Here you’ll find all our paywalled and ad-free regular episodes in a single feed. That includes paywalled full episodes from the back catalogue, Nightcap and (Starting in September 2020) Part 2 of all episodes. You can add this feed to the podcast app of your choice by following the instructions here….
PEL Sunami Nightcap August 2026
Recorded 8/18/26. Chris Sunami, the editor of the PEL book, joins Mark, Wes and Seth as part of the launch of his new book, Free Your Mind, which is a series of PEL-like conversations all coming out of Chris' brain, using the model of Plato's symposium to talk about race, AI, art, religion, and more. Chris then starts us talking about what we all might want to communicate to Continue Reading …
Ep. 398: Donald Davidson on Mind vs. Body (Part Two for Supporters)
We finish up "Mental Events" (1970) and move on to "Actions, Reasons, and Causes" (1963), still with guest Chris Heath. Start with part one. Davidson gives us some more technical ways to think about the difference between the mental sphere and the physical. The failure of behaviorism to give us robust laws about the mental should be a lesson that mental explanation does not Continue Reading …
Ep. 398: Donald Davidson on Mind vs. Body (Part One for Supporters)
On "Mental Events" (1970) and "Actions, Reasons, and Causes" (1963), featuring Mark, Wes, and returning guest Chris Heath. Davidson was roughly in the "ordinary language" camp of analytic philosophy, but (like Kripke) thought that he could draw certain metaphysical conclusions from his analyses of what we mean when we talk about "mental events" and "reasons for Continue Reading …
Ep. 397: Federalist Papers LIVE (Citizen Edition)
To celebrate our nation's 250th birthday, we gathered in front of a lovely audience near Madison WI to discuss Federalist Papers 70, 78, 39, 54, 10 by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison from 1787-1788, Anti-Federalist Papers 78-80 (aka Brutus 11 and 15), and Frederick Douglass' Fourth of July Speech (1852). Is the American experiment working out as planned? After musing Continue Reading …
Ep. 396: Peirce on Knowledge (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one on "Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man" and "Some Consequences of Four Incapacities." We start by looking more closely at the idea that all mental causation is a form of reasoning, i.e. inference. Peirce sees these as valid deductive (or inductive or abductive) arguments even if they are not sound, i.e. if the premises are false. Continue Reading …
Ep. 396: Peirce on Knowledge (Part One for Supporters)
On essays by Charles Sanders Peirce: "Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man" and "Some Consequences of Four Incapacities," both from 1868. Featuring Mark, Wes, Seth and Dylan. Are there some instances of knowledge that are immediate and intuitive? These would be cognitions that are not caused by another cognition, but caused directly by the things that they Continue Reading …
Ep. 395: C.S. Lewis Argues for Christianity (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one on Mere Christianity (1952), starting with book 2, "What Christians Believe." Lewis argues that the problem of evil, far from showing that there is no good God, shows that we are endowed with that moral sense that judges the world to be evil, which was Lewis' proof for God. Many of Lewis' arguments are still common among Christian apologists today. Continue Reading …
Ep. 395: C.S. Lewis Argues for Christianity (Part One for Supporters)
On Mere Christianity, a 1952 book crafted from radio broadcasts delivered from 1941-1944. Featuring Mark, Wes, Dylan and Seth. Lewis tries to argue to a general audience that Christianity provides a unique and optimal response to the human condition. Specifically, he begins by arguing (like Kant) that we are all aware that we have moral standards that are not derived from Continue Reading …
PEL Summer of Fear Nightcap 2026
Recorded 6/9/26. Mark, Wes, and Dylan sign relief in being done with Hegel and talk phobias, metaphors vs. emotions, apperception of the ego, James Talarico (i.e. liberal Christianity), Survivor (Wes appears on the PMP episode, coming next week!), and situational/business ethics. The Donald Melzer book Wes mentions is The Claustrum. Here's a discussion Mark read about John Continue Reading …
Ep. 394: Hegel on Faith vs. The Enlightenment (Part Two for Supporters)
We conclude our treatment for the moment of the Spirit section of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (sec. 527-73). This directly continues part one, though we began on this tear back with ep. 386 in late Feb., so that's a five-month stretch on basically the same book, either reading it or reading other works discussing it and/or preparing us to understand it. The error that Continue Reading …
