a lot of work. 37 00:04:01,690 --> 00:04:05,680 But then eventually I just thought the idea was too good not to use. 38 00:04:05,680 --> 00:04:14,320 And so I started at the wrong place actually because I started with the price Craddock's, which seemed like the obvious thing to do. 39 00:04:14,320 --> 00:04:24,340 And then subsequently when we developed the idea of the Africana philosophy series and maybe I can say a little bit about how that came into being, 40 00:04:24,340 --> 00:04:34,960 we realised that we needed to go back actually quite a bit earlier than the earliest philosophers who wrote in Greek and cover Egyptian philosophy, 41 00:04:34,960 --> 00:04:42,190 ancient Egyptian philosophy. And as kind of context for that, we also covered Babylonian philosophy. 42 00:04:42,190 --> 00:04:52,970 So at this point, the podcast covers everything from ancient Egypt up to about the Renaissance. 43 00:04:52,970 --> 00:04:59,600 And it also goes later than that because in the African series, we've now gotten up through like the 19th century, 44 00:04:59,600 --> 00:05:04,670 we're now in the early 20th century, we're going to keep going and covered the rest of the 20th century. 45 00:05:04,670 --> 00:05:11,180 And then with Janardan Gennari, who was another co-author, we covered classical Indian philosophy. 46 00:05:11,180 --> 00:05:15,740 So there's quite a lot of it already. There's already more than five hundred episodes total. 47 00:05:15,740 --> 00:05:19,610 And maybe you can say something about how we got into the Africanness areas. 48 00:05:19,610 --> 00:05:25,820 Yeah, I was just about to ask about where you started with your research and how you 49 00:05:25,820 --> 00:05:32,910 developed and in what ways that surprised you in the ways that episodes go. 50 00:05:32,910 --> 00:05:44,520 With respect to the kind of serious. I think that the prehistory, so to speak, of the kind of cities would be the fact that. 51 00:05:44,520 --> 00:05:54,870 I managed to be a listener of the podcast from the beginning, so I do remember. 52 00:05:54,870 --> 00:06:05,730 I think it was probably Brian Lighter's website or blog, probably, that it had been announced, 53 00:06:05,730 --> 00:06:19,170 and so so I'm pretty sure that only the first episode or maybe just a few episodes were available when I first started listening to the podcast. 54 00:06:19,170 --> 00:06:22,200 And so I was a fan. 55 00:06:22,200 --> 00:06:35,520 And the the one thing that that I had a complaint about was the idea of it being called the history of philosophy without any gaps. 56 00:06:35,520 --> 00:06:48,160 When the first episode, as it was then in existence, you know, indicated that there would be continent sized gaps. 57 00:06:48,160 --> 00:06:56,610 And so I was for that reason, very excited when. 58 00:06:56,610 --> 00:07:09,290 Peter on the podcast blog was showing more openness to. 59 00:07:09,290 --> 00:07:20,970 To expanding the series and. One story that I am very fond of is the fact that that you can actually. 60 00:07:20,970 --> 00:07:28,400 See a specific conversation on the blog in which I am. 61 00:07:28,400 --> 00:07:40,640 Encouraging the idea of. Expanding the cities and into and speaking of people that he could collaborate with, 62 00:07:40,640 --> 00:07:50,400 I mentioned genetic engineering as someone to collaborate with in order to cover Indian philosophy. 63 00:07:50,400 --> 00:08:00,260 And I also mentioned I think I mentioned more than one person, but one of the people I mentioned in terms of East Asian philosophy was Karen Lee, 64 00:08:00,260 --> 00:08:06,920 with whom Peter will be covering Chinese philosophy in episodes to come. 65 00:08:06,920 --> 00:08:13,910 That will be coming out after our Africanness series wraps up. 66 00:08:13,910 --> 00:08:17,960 So apparently I was quite prophetic. 67 00:08:17,960 --> 00:08:28,970 The one thing that I had no prophecy of in the context of making those remarks on the blog is that I would become a collaborator, too. 68 00:08:28,970 --> 00:08:38,910 And and that that did not happen. Right at that point, I don't think. 69 00:08:38,910 --> 00:08:50,310 I would have to, you know, scour the comments and so on to to get the the flow of events. 70 00:08:50,310 --> 00:08:55,730 Down better, but. I do know that at some point. 71 00:08:55,730 --> 00:09:04,130 While I think it was in response to Peter having mentioned, you know, oh, and possibly other stuff like Africa. 72 00:09:04,130 --> 00:09:14,420 Right. I would have at some point said, you know, and by the way, as this is my area of speciality, 73 00:09:14,420 --> 00:09:23,180 if you would like to discuss what would be involved in trying to cover that, then, you know, I would be happy to discuss that. 74 00:09:23,180 --> 00:09:40,520 And and Peter's showed interest. So as I recall, we had a Skype conversation feel like that was the Skype era and we're in the zone, but time flies. 75 00:09:40,520 --> 00:09:44,300 You know, we had a Skype conversation and it was great conversation. 76 00:09:44,300 --> 00:09:55,940 And, you know, I remember that by the end of it, Peter seemed positively excited about covering Afrikaner philosophy. 77 00:09:55,940 --> 00:10:06,450 Next after the series with co-written with Jonathan airing on Indian philosophy. 78 00:10:06,450 --> 00:10:13,890 So that's the the the origins and. 79 00:10:13,890 --> 00:10:25,620 I think that how the cooperative works with different co-authors probably differs from person to person, and that's something that Peter can speak to. 80 00:10:25,620 --> 00:10:42,490 I mean. Certainly in my case, the first step was planning out, you know, what we would do, and I also was very used to the way that. 81 00:10:42,490 --> 00:10:47,300 The series would kind of operate in three parts and so, you know. 82 00:10:47,300 --> 00:10:58,790 There's, you know, the part of the podcast that came out is classical philosophy now on the website labelled, 83 00:10:58,790 --> 00:11:04,690 I think more clearly is classical Greek philosophy. But, you know. 84 00:11:04,690 --> 00:11:16,710 That was in three parts, it had reached the Craddock's and it had. Socrates and Plato and then had Aristotle, and so similarly, 85 00:11:16,710 --> 00:11:32,260 I ended up with this three parts structure that we've used with the first part is focussed on precolonial African philosophy. 86 00:11:32,260 --> 00:11:39,940 The second part is focussed on. The. 87 00:11:39,940 --> 00:11:54,350 Development of. Philosophy in the era of slavery and colonialism, and the third part is focussed on the 20th century. 88 00:11:54,350 --> 00:12:02,510 The first part, it's worth noting, is entitled Locating and Debating the Colonial African Philosophy, 89 00:12:02,510 --> 00:12:20,740 because in addition to looking to colonial times, it is also about professional African philosophy and how professional African philosophy as a. 90 00:12:20,740 --> 00:12:28,800 Subdiscipline sort of emerged as a debate around the status of precolonial. 