In this episode, Alex speaks with Nick Cowan about why an “examined education” is better than an unexamined one. Drawing on his paper, Nick argues that exams are valuable not just as external assessments but as opportunities for students to test themselves, build confidence, develop resilience, and discover what they actually know rather than what they merely think they know.

References

1. “An Examined Education” — Nick Cowan https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6261178
2. The Theory of Moral Sentiments — Adam Smith https://a.co/d/0iSQvp4l
3. “Why I Am Not a Conservative” — F. A. Hayek https://press.uchicago.edu/books/excerpt/2011/hayek_constitution.html
4. Graduate premium in the UK and debates over higher education quality https://theskillsagenda.substack.com/p/a-declining-graduate-premium

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In this episode from 2023, Alex speaks with Stefanie Haeffele about her book Living Better Together, which explores the work of Elinor Ostrom and Viviana Zelizer.

Episode Notes:

"Living Better Together" by Stefanie Haeffele and Virgil Henry Storr:

https://a.co/d/hJNCxw6

Viviana Zelizer's homepage at Princeton:

https://sociology.princeton.edu/people/viviana-zelizer

Elinor Ostrom's bio and short autobiography on the Nobel website:

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2009/ostrom/facts/

Nonneutrality of Money in a Social Perspective by Julia Włodarczyk

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274184545_Nonneutrality_of_Money_in_a_Social_Perspective

Zelizer's "Circuits of Commerce"

https://doi.org/10.1525/california/9780520241367.003.0009

Ostrom's "Governing The Commons"

https://a.co/d/gcUDVWq

Economic Lives: How Culture Shapes the Economy by Viviana A. Zelizer

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691139364/economic-lives

"Testing Circuits of Commerce in the Distant Past: Archaeological Understandings of Social Relationships and Economic Lives" by: Crystal A. Dozier

https://www.springerprofessional.de/testing-circuits-of-commerce-in-the-distant-past-archaeological-/23930708

In part two of this episode from 2022, Alex speaks again with philosopher Eric Mack about "Anarchy, State and Utopia", this time touching on some of the challenges to Nozick's theory and Eric's own personal connection to Robert Nozick during his life.

References

1. Part 1 of Eric Mack’s The Curious Task Episode on “Why Read Anarchy, State, and Utopia?”

Link: https://thecurioustask.podbean.com/e/ep-145-eric-mack-why-read-anarchy-state-and-utopia/

2. Eric Mack’s Previous Episode “Why Not Socialism?” on the Curious Task Podcast

Link: https://thecurioustask.podbean.com/e/ep-7-eric-mack-%e2%80%94-why-not-socialism/

3. “Anarchy, State, and Utopia” by Robert Nozick

Link: https://www.amazon.ca/Anarchy-State-Utopia-Robert-Nozick/dp/0465051006

4. “Who Would Choose Socialism” by Robert Nozick

Link: https://reason.com/1978/05/01/who-would-chose-socialism/