Episode 0: Introduction to the Podcast

0:07 Mark: You're listening to the Partially Examined Life Special, Episode 0, where we explain what we're doing here and why you should bother to listen to one of the full length episodes. My name is Mark Linsenmayer. I'm speaking to you from Madison, Wisconsin.

0:22 Seth: This is Seth Paskin from Austin, Texas.

0:24 Wes: This is Wes Alwan in Boston, Massachusetts.

0:27 Seth: So you might be asking yourself, with a name like Partially Examined Life, what is this podcast all about? This is a podcast about philosophy, philosophers and philosophical texts. In each episode we focus on a short reading or text that introduces at least one big philosophical question, concern or idea, and we talk about it.

0:47 Mark: We do not assume any prior philosophical knowledge. Not that you've taken a course, not that you've read the text that we're talking about, although we do post links to online versions of all the text on our website, partiallyexaminedlife.com the idea is

1:01 Seth: that if you are so motivated to go and do the reading beforehand, then you'll be able to reference the text and the issue we're talking about. If you don't, theoretically we're going to try to keep the conversation jargon free enough and gratuitous name drop free enough so that you can follow and at least make salient points without having to reference those sorts of things so that at least it's a general discussion that can be followed. I imagine that we are more or less successful at that on any given week. Oftentimes it's very difficult to avoid, particularly if the texts themselves are referring to other philosophers. It's kind of hard to avoid at least mentioning them or discussing them.

1:41 Mark: Yeah, but we'll try to give an explanation of the individual point that we're bringing up we're referencing, somebody will explain the relevant point about that author. And over time, if you listen to a bunch of these episodes, since we keep name dropping the same people like Immanuel Kant again and again, even if you've never read any Kant, you'll eventually get a clue what we're talking about.

2:00 Wes: The podcast is meant to be educational, but not boring. Think about going out after school for drinks with friends to discuss what you've just been sleeping through in your class earlier in the day.

2:12 Seth: Yes, this is the discussion in the dorm room, not the lecture hall.

2:17 Mark: And in fact, back during the Clinton years, we were all graduate students together at the University of Texas in philosophy. So in other words, somebody admitted us to this school. We were deemed smart enough or capable enough to be in their presence and we had these three hour lectures, these three hour Seminars. And those were not nearly as fun as going out for beer with everybody afterward. And that's kind of what we're doing, reliving those good old days.

2:41 Seth: Yes. However, at no point in time did we actually live together.

2:45 Mark: Wes and I actually did. Roommates.

2:48 Wes: Yep.

2:49 Mark: For a little time.

2:51 Wes: Long time ago. Yes.

2:53 Mark: And then all dropped out at some point or career redirected or however you want to describe it before getting the actual PhD and making philosophy. Wes was kicked out for drugs.

3:08 Unknown speaker: No, no, no.

3:10 Mark: All good and honest. Not even flunking out. There was no flunking.

3:13 Unknown speaker: Right.

3:13 Seth: We all got our master's degree.

3:15 Unknown speaker: Right.

3:15 Mark: So even though we were set at to doing this for a living, we all at some point thought, nah. And we have since had real jobs. I say in quotes, something outside of the world of philosophy which gives us a certain objectivity about the craziness that is this self referential edifice that is academia. So why should you bother to listen to this? As opposed to actual professors spouting off things that they've prepared and lectured to thousands of people on a daily basis? We are in a position to reflect on the idiosyncrasies of the profession that we are no longer a part of. Just exactly how strange what a lot of academic philosophy is. Some of the things that philosophers talk about are just weird and are of no interest to anyone who's not a professional philosopher. Would you not agree?

4:04 Seth: I would agree, yes.

4:06 Wes: I would not disagree.

4:08 Mark: So we try to give the common man's perspective because we're so just come and manage. Especially Wes,

4:16 Wes: for professionals, you know, there's the pressure to be professional and there's the reluctance to improvise the way you would in a podcast like this, to have anything less than precise or less than scholarly. And I think that can kind of take the excitement out of some of it. And I think the dialogue. That's another difference. There's a difference between a lecture and then people talking things over and disagreeing sometimes and cracking jokes that may not

4:40 Mark: come off getting sidetracked. So we will have no problem talking about things from popular culture.

4:47 Seth: So you might be asking yourself, since these episodes are numbered and this is technically episode zero, do I have to listen to these episodes in order? The answer to that question is no. They are intended to be atomic, or at least individual enough that you could listen to them without having listened to any of the others. However, as you might expect, we make reference in later episodes to things that are said in earlier episodes and so forth. And of course, the text that we refer to in the earlier episodes might be referenced in the later episodes.

5:17 Mark: However, we also are prescient enough to refer to things in future episodes in current episodes, often referring to them in the past tense.

5:24 Wes: If it sounds like name dropping, it's just prescience.

5:28 Mark: Yes, exactly. Given that we are human beings and are building upon our philosophical discursive relationship with each other and our spiritual journey as we rediscover the wonders of philosophy, it probably wouldn't hurt. If you're going to listen to them all anyway, just start at the beginning.

5:44 Wes: They're all good.

5:46 Mark: That's right. These are very long episodes, you may have noticed, but they're not nearly as long as a philosophical conversation you would actually have with somebody late night drinking beer. So think about that, and I'm sure some of you have long commutes. You should get some damn exercise. You can listen to this while you exercise if you must. Just sitting at your computer for a full hour and a half. I hope that you are at least neglecting some work that you should be doing and not just using this as your free time, but really what a who might be.

6:15 Wes: And also drinking. If that's going to help you get through the whole hour and a half,

6:18 Seth: I should like to point out that they are long enough. They are neither too short nor too long.

6:24 Mark: That's right. And we even do edit out some of the more inane things that are said.

6:28 Seth: Yes, so we do have a website, www.preiallyexaminedlife.com and you can listen to the episodes directly through that website. You can also download them as MP3 files from that website, or you can subscribe to the Partially Examined Life podcast on itunes and download them to your Apple approved device.

6:51 Mark: We have a couple places where you can give us some feedback or discuss some of the issues we've been talking about. One of them is on Facebook. We've got a link from our Partially Examined Life page to a special Facebook page that you can join up, make yourself publicly associated with us and discuss some things or give us some ideas for future topics.

7:09 Unknown speaker: Another place is partiallyexaminedlife.com itself where you can comment on any of the many blog posts that we post on a nearly daily basis to provide you supplementary information. It's what we cover on the podcast. We do welcome guest writers for that if you're interested. Also, the website has a members area if you become a pel citizen for a low monthly fee, you get access to member only discussion groups called Not School as well as access to bonus audio such as current commercial free episodes, some episodes that have been pulled from the public feed, not school discussion group audio and additional bonus audio created purely for that member group.

So you can log into our website with your paid membership and download any of that or get it sent straight to you on your mobile device via our password protected feed. We've also got a Twitter group, a LinkedIn group, a YouTube page. There are many, many ways to interact with us.

7:57 Wes: If you'd like to know more about who we are, what we're doing today, you can visit partiallyexaminedlife.com and go to the About Us section. And there are bios for each of us.

8:08 Seth: So I guess that's pretty much it.

8:10 Mark: Yeah, go listen to some episodes. Thanks.

8:14 Seth: So we welcome you and thank you for joining us on this journey.

8:20 Wes: Woo hoo.

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10:24 Wes: few.