• Log In

The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

A Philosophy Podcast and Philosophy Blog

Subscribe on Android Spotify
  • Home
  • Podcast
    • All PEL Episodes
    • Most Recent Episodes
    • Categorized by Topic
    • Nakedly Examined Music
    • Phi Fic Podcast
    • Combat & Classics
    • Upcoming Episodes
  • Blog
  • About
    • PEL FAQ
    • Meet PEL
    • Nakedly Examined Music
    • Meet Phi Fic
    • Listener Feedback
    • Links
  • Store
    • Cart
    • Checkout
  • Members
    • Membership Options
    • PEL Not School Introduction
    • Log In
  • Support PEL
    • Patreon
  • Write for Us
  • Contact
Phi Fic LogoPhi Fic means Philosophical Fiction. Each episode, we have a candid dicussion on a heady work of of fiction, full of SPOILERS. Join host Nathan Hanks and readers Cezary Baraniecki, Daniel St. Pierre, Laura Davis, and Mary Claire, plus the occasional guest.

Subscribe on iTunes. Refer your friends to us at PhiFicPodcast.com!

Originating from The Partially Examined Life’s Not School and its Philosophical Fiction group. Sign up for a small recurring donation for access to many more discussions!

Phi Fic #21 “Foe” by J.M. Coetzee

March 27, 2018 by Nathan Hanks Leave a Comment

Phi Fic #21 “Foe” by J.M. Coetzee

Join us as we delve into Coetzee’s rich, complex exploration of story and authorship in this novel that presents an origin story of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. Coetzee writes about Susan Barton, a castaway at sea who discovers an island inhabited by two men, Robinson Crusoe and Friday. Once rescued, she seeks the renowned author Daniel Defoe to help tell her story, but struggles to communicate her experiences.
Hear more Phi Fic discussions at PhiFicPodcast.com.

Phi Fic #5 “Pale Fire” by Vladimir Nabokov

September 1, 2016 by Nathan Hanks 6 Comments

Phi Fic #5 “Pale Fire” by Vladimir Nabokov

So, you think Lolita was Nabokov’s best? We humbly submit a solid contender. Structured as a 999-line poem followed by an extensive afterword and index, Pale Fire has been described by the critic Harold Bloom as “the surest demonstration of [Nabokov’s] genius…”

Check out more episodes and be sure to subscribe at phificpodcast.com.

Philosophical Fiction Reading: Woolf’s To The Lighthouse

March 7, 2015 by Nathan Hanks Leave a Comment

Philosophical Fiction Reading: Woolf’s <i>To The Lighthouse</i>

We are going to read To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf for our conversation this March in Philosophical Fiction. A few regulars and I chose a book from our List of Suggestions to read before our conversation where we’ll go over the plot, discuss the characters, recall apt passages, and try to get at what everything is all about anyway. To The Lighthouse will be my first Virginia Woolf Continue Reading …

Reading Fiction in February, ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’ by Flannery O’Connor

February 24, 2015 by Nathan Hanks 1 Comment

Reading Fiction in February, ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’ by Flannery O’Connor

Our Philosophical Fiction story for February is ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’ by Flannery O’Connor, where a grandmother and her family go on vacation yet encounter an outlaw known as The Misfit.

The Not School Discussion of The Body Artist by Don DeLillo

March 31, 2013 by Nathan Hanks 1 Comment

PEL’s Not School Fiction Group read Don DeLillo’s novel The Body Artist, and Paul Harris and I recorded our discussion of the unique relationship between Lauren and Mr. Tuttle, the ghostly being that arrives after her husband’s suicide. You can get it on the Citizen Free Stuff page. [Spoiler]’Mr. Tuttle’, as Lauren decides to call him, has a haunted look, he Continue Reading …

Dyson on Philosophy

October 23, 2012 by Dylan Casey 3 Comments

Dyson on Philosophy

Freeman Dyson has a review of Jim Holt’s Why Does the World Exist? in the early November issue of The New York Review of Books. Dyson is an esteemed physicist who, as a young man, cinched the link between accounts of quantum electrodynamics given separately by Richard Feynman, Julian Schwinger, and Sin-Itiro Tomonanga in the late 1940s. He probably should’ve Continue Reading …

Better Philosophy through Science Fiction?