91 00:12:28,800 --> 00:12:33,920 Traditional. African philosophy. 92 00:12:33,920 --> 00:12:49,070 Yeah, so anyway, that's a little bit about how it came to be and and the way forward, I mean, the other thing is beyond the beyond me planning it out. 93 00:12:49,070 --> 00:12:52,190 As we've mentioned in an interview that's available on the podcast, 94 00:12:52,190 --> 00:12:59,750 it's it's actually split pretty equally between us in terms of who does the first draught of an episode. 95 00:12:59,750 --> 00:13:15,760 So, you know. Many and at times, depending on how things are going, it can even like maybe sometimes go sixty percent, something like that. 96 00:13:15,760 --> 00:13:26,920 It's actually Peter who with some suggestions for me, has really done the the the basis for that episode as far as the first draught that I would, 97 00:13:26,920 --> 00:13:37,070 that I would then revise and subtract anything I want and then, you know, the other half of the time it's me doing the first draught. 98 00:13:37,070 --> 00:13:41,360 So. Yeah. Thank you, Lisa. 99 00:13:41,360 --> 00:13:48,230 Maybe you can tell us a bit about working on the Indian philosophy episodes that you just married. 100 00:13:48,230 --> 00:13:57,740 That was very different, actually, because I, first of all, had a somewhat better idea of what it would be involved in looking at Indian philosophy. 101 00:13:57,740 --> 00:14:04,400 So as the story has just told kind of suggests, I went into African philosophy, 102 00:14:04,400 --> 00:14:10,640 although actually we wound up calling it Africana philosophy because it includes philosophy in the diaspora. 103 00:14:10,640 --> 00:14:18,950 I went into that with zero knowledge, really. I mean, like not even any idea of what you'd cover, what it would be about. 104 00:14:18,950 --> 00:14:26,960 Right. And so for me, there's been a very strong learning curve where actually I think this may be useful for the listener, 105 00:14:26,960 --> 00:14:33,020 because what's happened is that Cejka is sort of teaching me what's involved in the whole topic. 106 00:14:33,020 --> 00:14:41,420 And then especially in the episodes where I write The First Draught, you're kind of getting the voice of someone who's learning about it. 107 00:14:41,420 --> 00:14:46,400 As they're writing and reading, so I think that that's actually kind of nice, 108 00:14:46,400 --> 00:14:52,010 the mixture of like an amateur and an expert that you get with those episodes. 109 00:14:52,010 --> 00:14:58,150 And that's true to some extent with Indian philosophy, except that at least with Indian philosophy, that was, of course, 110 00:14:58,150 --> 00:15:06,440 that was taught at King's College, London, where I used to teach and I had even examined it together with Janardan. 111 00:15:06,440 --> 00:15:11,660 And so I knew a little bit about it. Like I wasn't surprised that we were talking about Buddhism in the Bhagavad Gita. 112 00:15:11,660 --> 00:15:18,620 And I even knew that there were these so-called six Orthodox schools, innovative tradition. 113 00:15:18,620 --> 00:15:25,280 So when I saw his list of what we were covering, I wasn't that surprised, I guess. 114 00:15:25,280 --> 00:15:29,780 Whereas when I when she sent me the list of the Africana episodes, I was like, 115 00:15:29,780 --> 00:15:34,670 my first reaction was, holy cow, I can't believe how much of this there is. 116 00:15:34,670 --> 00:15:41,930 Like, this is going to take us a long time. And and also just like, oh, yeah. 117 00:15:41,930 --> 00:15:46,280 Like we could have an episode about whatever gender and traditional African culture that. 118 00:15:46,280 --> 00:15:54,020 What a cool idea. Right. So really, in that case, the that's been a pure learning experience for me. 119 00:15:54,020 --> 00:15:58,520 But I have to say that I knew very little about classical Indian philosophy as well before I started. 120 00:15:58,520 --> 00:16:04,940 So I knew about it like in the broadest of outlines, but I had never worked on any of it. 121 00:16:04,940 --> 00:16:11,090 Read the secondary literature or read the primary literature in translation and so on. 122 00:16:11,090 --> 00:16:18,140 One other big difference there is that with the exception of some episodes, which I wrote the first draught on, 123 00:16:18,140 --> 00:16:27,260 Janardan agreed to do this series with me and then sort of didn't contact me for almost a full year. 124 00:16:27,260 --> 00:16:31,760 And I began to wonder whether he had gotten cold feet. 125 00:16:31,760 --> 00:16:36,710 And just as I was about to get back in touch with him and say, hey, Janardan, are we still really doing this? 126 00:16:36,710 --> 00:16:39,380 He sent me the whole thing is like a single document. 127 00:16:39,380 --> 00:16:47,540 So he sent me something like forty five episodes as one one chunk, which I was very surprised by. 128 00:16:47,540 --> 00:16:56,690 And so I said when I was working on the Indian series, it was more like Jonathan's job was already done and I was adding stuff. 129 00:16:56,690 --> 00:17:02,120 So where I thought, oh, we could have it, we could have an episode here, or maybe we need to split this into two episodes or something. 130 00:17:02,120 --> 00:17:06,950 I would kind of contact him for advice and ask him about things like what can I read? 131 00:17:06,950 --> 00:17:12,770 And and that would also obviously I ran all of the scripts past him. 132 00:17:12,770 --> 00:17:16,610 We also had to talk about things like who to interview in the series, 133 00:17:16,610 --> 00:17:23,090 because the podcast we haven't mentioned this, but the podcast is a mix between scripted episodes that I record. 134 00:17:23,090 --> 00:17:27,530 Even when she writes them, I recorded them. So they're scripted episodes. 135 00:17:27,530 --> 00:17:34,730 And there's episodes where we have an expert interview guest which are more like this, what we're doing now. 136 00:17:34,730 --> 00:17:43,130 And so anyway, Janeane was involved the whole time, but he was much it was much more like he handed it over to me and then I took it from there. 137 00:17:43,130 --> 00:17:47,660 And I think both approaches have worked. 138 00:17:47,660 --> 00:17:56,240 I mean, I really like the fact that with Cejka and and I, when we're working through it, we're kind of playing off each other. 139 00:17:56,240 --> 00:18:05,090 And since I'm learning from his scripts as we go along, it helps me write the next thing I have to write, you know? 140 00:18:05,090 --> 00:18:15,100 But generally speaking, I. I certainly have enjoyed working with both of them, of course, and learnt a lot by doing both. 141 00:18:15,100 --> 00:18:22,870 I will and I mean, the other thing is just how amazing it's been to get this kind of crash course on these two. 142 00:18:22,870 --> 00:18:31,310 Amazing. Bodies of philosophical literature and get to do that together with the world's leading experts, I mean, it's amazing. 