The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast - podcast cover

The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

Mark Linsenmayer, Wes Alwan, Seth Paskin, Dylan Caseypartiallyexaminedlife.com
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

Ep 121/122 Aftershow on Augustine feat. James Wetzel

Haven't had enough Augustine? Danny Lobell and Wes Alwan welcome Augustine scholar James Wetzel and PEL Citizens Terra Leigh Bell, Amogh Sahu, and Scott Anderson to discuss our Augustine episodes, covering humility, love, desire, grief, sex, misogyny, degrees of reality, and how love of God fits with relating to other people. Minimally edited, recorded the same day it's being posted, we present a full Aftershow on our public feed for the very first time. (The last?) What do you think? Get all th...

Sep 07, 20151 hr 37 min

Episode 122: Augustine on Mind and Metaphysics

Yet more on The Confessions , now on books 10–13. What is memory and how does it relate to time and being? Augustine thinks that memory is a storehouse, but it contains not just the sensations we put in it, but also (à la Plato's theory of recollection ) all legitimate knowledge. It's our route to God, to real Being. Mark, Wes, and Dylan also discuss time, language, knowledge, the existence of evil, and more. This continues our discussion from ep. 121 . Listen to the Aftershow featuring James We...

Aug 24, 20152 hr 15 min

Episode 121: Augustine on Being Good

On The Confessions (400 CE), books 1–9. The question is not "What is virtue?" because knowing what virtue is isn't enough. The problem, for Aurelius Augustinus, aka St. Augustine of Hippo, is doing what you know to be right. End song: "I Still Want" by New People , from Impossible Things (2011). Get this and every episode ad-free by becoming a PEL supporter at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support ....

Aug 10, 20152 hr 6 min

Ep. 119 Aftershow (PREMIUM) on Nietzsche feat. Greg Sadler

Seth Paskin and Danny Lobell were joined by Dr. Gregory B. Sadler , David Buchanan, Erik Weissengruber, Tom Kirdas, Ken Presting, and Bill Coe. Recorded July 26, 2015. This is the first 15 minutes of a two-hour conversation, available in full to PEL Citizens or free on our YouTube page ....

Aug 07, 201517 min

Episode 120: A History of “Will” with Guest Eva Brann

We discuss Un-Willing: An Inquiry into the Rise of Will's Power and an Attempt to Undo It (2014) with the author, covering Socrates, Augustine, Aquinas, Heidegger, Nietzsche, Sartre, compatibilism, the neurologists' critque of free will, and more. End song: "I Insist" by Mark Lint from Songs from the Partially Examined Life . Read about it . Get this and every episode ad-free by becoming a PEL supporter at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support ....

Jul 27, 20151 hr 41 min

Ep. 118 Aftershow (PREMIUM) on Songwriting feat. ex-Camper Chris Molla

A highlight from our musician-packed breakdown of our songwriting episode . Featuring a third (ex-) member of Camper Van Beethoven, plus Chase Fiorenza, Mike Wilson, Maxx Bartko, Danny Lobell, Mark Linsenmayer, and (not heard on this preview) Adrian Cho and Fischerspooner's Warren Fischer. We discuss authenticity, the state of the music biz, humor in music, and more.

Jul 24, 201518 min

Episode 119: Nietzsche on Tragedy and the Psychology of Art

On Friedrich Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy (1872). Nietzsche thought that you could tell how vital or decadent a civilization was by its art, and said that ancient Greek tragedy was so great because it was a perfect synthesis of something highly formal/orderly/beautiful with the intuitive/unconscious/chaotic. But then Socrates ruined everything! With guest John Castro. Includes a preview of the Aftershow feat. Greg Sadler. End song: "Some Act" by Mark Lint and the Fake from "So Whaddaya Think...

Jul 06, 20152 hr 46 min

Ep. 117 Aftershow (PREMIUM) on Antigone with Danny Lobell

Listen to or watch the Aftershow for Episode 117 on Antigone, with Danny Lobell, Wes Alwan, and a bunch of PEL listeners like you. Also, learn about our new Citizen feed: get the full Aftershow delivered right to your smartphone!

