Conversations with Tyler - Podcast Rankings and reviews

The breadth and depth of topics is unparalleled, presenting a wonderful way to indulge curiosity and gain exposure to all sorts of ideas. Tyler is a pleasure to listen to and questions are always intriguing.

Tyler has an incredible fund of knowledge and this podcast gives you a chance to join in. You will be introduced to a smorgasbord of thinkers and ideas that you otherwise may not encounter. Take a break from partisan filters and open yourself up to new ideas.

So so happy to find this podcast. Wonderfully refreshing to simply hear smart people conversing without any ideological smugness.

Tyler Cowen, Professor of Economics, could really be called Professor of Knowledge, with interests in many topics both highbrow and lowbrow. It is a pleasure to learn from him about many different subjects and to hear how highly intelligent and influential people engage with his challenging questions. Highly recommended.

I was a regular listener until the episodes with Marilynne Robinson and Jonathan Haidt. Both are highly articulate thinkers who can develop extended arguments when they have an interlocutor who is able to listen carefully and follow with their thought process. Tyler’s form of engagement, however, continually interrupted the flow of their reflections in an unhelpful and frustrating way. I was disappointed by his insensitivity to the natural flow of those conversations, and I began to realize that this podcast’s method simply does not allow guests to develop longer trains of thought. So I stopped listening and have not missed it.

The podcast universe is overpopulated. But Tyler is one of the early entrants, so perhaps he is a pioneer of sorts. But there is so much variety and so many hidden gems that Tyler seems dated and predictable. Even though he tries to surprise us with his abrupt shifts in tone and questioning somehow no one can believe that he is actually probing deep into his guests’ contradictions or trying to catch the guest on their weak side. Everyone is on this silly game. I think of his recent interview with the British journalist, John Gray. Tyler treated him with a reverence that one would assign to John Rawls or Robert Nozick or Ronald Dworkin. But that’s the thing: Gray is a journalist trying to pass himself off as a political theorist. You have to have lived in Britain to know that Gray is a poseur. Tyler even gets close to pinning him down early in the conversation where Gray mouths platitudes about young people and their beliefs and wriggles out of questions that should be followed through. This is proof: Gray and Cowen are in a sense kindred spirits. Really just entertainers!