Podcasts
The Great Antidote: Extra: Charlotte Thomas on Learning and the Liberal Arts
What is the defining characteristic of a liberal art? NEW ASW author Anna Leman gives you some questions to start with as you listen to Charlotte Thomas and Juliette Sellgren's Great Antidote podcast.
What is education? According to Charlotte Thomas, it is more than learning algebra or trade economics. Education is opening oneself to ideas. It is the development of capacities. It is becoming.
Listen to the episode here: Charlotte Thomas on Learning and the Liberal Arts
Charlotte Thomas is a professor of philosophy and Great Books at Mercer University. She also runs the Association for Core Texts and Courses. She is also the author of The Female Drama: The Philosophical Feminine in the Soul of Plato’s Republic.
In this podcast, Thomas points a Liberal Arts education is the becoming of one who is free to self-regulate and self-guide. Though each field is worth learning in its own right, in the context of the whole, the liberal arts engage with the world in ways necessary for someone to become free. They equip their students with the independence, intellect, and character to self-govern. They teach students to read, write, talk, and listen.
The format for learning is just as important as the material being taught. Those subjects with practical and moral implications such as playing a musical instrument or crafting policy require application. Learning more theoretical topics does not rely on the added texture of application. Lectures by experts and professors are valuable, but seminars that engage and converse with students allows books to develop the students. You should read Shakespeare for Shakespeare but read him with friends so that you learn about yourself and how to think while you learn Shakespeare.
Thomas also points out that while the classroom is the most effective way of learning, it is not the only way to learn. Opportunities to read books, converse with people, and follow your curiosity abound. You are constantly developing, if you only take the time to notice.
1. What is the defining characteristic of a liberal art?
2. How does the redefinition of “education as becoming” challenge or inspire K-12 education today? How does it challenge or inspire university education?
The true test of a liberal inclination: are you interested in learning more?
Cheryl Miller on Hertog and the Humanities, a Great Antidote podcast
Zena Hitz on Lost in Thought, an EconTalk podcast
Charlotte Thomas, Adam Smith and Aristotle at AdamSmithWorks
Why Read the Ancients Today? A Liberty Matters Forum at the Online Library of Liberty
More from Anna Leman:
Dragons, Hoards, and Theft: Beowulf and The Hobbit
True Nobility: The Wife of Bath’s knight from The Canterbury Tales
Why Shakespeare Should Be Watched
“Farmer Refuted”
Cheryl Miller on Hertog and the Humanities, a Great Antidote podcast
Zena Hitz on Lost in Thought, an EconTalk podcast
Charlotte Thomas, Adam Smith and Aristotle at AdamSmithWorks
Why Read the Ancients Today? A Liberty Matters Forum at the Online Library of Liberty
More from Anna Leman:
Dragons, Hoards, and Theft: Beowulf and The Hobbit
True Nobility: The Wife of Bath’s knight from The Canterbury Tales
Why Shakespeare Should Be Watched
“Farmer Refuted”
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The Great Antidote: It’s Not Goodbye, It’s See You in September with Amy Willis
In this special episode of The Great Antidote, Amy Willis of Liberty Fund takes the mic to interview Juliette Sellgren, the voice behind the show. Together, they reflect on the evolution of the podcast—from its early days to the hundreds of guests it has featured—and how Juliette herself has grown in the process.
The Great Antidote: The Limits of Liberty: Buchanan’s Case for Constitutional Rules with Edward Lopez
What happens when people stop trusting rules—and start rewriting them?
In this episode, we are joined by economist Edward Lopez about the life and legacy of James M. Buchanan, the Nobel Prize-winning founder of public choice economics. We begin by unpacking Buchanan’s biography and intellectual roots: what shaped his worldview, who influenced his thinking, and why his work remains foundational to understanding government, rules, and freedom.
The Great Antidote: Targeted Incentives: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why It Persists with Peter Calcagno
Remember the Amazon HQ2 frenzy? When nearly every U.S. state competed to become Amazon’s next home, offering billions in tax breaks and incentives? I do — I grew up right next door to Crystal City, Virginia, the site Amazon ultimately chose.
In this episode, I talk with economist Peter Calcagno about targeted economic incentives—the controversial policy tool that fueled the Amazon HQ2 bidding war and countless other corporate deals.
The Great Antidote: What Monkeys Teach Us About Economics with Bart Wilson
What if modern economics has overlooked what truly makes us human?
In this episode, Bart Wilson joins us to explore humanomics—an approach to economics that reintroduces meaning, culture, and moral judgment into how we understand economic behavior.
The Great Antidote: Douglas Den Uyl and Douglas Rasmussen on Ayn Rand: What She Gets Right and Where She Goes Too Far
We’ve talked about objectivism before on the podcast, but that was fairly introductory. Today, for the first time ever, I host two guests on the podcast to discuss the limitations of objectivism and where it fails to depict the good life. We talk about how they got interested in Rand’s thought, how they philosophically dealt with works that were mostly fiction, and where their philosophy, individualistic perfectionism, diverges from Rand’s and fills in some important blanks.
