Partially examined life precognitions introduce philosophical topics for upcoming episodes

to give you a few weeks to do the reading yourself.

They also serve as quick standalone summaries of the work.

You can read more about these topics, get the works we cover, and listen to Partially

Examined Life Conversations at partiallyexaminedlife.com.

Hi everybody, my name is Linda Walsh, I'm an Associate Professor of English at the

University of Newaterno, and the author of a book entitled Scientists as Profits, Retourical

Genealogy.

This is the precognition for an episode of the Partially examined Life, in which the

guys and I are going to discuss part of my book.

The part where I examine the powerful ethos or public role of the science advisor in the

20th century.

I engage a couple of case studies in this section, but we're going to focus on J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Because through the lens of Oppenheimer's public adventures and misadventures, we can get

glimpse of a couple of bigger issues, like the relationship between philosophy and rhetoric

and the relationship between science and policy in the late modern era.

But in order to get into that conversation productively, I should lay a little bit of

groundwork.

First, the definition of rhetoric.

I think of rhetoric as the interface between philosophy and politics.

So it encompasses both the art of making and staying in community with each other, and

the theories that develop about that art.

...