We are rejoined by Drew Pinsky to discuss philosophical and psychological readings by Seneca, Arthur Schopenhauer, Sigmund Freud, Emile Durkheim, Albert Camus, plus two 2017 survey papers on predictors of suicide. Is suicide ever morally permissible? If it's a symptom of mental illness rather than a chosen behavior, is it even appropriate to morally evaluate it? Check the PEL Store for new offerings including Mark's new album, tutoring, and your very own Personal Philosophy. Visit DrDrew.com . H...
Dec 17, 2018•44 min
More on this classic text by (perhaps) Vyasa, with guest Shaan Amin. Should we acquire good karma or behave "beyond good and evil"? How can everything be Krishna while Krishna is also the an element of virtue we're supposed to pursue? How does this compare with Stoicism? Plus, behold Krishna unveiled and be freaked out! Listen to part one first or get the full, unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition . Please support PEL . End song: "Om Hari Om 1" by Tim Jordan Kirtan feat. Michael Manring. Hear Micha...
Dec 10, 2018•57 min
On the classic Hindu text (ca. the 3rd century B.C.E.), part of the Indian Epic poem Mahabharata , attributed to Vyasa, using Keya Maitra's 2018 translation/commentary. What is it to live wisely? What grounds duty? Listen as the supreme God Krishna convinces archer hero Arjuna that it's OK for him to kill his relatives because, you know, reincarnation and determinism and caste-related duties. Lots of metaphysical complications! With guest Shaan Amin. Please support PEL....
Dec 03, 2018•54 min
Concluding on Julia Kristeva's Powers of Horror (1980) and focusing on H.P. Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu" (1928). Does Lovecraft's presentation of nameless terror capture (or improve upon) what Kristeva means by "abjection"? End song: "The Other" by Mark Lint feat. Lucy Lawless from Mark's Lint's Dry Folk . Listen to part one first, or go back to ep. 202 first. Become a PEL Citizen to get the full, ad-free experience. Please support PEL!...
Nov 26, 2018•1 hr 6 min
More on Julia Kristeva's Powers of Horror (1980) plus H.P. Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu" (1928). What is the object of fear? Mark, Seth, and Dylan get clearer on Kristeva's view of the establishment and loss of the integrity of the self, what the "object" of abjection is, and what this all might have to do with feminism. Most of the Lovecraft goodness is in part 2 . Please support PEL to get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition , along with Mark's Kristeva Close Reading . Sponsor : Visit th...
Nov 19, 2018•54 min
Mark takes a very close look at pages 1–4 of the first chapter of On Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (1980) as a supplement to episode 202 . Get the full, 55-minute experience as a PEL Citizen , or get it by supporting us on Patreon for a mere $1!...
Nov 18, 2018•17 min
Continuing on Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection , ch. 1 and 2. We try to get clearer on Kristeva's talk of "object," the relationship between language and abjection, how Kristeva is advancing on Freud, how to be a mom that allows a kid to separate in a healthy way, and how abjection plays into religion and writing. Listen to part one first, or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition , and don't miss Mark's Close Reading , available to Citizens and $1+ Patreon members . End song: "Eyes of...
Nov 12, 2018•1 hr 18 min
On Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (1980), ch. 1 and 2. Kristeva writes about "abjection," where we violently reject things like corpses, bodily wastes and other fluids, and the Lovecraftian unnameable that lurks at the edge of our awareness. Her book is also all about the self, suggesting modifications to Freud's Oedipal complex and Lacan's mirror-stage story. With guest Kelley Citrin. Continue on part 2 , or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition , as well as Mark's Close Reading , ...
Nov 05, 2018•47 min
Mark and Seth get further into the specifics of Marcus's metaphysics and how this is supposed to relate to behavior. Can his directives really come solely "from reason" as he claims? How does this interact with the behaviors that we pursue "by nature," i.e., without conscious deliberation required? Seth is concerned with how individualistic the philosophy is. Mark is concerned that if you discard the metaphysics (as modern skeptics largely do), why should you expect the rest of the philosophy to...
Nov 05, 2018•14 min
More on The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (ca. 180 CE) plus Ryan's The Daily Stoic (2016). We talk Stoicism as "pre-mourning," love of fate, the divine plan, political ethics, ethical models, and overwriting your brain with the Stoic operating system. Hear part 1 first, or get the full, unbroken Citizen Edition , as well as the follow-up discussion . Please support PEL! End song: "Any Way the Wind Blows" by MIR; listen to Mark talk with Asif Illyas on Nakedly Examined Music #33 ....
