The Biological and Social Human - a podcast by Magdalena Smieszek

Do we know ourselves better biologically or socially? Hosted by Magdalena Smieszek, this episode of the How We Are Human podcast is part 2 of the discussion with Maria Kronfeldner, Professor in the Philosophy Department at the Central European University, and three Master's students Olesya Bondarenko, Noha Hendi, and Rachel Sanderoff, as part of the course entitled Topics in the Philosophy of the Human and Social Sciences (ToPHSS).

The discussion continues to consider how humans understand themselves, the separation of cultures within the natural and social sciences, as well as the implications for knowledge and even politics. The conversation touches on how the theological understanding of the human connects with the human sciences. In discussing whether there can be a unified concept of the human, the agreement is that that there are different ways of connecting and unifying, and a continual contestation and negotiation is part of that process of agreeing on what we mean when it comes to the varied conceptualizations about humans. We can be guided both by what science tells us about human nature but also how we envision ourselves, and how these concepts come together in considering the facts and making decisions about what is essential for us. This involves bridging the divisions between knowledge coming from the West and East in a number of areas, including human rights discourse.

The ToPHSS course was funded by the CEU Humanities Initiative. The podcast was created by Magdalena Smieszek with the support of the CEU Centre for Media, Data and Society as part of the AudioFiles Project funded by the Intellectual Themes Initiative.