Hi-Phi Nation: a Philosophy Podcast

The February 2019 dead tree edition of Chronogram, a local magazine here in the Hudson Valley of New York, had a brief interview with Barry Lam of Vassar College about his philosophy podcast, Hi-Phi Nation. I listened as a result, and found Hi-Phi Nation to be entertaining and interesting, even punny. But I may be an outlier: check it out yourself.

Economists enjoy great media cachet. I don’t see philosophers being revered in the same way as go-to problem framers.

Philosophy has the reputation of being a little old-fashioned or weirdly inaccessible. We haven’t done a good job in philosophy of putting ourselves as one of the branches of people who have been thinking about these kinds of things and have a stake in it and can offer a way of approaching these problems that an ordinary person concerned with social issues and what’s happening with the world can access. The public has to feel that philosophers are offering an insight versus just arguing endlessly amongst themselves about things that nobody else cares about.


Yes. People don’t like jargon, for good reason. But what they really hate is uncertainty.

They also ask tough questions like, “Philosophy? What kind of job can you get with that? Stand-up philosopher?” As if nothing is worth doing for itself.

And as if philosophy is not something that everybody can do.