PODCAST · society
Becoming Human
by Samuel Loncar, Ph.D.
Becoming Human with the philosopher Samuel Loncar is a show for a species in transition.The show features long-form, solo series that bring scholarly depth and academic insights to today's most pressing questions around science, religion, technology, and philosophy. Between these long-form, solo series, enjoy Explorations: journeys into time, culture, art, and history, encountering the mystery of the Human in conversations and free-standing episodes.Series 1: Origins, tells the story of the atheistic revolution, beginning with Socrates and Jesus, that made the modern world.
Episodes
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Plato's Philebus, Taoism, & Why the Good is a Challenging Idea
Most people misunderstand Plato's Philebus because they expect the "good" to be easy to pin down. In this episode, Yale-trained philosopher and scholar of science and religion, Samuel Loncar, PhD, argues the opposite: the deepest truths are often the hardest to see, and that difficulty is exactly...
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A Conversation with Dr. Karen Swallow Prior: Why Does Reading Shape the Modern World?
In 2019, The New Yorker profiled writer and professor of English Literature, Dr. Karen Swallow Prior. Reporter Eliza Griswold, director of the Program in Journalism at Princeton University, highlights Prior's distinctive academic background and literary interests alongside her evangelical faith....
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Mary Magdalene: Philosopher and Symbol of Love
In this Explorations episode, Yale-trained philosopher and scholar of religion and science, Samuel Loncar, explores the profound philosophical and cultural significance of Mary Magdalene, her role as a symbol of love, wisdom, and transformation, and her enduring influence across history and...
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Is America the Embodiment of Modern Philosophy? | Spirit News, Ep. 4
Spirit News: A Hegelian Perspective on Current Affairs | | Most people see America as a divided nation struggling to live up to its founding ideals, but what if America's distinct flaws reveal its greatest philosophical potential? In this episode, Yale-trained philosopher and scholar of religion...
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Nietzsche on Russia, Europe, and the Munich Security Conference | Spirit News, Ep. 3
Spirit News: A Hegalian Perspective on Current Affairs| Ep. 3 | A philosopher's take on the news with Yale-trained philosopher, Dr. Samuel Loncar. In this episode, I explore the transformative impact of social media on traditional news, the foundational theories of social structure by classical...
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Spirit News: The Death of Legacy Media, Walking Monks, & Kierkegaard Makes the Evening Edition | Ep 2
Spirit News: A Hegelian Perspective on Current Affairs Philosopher Dr. Samuel Loncar explores the intersection of philosophy and modern news, emphasizing the relevance of Hegelian thought in understanding contemporary society. In the latest episode of Spirit News, he dives into the changing...
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Merlin Enthralled, AI, & Richard Wilbur: Time & Eternity, Ep.1 :
Time & Eternity: Poetry and Philosophy in Dialogue with Dr. Samuel Loncar and Alexandra Barylski. | A Becoming Human Media Podcast In this inaugural episode, we delve into the intricate relationship between poetry, philosophy, and the human experience. We explore the crisis of literacy in modern...
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Spirit News: Nietzsche on Davos, Feast Day of Thomas Aquinas, and a Hegelian Perspective on News
Spirit News: A Hegelian Perspective on Current Affairs Philosopher Dr. Samuel Loncar explores the intersection of philosophy and modern news, emphasizing the relevance of Hegelian thought in understanding contemporary society. He discusses the paradox of news prioritizing timeliness over true...
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Gregory Shaw: Is Platonism the Answer to our existential crisis? | A Becoming Human Conversation
Do we have to choose between mind and matter, or are they somehow one? We live today in a battle between two rival streams of ancient wisdom, one that demonized matter as evil and one that divinized it. The great Syrian Neoplatonist, Iamblichus, was the descendant of priest-kings, and wrote one…
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Mothering As A Subversive Activity: Hester Prynne | The Scarlet Letter, Chp 7-8, Ep. 6
Chapters 7-8 are two of the most dramatic chapters in The Scarlet Letter. In this episode of The Poetry Peddler, Alexandra Barylski provides the plot essentials before diving into why Hester Prynne is an image of Courage itself.
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A Woman's Choice: Agency and Meaning in The Scarlet Letter, Chap. 4-6 | Ep. 5
What if what Hawthorne called the supernatural is actually a profound way of showing in literature what modern psychology has proven to be the case? In episode five of The Scarlet Letter series, Alexandra Barylski discusses the mental health crisis, why Hawthorne might have understood our moden...
