Pat was feeling privileged so Ben dives into the nebulous concept that makes Our Country Great: our God-given Rights. Turns out this talk couldn't have come sooner, since 30 minutes in, Pat confuses the FIRST TWO AMENDMENTS in a blooper for the ages. Ben teaches Pat about who has rights, where they come come from and what actions they cover, all the while enduring the distracting snores of Pat's roommate and Mother of Tim, Victoria, who decided to fall asleep on the floor of the living room for ...
Mar 05, 2020•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 119
Pat was feeling parsimonious so Ben clues him into the cutting edge philosophy of Medieval thinker/virgin William of Okham. Known primarily for his eponymous dictum, Okham's Razor, Willie O also made a name for himself as a nominalist, borderline heretic, and for pissing off the Pope, whom he called out as a member of the one percent. Ben checks Pat on his wanton invocation of Okham's Razor, but in the end, the WisdomBois shake hands and enjoy a good laugh, secure in their knowledge that, since ...
Feb 24, 2020•1 hr 43 min•Ep. 118
Pat was feeling forward-thinking so Ben dashes all hopes of that with a survey of one of the simplest yet confounding thought experiments in recent philosophy: The Repugnant Conclusion. Based on the writings of late British philosopher/madlad Derek Parfit, The Repugnant Conclusion is the end result of taking Utilitarianism's commitment to maximizing happiness to its logical conclusion. If it's our goal to increase the amount of happiness in the world, it's our duty to maximize the number of live...
Feb 09, 2020•1 hr 35 min•Ep. 117
Pat was feeling like the center of the Universe so Ben validates that feeling by teaching him about the controversial Anthropic Principle. As if balking at our improbable existence in this hostile Universe weren't anguishing enough, scientists have started pointing out how the very fact of us observing the Universe is stupid enough to doubt the randomness of the BIG BANG. This means that some of these heathen eggheads are leaving room for the possibility of a designer, which is leaving many a ph...
Jan 20, 2020•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 115
Pat was feeling quantifiable so Ben comes in hot with some theories about numbers, and boy is Pat peeved. In what might be the yelliest episode of I Learned Nothing to date, Ben and Pat scream about math for about an hour and a half. Like a fool, Ben convinces himself that he can enlighten Pat on some of the most pressing and troubling questions surrounding the discipline of mathematics, such as the reality of numbers, why this domain of knowledge is so known for its unimpeachable certainty, and...
Dec 16, 2019•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 112
Pat was feeling chauvinistic so Ben sets him straight with the revolutionary existentialism of post-colonial philosopher Frantz Fanon. Born in the overseas French department of Martinique in the Lesser Antilles, Frantz Fanon grew up knowing first-hand the degradation of colonial oppression and racism. After training as a clinical psychiatrist and mingling with French titans of existentialism, Fanon published his own theories on racism and its effects on the lived, phenomenological experience of ...
Dec 12, 2019•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 111
Pat AND Ben were feeling generous so they've unleashed a Patreon episode on the world for FREE! Ep. 9 of our Pat-Treon Experiment is now free to the public. Introducing His Imperial Majesty Joshua Norton I, Emperor of the United States, Protector of Mexico, and absolute raving lunatic who wandered the streets of 19th century San Francisco. Tune in to hear Pat turn the tables on Ben and teach him a thing or two about a thing or two. Just $5 a month for a BONUS episode every week. Pat teaches Ben ...
Dec 06, 2019•1 hr
Pat was feeling pragmatic so Ben teaches him the All-American philosophy of William James. James' prolific career and work spanned many diverse topics, such as the philosophy of religion, epistemology, and the foundations of psychology. More than Sigmund Freud, James had a lasting influence on the actual science of psychology, all without having to resort to bonkers theories about child sexuality and our secret desire to fuck our own dads. He also made an essential contribution to the developmen...
Nov 25, 2019•1 hr 37 min•Ep. 110
Pat was feeling misogynistic (again) so Ben had to even the scales by bringing in Gender Studies expert and Pat's certifiably insane roommate Victoria Tyler to help teach Pat how to not hate women. Join Vic and Ben as they clumsily explain to Pat the social & political theories of American philosopher & radical feminist Judith Butler. By walking through the main points in Butler's magnum opus Gender Trouble , Ben reveals to Pat how gender is socially constructed and determined primarily ...
Nov 19, 2019•1 hr 36 min•Ep. 109
Pat was feeling conflicted so Ben sorts him out by analyzing the Problem of Dirty Hands. If you’ve ever seen an episode of 24, you’ll be more than familiar with this classic ethical dilemma/tired plot device. If not, it goes kind of like this: As leader of a country or community facing an existential threat to its very survival, do you violate well-established moral norms in order to avoid complete annihilation? At what point do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few? Ben & Pat ...