Oct 29, 2018•1 hr
On The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (ca. 180 C.E.) plus Ryan's The Daily Stoic (2016). What does Stoicism look like in practice, in both ancient and modern contexts? You might think that eschewing the shallow, out-of-our-control trappings of fame and wealth in favor of personal cultivation would make one unambitious, but Ryan uses Marcus as a prime example of how to be a Stoic while trying to accomplish great things. Continue on part 2 , or get the full, ad-free Citizen Edition now along with ...
Oct 22, 2018•57 min
Continuing on "What Is Enlightenment" by Immanuel Kant (1784), "On Enlightening the Mind" by Moses Mendelssohn (1784), and "What Is Enlightenment" by Michael Foucault (1984). We finish up Kant (the courage to know!) and lay out the Mendelssohn (cultivation vs. enlightenment) and Foucault (ironically heroize the present!). Will this conversation enlighten you? Who knows? Listen to part one first or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition . Please support PEL! End song: "Holy Fool" by Love and R...
Oct 15, 2018•1 hr 6 min
On "What Is Enlightenment" by Immanuel Kant (1784), "On Enlightening the Mind" by Moses Mendelssohn (1784), and "What Is Enlightenment" by Michael Foucault (1984). At the end of the historical period known as The Enlightenment, a Berlin newspaper asked what exactly that is, and Kant and Mendelssohn responded. Both were concerned with whether too much enlightenment among the public can cause social unrest, and so whether there should be freedom of speech and opinion. Foucault thinks that we're no...
Oct 08, 2018•45 min
Wes Alwan is joined by Tracy Morgan and Louis Scuderi to discuss Freud's classic 1917 essay . Note : Part two will NOT be appearing on this feed. Become a PEL Citizen to get the full discussion . Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to learn how. Listen to more (sub)Text ....
Oct 08, 2018•36 min
Mark, Wes, Seth, and Dylan continue to discuss “What Is the Point of Equality?” (1999) and how it lays foundations for Private Government (2017). What is democratic equality, and can a Rawlsian/liberal/neutral-with-regard-to-defining-the-good state consistently advocate for this ideal? Our interview starts in Part One . You can get all three parts together , and more with a PEL Citizenship or $5 Patreon pledge . Please support PEL! End song: "Straight Job" by Rod Picott. Hear him on Nakedly Exam...
Oct 01, 2018•1 hr 5 min
Continuing on Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (2017) and “What Is the Point of Equality?” (1999). Should the amount of respect that a worker gets be proportional to his or her market value? Our guest tells us more about how all citizens have the right to have their interests considered and what this means for how the relationship between employers and employees might change. We talk health care, income inequality, Tyler Cowen, libertarianism, and more. Start with part one . We'l...
Sep 24, 2018•1 hr 1 min
The U. of Michigan prof joins us to discuss Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don't Talk about It) (2017) and “What Is the Point of Equality?” (1999). What is a government? Liz argues that this includes companies, and that we should thus apply political science concepts in evaluating their power. Her egalitarianism involves everyone retaining a minimum level of inalienable autonomy, and we should resist encroachments on this not just by the state but from employers as ...
Sep 17, 2018•53 min
Mark and Seth continue our conversation from ep. 198 by going through the arguments in the second half of the dialogue. This puzzling section is largely a monologue by the character Parmenides, with the stated aim of showing the implications from first, the assumption that the One exists, and then that the One does not exist. But is this really Parmenides’s One or the Platonic Form of Oneness? Can these be the same thing?
Sep 13, 2018•12 min
We get down to the specific questions considered this perplexing Platonic dialogue: Are there forms for all adjectives? Does the form of a property itself have that property? How do Forms connect with particulars? How can we mortals have any connection to heavenly Forms anyway? Listen to part one first or get the full, ad-free Citizen Edition along with the follow-up episode . Please support PEL! End song: "Young and Lovely" by Jherek Bischoff. Hear him on Nakedly Examined Music #65....
