In a Nutshell: What is the philosophy of Bitcoin? One of the beautiful things about Bitcoin is its interdisciplinary nature. To really “get” Bitcoin, you have to have at least a working knowledge of a wide variety of disciplines. That’s one reason why I love talking to academic philosophers who are also Bitcoiners. They have frameworks to help us understand the expansive and interconnected nature of Bitcoin and the kinds of questions we should be asking ourselves about it.
Here’s Andrew Bailey, Bradley Rettler, and Craig Warmke writing at Coindesk:
Philosophy is all-inclusive, the ultimate bundled interdiscipline. Bitcoin pairs well with philosophy because every one of its ingredients falls within the purview of philosophical research. Philosophers draw from whatever evidence is relevant – and evidence relevant to Bitcoin spans psychology, economics, cryptography and more. But neither psychology, nor economics, nor cryptography, nor computer science alone provides a deep understanding of the system as a whole. A bird’s eye view of Bitcoin is necessarily a philosophical one.
In today’s show, I combine four previously released conversations with the leading Bitcoin philosophers into one mega 5-hour philosophy of Bitcoin show. Necessarily, we cover a broad range of topics that I hope will add to your knowledge and appreciation for this thing we call Bitcoin.
Guests in Alphabetical Order:
Andrew Bailey, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Yale-NUS college in Singapore
Bradley Rettler, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wyoming
Craig Warmke, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Northern Illinois University
Troy Cross, Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Reed College in Oregon