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Who Was John the Baptist? | A Conversation with Dr. James F. McGrath
Who really was John the Baptist? A prophet? An antiestablishment rebel and activist? Jesus' teacher? In this Becoming Human Conversation, philosopher and scholar of religion Samuel Loncar interviews the scholar James F. McGrath about his groundbreaking research on John the Baptist. James F....
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Fear and Trembling: Self-Knowledge Begins in Recognition, Ch. 3 The Scarlet Letter, Ep. 4
In this episode of The Poetry Peddler Scarlet Letter series, poet, writer, and editor Alexandra and discusses why the path to self-knowledge begins with aknowledging our fear.
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The Witch, the Gossips, & the Madonna: Chapter 2 of The Scarlet Letter
Public shaming is central to The Scarlet Letter, and it's one of the reasons that the story of Hester Pryne feels so relatable to our world today. In this episode of The Poetry Peddler series on Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Alexandra Barylski - the show's host, a poet, and long time...
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Halloween, Hawthorne, and the Supernatural: Introduction & Ch. 1 The Scarlet Letter, Ep. 2
In this episode, Alexandra Barylski, host of The Poetry Peddler, introduces Nathanial Hawthorne and The Scarlet Letter through a discussion of the often skimmed (or totally skipped) introductory chapter, "The Custom House" before her discussion of "Chapter One: The Prison." She reads some ghostly...
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How the Scarlet Letter Tells Us Who We Are: A Poetry Peddler Conversation, Ep. 1
You may not think that The Scarlet Letter, a novel set in Puritan America, has much to say about our contemporary crisis around what it means to human, and therefore what it means to be a woman, the plummeting literacy rates, and the ongoing debates about feminism. But, I think, it does. And I…
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Why Ignorance Rules the World: Socrates, Euthyphro, and the Search for Knowledge, Ep.1
Ignorance, humanity's greatest enemy, yet also the secret source of wisdom according to Greece's greatest influencer, Socrates, whose ideas went viral, caused a cultural crisis, and led to his prosecution for impiety, disturbing the peace of a social order that refused to ask: what is real...
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Christian Wiman on AI, Conciousness, and the Power of Life (part 2), Poetry Peddler Ep.2
The Poetry Peddler podcast is a show celebrating living language as an expression of the human spirit. The show explores poetry's crucial role in resisting the global language crisis. Each episode invites listeners into a world where language is a vital force of human spirit, freedom, and...
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Christian Wiman on the Wonder of the Unknown in Love and Poetry, Poetry Peddler Ep. 1
The Poetry Peddler podcast is a call to revive the living power of language through poetry as a way of life. Hosted by poet and editor Alexandra Barylski, this show explores poetry's crucial role in resisting the global language crisis. Each episode invites listeners into a world where language…
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Becoming Human Today: Reasons for Hope
Why bother becoming human? In difficult times, it's easy to lose hope. After 5 years since launching this show with Becoming Human: Origins, I decided it's time for an update. This episode shares some of the impact of the work, its relevance today, and how you can access Becoming Human Origins...
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Who is The Poetry Peddler? An Interview with Alexandra Barylski
Who is the Poetry Peddler, and why is poetry so important today? Alexandra Barylski is an award winning poet, editor, and entrepreneur, and longtime producer for the Becoming Human Project. She is launching the Poetry Peddler Podcast, journal, and press, and sat down with me to discuss why…
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D.W. Pasulka, Christopher Bledsoe, and the Study of Religion
This is a fifteen minute excerpt from my live Becoming Human Academy course, "The Sacred World: An introduction to Religion." In the lecture, I explain why the academic study of religion is important, how it gives us a deep understanding of inclusiveness and ways of interpreting difference that...
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How a Celebrity Philosopher Changed History & Why He Was Forgotten: Emily Herring on Henri Bergson
How did the most famous philosopher of his time, a darling of the Parisian salons and an internationally renowned philosopher of science, disappear from memory? Dr. Emily Herring, author of Herald of a Restless World: How Henri Bergson Brought Philosophy to the People, explains the brilliant...
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Kabbalistic Wisdom and the Modern Self-Help Movement: A Conversation with Reb Adam
Rabbi Adam Yitzchak Polinovskiy is a well-established coach, specializing in the art of personal and professional transformation. His expertise spans a wide range of areas, including mindset mastery, Kabbalistic wisdom, alignment strategies, and leadership development. In our conversation, we...
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The Age of Spiritual Awakening: Rabbi Simon Jacobson in Conversation | Explorations
According to Rabbi Simon Jacobson of The Meaningful Life Center, technology is catalyzing a spiritual awakening, making spiritual knowledge the "key commodity of the future." Rabbi Jacobson is a best-selling author of Towards a More Meaningful Life and reaches hundreds of thousands daily through...
