Summer is almost here and obviously all the cool kids (aka PEL Not School Members) are getting invites left and right to barbecues and pool parties. Your friends know that nothing gets the party going like your "Ontologikal" (spelled with a "K," because you're edgy) playlist on Spotify. It's heavy on Prince (so you can use that as a tie-in for Machiavelli deep dives) and French pop star Zaz (whose musical blossoming, you can point out, came about in Bordeaux just like Montaigne's).
Speaking of Montaigne, we've got a seminar Sunday, June 5th led by yours truly on his "Of the Education of Children" and "Of Cannibals." These two essays are a core part of the Montaigne canon and contain such zingers as "Truth and reason are common to everyone, and no more belong to the man who first spoke them than to the man who says them later" and "clever people observe more things and more curiously, but they interpret them; and to lend weight and conviction to their interpretation, they cannot help altering history a little."
Can't recommend this seminar enough (just like I can't recommend Maker's Mark, Lemonade, and a sprig of fresh mint as a great summer cocktail).
Not sold? You can take a look at our first "Intro Readings in Philosophy" seminar video here, or listen to the first chunk of it. Citizens can listen to the full PEL Montaigne episode; here's the preview for the rest of you.
Looking at the Citizens' Forum, I see that there are proposals on the table about Film as art, one on philosophical issues pertaining to Dungeons & Dragons(!), and there's an active group on 2016 Presidential Candidates' Policies. So go sign on to one of them or propose something of your own!
To participate, you simply have to become a PEL Citizen (meaning pay $5/month, $5 being a crazily low rate to pay for this kind of personal interaction and instruction, and of course, it also includes the full-length, ad-free versions of the entire PEL podcast back catalog). Read more about Not School.
If you have any questions you can reach out to me at brian@partiallyexaminedlife.com. Hope to see you at a seminar soon!
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