143 00:18:31,310 --> 00:18:36,050 So I think I've probably gotten more out of it than any listener could hope to get out of it. 144 00:18:36,050 --> 00:18:45,430 But I hope the listener gets a lot out of it, too. And one of the things that strikes me about doing this history philosophy contest, 145 00:18:45,430 --> 00:18:49,960 and it's something that came up in the discussion groups as well when we were doing, 146 00:18:49,960 --> 00:18:55,210 you know, we had a sounding board for a discussion group on philosophy and do something you 147 00:18:55,210 --> 00:19:00,640 really talked about and then was for the South Asian philosophy discussion groups. 148 00:19:00,640 --> 00:19:10,510 We had one come speak to us about philosophy of language and talk about Sanskrit and appropriate and like grandma as philosophy. 149 00:19:10,510 --> 00:19:15,220 And I mean, I was wondering what it has been like to do this sort of, you know, 150 00:19:15,220 --> 00:19:24,010 especially like the Indian philosophy episodes that are sort of like classical Indian philosophy and then the precolonial kind of philosophy, 151 00:19:24,010 --> 00:19:30,100 you know, to do it in English and to sometimes have to translate concepts or, you know, 152 00:19:30,100 --> 00:19:41,090 give an idea of what a word means that can't necessarily be or easily translated into English. 153 00:19:41,090 --> 00:19:48,410 Well, one reason I didn't originally plan to try to cover Indian philosophy or Chinese philosophy, for that matter, 154 00:19:48,410 --> 00:19:56,660 is that I thought it was sort of inappropriate for someone to do that who can't read the original primary texts. 155 00:19:56,660 --> 00:20:05,630 So like for Western European philosophy, plus Islamic philosophy, which I always plan to include, I can read Greek, Arabic and Latin. 156 00:20:05,630 --> 00:20:11,730 So that takes you all the way up to the rise of vernacular literature in early modernity. 157 00:20:11,730 --> 00:20:13,280 And I can read French and German too. 158 00:20:13,280 --> 00:20:23,480 So I can basically I can read almost all of Western European philosophy plus Islamic philosophy, except for like Kierkegaard. 159 00:20:23,480 --> 00:20:32,030 So so that in fact, I thought that was one reason why it made sense for me to do it, because at least I can, like, check that. 160 00:20:32,030 --> 00:20:36,470 I mean, it's not like I'm reading everything that I ever read for the podcast in the original language. 161 00:20:36,470 --> 00:20:41,450 I would take a long time, but I can at least check the original when I want to. 162 00:20:41,450 --> 00:20:46,940 And also I can speak with some authority about what the words mean. 163 00:20:46,940 --> 00:20:54,410 And so that's why when I decided it was a good idea to tackle these other traditions, I've always tried to get co-authors. 164 00:20:54,410 --> 00:21:05,270 However, African philosophy presents some unusual challenges there because, of course, a lot of desperate African philosophy is in French or English. 165 00:21:05,270 --> 00:21:10,280 So that's no problem. I mean, she from Canada so as French is quite good. 166 00:21:10,280 --> 00:21:20,910 But then we have the problem of African languages, which I think would be fair to say we don't speak all of those and in fact, nobody does. 167 00:21:20,910 --> 00:21:29,110 So maybe you can say something about that and how complex an issue that is, because that's really interesting, I think. 168 00:21:29,110 --> 00:21:34,700 Yeah, well, the. The interesting thing. 169 00:21:34,700 --> 00:21:39,580 Well, you know, as your question sort of suggested. 170 00:21:39,580 --> 00:21:49,960 You might compare the question of your ability to read Sanskrit and how that relates to covering classical Indian, 171 00:21:49,960 --> 00:21:57,230 possibly with something like the question of can you read ancient Egyptian? 172 00:21:57,230 --> 00:22:07,580 Right. And we did a series of episodes on ancient Egypt, you know, and here is where. 173 00:22:07,580 --> 00:22:17,690 Mention that not only. Did we do the podcast without me actually being able to read ancient Egyptian, 174 00:22:17,690 --> 00:22:28,010 but I have in fact published an article that a lot of people seem to like, the tale of the African peasants. 175 00:22:28,010 --> 00:22:33,290 And I also cannot read ancient Egyptian philosophy. 176 00:22:33,290 --> 00:22:41,150 And that actually was, you know, separate and apart from them before even doing the podcast. 177 00:22:41,150 --> 00:22:46,980 That was something that I had to think about. 178 00:22:46,980 --> 00:22:53,670 Like, well, so I do this and, you know. 179 00:22:53,670 --> 00:22:57,290 I don't know why it's sort of reminding me of what Peter's saying about the podcast. 180 00:22:57,290 --> 00:23:07,520 I mean, I ended up sort of saying that, you know, I think I do need to do this instead of wait for others to. 181 00:23:07,520 --> 00:23:13,350 And, you know, I felt like, well, you know, I could I could wait until. 182 00:23:13,350 --> 00:23:26,640 You know, I get the time to really put into learning to read ancient Egyptian before trying to do any scholarship on it, but, you know, 183 00:23:26,640 --> 00:23:33,780 if I'm really trying to stimulate this as an area of research, I might as well get going, 184 00:23:33,780 --> 00:23:41,660 so to speak, you know, and and in addition to that, I certainly. 185 00:23:41,660 --> 00:23:55,550 There are a number of things that I mean, I you know, I learnt a lot about how the ancient Egyptian language and reading it works and then, you know. 186 00:23:55,550 --> 00:24:05,420 I read every translation I could get my hands on and, you know, made a careful comparison of where they differ and things of that nature. 187 00:24:05,420 --> 00:24:13,560 So I did things to sort of somewhat compensate for my for my lack of ability to be in the original. 188 00:24:13,560 --> 00:24:23,250 But, yeah, that story, I thought is relevant to to and just an interesting thing for students and researchers to think about, 189 00:24:23,250 --> 00:24:32,250 you know, when are you allowed to intervene? So, you know, in terms of covering these kinds of topics. 190 00:24:32,250 --> 00:24:39,490 In any case. Once you move beyond. 191 00:24:39,490 --> 00:24:54,860 Ancient Egyptian also is because we covered, you know, philosophy coming out of Ethiopia and we had a piece of philosophy in sub-Saharan. 192 00:24:54,860 --> 00:24:57,560 Islamic philosophy in sub-Saharan Africa, which, of course, 193 00:24:57,560 --> 00:25:06,710 actually did include text in Arabic so that we can replace that language, I know to have facility with the original. 194 00:25:06,710 --> 00:25:16,940 In that case, however, it is also the case that some of that is in African languages has and Fulani being the biggest examples. 