Pat was feeling lonely, so Ben cheers him up by teaching him about that classic conundrum: The Problem of Other Minds. Trudging past the filthy opening banter regarding Pat's cunnilingus prowess, the Bois get down to business talking about how we can ever know that other minds exist outside of our own. What if, WHAT IF, you were to wake up too early one day only to discover that the entire world's population except for you is secretly a robot and you've caught them with their (skinsuit) pants do...
Mar 14, 2019•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 80
Pat was feeling spectacular, so Ben tags in a heavyweight for philosophical assistance. Comic, friend, and Dean of Philosophy at ACC, Clara Blackstone helps Ben explain the riotous philosophy of Situationism, founded by legendary French ashtray/Marxist theorist Guy Debord. Together, they drag Pat and themselves out of the bewitching and lurid world of the Spectacle, a Matrix-like world of hollow images that Late Capitalism has built for us to keep us complacent and consuming. Debord's bizarre pr...
Mar 04, 2019•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 79
Pat was feeling broken so Ben invites a dear friend to join in on the fun. In a very special 78th Episode, Ben invites fellow podcast host and unmitigated mess Jake Flores of Pod Damn America to trouble Pat with thoughts about gay robots and whether or not we're keyed into a level of artificial consciousness that we identify a little too closely with our own. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Uncanny Valley. Deja Vu is only the appetizer. The entree: Sublime Horror. Lol. (Give us money. Chec...
Feb 20, 2019•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 78
Pat was feeling randy so Ben finishes him off with the lurid details of Bertrand Russell's life & philosophy. In Part II of this disgusting saga, the WisdomBois explore the latter half of Lord Russell's life, including his unapologetic swinging, chronic civil disobedience, and revolutionary attempt to up-end all of philosophy with his spearheading of the Analytic tradition. Introducing a novel approach that takes a cue from common fucking sense, Bertie developed the intriguing philosophy of ...
Feb 11, 2019•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 77
Pat was feeling analytical so Ben outlines for him the monumental life and work of 20th Century philosophy's horniest mad lad: British intellectual/fuckboy Bertrand Russell. In a smashing two-parter, Ben teaches Pat about Lord Russell's logical, political, and sexual escapades, which old (and we do mean old) Bertie indulged in throughout his 97 year long life and career. Ben kicks it off by talking about Russell's Paradox, a logical pothole that Russell discovered while trying to work out the fu...
Feb 03, 2019•59 min•Ep. 76
Pat was feeling saucy so Ben tantalizes him with philosopher Gregory Kavka's Toxin Puzzle. In this mind-bending thought experiment that sounds like a very special episode of The Price Is Right, an eccentric billionaire (eg. Jeff Bezos' divorced ass) approaches you with a proposition: He will pay you one million dollars tomorrow morning if at midnight tonight you intend to drink a diarrhea-inducing elixir tomorrow afternoon. You'll feel like shit for 24 hours but there are no lasting side effects...
Jan 24, 2019•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 75
Pat hates women so Ben tries to remedy this by teaching him the existentialist feminism of French philosopher/sex addict Simone de Beauvoir. Born Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir, she quickly became known for her intellectual precociousness, going tête à tête with existentialist poster boy (and future fuck buddy) Jean Paul Sartre, writing award winning novels, and outlining a stunning theory on why women have been relegated to a derivative version of human consciousness through ...
Jan 19, 2019•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 74
Pat was feeling dialectical so Ben bulldozes him with the humongous theories of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, the Leslie Knope of 19th Century German philosophy. This guy literally thought of everything, which is both impressive and exhausting. After wandering off on their requisite tangents (such as names in other languages and Jimmy The Greek's unfortunate on air racial anecdotes), Ben & Pat explore Hegel's zany ideas set down in his mammoth book "The Phenomenology of Spirit." Through thi...
Jan 08, 2019•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 73
Pat was feeling critical so Ben teaches him the critical philosophy of The Frankfurt School. Founded in 1923 in Weimar Germany, The Frankfurt School was instrumental in revitalizing Marxist theory in the West, exposing the phantasmagoria of late stage capitalism. They identified a new, sinister dimension of capitalism called the Culture Industry, which lulls the working class into compliance, dashing any hopes of the proletariat achieving class consciousness. Ben & Pat explore these ideas th...
Dec 20, 2018•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 72
Pat was feeling desperate, so Ben makes things worse by introducing him to the despondent writings of proto-Existentialist Søren Kierkegaard. Born in Denmark in 1813 and dying of a shattered heart in 1855, Kierkegaard spent his brief 42 years on this cold, forgotten rock wringing his hands and writing about the overwhelming agony of freedom & the chronic despair that comes with it. Pat & Ben discuss the glum Dane's defining influence on the Existentialist movement of the 20th Century in ...
