I have spent some time listening to other philosophy podcasts, particularly the ones on iTunes that are listed as "Listeners also subscribed to". Some are good, some absolutely unlistenable and a few in between (I've put some links at the end of this post). I won't say which I feel fall into which categories, but I do invite our listeners to chime in with their own reviews of any other philosophy podcasts.
After listening, however, I have decided to hyperbolically extoll the virtues of PEL. Please to enjoy...
- All the participants contribute. We don't have some random dude who has no apparent connection to the material introduce the discussion and then disappear. Nor do we have 'interviewers' or 'hosts' who offer up nothing but a set up questions to guests, allowing them to solliquize.
- We are having a genuine dialogue. None of us is the acknowledged leader and we each bring both an open mind and unique perspective to the table. Our purpose isn't to lecture, educate or browbeat you from a soapbox. (OK, well maybe Wes has a soapbox...)
- We have focus. Beyond framing the discussion around an issue, we have textual grounding for the discussion. This both lessons the likelihood of random stream-of-consciousness rambling and provides an anchor for the discussion when things are in danger of going off the rails.
- We prepare. None of thinks ourselves so clever, intelligent or well read to come without reading the recommended texts. Which correlates with,
- We have respect for each other and the texts/subjects. Regardless of how much fun we make of someone's ideas (Hegel), writing style (Aristotle) or life (Nietzsche), we take them seriously as thinkers and try to respect the context and goals of their enterprise.
- Authenticity vs. Authority. We are genuinely interested in the philosophers and their ideas and struggle understanding them. We don't represent ourselves as experts or falsely claim insight or entitlement.
- Enough education, but not too much. We all have the academic background and general smarts to treat the ideas and readings respectably without insulting your intelligence or wringing the life out of them with process, theory, -isms or technical specialization.
- The Real World. We aren't just evaluating ideas based on logic, tradition or intuition. We allow our real life experiences to inform our reading and responses to the texts.
- We have a sense of humor but we aren't 'making fun'. Our goal is to entertain, inspire, enlighten and amuse with a sense of decorum and integrity. Jokes and humor are integral but not dominant elements in that quest.
- Minimal jargon and fetishism. While it is *extremely* difficult not to use technical terminology or inside jargon, particularly when one has been "schooled", we do our best to keep the discussion 'right down to earth, in a language everyone here can easily understand.' We also are not in the business of hagiography (I had to find some way to work that word in here. I love it.)
- Universal approach. We are performing for anyone interested in the ideas, philosophers or texts that we are discussing. Our topics are only limited by that - you don't have to have a certain background, education, geographical location, academic affiliation, gender, race, hair color or other trait to get engaged.
- Production and audio quality. Hey, we're not perfect, but we try to maintain a certain level of quality to our podcast, even though we are in three separate cities using Skype and different audio equipment and software. At the very least we try to clean and equalize tracks so that one person's volume isn't radically different from another. As someone who listens to podcasts at the gym or in a 9-year old car, this is really important to me.
- We edit. "Um", "yeah", "right", silences...ugh. We try and get rid of the chaff, keep the wheat and provide an engaging dialogue (I'm sure with more or less success by episode). We actually record 2 1/2 to 3 hours of stuff to get around 1 1/2 hrs of material, FYI.
- We have fans, ratings & responses. Check us out on iTunes, Facebook or the PEL web page. It isn't American Idol level mania, but people listen and care enough to communicate, review and rate us.
- Better music and logo. 'Nuff said.
To be fair, I should point out areas where we are lacking as compared to the other podcasts.
- We don't know famous people or prominent philosophers we can get for interviews or guest spots.
- We haven't been around for years to build up a body of work.
- We don't have the luxury of time or resources to attend philosophy conferences or festivals.
- We don't have the luxury of time or resources to produce episodes more frequently than we do.
- Our file sizes are large and our run time varies from episode to episode.
For your reference, here are a few links to other philosophy podcasts - again, we'd love to hear what you think!
- Three Philosophers - http://www.threephilosophers.net/ (Primarily religious, last updated in August)
- Elucidations - http://philosophy.uchicago.edu/podcasts/index.html ('Official' cast of the dept of Philosophy at U of Chicago)
- Baggini's Philosophy - http://julianbaggini.blogspot.com/ (out of UK, publishes a monthly magazine as well)
- Bad Philosophy - http://www.badphilosophy.com/blog/ (long running program by students at Texas Tech University)
- Exploring the Mind - http://exploringthemind.com/ (not really Philosophy, the moderator is somehow involved in hypnosis, but the guests are interesting)
This blog post is dedicated to Marvin Levich. --seth
This post sums up exactly why I love you guys. You’re like the goldilocks of podcasts – not too serious but not too jokey, not overcomplicated but not dumbed down, insightful but not bombastic. Juuust right.