October 13, 2012 by Dylan Casey 3 Comments

Better Philosophy through Science Fiction?

For your weekend podcast-listening pleasure, a friend of the podcast pointed me to the most recent episode of the Rationally Speaking podcast in which the hosts take up science fiction and chew on what kinds of philosophical insight might garnered from such speculative fiction. (Beware those who, like Seth, abhor the thought experiment!) In the words of the podcasters themselves: Continue Reading …

Literature and Philosophy: Antagonists or Partners?

September 28, 2012 by Chris Mullen 16 Comments

Can literature be philosophical? Can philosophy be considered literature? What are the roles of literature and philosophy in relation to “truth?” Why should philosophers be interested in literature? While trying to come up with something to post in relation to the recent PEL discussion on Cormac McCarthy’s “No Country for Old Men” I came across an interesting discussion over at Continue Reading …

Sailing Philosophy

August 12, 2012 by Dylan Casey 2 Comments

Every August for the past ten years my family and I have spent a couple of weeks on a smallish lake in northwest Michigan. I say small, but it’s about 1800 acres, plenty big for most purposes, if tiny compared to the big water of Lake Michigan just five miles away. Most every afternoon the breeze picks up and I Continue Reading …

Wisdom Studies

July 16, 2012 by Dylan Casey 10 Comments

 It is oft said (at least when exercising etymology muscles) that philosophy is “love of wisdom.” Just like other mind-related topics such as emotion and creativity, wisdom is getting the scientific treatment. One of our listeners pointed us to a book by Stephen S. Hall titled Wisdom: From Philosophy to Neuroscience which surveys a variety of answers to the question of Continue Reading …

Brian Leiter’s New Philosophical Categories

December 24, 2011 by Daniel Horne 7 Comments

A really good interview with Nietzsche scholar and opinionator Brian Leiter appears in 3:AM Magazine, where he drops pithy quotes on Obama, Nietzsche, Marx, and Foucault. But he also appears to have a new argument to sell. Leiter advocates a new way to divide the philosophical canon, not into “contintentals” or “analytics,” but rather into “naturalists” and “anti-naturalists”. You can also Continue Reading …

Georg Cantor and Ever Larger Infinities

May 26, 2011 by Daniel Horne 12 Comments

Watch on youtube. A big name-drop during the middle of the Russell episode was the sad story of Georg Cantor and his insanity-inducing continuum hypothesis. Anyone unaware of Cantor and his contributions might want to look at this clip from the Dangerous Knowledge BBC documentary. I thought it provided a good visual explanation of higher levels of infinity. But perhaps Continue Reading …

Montaigne, Mirror Neurons, and Men with Guns

March 7, 2011 by Daniel Horne Leave a Comment

Montaigne, Mirror Neurons, and Men with Guns

Here’s an excerpt from a good series on Montaigne the Guardian UK ran last year, written by Sarah Bakewell, who just published a well received book on Montaigne: To take just one example of how we can derive wisdom from Montaigne: his Essays give us a wealth of anecdotes exploring ways of resolving violent confrontations. As a teenager in Bordeaux, Montaigne had Continue Reading …

Tripe, the full PDF

December 6, 2010 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

Just right click this here link to and choose “save target as” or whatever your browser’s version of that is to get the full book: Tripe, the full and naked PDF. (The commentary starts here. Its ending is forever indistinct.) -Mark Linsenmayer

Tripe, the full PDF

December 6, 2010 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

Just right click this here link to and choose “save target as” or whatever your browser’s version of that is to get the full book: Tripe, the full and naked PDF. (The commentary starts here. Its ending is forever indistinct.) -Mark Linsenmayer

Episode 5: Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics

July 16, 2009 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

Episode 5: Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics

Discussing Books 1 and 2 of the Nicomachean Ethics.