195 00:25:16,940 --> 00:25:25,740 And so, you know, for example, smile, who we covered. 196 00:25:25,740 --> 00:25:34,000 Wrote her poetry in Arabic and Pazz and won. 197 00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:42,490 Right. So then, you know, moving beyond that, then you you get to the part, 198 00:25:42,490 --> 00:25:48,640 the part of the podcast where we were breaking it up thematically because we were. 199 00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:58,240 Interested in talking about philosophy in oral traditions and at that point of the podcast, 200 00:25:58,240 --> 00:26:07,890 there's not a you know, there's not a real chronology to to be able to to have in place. 201 00:26:07,890 --> 00:26:15,090 And, you know, even if there was a chronology, then you have the question of, like, 202 00:26:15,090 --> 00:26:23,820 how you're going to bounce around the lake, the various places of the continent, I mean, and so. 203 00:26:23,820 --> 00:26:28,310 I mean, at that point, actually, you and you end up. 204 00:26:28,310 --> 00:26:41,030 You know, things end up being actually somewhat easy in terms of the the question of your ability to read in languages, you know, because, you know, 205 00:26:41,030 --> 00:26:51,150 what we're drawing on then is the research that has been produced in a professional African philosophy first, 206 00:26:51,150 --> 00:26:57,110 first and foremost, which is generally in English and French. 207 00:26:57,110 --> 00:27:16,250 Right. And the ways that, you know, professional African philosophers have tried to, you know, capture concepts, ideas, themes in oral traditions. 208 00:27:16,250 --> 00:27:27,730 And then another thing which I which I have commended Peter for before is that. 209 00:27:27,730 --> 00:27:37,520 He did a lot of the first draughts in that section of the podcast and. 210 00:27:37,520 --> 00:27:50,570 He had a tendency to. Really dig in not nearly to the literature by professional philosophers, but he spent a lot of time with. 211 00:27:50,570 --> 00:27:56,450 Literature and anthropology, so again, most of that was actually in English, 212 00:27:56,450 --> 00:28:08,660 so it didn't present to many reading difficulties that way, but really enriched the podcast in terms of bringing out these themes. 213 00:28:08,660 --> 00:28:13,850 And, you know, yeah, I mean, one could you know, one could. 214 00:28:13,850 --> 00:28:22,250 Do, you know, a whole. Longer series, sort of. 215 00:28:22,250 --> 00:28:33,220 Covering all of the themes that. One could when one could find in anthropological texts, you know, 216 00:28:33,220 --> 00:28:41,520 the way that you can think of that part of the series is that every theme that we're covering has been. 217 00:28:41,520 --> 00:28:48,660 By professional philosophers themselves, treated as an area of serious interest and again, 218 00:28:48,660 --> 00:28:58,650 I think that it is therefore enriched by the way, that Peter really moved beyond the literature by professional philosophers, 219 00:28:58,650 --> 00:29:03,210 also to a lot of the literature by anthropologists, 220 00:29:03,210 --> 00:29:10,800 something that there is that I was actually a little bit disconcerted while working on that at the fact that even though, 221 00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:19,950 as I just said, we were reading anthropological and philosophical literature about these cultures in English or French, usually mostly in English, 222 00:29:19,950 --> 00:29:30,390 actually, they would often say, oh, there's this saying in the Akan people or the Liuba people, and here's the saying in transliteration. 223 00:29:30,390 --> 00:29:34,020 And it's some African language that obviously we can't read. 224 00:29:34,020 --> 00:29:39,330 And even if we could read one of them, there's like 12 others that are being quoted writing the stuff that we're reading. 225 00:29:39,330 --> 00:29:43,950 So, no, nobody knows all these languages. I don't think so. 226 00:29:43,950 --> 00:29:48,900 They they will maybe give you the transliteration, maybe not. And then they'll say, and here's what it means. 227 00:29:48,900 --> 00:29:53,460 And then they'll take a whole bunch of philosophical messages out of that. 228 00:29:53,460 --> 00:29:57,990 And you have no way of second guessing their translation. 229 00:29:57,990 --> 00:30:02,070 And a lot actually turns on the way they're translating it. 230 00:30:02,070 --> 00:30:04,220 Right. So, for example, 231 00:30:04,220 --> 00:30:12,570 in one that just in my head at the moment is that there's like a big discussion about how African traditional peoples have thought about time, 232 00:30:12,570 --> 00:30:19,410 because this philosopher named John MBT argued that African tradition doesn't have 233 00:30:19,410 --> 00:30:23,160 a conception of the future or at least doesn't have a conception of the long, 234 00:30:23,160 --> 00:30:29,610 long future like the future way ahead. And he was interested in that because he thought it meant that traditional African 235 00:30:29,610 --> 00:30:35,160 peoples couldn't understand Christian theology and the idea of the last judgement. 236 00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:43,950 And so people criticised this and they say, well, here's here's a saying from I think this might be an icon saying this. 237 00:30:43,950 --> 00:30:48,420 And the saying goes something like time. Flight time is like a bird. 238 00:30:48,420 --> 00:30:56,040 It flies away before you can catch it or something to that effect. And then you wonder, well, OK, what's the word for time there? 239 00:30:56,040 --> 00:31:05,370 Right. So to what extent does that actually correspond to our abstract notion of time or even find sayings in 240 00:31:05,370 --> 00:31:11,640 some of the same literature where they're translating African words with English words like eternity. 241 00:31:11,640 --> 00:31:13,530 And so you really wonder what's going on there? 242 00:31:13,530 --> 00:31:21,390 Sometimes the scholars comment on this, like they'll say, oh, well, the word I'm translating as time here literally means seasons. 243 00:31:21,390 --> 00:31:25,020 And then you think, oh, that's kind of difference, right? 244 00:31:25,020 --> 00:31:31,800 And so so there are problems like that all the time, but I think it's inevitable, really. 245 00:31:31,800 --> 00:31:40,020 I mean, even if someone became a career expert just on oral traditions in Africa, they would still have the same problem, 246 00:31:40,020 --> 00:31:46,170 because you have to take account of the immense diversity of Africa as a continent and all these different cultures, all these different languages. 247 00:31:46,170 --> 00:31:55,140 And so you're never going to be beyond the situation of having to take people's word for it as they report on languages that they have learnt. 