I haven’t really listened to any of the other philosophy podcasts but I did listen to two semesters worth of course lectures from Hubert Dreyfus at Berkeley about Heidegger’s Being and Time. They are available for free online and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to read Being and Time on their own (and has a lot of extra time). Unless Seth, as the resident Heideggerian, you have something bad to say about him…
Hi – I’m pushing 50 and suddenly discovering philosophy (as part of my midlife crisis) – your podcast has been a great find – I’ve learned a lot and been inspired and amused – thanks!
Other Podcasts I would recommend…
* Philosophy Bites – http://www.philosophybites.com/ – Serious interviews with philosophers
* Little Atoms http://www.littleatoms.com/ – Ireverent but interesting interviews with philosophers, scientists, artists etc
* Philosophy: The Classics – http://www.philclassics.libsyn.com/ – Nigel Warburton (of Philosophy Bites) reading from his own book – He has a lightness of touch which make this very listenable for a beginner
I also listened to an itunes-u series on “Philosophy for Beginners” by Marianne Talbot which I found quite frustrating – she dwells on stuff which seems obvious and then skips past the things I want to question – she also seemed arrogant, dismissing audience points outright rather than discussing them – but maybe that’s because of time constraints
Thanks again – keep up the good work!
Oh, forgot to mention the BBC’s…
* In Our Time – http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/in-our-time/ – 100s of archived episodes many of which are about philosophy – not sure if you can listen outside the UK though
Thanks Alexis! I may go back and listen to Dreyfus’ lectures – it’s about time that my knowledge of Heidegger moves from reputation and history to actual fact. I do remember that Dreyfus was one of the ‘venerated’ Heidegger scholars – there was a generation of folks that took him seriously and brought him into the mainstream of American philosophy prior to the 80s, when there was an explosion of ‘continental’ type influence and those books from Blackwell and Routledge.
@Jon – thank you too. I originally was just looking at podcasts that were aligned with ours on iTunes – to give people a comment who might have listened to the same. Mark has recommended Philosophy Bites to me before and I’ll need to check it out.
There just aren’t enough hours in the day…:)
Hi, I recently discovered your podcast and have enjoyed it very much. I’m actually the grandson of Marvin Levich, and I’m curious as to what why, specifically, did you dedicate this blog post to him? Not that he doesn’t deserve it 🙂 I’m just curious as to the extent of his fame.
@Leo – Yay, thanks for stopping by! I did my undergrad at Reed College from 87-90. One of the first Humanities lectures I saw was by Marv. I think he was talking about why the curriculum was what it was and said something like, ‘I’m sure we could have a very stimulating conversation about why we don’t read other texts [this was during the big multicultural push, Apartheid-era, etc.], but we won’t, because I’m not interested in the outcome.’
It doesn’t come across in writing, but his delivery was hilarious. He smoked, speaking deliberately, waving his hand around and punctuating points with his cigarette. I remember (perhaps falsely), that there was a painting of him as a Ganesh-like figure in the student coffee shop, with eight arms all posed at different angles with cigarettes in each hand. He loved talking “Philosophy” (with a capital “P” – versus the specialization that was starting to creep into the academy at that level) and professional wrestling.
In any case, I dedicated this post to him because he embodied what I think are many of the right values guiding us. Love of Philosophy v. Academic Masturbation, a sense of humor, acknowledgement of difference but not to distraction, ability to focus on the big questions, the desire to share with others and a healthy dose of real world common sense.
@Jon – I’ve spent a fair amount of time listening to all three of the podcasts you mentioned (not In Our Time – too much to sift through). Some thoughts:
Philosophy Bites – I like the ‘star’ power they are able to bring to bear and they are superb questioners – very well read and informed. The short format doesn’t allow for exploration of issues as much as I would like, but it does permit introduction to theories or ideas which are interesting (therefore ‘bites’). However, I have listened to a number of interviews with what I would term as dinosaurs of the OxBridge culture and heard the technical philosophy (Analytic, Anglo) v deliberately obscurantist (Continental, European) refrain, which I find tired and unproductive. There are a couple of regular contributors I like such as Quentin Skinner.
Little Atoms – Up and down on this one. Good interview subjects, but the guys aren’t great interviewers all the time. I find the audio quality to be really poor (I’m still on early episodes, maybe it gets better) and there are the occasional weird outbursts of music. Two ends of the spectrum: Good – John O’Farrell, Bad – Paul Evans.
Philosophy, The Classics – agree with your assessment completely. Great audio ‘cliff notes’. I’ve listened to them all and would recommend them as a starting point for anyone wanting to get into those specific texts. My only criticism would be that he doesn’t seem to take a breath or pause as he moves from section to section so you have to be alert to catch his transitions from say, exposition to criticisms.
Hasta,
–seth