Oct 22, 2019•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 106
Pat was feeling complacent so Ben charges in with the perfect remedy: A rousing recitation of Nietzsche’s famous doctrine of the Eternal Recurrence. If you had to live your life again exactly as you’ve lived it so far over and over again for eternity, would you curse God or thank him? And what would you do differently now? Huh? Punk? Ben and Pat also get distracted by news of an upcoming fried chicken festival. All in all, a successful episode.
Oct 12, 2019•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 105
Pat was feeling absolute about space & time so Ben took him down a peg by explaining the Theory of Relativity. Developed by internationally renowned German-American physicist/sex addict Albert Einstein, the special and general theories of relativity have fundamentally altered our understanding of spacetime, light, gravity, and Big Dick Energy since the beginning of the 20th Century. Pat has to confront the fact that time is indeed a son of a bitch, and he’s not happy about it....
Oct 01, 2019•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 104
Pat was feeling like half a momo, so Ben introduces him to the very Eye-talian flavor of Marxism developed by Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci started as a pizza chef, then became a master plumber with his brother, Luigi. In order to learn this trade, he became a trade unionist before converting fully to Marxism. He redefined Western Marxism by introducing novel concepts like Cultural Hegemony and the Base v. Superstructure dichotomy. He wrote extensively about Marxist theory while imprisoned by Mussoli...
Sep 27, 2019•1 hr 49 min•Ep. 103
Pat was feeling Middle Eastern so Ben brings in a foreign correspondent to talk about the Islamic World’s Biggest Intellectual Daddy, Avicenna. Pittsburgh Professor of Near Eastern Studies/infirm veteran Mitch Mekulsia joins the WisdomBoyz in a heated discussion about the man who brought Aristotle to Europe, no matter how much Europeans hate to admit it.
Sep 11, 2019•1 hr 46 min•Ep. 102
Pat was feeling Gallic so Ben comes at him with the guy who started it all. Not just French philosophy, but the Modern Western Tradition as we know it. Rectifying an oversight that has plagued the podcast for decades, Ben & Pat finally talk about the Daddy of Modern Philosophy himself: René "Sit on my face" Descartes. The WisdomBois discuss Descartes' contributions to Western thought, such as his Rationalist approach to knowledge, and developing the first version of the Brain in the Vat thou...
Jul 22, 2019•1 hr 33 min•Ep. 96
Pat was feeling dubious so Ben delivers a crash course in the Pyrrhonian Skepticism of Ancient Greek philosopher/dilettante Sextus Empiricus. This is one of the few episodes where Pat picked the topic. Can you guess why? Anyway, Sextus Empiricus AKA The Sex Man lived and wrote sometime in the 2nd or 3rd centuries AD. His main contribution is his commitment to a notably strict form of skepticism that holds you can't hold ANY beliefs about anything so long as there are any points for and against t...
Jul 14, 2019•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 95
Pat was feeling rapturous so Ben unveils the mystical philosophy of manic pixie wisdom girl Simone Weil and in so doing thoroughly bums Pat out. How, you ask? By summarizing her intense life story along with the philosophical thoughts it engendered. Simone Weil was born Jewish in Paris, France in 1909, and died Insane in London, England in 1943, aged 34 years old. In those 34 years, she wrote about ethics, God, sacrifice, and love for one's fellow (wo)man, all while trying as hard as she could t...
Jul 06, 2019•1 hr 32 min•Ep. 94
Pat was feeling confident in what he thinks he knows so Ben dashes that assumption by introducing Pat to the table-flipping thought experiments known as Gettier Problems. The infamous Gettier Problems were contrived by the notorious sad boi of modern analytical philosophy, Edmund Gettier. Gettier debuted his shitty though experiments in a 3-page paper he only submitted to avoid being fired. Little did he know that these three pages COMPLETELY UPENDED our understanding of knowledge and has tormen...
Jun 26, 2019•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 93
Pat was feeling hyperreal so Ben explains the wasted landscape described by French postmodernist/fuckboi Jean Baudrillard. This ham-faced prick identified the extent to which we live in a simulated reality constructed by the exchange of empty symbols tenuously supported by the unjustified foundation of capitalism. This dude inspired The Matrix but not in the way you think. Instead of a computer simulation, we live in an economic simulation, where everything is alright (hypernormal) but actually ...
Jun 16, 2019•58 min•Ep. 92
Pat was feeling anti-authoritarian so he and Ben dive into the history and philosophy of the funnest of all political ideologies: Anarchism. NO GODS, NO MASTERS, BABAYYY! We've killed our parents and we're having ice cream for dinner every night. The WisdomBoyz learn about an iconoclastic crew of thinkers, such as Pierre Joseph Proudhon, Mikhail Bakunin, and Emma Goldman, all of whom inspired generations of 14-year-old vandals desperate to dismantle the authority & power of the State. Abolis...