Jul 05, 201518 min

Episode 118: The Musical Life with Guests from Camper van Beethoven

Victor Krummenacher and Jonathan Segel join Mark and Wes to discuss songwriting and authenticity in the age of Internet consumerism. This episode prefigured Mark's Nakedly Examined Music podcast . Includes a preview of the Aftershow featuring more musicians including ex-Camper Chris Molla. End songs: "The Bastards Never Show Themselves" by the Monks of Doom and Mike Wilson's "RG." Get this and every episode ad-free by becoming a PEL supporter at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support ....

Jun 29, 20151 hr 55 min

Episode 117: Discussing Sophocles’s “Antigone”

Philosophically considering the ancient Greek tragedy, which we also performed with Lucy Lawless and Paul Provenza . End song: "Woe Is Me" (live, 2002) by Madison Lint . Features a preview of the Aftershow , feat. Wes and host Danny Lobell. Get this and every episode ad-free by becoming a PEL supporter at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support ....

Jun 15, 20151 hr 58 min

“Antigone” Read by PEL with Lucy Lawless and Paul Provenza

An unrehearsed, fun read-through of the Greek Tragedy from 441 BCE, plus some discussion with the cast of Greek drama, our selected translation, and other stuff. Enjoy! PEL Citizens can get an ad-free, extended version . End song: "Antigone (Choragos Speaks)" by Mark Lint. Read about it ....

Jun 08, 20151 hr 26 min

Episode 116: Freud on Dreams

On Sigmund Freud's On Dreams (1902) and other stuff. Are dreams just random, or our best key to understanding the mind? For Wes Alwan's Freud summaries, go here: https://www.philosophysummaries.com . After you listen to this, check out the Aftershow . End song: "Sleep" by Mark Lint . Read about it....

May 25, 20152 hr 25 min

Episode 113: Jesus’s Parables

Interpreting the Parables using texts from Paul Ricoeur, John Dominic Crossan, Paul Tillich, et al, with guest Law Ware.

Apr 06, 20152 hr 24 min

Episode 111: Gadamer’s Hermeneutics: How to Interpret

On Hans-Georg Gadamer's Truth and Method (1960, ch. 4), "Aesthetics and Hermeneutics" (1964), "The Universality of the Hermeneutical Problem" (1966), and "Hermeneutics as Practical Philosophy" (1972).

Mar 02, 20152 hr 22 min

Close Reading (PREMIUM) of Heidegger on Truth

Mark and Seth go line-by-line through the first half of "On the Essence of Truth" to help you understand Heidegger's language. This is a 17-min preview of a 2 hr, 37-min bonus recording . Citizens, log in and listen now.

Feb 23, 201517 min

Ep. 110 Aftershow (PREMIUM) with Stephen West

Stephen West returns: Citizens should log in and listen to the Aftershow on Whitehead featuring Dylan Casey and David Buchanan. Everyone can listen to the first chunk of the discussion now.

Feb 22, 201519 min

Close Reading (PREMIUM) of Kant on the Sublime

Mark and Wes go line-by-line through a chunk of the Critique of Judgment to help you feel confident decoding Kant and other difficult texts. This is a 13-min preview of a 72-min bonus recording . Citizens, log in and listen now ....

Feb 16, 201514 min

Ep. 109 Aftershow (PREMIUM) with Stephen West

The first chunk of our new after-the-episode discussion, featuring Stephen West from Philosophize This! and Mark Linsenmayer. This is a 20-min preview of a 72-min discussion that can be found in full on our Free Stuff for Citizens page.

Jan 31, 201520 min

Episode 108: Dangers of A.I. with Guest Nick Bostrom

On Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, and Strategies (2014) with the author. What can we predict about, and how can we control in advance, the motivations of the entity likely to result from eventual advances in machine learning? Also with guest Luke Muehlhauser.

Jan 06, 20151 hr 43 min

Episode 107: Edmund Burke on the Sublime

On A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful , where young Burke lays out our knee-jerk aesthetic reactions, including those to scary things at a safe distance. With guest Amir Zaki.

Dec 20, 20142 hr 16 min
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