Episode 86: Thomas Kuhn on Scientific Progress
On The Structure of Scientific Revolutions , published mostly in 1962.
Dec 24, 2013•1 hr 28 min
The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
The Partially Examined Life is a podcast by some guys who were at one point set on doing philosophy for a living but then thought better of it. Each episode, we pick a short text and chat about it with some balance between insight and flippancy. You don't have to know any philosophy, or even to have read the text we're talking about to (mostly) follow and (hopefully) enjoy the discussion. For links to the texts we discuss and other info, check out www.partiallyexaminedlife.com.
We also feature episodes from other podcasts by our hosts to round out your partially examined life, including Pretty Much Pop (prettymuchpop.com, covering all media), Nakedly Examined Music (nakedlyexaminedmusic.com, deconstructing songs), Philosophy vs. Improv (philosophyimprov.com, fun with performance skills and philosophical ideas), and (sub)Text (subtextpodcast.com, looking deeply at lit and film). Learn about more network podcasts at partiallyexaminedlife.com.
Episodes
Precognition of Ep. 86: Thomas Kuhn
Dylan Casey lays out Thomas Kuhn's thesis in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions .
Dec 23, 2013•6 min
Episode 85: Rawls on Social Justice
On John Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971), most of ch. 1-4.
Dec 07, 2013•1 hr 47 min
Precognition of Ep. 85: John Rawls
Seth Paskin summarizes the John Rawls's A Theory of Justice .
Dec 06, 2013•11 min
PREMIUM-Episode 84: Nietzsche’s “Gay Science”
On Friedrich Nietzsche's The Gay Science (1882, with book 5 added 1887). What is wisdom? Nietzsche gives us an updated take on the Socratic project of challenging your most deeply held beliefs. Challenge not just your belief in God (who's "dead"), but uncover all your habits of thinking in terms of the divine. Realize how little of your life is actually a matter of conscious reflection, and the consequent limits on self-knowledge. The very act of systematization in philosophy overestimates what ...
Nov 11, 2013•33 min
Episode 83 Follow-Up: Q&A with Frithjof Bergmann
In light of our ep. 83, many listeners had questions on Frithjof's social/political/economic proposals for creating a post-job, pro-meaningful-work world.
Nov 01, 2013•58 min
Episode 83: New Work with Guest Frithjof Bergmann
alking with Frithjof Bergmann, Prof. Emeritus from U. of Michigan, Ann Arbor about his book New Work, New Culture (2004, English release coming soon).
Oct 11, 2013•1 hr 31 min
Precognition of Ep. 83: New Work
An introduction to and summary of Frithjof Bergmann's New Work, New Culture , read by Mark Linsenmayer.
Oct 10, 2013•13 min
PREMIUM-Episode 82: Karl Popper on Science
On Popper's Conjectures and Refutations (1963), the first three essays. What is science, and how is it different than pseudo-science? From philosophy? Is philosophy just pseudo-science, or proto-science, or what? Popper thinks that all legitimate inquiry is about solving real problems, and scientific theories are those that are potentially falsifiable: they make definitely predictions about the world that, if these fail to be true, would show that the theory is false. Looking for the full Citize...
Sep 24, 2013•30 min
Precognition of Ep. 82: Popper
A summary of the first three essays in Karl Popper's collection Conjectures and Refutations , read by Dylan Casey.
Sep 23, 2013•13 min
PREMIUM-Episode 81: Jung on the Psyche and Dreams
On Carl Jung's "Approaching the Unconscious" from Man and His Symbols , written in 1961. What's the structure of the mind? Jung followed Freud in positing an unconscious distinct from the conscious ego, but Jung's picture has the unconscious much more stuffed full of all sorts of stuff from who knows where, including instincts (the archetypes) that tend to give rise to behavior and dream imagery that we'd have to call religious. We neglect this part of ourselves at our psychological peril! Looki...
Aug 29, 2013•31 min
Precognition of Ep. 81: Jung
An introduction to Carl Jung's Man and His Symbols , read by Wes Alwan.
Aug 28, 2013•14 min
Partially Examined Life Not School Digest #3: Work, Blood Meridian, Mind, and Heidegger
Excerpts of discussions about Frithjof Bergmann's New Work, New Culture , Cormac McCarthy's novel Blood Meridian , Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, and Martin Heidegger's "Letter on Humanism."
Aug 23, 2013•44 min
PREMIUM-Episode 80: Heidegger on our Existential Situation
On Martin Heidegger's "Letter on Humanism" (1949). What's our place in the world? What is it, really, to be human? Heidegger thought that being human hinges on having a proper relationship to Being, which is more basic than particular beings like people and tables and such, yet it being so close, Heidegger thinks it's hardest to see, and easy to be distracted from. Looking for the full Citizen version?...
Aug 08, 2013•30 min
Precognition of Ep. 80: Heidegger
A short summary of Heidegger's "Essay on Humanism," read by Seth Paskin.
Aug 07, 2013•13 min
PREMIUM-PEL Ep 79: Heraclitus on Understanding the World
Eva Brann discusses her book The Logos of Heraclitus (2011). What is the world like, and how can we understand it? Heraclitus thinks that the answer to both questions is found in “the logos.” Looking for the full Citizen version?
Jul 15, 2013•30 min
PREMIUM-Episode 78: Ayn Rand on Living Rationally
On Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (1967) and "The Objectivist Ethics" (1961). First Rand grounds everyday human knowledge, largely by dismissing the concerns of other philosophers (even those whom she unknowingly parrots) as absurd. Then she uses this certainty to argue for her semi-Nietzschean vision of Great Men who master their emotions and rely only on themselves. Looking for the full Citizen version?...