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Education for the AI Age: Why Can't People Read and Does it Matter? | Explorations
How do we reimagine education for a world of AI? What skills do people need, and why? How can philosophy as a way of life create a shared vision of human flourishing? Instructor: Samuel Loncar, Ph.D. | Yale University
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Can We Change Our Fate? An Existential Vision for Immortality | Explorations
Fate is the power of the unchosen to determine your life. It is real and we all know it, or we would never be frustrated. The key question is: can we overcome our fate? Is fate compatible with freedom? An existential strategy is the only way to overcome the power of fate and avoid being a pawn of...
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Can We Have Infinite Energy? Can the Tao Make Us Immortal? | Tao Te Ching, Ep. 4
The Tao Te Ching teaches that the Way offers infinite utility, seeming to promise unending energy and life. Is this possible and what, scientifically, might it mean? Exploring Chapter 4 of the Tao Te Ching, I show how the human senses point towards hidden paths of refinement and mysteriously deep...
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Do Humans Really Exist? Do We Live in a Simulation? | Explorations
The simulation theory is all around us, putting somehow the meaning of our very existence into question. Do we really exist? What does it mean that we question our own existence? A true philosophy of existence must answer these questions, and explain why we ask them, guiding us towards a more...
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Can Philosophy Make You Powerful? A Vision of Human Enhancement, Philosophy of Angels Ep. 5
If you can get one thing you want, what is the one thing that will give you everything else? Is it power, wealth, or wisdom? Philosophy as a spiritual way of life teaches us how to develop our human potential, leading to a radical vision of human enhancement. The idea of number is the first step…
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How Do We Know What is Good?, Tao Series Ep. 3
We all want to do good, but we rarely think about how we can know what the good is. In this video, I discuss Verse 8 of the Tao and its highly logical and practical insights into what is good in any situation and how we can know that we are doing what is good for ourselves and others. SERIES: Tao...
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Why Stories Are Greater Then Ideas: Was JRR Tolkien a Great Philosopher?, Apocalypse: A Philosophy of Angels, Ep. 4
Tolkien's works have sold over 100 Million copies worldwide because they address the deepest questions humans can ask: Why is there evil and death in the world? Would Immorality be a good thing? Where did the world come from, and where is it going? Tolkien reveals a new and deeper way to engage...
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The Philosophy of UAP in Scientific and Historical Context, Apocalypse: A Philosophy of Angels, Ep. 3
The topic of UAP (UFOs) is important yet difficult to discuss coherently. Why? Because the topic requires the best tools of science and scholarship but does not agree on what those are or how they should be applied. My philosophy of science and religion provides clues to navigating profound…
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The Exile and Return of the Light: Hanukkah, Christmas, and the Super Human, Apocalypse Ep. 2
Did you know Hanukkah and Christmas encode deep philosophical ideas about Enlightenment, becoming Superhuman, and the Future of Humanity? The stars and the gods once governed the night sky and the dreams humans had of themselves. The Human story was thus told as a mystery of light, the evolution…
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Is the Greatest Good Achieved by Struggle or Flow?. Tao Ep. 2
Can yielding and flowing really be the Way to attain the good? Bruce Lee thought so. "Be Water," he famously said, channeling a central insight of the Tao Te Ching, one of great works of Chinese Philosophy.
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Apocalypse: A Philosophy of Angels, Ep. 1: The Messengers
The idea of Angels, whether we believe in them or not, reveals secrets about human consciousness and how to transform it. In this episode, I use the German poet Rilke to connect deep patterns across Judaism, Islam, and Christianity and other traditions, found in their shared understanding of…
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What is the Way and How do I Find it? Tao Te Ching, Ep. 1
What is the Way? The Way, or Tao, is the central mystery of life, according to the Tao Te Ching, one of the greatest works of Chinese philosophy. So how do we find the Tao? What does the Way look like? This video answers that question by introducing the Tao Te Ching, and the mystery of Return......
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Philosophy, Roomba, and Taco Carts: A Conversation with Chef Arturo Franco Camacho, Explorations, Ep. 5
Chef Arturo Franco Camacho is the Culinary Director and Executive Chef of three of New Haven's best restaurants: Geronimo's Southwestern Kitchen, Shell & Bones Oyster Bar, and Camacho Garage. His restaurants are not only a destination for great food but fantastic atmosphere. Trained at the…
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Scientific Facts and How They Grow: Science as Self-Subverting Tradition
Science is the only tradition that actively admits its own errors, gaining deeper knowledge by overcoming its tendency to orthodoxy. This happens when scientific revolutions shatter existing paradigms. The process begins with anomalies, potential facts that do not fit the paradigm. The physicist...