Dec 09, 2018•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 71
Pat was feeling authoritative, so Ben has no choice but get help from our heroic armed forces to reassert his sovereignty over the podcast. In other words, Ben and special guest, Harrison Hammonds teach Pat about the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. Thomas Hobbes was a 17th Century English philosopher/narc who argued that political power needs to be vested in and embodied by an all-powerful State, what he called the Leviathan in his eponymous masterpiece, in order for society to function s...
Nov 29, 2018•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 70
Pat was feeling theological, so Ben and his eternal pupil spend their 69th episode (lol) tackling the Biggest Topic Ever: God. Who is God? What are his superpowers? Can we ever know the mind of God? Does He really give a shit about anything we do or even us at all? What is the one true religion? (That one's easy, it's Catholicism.) In a tour de force for the ages, the WisdomBois take on the Almighty and live to tell the tale. Listen and subscribe to hear the full story! Amen....
Nov 21, 2018•1 hr 34 min•Ep. 69
Pat was feeling Darwinian, so Ben treats him to a crash course on the philosophy of evolution. While Pat diverts Ben's train of thought like branches on the Tree of Life, Ben attempts to explain how Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection upended our view of our role in the universe, showing that the tremendous complexity of all life on this planet is the result of blind luck amid generations of mindless death. Darwin ruined everything and Pat is pissed. More like Evil-ution, a...
Nov 13, 2018•56 min•Ep. 68
Pat was feeling liberal so Ben trots out that golden idol of modern democracy, John Locke, and his sacred teachings on individual rights and the consent of the governed. This fool started his career as a doctor but his inability to resist blowing up the idiocy of divine rule cemented his legacy as perhaps the most important political philosopher in the Western tradition. Just like the American patriots he influenced a generation later, he had a complicated relationship with the radical ideas he ...
Nov 07, 2018•56 min•Ep. 67
Pat was feeling irresponsible so Ben clues him in on the fundamental philosophical concept of agency. As the defining characteristic of what we call 'persons', agency is that quality we believe we must possess in order to be considered conscious, autonomous actors in the world. Without it, we'd be nothing but mindless robots. But what is agency? What does it consist in and what about it makes what we do "actions" rather than just "events"? Needless to say, this is a baffling line of questioning ...
Oct 26, 2018•56 min•Ep. 66
Pat was feeling well mental, innit? So Ben decides to spill the tea about perhaps the most intractable problem in the history of philosophy: The Mind-Body Problem. This issue has been a titanic pain in the ass since Descartes very Frenchly waded into it back in the 1600's. Basically, it boils down to this: We clearly experience an inner, subjective dimension of life consisting in thoughts, beliefs, desires, intentions, etc, that also seems to be autonomous from the external, physical world we en...
Oct 19, 2018•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 65
Pat was feeling A E S T H E T I C so Ben continues their meandering discussion about Art and its role in philosophy. In our first ever sequel -- Art Part II: Son of Art -- the WisdomBois discuss art's capacity as a medium of expression, giving voice to those ineffable aspects of human life that can't normally be put into words. In the wake of Banksy's totally bonkers stunt at Sotheby's, where he shredded his own art piece after it was purchased for over $1 million bucks (LOLOL), they go into art...
Oct 12, 2018•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 64
Pat was feeling artsy so Ben sends him on a sensual journey thru A E S T H E T I C S. The youngest and sexiest of the six branches of philosophy, aesthetics covers questions like “What is Beauty?”, “What is Art?” and “How much can I pawn my Oberlin degree to pay for this $12 Old Fashioned?” Haha just kidding. Pat faces down his old nemesis once again as he takes on the Virgin from Germany, Immanuel Kant, on the issue of aesthetic judgement & taste, and whether your opinion on deep-dish pizza...
Oct 05, 2018•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 63
Pat was feeling lucky so Ben destroys his whole world with the maddening paradox of Moral Luck. Devised by philosophers Bernard Williams & Thomas Nagel, this dilemma basically occurs when you get blamed for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Why should you get slapped with a manslaughter charge just because that kid ran into the road? You were just as drunk as Pat driving home and all he got was a DUI. This time Ben loses his shit at Pat as they discuss the intersection of morality ...
Oct 02, 2018•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 62
Pat was feeling traumatized so Ben introduces him to the unhinged ramblings of Jacques Lacan, Freud acolyte and harbinger of French Postmodernism. Through the yearly lectures he hosted in Paris from 1953 to 1981, Lacan developed a bonkers theory that our unconscious is structured like language, navigating three zones: The Imaginary, The Symbolic, & The Real. Also, as infants, we witness an Ideal we'll never achieve when we look at ourselves in the mirror for the first time in a horrifying or...
