In our annual year-in-review show, John and Ken were joined by political theorist Margaret Levi to discuss what the future looks like for workers when technology and automation are putting so many out of work. The particular technology discussed on The Examined Year 2016 was driverless vehicles, as there were some major advances (and some setbacks) in that area last year. But that is just part of a bigger trend in automation that is threatening jobs in many sectors.

The study of philosophy, or the study of what other people have said that gets categorized under the heading 'philosophy', has the potential to leave one feeling a perpetual student. Expertise can be acquired in a so-called "field" of study. Along the way, however, students will have realized their "field" of study looks less like an actual field and more like a narrowly defined section of a bookshelf in a stuffy library. They will have also realized that one never finished studying philosophy.