248 00:31:55,140 --> 00:32:02,070 Because you can learn all of them yourself. It's not possible. I'm can. 249 00:32:02,070 --> 00:32:14,080 Yeah, yeah, I am I'm interested to add something, because I think that what Peter just said is true, but then it's interesting to think, well, 250 00:32:14,080 --> 00:32:23,800 so but if you wanted to if you really wanted to try to be the best expert you could be and learn the least amount of languages that you had to learn, 251 00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:36,550 you know, then then what? What might you do? And so I think that one thing that you would really want to do is learn Acom. 252 00:32:36,550 --> 00:32:41,590 So, you know, that's referring to. 253 00:32:41,590 --> 00:32:50,440 A language or a life or family of languages, depending on how you think of things, that is it's mostly in what is today Ghana, 254 00:32:50,440 --> 00:33:00,550 although also one of the most spoken languages in Cote d'Ivoire, Foully is also in a common language. 255 00:33:00,550 --> 00:33:14,090 So it's it's a language in that area of West Africa and for reasons that are probably. 256 00:33:14,090 --> 00:33:28,630 You know. Historically explainable, but not necessarily obvious, I mean, that is an area that has that is a language that is a you know, 257 00:33:28,630 --> 00:33:36,760 an ethnicity, you know, even say that has produced some of the most important African philosophers. 258 00:33:36,760 --> 00:33:39,680 Right. So. 259 00:33:39,680 --> 00:33:50,300 As I'm sort of already suggesting, right, like like like so Peter has to be right, because the fact is there's such a plethora of African languages. 260 00:33:50,300 --> 00:33:57,950 But but then you have the interesting question of what will what does the tradition, as it has already developed, sort of give to you? 261 00:33:57,950 --> 00:34:02,600 Right. One thing is an overrepresentation of kind philosophers. 262 00:34:02,600 --> 00:34:14,320 And so by learning a con, you would be able to, for example. 263 00:34:14,320 --> 00:34:21,160 Engage with the work of Kwame Chechi, which is very important, and, you know, 264 00:34:21,160 --> 00:34:31,950 he is the best example of someone who's treating Proverbs as a key kind of philosophical text or. 265 00:34:31,950 --> 00:34:39,820 But interestingly, in in my very first publication. 266 00:34:39,820 --> 00:34:49,990 Professional reputation of my very first professional publication was on a book called. 267 00:34:49,990 --> 00:34:58,300 Telebrands Reason introducing Afro Caribbean Philosophy by Padget Henry and it 268 00:34:58,300 --> 00:35:05,210 is an engagement with his treatment of traditional African philosophy and. 269 00:35:05,210 --> 00:35:10,600 The point I'm making at certain points is that he is. 270 00:35:10,600 --> 00:35:19,410 Treating traditional African philosophy is as much less of a contentious thing than it is, 271 00:35:19,410 --> 00:35:27,890 and one example that I end up using is the ways that he chooses to translate. 272 00:35:27,890 --> 00:35:36,740 The terms of Korra and sons, something, if I'm remembering those terms, right, hopefully, I mean, 273 00:35:36,740 --> 00:35:44,480 you know, like twenty four is what I'm talking about in terms of what I said a long time ago. 274 00:35:44,480 --> 00:35:50,270 But, you know, he chooses to waste of translating those terms. 275 00:35:50,270 --> 00:35:54,230 They are parts of the person, arguably. 276 00:35:54,230 --> 00:36:04,010 Right. And, you know, and so I then made the point that, well, you actually have disagreements between different philosophies, 277 00:36:04,010 --> 00:36:08,910 all of whom are written about how to translate those terms. 278 00:36:08,910 --> 00:36:17,000 And so so that, you know, on the one hand illustrates the point that Peter was making about how, 279 00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:21,050 you know, translation issues, you know, really do come up. 280 00:36:21,050 --> 00:36:29,600 But also illustrates my point that learning a con would be a great idea if you want to, like, engage a lot of what's out there. 281 00:36:29,600 --> 00:36:34,010 And then the other thing is that you you would, of course, want to. 282 00:36:34,010 --> 00:36:40,220 Learn about new language, the Bantu language families, a huge language family, you know, 283 00:36:40,220 --> 00:36:50,540 that is that reaches down to the bottom of the continents because languages like Zulu are Bantu and then also to the east of the continent. 284 00:36:50,540 --> 00:36:58,790 And so Swahili, which is one of the most spoken African languages, is a Bantu language. 285 00:36:58,790 --> 00:37:01,990 And that would help you for lots of reasons. 286 00:37:01,990 --> 00:37:12,920 The very first I mean, the book that helped to shape professional African philosophy is The Discipline is a book called Bantu Philosophy, 287 00:37:12,920 --> 00:37:19,610 where, you know, the language that's being drawn on a lot is. 288 00:37:19,610 --> 00:37:27,980 Beluga, I mean, I'm sorry, but Lubert, because that would be the people, Chiluba, I think would be the name of the language, 289 00:37:27,980 --> 00:37:40,400 but the people of Central Africa, which is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, that's being drawn there. 290 00:37:40,400 --> 00:37:47,660 Peter mentioned John MBT in his book African Religions and Philosophy. 291 00:37:47,660 --> 00:37:59,910 When? When. Is making the point that about time he uses the terms and the money which so he returns 292 00:37:59,910 --> 00:38:06,210 and he also does think a lot about how he does some comparative stuff with language, 293 00:38:06,210 --> 00:38:13,410 I believe, as I recall in the way he writes and is also Alexis Kagami. 294 00:38:13,410 --> 00:38:18,630 So I actually have thought about how one Bantu language that that I would like 295 00:38:18,630 --> 00:38:24,450 to learn if I end up having time enough to do all I want to do is Kinyarwanda, 296 00:38:24,450 --> 00:38:31,410 the language. It's about language. It is, as you can maybe guess, the most spoken language in Rwanda. 297 00:38:31,410 --> 00:38:37,200 And and Kagame was Rwandan. 298 00:38:37,200 --> 00:38:51,570 And his book, A Philosophy Born to Rwanda, is the lecture, the Rwandan Bantu Philosophy of Being, which is written as a dialogue. 299 00:38:51,570 --> 00:39:01,530 Is very fascinating for its attention to the grammar and the structure of the language and what can we learn from the grammar, 300 00:39:01,530 --> 00:39:14,310 the structure of language, he actually treats the structure of the language as sort of like a text that the philosopher can investigate 301 00:39:14,310 --> 00:39:22,270 and and points that he's making because they're grammatical often do apply to many Bantu languages. 302 00:39:22,270 --> 00:39:29,700 But then you've also just got the specifics of how he's translating particular Kinyarwanda terms. 