All posts by Barry Daniel

About Barry Daniel

I live in the Lake District in the UK where I run a guesthouse with my partner Kate and my cat Manuel. I enjoy painting, hillwalking, reading, visiting and entertaining friends, T’ai Chi and playing the guitar. I’m engaged to a certain degree in the local community, as a volunteer with Samaritans and I’m a fairly active member of the local Green party. I’ve had a relatively intuitive sense of the Middle Way most of my adult life but it found a greater articulation and a practical direction through joining the society. It’s also been interesting and great fun engaging with other people with a similar outlook. My main contribution to the society is conducting the podcast interviews, something that gives me a lot of satisfaction and that I’ve learnt a lot from.

The MWS Podcast 126: Stephen Jenkinson on Orphan Wisdom

Community, Meaning, Wisdom

Our guest today is Stephen Jenkinson a Harvard-trained theologian and a teacher, author, storyteller, spiritual activist, farmer and founder of the Orphan Wisdom School, a teaching house and learning house for the skills of deep living and making human culture. Before founding the school, he headed the counsel team of Canada’s largest palliative care program and in 2008 a film ‘Griefwalker was made about his work with the dying and their families and he’s the author of several books including ‘Money and the Soul’s desires’ and ‘Die Wise’ .



MWS Podcast 126: Stephen Jenkinson as audio only:
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The MWS Podcast 125: Arie Kruglanski on Close-Mindedness and the Middle Way

Psychology, ,

Our guest today is Arie Kruglanski. Arie is a Distinguished University Professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland College Park, and has been at the forefront of research into closed-mindedness-or, the “need for closure”— in particular its relationship to fundamentalist belief systems and violent extremism.
He is is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and has edited a variety of prominent journals, including the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Attitudes and Social Cognition. During his long career he has received numerous awards, including the Donald Campbell Award for Outstanding Contributions to Social Psychology.
His work in the domains of human judgment and belief formation has been disseminated in over 300 articles. He’s the author of six books including the psychology of close-mindedness and the psychology of terrorism and the themes explored in these books will be the topic of our discussion today

MWS Podcast 125: Arie Kruglanski as audio only:


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The MWS Podcast 124: Abeba Birhane on a person is a person through other persons

Philosophy, Psychology,

Our guest today is Abeba Birhane. Abeba is an Ethiopian cognitive science PhD student presently living in Dublin. She blogs regularly at abebabirhane.wordpress.com on topics including philosophy, psychology, feminism, anthropology. She recently drew quite a bit of attention on the internet in an article for Aeon entitled Descartes was wrong: a person is a person through other persons and this will be the topic of our discussion today



MWS Podcast 124: Abeba Birhane as audio only:
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The MWS Podcast 123: Amod Lele on Literal Conservatism

Podcast, Politics,

We are joined today by Amod Lele, who teaches Indian philosophy at Boston University. He is also Visiting Researcher at the Center for the Study of Asia, and an Educational Technologist with Information Services & Technology. He writes a regular blog in cross-cultural philosophy, called Love of All Wisdom on which I came across an article he wrote on ‘Literal Conservatism’. I was struck by his contention that in recent times the political left has been far more conservative in this sense than the right and this will be the topic of our discussion today.



MWS Podcast 123: Amod Lele as audio only:
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The MWS Podcast 122: Bernardo Sorj on Humanism without Hubris

Judaism, Podcast, ,

Our guest today is Bernardo Sorj. Bernardo is a Brazilian social scientist, retired professor of Sociology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. He is Director of The Edelstein Center for Social Research and of the Plataforma Democrática Project. He has published 30 books and more than 100 articles, on Latin American political development, international relations, the social impact of new technologies, social theory and Judaism and in 2005 was elected Brazil’s Man of Ideas. He’s here to talk to us about ‘Humanism without Hubris’.



MWS Podcast 122: Bernardo Sorj as audio only:
Download audio: MWS_Podcast_Bernardo_Sorj
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