What is virtue, and how can I eat it? Do not enjoy this episode too much, or too little, but just the right amount. Apparently, if you haven’t already have been brought up with the right habits, you may as well give up. Plus, is Michael Jackson the Aristotelian ideal?

End song: A newly recorded cover of Billie Jean by Mark Lint and the TransAmerikanishers.

Episode 5: Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics

July 16, 2009 by Mark Linsenmayer 26 Comments

Episode 5: Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics

Discussing Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Books I and II.

Episode 4: Camus and the Absurd

June 22, 2009 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

Episode 4: Camus and the Absurd

Discussing Camus’s “An Absurd Reasoning” and “The Myth of Sisyphus” (1942).

Does our eventual death mean that life has no meaning and we might as well end it all?  Camus starts to address this question, then gets distracted and talks about a bunch of phenomenologists until he dies unreconciled.  Also, let’s all push a rock up a hill and like it, okay?  Plus, the fellas dwell on genius and throw down re. the Beatles, the beloved Robert C. Solomon and Malcom Gladwell’s Outliers.

End song: “My Friends” by Mark Lint and the Simulacra (2000).

Episode 4: Camus and the Absurd

June 22, 2009 by Mark Linsenmayer 46 Comments

Episode 4: Camus and the Absurd

Discussing Camus’s “An Absurd Reasoning” and “The Myth of Sisyphus” (1942).

Episode 0: Introduction to the Podcast

May 11, 2009 by Mark Linsenmayer 18 Comments

Episode 0: Introduction to the Podcast

What are we trying to do here? Why should you bother to listen to us?

Buy the 2018 PEL Calendar
Become a PEL Citizen

Recent Comments

  • Robin Morris on “Lysistrata” w/ Lucy Lawless, Emily Perkins, Erica Spyres, Bill Youmans & Aaron David Gleason
  • Ryley Alger-Hempstead on Episode 186: J.L. Austin on Doing Things with Words (Part Two)
  • Ryley Alger-Hempstead on Episode 186: J.L. Austin on Doing Things with Words (Citizen Edition)
  • Angela McLoughlin on Episode 187: The Limits of Free Speech (Part Two)
  • Marc on Episode 178: Nietzsche as Social Critic: “Twilight of the Idols” (Part One)

About The Partially Examined Life

The Partially Examined Life is a philosophy 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 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

Become a PEL Citizen!

As a PEL Citizen, you’ll have access to a private social community of philosophers, thinkers, and other partial examiners where you can join or initiate discussion groups dedicated to particular readings, participate in lively forums, arrange online meet-ups for impromptu seminars, and more. PEL Citizens also have free access to podcast transcripts, guided readings, episode guides, PEL music, and other citizen-exclusive material. Click here to join.

Blog Post Categories

  • Aftershow
  • Audiobook
  • Citizen Content
  • Citizen Document
  • Citizen News
  • Close Reading
  • Combat and Classics
  • Featured Article
  • General Announcements
  • Letter to the Editor
  • Misc. Philosophical Musings
  • Nakedly Examined Music Podcast
  • Nakedly Self-Examined Music
  • NEM Bonus
  • New Books in Philosophy
  • Not School Recording
  • Not School Report
  • Other (i.e. Lesser) Podcasts
  • PEL Music
  • PEL's Notes
  • Personal Philosophies
  • Phi Fic Podcast
  • Podcast Episode (Citizen)
  • Podcast Episodes
  • Reviewage
  • Song Self-Exam
  • Things to Watch
  • Vintage Episode (Citizen)
  • Web Detritus

Follow:

Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | iTunes

Copyright © 2009 - 2018 · The Partially Examined Life, LLC. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy · Terms of Use · Copyright Policy