Continuing on The Vocation of Man (1799), Book II. In this preview, we clarify whether Fichte is trying to keep the notion of a "real world" beyond our experience or not. It's part of the progression of the text that while at first he assumes that there must be something real behind this experienced world we as individuals create, he gives up that notion in the middle of Book II. So how does he get to his startling reversal? To hear that full second part , you'll need to go sign up at partiallye...
Jun 14, 2021•10 min
On The Vocation of Man (1799), Books I and II. What is reality? Fichte's armchair journey starts him considering nature and thus himself as determined, but then he backtracks to say that actually, experience doesn't tell us whether we're determined or free. In Book II, he argues that since our experience is always of something going on in ourselves, then causality, the external world, the self, etc. must be our own mental creations. So we're free after all, yet everything is drained of significa...
Jun 07, 2021•51 min
Continuing (without Stephen Phillips) on God and the World’s Arrangement: Readings from Vedanta and Nyaya Philosophy of Religion . What does this treatment give us that's fundamentally different than the Western version of the design argument? We talk about these readings in the context of liberation and reflect on reason vs. revelation in this milieu. To hear that full second part , you'll need to go sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support ....
May 31, 2021•11 min
On God and the World's Arrangement: Readings from Vedanta and Nyaya Philosophy of Religion with one of its translators, Stephen Phillips . Does nature require an intelligent designer? Śaṅkara (710 CE) and Vācaspati Miśra (960 CE), commenting on the Brahma-sūtra (ca. 200 CE) and Nyāya-sūtra (ca. 200 BCE), argue that it does against atheistic Buddhists, Sāṃkhya believers in a primordial matter that acts on its own, and the Mīmāṃsā conservatives who so venerated scripture that they ruled out a God ...
May 24, 2021•59 min
Continuing on two of Hannah Arendt's 1953 essays on totalitarianism. We further discuss its logic and in the full episode get into its relevance for contemporary political movements. To hear that full second part , you'll need to go sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support . Sponsor : See headspace.com/PEL for a free month's access to a library of guided meditations. Try The Class X Podcast on Spotify or Apple , or look it up wherever you listen....
May 17, 2021•11 min
On "On the Nature of Totalitarianism" and On the Origins of Totalitarianism ch. 13 (both from 1953). Is totalitarianism just an especially virulent form of tyranny, or something unique to the modern age? Arendt says that unlike other forms of government, totalitarianism is not animated by an active psychological principle that motivates its participants. Instead terror is designed to make citizens incapable of agency altogether. Part two of this episode is only going to be available to you if yo...
May 10, 2021•47 min
Continuing on Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business with guest Brian Hirt. Is the written word really so much more suited for providing context than television? To hear the full second part , you'll need to go sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support ....
May 03, 2021•13 min
On Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985) with guest Brian Hirt. How does the form in which we receive media affect how we think? Education theorist Postman (building on Marshall McLuhan) claimed that television has eroded our capacity to reason and given us the expectation that everything in the world must entertain. Is this a viable piece of social construction theory? How does the critique apply to the Internet age? Part two of this episode is only goi...
Apr 26, 2021•45 min
Continuing on Avicenna's arguments for the existence of God and on the soul's immateriality. What metaphysical and epistemological picture grounds these views? To hear the full second part , you'll need to go sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support .
Apr 19, 2021•9 min
On selections and commentary about Avicenna's argument from around 1020 C.E. for the existence of God as a necessary being, plus arguments to prove that God has the person-like properties that Islam imputes to him, and his "flying man" argument for the soul's essential independence from matter. Featuring Mark, Dylan, and our guest Peter Adamson from the History of Philosophy podcast . Part two of this episode is only going to be available to you if you sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/suppor...
Apr 12, 2021•56 min
Continuing on Lear's Open Minded: Working Out the Logic of the Soul (1988). Our highlight is about the relation between the three parts of the soul: which (if any) is basic? To hear the full second part , you'll need to go sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support .
Apr 05, 2021•11 min
On essays from Lear's Open Minded: Working Out the Logic of the Soul (1988): "Inside and Outside the Republic," "Eros and Unknowing: The Psychoanalytic Significance of Plato’s Symposium," and "An Interpretation of Transference," which compares Socrates' questioning with psychotherapy. Is Plato's analogy between mind and state in The Republic a good one? What can we learn from it about what makes for a stable, healthy character? How does eros (desire) fit into this picture? Lear gives a creative,...
Mar 29, 2021•51 min
Continuing on the Phaedo , we start with a point from Plato's physics that's supposed to hep prove the immortality of the soul, then lay out his theory of Forms. To hear the full second part , you'll need to go sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support .
Mar 22, 2021•11 min
On Plato's middle dialogue depicting the death of Socrates (390 BCE) depicting the death of Socrates. Should philosophers fear death? In the course of giving arguments for the immortality of the soul, we get an elaboration of the recollection theory of knowledge (from the Meno ) into Plato's first full account of Forms. But how literally are we supposed to take the words of Socrates as he comforts himself facing mortality? Part two of this episode is only going to be available to you if you sign...
Mar 15, 2021•42 min
Continuing on the Timaeus , we consider some quotes and details starting at the beginning of the dialogue where Plato argues for differences between the perceived, created, impermanent world and its perfect model. To hear this second part , you'll need to go sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support ....