Jun 09, 2019•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 91
Pat was feeling unsubstantial so Ben introduces him to the infuriating philosophy of Irish clergyman and Pat's cousin, George Berkeley. Berkeley is best known for advancing a theory of reality that 99% of us would agree is total bullshit: Subjective Idealism. This theory states that there's no such thing as matter and all the everyday objects we encounter (tables, chairs, Tim the Cat, etc.) are nothing more than ideas in our minds. Not only that, but ideas only exist if there's someone there to ...
Jun 03, 2019•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 90
Pat was feeling phenomenal so he enlists Ben to teach him about the turn-of-the-century philosophical craze that inspired Existentialism and is just as difficult for Pat to pronounce: Phenomenology. Developed by philosopher Edmund Husserl, Phenomenology is a method employed to analyze and catalog all subjective experience in an objective, scientific way. It ultimately inspired a generation of French cigarette smokers and one unapologetic Nazi. Martin Heidegger, Husserl's one-time protege, essent...
May 28, 2019•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 89
Pat was feeling juvenile so he forces Ben to teach him about the classic paradox/thought experiment Buridan's Ass, entirely because it has the word "ass" in it. Ben obliges and the duo explore the implications of a donkey chained between two identical bails of hay, each placed equal distances away from him. Which one should the donkey choose if they have no compelling differences? How much does rationality actually influence our decisions? This question was first posed by medieval French philoso...
May 20, 2019•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 88
Pat was feeling horrified so Ben tries to soothe him by teaching him the post-modern philosophy of French-Bulgarian thinker/provocateur Julia Kristeva. Kristeva is known for her thorough analysis of two of the most basic and primal human emotions: horror and disgust. She employs her novel concept of the "abject" to describe that primordial disorientation and fear we encounter when faced with the prospect of death. We find ourselves in a pre-symbolic space where meaning breaks down and we lose ou...
May 12, 2019•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 87
Pat was feeling monadic so Ben recruits a guest lecturer for this watershed episode: Professor George Anthony of Yale University-San Antonio Campus. Together they teach Pat about German heavy hitter Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and his Rationalist philosophy. They explore Leibniz's bizarre theory of monads (lol): invisible, irreducible corpuscles that make up all substance in the Universe. George also uses the plot of 1994 action thriller 'Time Cop' to illustrate Leibniz's Fundamental Principles of...
May 04, 2019•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 86
Pat was feeling militant, so Ben checks his bitch ass with a rundown of Just War Theory. Somewhere between Pacifism (believing war is always wrong) and Realism (believing war will happen no matter what and it rules), there lies a DMZ of ethical theory called Just War Theory, which answers important questions like when it's chill to go to war, what's chill in warfare, and how to be chill with your enemy once the war is over. Listen in as Ben and Pat explore the thorny issues exposed by war, like ...
Apr 26, 2019•1 hr 31 min•Ep. 85
Pat was feeling swampy (gross!) so Ben freshens him up with a zesty thought experiment called The Swamp Man. Conceived by American philosopher/rip-off artist Donald Davidson, The Swamp Man is a bananas thought experiment meant to illustrate the theory of meaning called semantic externalism. How do you mean the words you say if you’re a Swamp Man who has never experienced anything and never encountered any of the objects of this world? Find out on this very special screaming match of I Learned No...
Apr 17, 2019•59 min•Ep. 84
Pat was feeling rhizomatic (whatever that means) so Ben confounds him with the very upsetting philosophy of noted French Postmodernist Gilles Deleuze. This single-lunged pervert developed some of the most Byzantine theories on metaphysics in the Continental tradition. He claimed, for example, that difference precedes identity, upending 2000 years of Western philosophical traditions. In other words, the thing that makes a thing that thing is not its intrinsic properties, but its differences with ...
Apr 11, 2019•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 83
Pat was feeling 'Murican so Ben teaches him about the theory that put America on the map: Pragmatism. Developed by three dick-swinging cowboys of knowledge, Charles Sanders Pierce, William James & John Dewey, Pragmatism holds that truth has nothing to do with how reality actually is. This is a huge flex, as it kinda flies in the face of what philosophy has been trying to prove since forever. Instead, these patriots contend that truth is nothing more than what gets the job done. If a belief, ...
Apr 04, 2019•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 82
Pat was feeling timeless so Ben puts him in his place by exploring the concept of time. Yeah, this one's a doozy. Amid much screaming, Pat learns the various ways time fucks with all of us. Is it linear or circular? Does the future even exist? Does the past? Do our memories mean nothing? Ultimately, Pat & Ben conclude that time is our greatest enemy, as it never seems to relent and has a 100% kill rate. Also Ben has to learn physics again to (poorly) explain something called light cones to P...
Mar 25, 2019•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 81