Ep. 394: Hegel on Faith vs. The Enlightenment (Part One for Supporters)
On Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), sec. 527-73, i.e. "Faith and Pure Insight" and "The Struggle of Enlightenment with Superstition." Featuring Mark, Wes, Seth and Dylan. We just read Hegel's earlier essay "Faith and Knowledge" to give us a clearer idea of the conclusion of this section of the Phenomenology: Faith, in this scientific age (i.e. our age as well has his Continue Reading …
Ep. 393: Kant vs. Hegel (Part Two for Supporters)
Concluding our treatment of Ch. 2 of Hegel's Faith and Knowledge (1802). Having spent part one discussing Kant, now we're back to more knowledgably deal with Hegel's critique of him. Hegel wants to connect Kant's idea in the Critique of Judgment of the "intuitive, archetypal intellect" that produces the objects given to its immediate consciousness, to the activity of the Continue Reading …
Ep. 393: Kant vs. Hegel (Part One for Supporters)
Continuing on Ch. 2 of Hegel's Faith and Knowledge (1802) about Kant, and throwing in some of the material being critiqued from Kant's Critique of Judgment (1790), chiefly sec. 76 and 77. Featuring Mark, Wes, Seth and Dylan. As discussed in our last episode, Hegel objected to Kant's doctrine that knowledge of theology is impossible. That's one of the main results of Kant's Continue Reading …
Ep. 392: Early Hegel Elevates Reason (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one on Faith and Knowledge (1802), Ch. 1 and 2. We start off by discussing how beauty might give us a window into things-in-themselves according to the Romantics, who were in part following Kant's lead. Also, what version of the ontological argument for the existence of God does Hegel believe, since he criticizes Kant for wrongly dismissing the Continue Reading …
Ep. 392: Early Hegel Elevates Reason (Part One for Supporters)
On Faith and Knowledge (1802), Ch. 1 and 2. Famously, Kant critiqued Reason to effectively forbid theology and metaphysics, and a young G.W.F. Hegel was not happy about that. In this self-published essay written five years before the Phenomenology of Spirit, he argues against the impoverishment of Reason to mere intellect (i.e. the Kantian Understanding), restricted to realm of Continue Reading …
Ep. 391: Habermas Defends Modernity (Part Three for Supporters)
Concluding our treatment of Habermas’ The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, lectures 1, 2, and 5, now without our guest. Start with part one. We review the overall critique that various figures have about modernity, try to figure out where Kant fits in with this (Habermas was a neo-Kantian, yet points to Hegel's critique of Kant as prefiguring Habermas' own constructive Continue Reading …
Ep. 391: Habermas Defends Modernity (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one on The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, Ch. 1, 2, and 5 with guest John Ganz. We get further into the text itself, examining Habermas' characterizations of Hegel's characterizations of modernity and how Hegel's thought evolved. Habermas points at Hegel's early enthusiasm for the Greek polis and early Christian communities as anticipating his own Continue Reading …
Ep. 391: Habermas Defends Modernity (Part One for Supporters)
On Jürgen Habermas’ The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity (1985), lectures 1, 2, and 5. Guest historian/pundit John Ganz joins Mark, Wes, Seth and Dylan to discuss Habermas' characterization of modernity, which is approximately what Hegel was criticizing as The Enlightenment. Habermas then uses Hegel (in lecture two) as an example of how to productively Enlightenment Continue Reading …
Ep. 390: Diderot Debates a Cynic (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one on Rameau's Nephew, getting further into Rameau's philosophy and practices and trying to figure out what this anti-hero can tell us about ethics, given that he displays the virtue of being candid about his own vices. Rameau bemoans the fact that he's not a greater villain: he is fascinated and apparently admiring of the greatness of certain Continue Reading …
Ep. 390: Diderot Debates a Cynic (Part One for Supporters)
On Denis Diderot's Rameau's Nephew, a dialogue written in the 1760s, published posthumously in 1805. Featuring Mark, Wes, and Dylan. Diderot was a key figure in the Enlightenment, and this dialogue was discovered right when philosophers like Hegel were criticizing the Enlightenment, pointing out that even though dispelling superstitious religion and the piety that went with Continue Reading …