Mar 08, 2021•10 min
On the later Platonic dialogue from around 360 BCE. How is nature put together? Plato speaks through the fictional Timaeus (not Socrates) to give a "likely story" about the universe, physics, and biology involving a Craftsman (Demi-Urge) who created everything based on a pre-existing perfect model (the Forms!). Timaeus derives his whole story from the principle that the world is good, and so the Craftsman must necessarily optimize creation, with any imperfections being introduced only by the nec...
Mar 01, 2021•42 min
Continuing on Warspeak: Nietzsche's Victory Over Nihilism with guests Jeff Black and Michael Grenke. To hear this second part , you'll need to go sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support .
Feb 22, 2021•13 min
On Warspeak: Nietzsche's Victory Over Nihilism (2020) with Dylan, Seth, and guests Michael Grenke and Jeff Black. What's a viable counter-ideal to the asceticism that Nietzsche thought is so pervasive? Lise's book works out strategies for re-valuing that emphasize Nietzsche's positive comments about the feminine and the power of words. Part two of this episode is only going to be available to you if you sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support . Get it now or listen to a preview . Sponsors: ...
Feb 15, 2021•41 min
More on essay three of Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals on the meaning of ascetic ideals. How does asceticism fit into N's overall morality, and how does he use it to critique scientists? To hear this second part , you'll need to go sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support ....
Feb 08, 2021•12 min
On Friedrich Nietzsche's The Genealogy of Morals (1887), "Third essay: what do ascetic ideals mean?" Self-regulation, where we tamp down certain aspects of our personality, is necessary for disciplined action, but it can clearly go too far. Nietzsche uses this concept of asceticism to analyze both geniuses and the masses. It is a chief tool of the will to power, highly dangerous to human flourishing but also unleashing many new capabilities beyond our animal nature. Does this picture of motivati...
Feb 01, 2021•46 min
More on Parfit's Reasons and Persons (1984), ch. 10-13. In this preview, we consider how Parfit deals with Bernard Williams' materialist thought experiment to show that the whole concept of personal identity doesn't make sense. Also, split brains! To hear this second part , you'll need to go sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support ....
Jan 25, 2021•12 min
On Reasons and Persons (1984), ch. 10-13. What makes a person persist over time? After using various sci-fi examples to test the Lockean (personhood=psychological continuity), physicalist (same brain=same person), and Cartesian (same soul=same person) theories, Parfit concludes that the whole notion is incoherent and isn't actually what we care about when wondering "will I die?" Part two of this episode is only going to be available to you if you sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support . Ge...
Jan 18, 2021•51 min
One last take on John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), covering Book II, ch. 21 and 28. What makes a moral claim true? Do we have free will? What makes us choose the good, or not? In this coda to our long treatment of Locke's opus, we bring together all he has to say about morality, which is strangely modern yet also just strange. This is but a preview, less than a third of what you'll get in the full discussion by signing up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support ....
Jan 11, 2021•20 min
More on Book II (ch. 22-33) of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding . On relations, then personal identity, with more on substances (spiritual and material), the various ways in which ideas can go wrong, and how mental association can entrench irrationality that disrupts clear thinking. Listen to part one first, or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition , which will also get you the end-of-year PEL Nightcap that you'll hear a preview for here. Please support PEL!...
Jan 04, 2021•1 hr 5 min
On Book II (ch. 22-33) of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689). Simple ideas get complex quickly when you put them into words, and can give rise to various philosophical problems that are either easily cleared up when you figure out how the complex idea is built out of simple ideas, or if they can't be so broken down, then we really don't know what we're talking about and should just shut up. Don't wait for part two, get the ad-free Citizen Edition now. Please support PEL!...
Dec 28, 2020•42 min
Join the office party, where Mark holds mini conversations on philosophy, art, and life with all PEL and PMP co-hosts, plus Ken Stringfellow , Jenny Hansen , and the members of Mark Lint's Dry Folk , whose 12 tunes are presented in succession with nary a partridge in sight. Will these 12 spirits turn you (or Mark) from errant ways? BYOB!...
Dec 24, 2020•2 hr 6 min
Continuing on Book II (through ch. 20) of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689). How do we acquire our ideas of pain and pleasure, duration and motion? We talk primary (shape, size) and secondary (color, sound) qualities, the former of which are supposed to be actually in objects, and the latter just in our mind. Plus, is Locke really an atomist about experience? Start with part one or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition . Sponsors : Organize your Inbox: Save $25 sanebox...
Dec 15, 2020•56 min
On the first half of Book II of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689). How do we get our ideas? Simple ideas must come in through perception, but this doesn't just mean the senses; also reflection on our own minds, and this added layer of complexity allows us to bring in memory, concepts, time, and more. Don't wait for part two; get the full, ad-free Citizen Edition now. Please support PEL!...
Dec 07, 2020•41 min
Continuing on Book I of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689). We consider Locke's arguments that since there are no universally agreed upon principles, therefore there are no beliefs that we're all born with, or that we all (without the need for experience) immediately recognize as true as soon as we gain the use of reason or are otherwise equipped to understand them. Start with part one . Hear the whole discussion with no ads and get access to our latest Nightcap : Join us a...
Nov 30, 2020•49 min
On Book I of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689). How do we know things? Locke thought all knowledge comes from experience, and this might seem uncontroversial, but what are the alternatives? We consider the idea that there are some ideas we're just born with and don't need to learn. But what's an "idea," and how is it different from a principle? Clearly we have instincts ("knowhow") but is that knowledge? We consider occurrent vs. dispositional nativism, the role of reason,...
Nov 23, 2020•49 min