Jul 01, 2013•31 min
PREMIUM-Episode 77: Santayana on the Appreciation of Beauty
On George Santayana's The Sense of Beauty (1896). What are we saying when we call something "beautiful?" Are we pointing out an objective quality that other people (anyone?) can ferret out, or just essentially saying "yay!" without any logic necessarily behind our exclamation? The poet and philosopher Santayana thought that while aesthetic appreciation is an immediate experience--we don't "infer" the beauty of something by recognizing some natural qualities that it has--we can nonetheless analyz...
Jun 09, 2013•30 min
PREMIUM-Episode 76: Deleuze on What Philosophy Is
On Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's What Is Philosophy? (1991). How is philosophy different from science and art? What's the relationship between different philosophies? Is better pursued solo, or in a group? Deleuze described philosophy as the creation of new concepts, whereas science is about functions that map observed regularities and art is about creating percepts and affects. With guest Daniel Coffeen. Get the full discussion at partiallyexaminedlife.com....
May 14, 2013•32 min
PREMIUM-Episode 75: Lacan & Derrida Criticize Poe’s “The Purloined Letter”
On Jacques Lacan's "Seminar on 'The Purloined Letter'" (1956), Jacques Derrida's "The Purveyor of Truth" (1975), and other essays in the collection The Purloined Poe: Lacan, Derrida, and Psychoanalytic Reading . How should philosophers approach literature? Lacan read Edgar Allen Poe's story about a sleuth who outthinks a devious Minister as an illustration of his model of the psyche, and why we persist in self-destructive patterns. Derrida thought this reading not only imposed a bunch of psychob...
Apr 19, 2013•33 min
PREMIUM-Episode 74: Jacques Lacan’s Psychology
On Bruce Fink's The Lacanian Subject (1996) and Lacan's "The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience" (1949). What is the self? Is that the same as the experiencing subject? Lacan says no: while the self (the ego) is an imaginative creation, cemented by language, the subject is something else, something split (at least initially) between consciousness and the unconscious. Lacan mixes this Freudian picture with semiotics--an emphasis on systems ...
Apr 04, 2013•29 min
PREMIUM-Episode 73: Why Do Philosophy? (And What Is It?)
Mark, Seth, Wes, and Dylan share what drove them into philosophy and keeps them there. How is philosophy different than (or similar to) science? Than religion? Art? The consensus seems that philosophy, to us, is inevitable for the curious. It's just inquiry, unbounded (in principle at least) by any fixed assumptions. We did no formal reading for this discussion, but did tell each other to keep in mind Plato's "Apology." Get the full discussion at partiallyexaminedlife.com....
Mar 23, 2013•31 min
PREMIUM-Episode 72: Terrorism with Jonathan R. White
We're joined by an international terrorism expert to discuss how to define terrorism and whether it can ever be ethical. With readings by Donald Black, J. Angelo Corlett, Igor Primoratz, Karl Heinzen, Bhagat Singh, and Carl von Clausewitz. Looking for the full Citizen version?
Mar 09, 2013•33 min
PREMIUM-Episode 71: Martin Buber’s “I and Thou”
On Buber's 1923 book about the fundamental human position: As children, and historically, we start fully absorbed in relation with another person (like mom). Before that, we have no self-consciousness, no "self" at all. It's only by having these consuming "encounters" that we gradually distinguish ourselves from other people, and can then engage in what we'd normally consider "experience," which Buber calls "the I-It relation." Buber thinks that unless we can keep connected to this "I-Thou" phen...
Feb 15, 2013•32 min
PREMIUM-Episode 70: Marx on the Human Condition
On Karl Marx's The German Ideology , Part I, an early, unpublished work from 1846. What is human nature? What drives history? How can we improve our situation? Marx thought that fundamentally, you are what you do: you are your job, your means of subsistence. All the rest, this culture, this religion, this philosophy, is just a thin layer over our basic situation. Ideas are not primarily what changes the world; it's economics. Get the full discussion at partiallyexaminedlife.com....
Jan 30, 2013•31 min
Partially Examined Life Not School Digest Jan 2013
Excerpts of discussions about Deleuze & Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus , an article on emergence called "More Is Different" by Nobel Prize Winning physicist P.W. Anderson, John Searle's Mind: A Brief Introduction , and Italo Calvino's trippy science fantasy novel Cosmicomics .
Jan 23, 2013•50 min
PREMIUM-Episode 69: Plato on Rhetoric vs. Philosophy
On Plato's Dialogue, "Gorgias" (380 BCE or so). Why philosophize? Isn't it better to know how to persuade people in practical matters, like a successful lawyer or business leader? Plato (via Socrates) thinks that the "art" of rhetoric isn't an art at all, in the sense of requiring an understanding of one's subject matter, but merely a talent for saying what people want to hear. Looking for the full Citizen version?...
Jan 13, 2013•32 min
Not Episode 69: PEL Players Full Cast Audiobook of Plato’s “Gorgias” (part 1)
Three podcasters and two listeners join to read Plato's fabulous dialogue.
Jan 12, 2013•1 hr 24 min
PREMIUM-Episode 68: David Chalmers Interview on the Scrutability of the World
On David Chalmers's book Constructing the World (2012). How are all the various truths about the world related to each other? David Chalmers, famous for advocating a scientifically respectable form of brain-consciousness dualism, advocates a framework of scrutability: if one knew some set of base truths, then the rest would be knowable from them. Get the full discussion at partiallyexaminedlife.com....
Dec 22, 2012•31 min
Not School Digest Nov-Dec 2012: A Bonus Quasisode
Excerpts of discussions about David Chalmers's The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory , Thomas Nagel's Mind and Cosmos , and Paul Auster's City of Glass .
Dec 16, 2012•31 min
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