303 00:39:29,700 --> 00:39:35,250 So those are some of the languages that could be useful to learn. 304 00:39:35,250 --> 00:39:40,140 If you're trying to put yourself in a good place to read African, possibly. 305 00:39:40,140 --> 00:39:44,940 Maybe you're reading as well, Yoruba for sure as well. 306 00:39:44,940 --> 00:39:48,090 That would be one of the ones that I'd feel bad for having not said so. 307 00:39:48,090 --> 00:40:05,920 Thank you, Peter, because amongst other things, you know, the oral tradition of the of the IFA divination tradition in the Arab context is. 308 00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:13,390 You can find collections that that have the the verses that the babalawo, 309 00:40:13,390 --> 00:40:21,980 which are the traditional priests of this tradition, you know, they recite verses and a lot of those are written down. 310 00:40:21,980 --> 00:40:29,830 And so to engage with those in the original learning Uraba would be an excellent idea. 311 00:40:29,830 --> 00:40:40,780 And I would also say, if I can philosophers are the ones who are most disproportionately represented, 312 00:40:40,780 --> 00:40:51,520 then your philosophers would come somewhere not far I mean, not close to them, but not that far behind. 313 00:40:51,520 --> 00:40:57,530 And so you have a number of Uraba philosophers who have. 314 00:40:57,530 --> 00:41:04,610 You know, who have written and you can have someone like Barry Helwan, who's a white American philosopher, 315 00:41:04,610 --> 00:41:17,930 but he spent time in Nigeria, you know, has worked with traditional Yoruba elders and I think maybe the babalawo themselves as well. 316 00:41:17,930 --> 00:41:26,310 And so so some of his work on African philosophy is directly engaging with Yoruba ideas. 317 00:41:26,310 --> 00:41:37,580 So, yeah, that's a great way to learn. Ancient Egyptian is Arabic, a couple of on two languages, Arcon, Yoruba, French. 318 00:41:37,580 --> 00:41:51,170 And you're pretty much good to go. Yeah. You have a good start. You'd be like in one of the best positions and well, sort of a two part question, 319 00:41:51,170 --> 00:41:57,920 but I was wondering what the reception of the podcast has been like and on the part of academics, 320 00:41:57,920 --> 00:42:06,020 on the part of students, but also maybe more general public engagement and then sort of like building upon that, you know, reception. 321 00:42:06,020 --> 00:42:14,090 But also, like in your development of the episodes, you know, what are the sort of advantages to having as a podcast structure, 322 00:42:14,090 --> 00:42:23,080 but also what are the shortcomings of a podcast that you don't like so much in doing public philosophy? 323 00:42:23,080 --> 00:42:27,610 Well, we already heard from a good example of maybe the best thing about it, 324 00:42:27,610 --> 00:42:33,310 which is that I get feedback from listeners so as to get that he started as a listener 325 00:42:33,310 --> 00:42:40,000 and his feedback led to at least doubling the ambition of the whole project. 326 00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:52,690 So that was very helpful, not helpful in terms of like getting this all done before I becomes more culturally diverse and interesting. 327 00:42:52,690 --> 00:42:58,120 And that happens at a smaller scale as well. So, I mean, things have happened like, you know, 328 00:42:58,120 --> 00:43:05,860 I mentioned some mediaeval king and I say and I say that that's so and so the fourth instead of so-and-so, 329 00:43:05,860 --> 00:43:09,280 the sixth because I just read it wrong, the VI, the IV. 330 00:43:09,280 --> 00:43:14,620 And like, within one day someone someone writes a comment on the website because they actually know about mediaeval history. 331 00:43:14,620 --> 00:43:18,430 And they say, I think when you said the sex, you met the fourth. Right. 332 00:43:18,430 --> 00:43:23,920 So they're actually the podcast. The scripts become books, something we haven't mentioned yet. 333 00:43:23,920 --> 00:43:34,030 And so in a way where there's a kind of already a copy editing or proofreading going on by the audience as as we put out the podcast, 334 00:43:34,030 --> 00:43:38,500 which is really useful, although, of course, they can only catch errors that you can hear. 335 00:43:38,500 --> 00:43:50,110 And so everything from like really small mistakes to big mistakes, which I make sometimes to to reconceptualize of the whole project. 336 00:43:50,110 --> 00:43:55,690 This is all very useful and comes in all the time. Like every day we get comments on the website. 337 00:43:55,690 --> 00:44:00,970 Something that I've started doing maybe about five years ago is that whenever 338 00:44:00,970 --> 00:44:05,170 I'm coming up to a new season like the Italian Renaissance or the Reformation, 339 00:44:05,170 --> 00:44:14,450 which is what I'm doing right now, just started the philosophy in the Reformation series in the original sort of Western European philosophy feed. 340 00:44:14,450 --> 00:44:22,660 I actually publish online both on Facebook and on the podcast website a list of the things I'm planning to cover. 341 00:44:22,660 --> 00:44:26,470 And I always get lots of feedback on that. 342 00:44:26,470 --> 00:44:30,460 The feedback never takes the form of ohe or something you might want to leave out. 343 00:44:30,460 --> 00:44:38,530 The feedback is always, oh, you forgot this, this, this and this. And so that tends to lead to an expanding of the list. 344 00:44:38,530 --> 00:44:46,030 Sometimes listeners do say, could you please go faster because like, we'd really like you to get to him. 345 00:44:46,030 --> 00:44:55,450 But I have to admit that the feedback that influences us more is probably the feedback about, oh, shouldn't you cover X because it's without any gaps. 346 00:44:55,450 --> 00:45:02,050 Right? That's the slogan. And so I'm always very interested to hear about things I could cover. 347 00:45:02,050 --> 00:45:06,850 Even if they don't get their own episode, they might get worked into another episode, for example. 348 00:45:06,850 --> 00:45:11,120 And we have gotten feedback like this on Africanness series as well. 349 00:45:11,120 --> 00:45:22,930 I'm not sure. Can you think of an example? She gave something we added because we are on the episode on Brazil was influenced by a listener who 350 00:45:22,930 --> 00:45:33,250 who wrote in the comments section of a previous episode and directly influenced the episode on. 351 00:45:33,250 --> 00:45:40,240 On 19th century Brazil and abolition, yeah, that's a great example, which I do, yeah, I do think I hope. 352 00:45:40,240 --> 00:45:47,290 But I do think that on the Web page for that upset that we do think thank that listener because, you know, 353 00:45:47,290 --> 00:46:00,900 that's a really good example of very directly implicitly we had talked about how, you know, we definitely want to have some coverage of. 354 00:46:00,900 --> 00:46:15,590 You know, though I already knew the problem is obvious, the Nacimiento, the Brazilian thinker who I want us to cover for the 20th century. 