Sep 24, 2018•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 61
Pat was feeling virtuous so Ben schools him on the ethical theory of British philosopher/schoolmarm Philippa Foot. As the granddaughter of US President Grover Cleveland (true story), Foot knew a thing or two about what it is to be virtuous and all but single handedly revived the long lost tradition of virtue ethics pioneered by Aristotle over 2000 years ago. By concentrating on what makes a good person rather than a good action, her approach was a response to pedantic legal eagle virgins like Ka...
Sep 14, 2018•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 60
Pat was feeling deconstructed so Ben bewitches him with the philosophy of influential French pompadour Jacques Derrida. Derrida is perhaps THE bad boy of postwar French philosophy. In calling out the trendy school of Structuralism dominating the intellectual landscape of 1950s Europe, this Algerian French Jew became the inadvertent poster boy for Postmodernism. His groundbreaking critical approach known as Deconstruction has since made every CompLit major of the past 40 years nut at the mention ...
Sep 08, 2018•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 59
Pat was feeling lucky so Ben convinces him to wager his ETERNAL SOUL. Just joshing ya! We like to have fun here at I Learned Nothing. Seriously, though, on our latest episode, Ben teaches Pat about French philosopher/theologian/mathematician/dipshit Blaise Pascal and his famous thought experiment, Pascal's Wager. It goes like this: instead of proving the existence of God, why not gamble on it? What've you got to lose? Subscribe & listen to learn more!
Sep 01, 2018•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 58
Pat was feeling altruistic so Ben opens his eyes to the utilitarian philosophy of Australian lunatic and Princeton professor Peter Singer. As Ol' Tomato Can Dean and Benny Culo discuss the pros and cons of murdering Hitler back when he was a helpless infant, they suss out the finer points of Singer's consequentialist ethics.The greatest benefit to the greatest number and the ends justify the means. Sounds good on paper right? So would you kill a baby to save millions of people? (Pretend you didn...
Aug 24, 2018•57 min•Ep. 57
Pat was feeling proportional so Ben riles him up with some crazy talk about numbers, music, and reincarnation -- oh shit, it's Part 3 of our Third Greek Triple Stack. The Circle is Complete. The WisdomBois cap it off with a riveting account of the OJ of the Ancient World: Pythagoras. Haunting the nightmares of middle school masturbaters everywhere, Pythagoras did way more than just nerd out about triangles. He started a cult based on the mystical property of numbers, their expression through mus...
Aug 18, 2018•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 56
Pat was feeling giggly so Ben tells him of the ticklishly deviant philosophy of Democritus, a real piece of work who many consider to be the father of the scientific method. Unlike his mopey counterpart Heraclitus, Chuckles over here considered life to be absurd, with no inherent purpose, just collections of matter blindly hurtling through an uncaring void. And just like that, he came up with atomic theory over 2000 years before the rest of the nerds by guessing. Then he celebrated by getting li...
Aug 10, 2018•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 55
Pat was feeling weepy so Ben reveals to him the obscure, emo-ass teachings of "The Weeping Philosopher" AKA Herclitus. In the much anticipated 3rd installment of our Peabody Award Winning Greek Triple Stack Series, the WisdomBois cover the Pre-Socratics, a crew of ancient, diner-owning Greeks who planted the seeds of Western philosophy & science before Socrates even hit puberty. In Part 1, Ben tells Pat about the mystical philosophy of Heraclitus, who believed the only constant in life is ch...
Aug 02, 2018•1 hr 28 min•Ep. 54
Pat was feeling Pat-riarchal (get it?) so Ben sits his penis-having ass down and teaches him about Mary Wollstonecraft, an iconic Enlightenment thinker and arguably the very first feminist philosopher in the Western tradition. In her classic book "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman," Wollstonecraft exposes the patriarchy for the first time, bringing to light how centuries of mansplaining have conditioned women into being subservient and pursuing shallow, ephemeral goals at the expense of their...
Jul 27, 2018•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 53
Pat was feeling colorblind, so Ben calms his mind with a soothing thought experiment: Mary's Room. As the WisdomBois enjoy hearty bowls of soup during their newest segment "Just Souping Around," they explore a troubling scenario thought up by Australian philosopher/bogan Frank Jackson. A genius-level neuroscientist named Mary, who was raised in a black & white laboratory her entire life and has never seen color, escapes and for the first time sees a red rose. Listen to find out what happens ...
Jul 20, 2018•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 52
Pat was feeling friend-zoned so Ben reaches out to Jay Whitecotton, William M. Hicks Professor of Postmodern Studies at Duke University and Pat's roommate, to talk about the earth-shattering "philosophy" of consummate edgelord Jordan B. Peterson. In this installment, Jay guides Ben and Pat through the murky swamps of postmodern thought, the Versus Culture, and the virtual battlefields on which so many InCels and SJWs fight maniacally for the hearts and minds of tired, confused people. Pat mostly...
Jul 15, 2018•1 hr 38 min•Ep. 51