Sep 10, 2018•1 hr 10 min
On the most peculiar Platonic dialogue, from ca. 350 BCE. Are properties real things in the world, or just in the mind? Plato is known for claiming that these "Forms" are real, though otherworldly. Here, though, using Parmenides as a character talking to a young Socrates, Plato seems to provide objections here to his own theory. What's the deal? Please support PEL!
Sep 03, 2018•46 min
Wes discusses the film by Steven Spielberg with philosophy professor David Kyle Johnson. What is there to fear in artificial intelligence? How does this shed light on what it means to be fully human? Note : Part two will NOT be appearing on this feed. Become a PEL Citizen to get the full discussion . Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to learn how....
Sep 02, 2018•34 min
Continuing with guest Peter Adamson with "On Nature" (475 BCE). We finally get to fragment 8, which describes why Being must be singular and eternal, given that the notion of Non-Being is nonsense. But how could we as individuals be asking these questions then? Does his "Way of Seeming" work to explain the appearances, as opposed to reality? Listen to part one first, or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition . Please support PEL! End song: "Circle" by Gareth Mitchell, as discussed on Nakedly ...
Aug 27, 2018•51 min
On the fragments referred to as "On Nature" from ca. 475 BCE, featuring guest Peter Adamson from the History of Philosophy without Any Gaps podcast . Parmenides gives "the Way of Truth," which is that there is only Being, and talking of Non-Being is nonsense. So everything you experience is wrong! Continue on part two or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition . Please support PEL!...
Aug 20, 2018•55 min
Continuing with Simon on his book On Truth (2018). We move to part two of the book, where we get down to the procedures used to obtain truth in art, ethics, and science. Yes, truth is objective, but it's not best described as correspondence, and in fact this elaboration of how truth is actually obtained is more enlightening than any abstract definition meant to cover all the different types of truth-seeking. Listen to part one first, or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition , and also Wes's ...
Aug 13, 2018•1 hr 3 min
The Cambridge/etc. prof joins Mark, Wes, and Dylan to discuss his book On Truth (2018). What is truth? Simon's view synthesizes deflationism and pragmatism to avoid relativism by fixing on the domain-specific procedures we actually engage in to establish the truth of a claim, whether in ethics, science, art, or whatever. A gift of clarity after two episodes threshing through the jungles of analytic philosophy! Please support PEL!...
Aug 06, 2018•49 min
Continuing on "Truth" by J.L. Austin and "Truth" by P.F. Strawson both from 1950. We proceed to the Strawson article, which critiques the notion of a "fact" as explaining why a sentence might be true. A "fact" is not a thing in the world! So what do we add when we change "The cat is on the mat" to "'The cat is on the mat' is true?" Listen to Part One first, or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition . Please support PEL! End song: "Troof" by Shawn Phillips, as interviewed for Nakedly Examined ...
Jul 30, 2018•1 hr
On two articles in the "ordinary language" tradition of philosophy called "Truth" from 1950 by J.L. Austin and P.F. Strawson. Is truth a property of particular speech acts, or of the propositions expressed through speech acts? Does truth mean correspondence with the facts, or does the word "fact" make this definition totally uninformative? Does saying "is true" add any information content to a sentence over and above just stating that sentence? Please support PEL!...
Jul 23, 2018•59 min
Continuing on Tarski's “The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics" (1944), Hartry Field's “Tarski's Theory of Truth” (1972), and Donald Davidson's “The Folly of Trying to Define Truth” (1977). What was Tarski really doing? What are the implications of his project? Does it even make sense to define "truth," and what should a definition look like? Listen to part one first, or get the ad-free Citizen Edition . Look out for the Citizen-only bonus discussion of Shakespeare's T...
Jul 16, 2018•1 hr 10 min
On Tarski's “The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics" (1944), Hartry Field's “Tarski's Theory of Truth” (1972), and Donald Davidson's “The Folly of Trying to Define Truth” (1977). What is truth? Tarski gives a technical, metaphysically neutral definition for truth within a particular, well-defined language. So how does that apply to real languages? He thought he was defining truth (a semantic concept) in terms of more primitive (physical?) concepts, but Field and Davids...
Jul 09, 2018•55 min
Hear highlights from two supporter-only discussions: Allan Bloom on Nietzsche/Freud/etc. and Leo Strauss vs. Richard Rorty on liberal education and democracy .
Jul 07, 2018•17 min