355 00:46:15,590 --> 00:46:20,580 I wasn't sure what we would do in terms of part two. 356 00:46:20,580 --> 00:46:24,660 So, you know, 20th century is part three. So we knew that there would be some Brazilian. 357 00:46:24,660 --> 00:46:28,800 There wasn't sure how Brazil would figure into part two. 358 00:46:28,800 --> 00:46:36,330 And we got some helpful hints from a listener that directly influenced the episode there. 359 00:46:36,330 --> 00:46:40,470 Yeah. And that was, of course, a chance to be reminded that I don't read Portuguese. 360 00:46:40,470 --> 00:46:48,710 So I had the exact language from again. But I should also say, because you asked about feedback from academics. 361 00:46:48,710 --> 00:46:56,450 That has actually been a really great part of the whole experience, to be honest, when I first started the podcast, 362 00:46:56,450 --> 00:47:01,440 one of the things that made me tentative about it was that I have seen and this 363 00:47:01,440 --> 00:47:05,300 is relevant to your whole your whole podcast series about public philosophy. 364 00:47:05,300 --> 00:47:10,890 A lot of professional philosophers have at best, an ambivalent attitude towards public philosophy. 365 00:47:10,890 --> 00:47:12,980 So they sort of think it's dumbing down. 366 00:47:12,980 --> 00:47:22,850 They think it's, you know, maybe giving a false impression of philosophy by packaging it in a form that everyone can easily understand. 367 00:47:22,850 --> 00:47:28,130 So, you know, for example, yesterday I wrote a podcast about Erasmus. 368 00:47:28,130 --> 00:47:31,430 So I wrote the script. It's about three and a half thousand words long. 369 00:47:31,430 --> 00:47:34,670 So I'm trying to explain Erasmus in twenty five minutes. 370 00:47:34,670 --> 00:47:40,490 And so you can see that there's going to be a little bit of simplification and corner cutting going on there. 371 00:47:40,490 --> 00:47:49,190 So I was worried that people would kind of think I was wasting my time, but then I decided that I didn't maybe care so much about that. 372 00:47:49,190 --> 00:47:56,660 But in any case, I was wrong. So I don't know about you, but the feedback I get from colleagues has been uniformly positive. 373 00:47:56,660 --> 00:48:01,590 And I think it helps that we interview these experts. 374 00:48:01,590 --> 00:48:09,890 Right. So so we're integrating the voices of other scholars into the show that also has given us the opportunity to involve a lot of women 375 00:48:09,890 --> 00:48:21,320 scholars so that we make a real effort to try to have as close as we can get to like 50 50 gender balance in with the guests. 376 00:48:21,320 --> 00:48:24,680 And in addition, like when I was just saying that, 377 00:48:24,680 --> 00:48:34,130 I published the list of episodes that we're projecting to do before it even gets to that with something like the Reformation, 378 00:48:34,130 --> 00:48:38,720 because I don't have Cejka because I like writing it with me. 379 00:48:38,720 --> 00:48:42,380 So an expert on the philosophy and the Reformation, I'm trying to do it by myself. 380 00:48:42,380 --> 00:48:47,960 So what I do is I do enough research to come up with an episode and then I send it to a bunch 381 00:48:47,960 --> 00:48:53,480 of experts and they gave me feedback and I modified the list and then I published that. 382 00:48:53,480 --> 00:48:59,540 And then the listeners give me more feedback. So actually, by the time we start writing episodes for each season, 383 00:48:59,540 --> 00:49:09,920 there's usually that that the list of topics has in a way gone through a pretty vigorous vetting or rigorous vetting procedure. 384 00:49:09,920 --> 00:49:17,810 And I've just always been amazed at how generous other people in the field are coming on to do interviews, 385 00:49:17,810 --> 00:49:23,660 but also more quietly behind the scenes, giving us feedback on scripts, giving us feedback on episodes less. 386 00:49:23,660 --> 00:49:29,210 So people are really great about it. I think they really want to. 387 00:49:29,210 --> 00:49:36,980 You know. Give the advantage of their expertise to a project like this that's been really inspiring, actually. 388 00:49:36,980 --> 00:49:43,640 Yeah, that sounds like full peer review, but yeah, I mean and also, like, 389 00:49:43,640 --> 00:49:47,330 you know, it has been to the amount of work that goes into the podcast because, 390 00:49:47,330 --> 00:49:54,860 you know, I mean, we've used that we've used certain podcast episodes as resources for discussion groups and they've been enormously useful. 391 00:49:54,860 --> 00:50:02,120 And I think it's been really good as well for our students to be directed to such a comprehensive and, you know, 392 00:50:02,120 --> 00:50:10,270 as comprehensive as you can get at a place where they can explore all these different philosophies and actually relates to that. 393 00:50:10,270 --> 00:50:18,590 So my last question that I've done is sort of how you visualise this project, because it seems to me that, you know, 394 00:50:18,590 --> 00:50:26,750 it provides an enormous archive, really, of both historical philosophers, but also contemporary conversations and philosophy. 395 00:50:26,750 --> 00:50:36,560 I think it's almost a direct response to our contemporary concerns about diversification and decarbonising the curriculum. 396 00:50:36,560 --> 00:50:47,690 And then it also has this added thing of like citation politics, right, with 50 50 gender balance or citing philosophers of colour. 397 00:50:47,690 --> 00:50:56,480 And I was wondering in terms of like visualising this project, whether you see it as something as intellectual history project, 398 00:50:56,480 --> 00:51:07,330 because both of your philosophies or whether it is a project really sort of and atmosphere, whether it's more interdisciplinary or aggressive. 399 00:51:07,330 --> 00:51:15,560 The one thing I say to first just sort of link back to your previous question is 400 00:51:15,560 --> 00:51:24,530 that I think invaluable is a word that I've heard from a number of colleagues, 401 00:51:24,530 --> 00:51:32,000 you know, other professional philosophers to describe the podcast. 402 00:51:32,000 --> 00:51:39,200 So, you know, that just goes to what Peter was saying about the positive feedback. 403 00:51:39,200 --> 00:51:47,750 And I actually think that. You know, while. 404 00:51:47,750 --> 00:52:02,730 While a professional phosphor is likely to be the kind of person who's going to have a certain looking down upon public force-feed type of. 405 00:52:02,730 --> 00:52:05,910 If someone is going to have that reaction, it's likely to be a professional philosopher. 