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Things Ancient and New: The Logic of Scientific Discovery in Thomas Kuhn
According to Thomas Kuhn, the most mature sciences have only a limited tolerance for novelty. Contrary to the common image of scientific progress as a continuous series of discoveries, Kuhn shows it's actually the progress of paradigms towards ever greater precision. Progress in normal science…
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Can Science Be Complete? Thomas Kuhn, Progress, and the Eschatology of Science
The longing for a complete science is one of the great dreams of modernity. Is such a complete science possible, and can Kuhn's idea of a paradigm help us realize it? This episode explores the origins and power of the search for completeness and unity in Western science, and reveals the…
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What is a Paradigm? Normal Science and Pseudo-Science
Thomas Kuhn coined the concept of a paradigm to describe the unique achievement of science. Since Kuhn, the terms "paradigm" and "paradigm shift" have entered into popular culture, but what really is a paradigm? How does it connect to normal science? And can it help us distinguish real science…
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The Revolution is History: Kuhn and the History of Science
Thomas Kuhn argued that history would change our image of science, causing a revolution we are still unprepared to face. This Kuhnian revolution challenges traditional epistemology by arguing we must look to science itself to understand how knowledge develops, and looking to science demands…
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Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: An Introduction
What is Science? What happened in the Scientific Revolution? How does Science progress? Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is the most influential book in the history and philosophy of science, addressing these and other key questions. This public series offers an introduction…
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How to Become an Individual: The Eternal in Kierkegaard
On Nov. 11, 1855, after an astoundingly rich yet brief life, Søren Aabye Kierkegaard died. He requested his epitaph read simply: "That Individual." The "single individual" is the soul of Kierkegaard's work, but what does it mean to become an individual? This final episode of Kierkegaard: The Poet...
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October 7: Why Antisemitism is a Global Philosophical Problem and an Existential Crisis
As a philosopher and scholar who writes about Christian-Jewish relations and modern German thought, I offer in this lecture an analysis of antisemitism as a philosophical problem, show its global scope, and explore its historical and existential significance as a threat to any vision of universal...
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Existential Ontology, Consumer Capitalism, & The Religious Stage | The Poet of Existence, Ep. 7
Kierkegaard's theory of the three stages of life, the aesthetic, ethical, and religious offers profound insight into the existential realities of human life. Building on the prior two episodes on the aesthetic and ethical stages, this episode explores the meaning of the religious phase by...
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Kierkegaard's Theory of Stages: Fear and Trembling & The Ethical Stage | The Poet of Existence, Ep. 6
Fear and Trembling is the most famous book by Kierkegaard, but to understand it we have to understand his theory of stages. This episode explores the ethical stage and illustrates it through Fear and Trembling and Judge Wilhelm of Either /Or. Additional topics covered include esotericism in...
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Kierkegaard's Theory of Stages: The Aesthetic Stage | The Poet of Existence, Ep. 5
Kierkegaard is famous for his theory of the three stages on life's way, the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. Though much discussed, the stages are enigmatic and confusing to many readers. This episode outlines the nature of the theory of stages in its profound significance, and it...
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Kierkegaard and the Irony of Existence: From Existentialism to Modernism | The Poet of Existence: Ep. 4
On Sept 29 1841, Søren Kierkegaard defended a genre-bending dissertation at the University of Copenhagen. Both rigorous scholarship and dazzling literary genius, Kierkegaard's The Concept of Irony, with Continual Reference to Socrates is the first major work in Kierkegaard's authorship. Laying…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Becoming Human with the philosopher Samuel Loncar is a show for a species in transition.The show features long-form, solo series that bring scholarly depth and academic insights to today's most pressing questions around science, religion, technology, and philosophy. Between these long-form, solo series, enjoy Explorations: journeys into time, culture, art, and history, encountering the mystery of the Human in conversations and free-standing episodes.Series 1: Origins, tells the story of the atheistic revolution, beginning with Socrates and Jesus, that made the modern world.
HOSTED BY
Samuel Loncar, Ph.D.
CATEGORIES
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Becoming Human have?
Becoming Human currently has 58 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Becoming Human about?
Becoming Human with the philosopher Samuel Loncar is a show for a species in transition.The show features long-form, solo series that bring scholarly depth and academic insights to today's most pressing questions around science, religion, technology, and philosophy. Between these long-form, solo...
How often does Becoming Human release new episodes?
Becoming Human has 58 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Becoming Human?
You can listen to Becoming Human on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Becoming Human?
Becoming Human is created and hosted by Samuel Loncar, Ph.D..
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