406 00:52:05,910 --> 00:52:13,790 However, at the same time, so many professional philosophers who actually spend time engaging with the vodcast. 407 00:52:13,790 --> 00:52:21,380 They're also sort of in some ways, well-placed to know how much work goes into it, right. 408 00:52:21,380 --> 00:52:28,010 Because they have a sense of the kind of research it would take to be able to say 409 00:52:28,010 --> 00:52:33,560 the amount of things that we're saying and touch on things that we're touching on. 410 00:52:33,560 --> 00:52:51,590 I mean, there are times that in the Africana podcast that we are covering things and there isn't a vast, vast literature to go to because, you know, 411 00:52:51,590 --> 00:52:57,380 we're covering it because it seems sort of obviously important thinking about the history of have kind of thought, 412 00:52:57,380 --> 00:53:04,910 not because a lot of people have written on it. And so there's this pioneering that happens at that point. 413 00:53:04,910 --> 00:53:11,240 And also there is the question of especially for the things where there are where there is a lot of secondary literature, 414 00:53:11,240 --> 00:53:17,270 how you're, you know, being informed by that. And. 415 00:53:17,270 --> 00:53:23,160 So I think that people do respect that and. 416 00:53:23,160 --> 00:53:31,760 I've certainly heard of people using the podcast in. 417 00:53:31,760 --> 00:53:48,860 In cruxes. I think I guest lectured in classes based on the class having used the podcast, not I think I have I've definitely done that even locally. 418 00:53:48,860 --> 00:54:00,620 So I've been able to show up in a classroom, you know, live because they've been listening to certain episodes of the podcast. 419 00:54:00,620 --> 00:54:17,070 And so it's, you know, I think a powerful intervention in all of these ways in relation to sort of which you were specifically asking just their. 420 00:54:17,070 --> 00:54:23,610 I almost don't know if there's that much I can add to what you said, because it is sort of all of those things, right? 421 00:54:23,610 --> 00:54:36,660 It is an intellectual history. It is specifically focussed on philosophy, but necessarily interdisciplinary in terms of all this from where it is, 422 00:54:36,660 --> 00:54:44,760 you know, a contemporary intervention in terms of how it relates to the goal of diversifying philosophy. 423 00:54:44,760 --> 00:54:51,030 It's sort of all those things. And and, you know, it's some of that is a happy accident. 424 00:54:51,030 --> 00:55:02,140 Right. So there's ways in which it's really because I think it plays a vital role in the in the current, you know, move to diversify. 425 00:55:02,140 --> 00:55:07,770 And of course, as we've talked about, it didn't necessarily set out to do that. 426 00:55:07,770 --> 00:55:16,950 I mean, you know, it was it always was going to do some diversifying, given that it's, you know, by an expert in philosophy in the Islamic world. 427 00:55:16,950 --> 00:55:34,140 But upset about that. But, you know, it it took on that character to such a greater degree and somewhat organically, you might say. 428 00:55:34,140 --> 00:55:41,130 And so, you know, I think that the podcast is becoming what it is. 429 00:55:41,130 --> 00:55:42,840 I guess one advantage of that, too, 430 00:55:42,840 --> 00:55:52,650 is that I think it has the power to reach and kind of quietly convince people who are not against the idea of diversifying, 431 00:55:52,650 --> 00:55:54,370 possibly, but maybe they just haven't thought about it, 432 00:55:54,370 --> 00:56:01,170 or they don't particularly care if you imagine a podcast that was devoted solely to non Western philosophy, 433 00:56:01,170 --> 00:56:06,930 let's say, or that was somehow labelled as being about diversifying philosophy. 434 00:56:06,930 --> 00:56:13,200 And there are podcasts like that. So there's a really good podcast called the unmuted podcast run by MHRA, 435 00:56:13,200 --> 00:56:21,210 which explicitly makes it its mission to speak to philosophers of colour and other philosophers 436 00:56:21,210 --> 00:56:27,810 who maybe aren't always the people who are thought of as like paradigm example of a philosopher, 437 00:56:27,810 --> 00:56:33,300 which would be more someone like me. Right. White English speaking guy with a beard. 438 00:56:33,300 --> 00:56:40,800 Right. And that's not that's not how we present what we're doing, even in the Africanness areas. 439 00:56:40,800 --> 00:56:48,360 So the way that the way we present what we're doing is, well, we're just going to tell you about all the philosophy that there is one bit at a time. 440 00:56:48,360 --> 00:57:02,650 And the the sort of logic of that is to show you that if you're interested in the history of philosophy in a capacious and broad minded and. 441 00:57:02,650 --> 00:57:09,310 Like, fully embracing way, then you would just have to learn about a lot of African philosophy, 442 00:57:09,310 --> 00:57:14,830 a lot of diasporic African philosophy, a lot of Indian philosophy, a lot of Chinese philosophy. 443 00:57:14,830 --> 00:57:22,630 And I mean, I think the in some ways the the most powerful diversifying move is to almost like 444 00:57:22,630 --> 00:57:29,350 put the burden on the sceptic to sort of like show them all this stuff and and say, 445 00:57:29,350 --> 00:57:36,030 well, what why would you not want to know about this? Like, you know, what could what could be your objection possibly be? 446 00:57:36,030 --> 00:57:44,080 And I think that's actually a very powerful and it's all the more powerful for being so understated. 447 00:57:44,080 --> 00:57:53,260 So and I think what she said about the fact that the the diversification of the podcast project is something that kind of happened along 448 00:57:53,260 --> 00:58:02,300 the way is part of that because the original mission was just to be as complete as possible within the limits of my own competence. 449 00:58:02,300 --> 00:58:07,300 And then eventually I decided to be as complete as possible beyond the limits of my own confidence. 450 00:58:07,300 --> 00:58:15,830 And this is the results. Well, thank you so much for being here today and for answering my questions on the podcast, 451 00:58:15,830 --> 00:58:24,890 I'm sure it's really interesting to hear more about the work that happens in the background because we see the finished product and, 452 00:58:24,890 --> 00:58:30,710 you know, I can speak for myself. It's been absolutely wonderful to have people to listen to. 453 00:58:30,710 --> 00:58:47,950 So thank you. Thank you for making room for the possibility of strengthening or testing our terms and frameworks and building consideration. 454 00:58:47,950 --> 00:58:54,330 Many thanks to the entire BPP a the torch and also the broadcast teams. 455 00:58:54,330 --> 00:59:10,354 Forward to agree with you. I hope you you next possibly the next episode hexavest.