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Episode 212: Sartre on Literature (Part Two)

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Continuing on What is Literature? (1948).

Sartre gives a phenomenology of reading and writing that makes reading into a creative act of completing the writer’s work, and calls this cooperation ethical: the work is an appeal to the reader’s freedom, and also the reader’s responsibility to then know what the work reveals. Are you shirking, all you skimmers?

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End song: “Things I Shouldn’t Have Told You” by Sam Phillips, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #90.

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Episode 212: Sartre on Literature (Part One)

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On Jean-Paul Sartre’s What is Literature? (1948), ch. 1 and 2.

What’s the purpose of literature? Why write prose as opposed to poetry? Sartre argues that while poetry is about the words themselves, prose is about the ideas, so it’s necessarily political. A written work is essentially an ethical appeal for a reader to apply his or her own faculties and experiences to complete the work through the act of reading.

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Episode 211: Sartre on Racism and Authenticity (Part Three)

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Moving finally on to Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Black Orpheus” (1948), where he introduces a book of black poetry by praising its revolutionary spirit as embodied in “negritude.” Is this a legitimate consciousness-raising exercise or a weird fetishization of blackness?

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End song: “Punch Bag” by Godley & Creme as discussed on Nakedly Examined Music #3.

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Episode 211: Sartre on Racism and Authenticity (Part Two)

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Continuing on Jean-Paul Sartre’s Anti-Semite and Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate (1946).

Is there an “authentic” way to respond to persecution? As part of his critique of anti-semitism, Sartre criticized the responses of some Jews to this situation, e.g. denying that the persecution exists, pretending to not be Jewish, or in any way accepting the terms of anti-semitism and setting up one’s life in reaction to it. Sartre instead recommends solidarity and “concrete liberalism,” which we try to figure out.

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Episode 211: Sartre on Racism and Authenticity (Part One)

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On Jean-Paul Sartre’s Anti-Semite and Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate (1946) and “Black Orpheus” (1948).

How can we best understand the psychology of racism? Sartre condemns anti-Semitism as denying the facts of the human condition: the responsibility for fixing problems and not blaming them on a demonized other. But he also criticizes “the democrat” for a humanism that pretends we’re in a post-racial world, calling instead for “concrete liberalism” that treats Jews not as abstract individuals but as real people in an an oppressed situation.

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PREVIEW-Episode 47: Sartre on Consciousness and the Self

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Discussing Jean-Paul Sartre’s The Transcendence of the Ego (written in 1934). What is consciousness, and does it necessarily involve an “I” who is conscious of things? Sartre says no: typical experience is consciousness of some object and doesn’t involve the experience of myself as someone having this consciousness. It’s only when we reflect on our own conscious experiences that we posit this “I.” The ego is our own creation, or more precisely a social creation. This means that far from being some primordial structure of all experience, this transparent thing inside us that we have more immediate knowledge of than anything else, the ego is an object: it has parts we don’t see, and we can be wrong when we make judgments about it. Other people might even know us better than we know ourselves.

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Episode 217: Discussing Calderón’s “Life Is a Dream”

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On the 1636 comedy by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, considering destiny (Christian vs. Ancient Greek), skepticism, meta-theater, and the ethic of honor. Listen to our performance first. With guests Bill Youmans and Erica Spyres.

End song: “Pulling Apart” by Jonathan Segel. Hear him on Nakedly Examined Music #38.

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Episode 210: Frantz Fanon’s Black Existentialism (Part One)

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On Black Skin White Masks (1952).

How does growing up in a racist society mess people up? Fanon’s “clinical study” includes phenomenology, poetry, and a lot of existentialism, which means that the “let’s embrace negritude in the face of bigotry” solution isn’t ultimately available to him: We’re all radically free, with no race-specific essence, whether positive or negative. With guest Lawrence Ware.

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Episode 179: William James’s Introspective Psychology (Part One)

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On The Principles of Psychology (1890) chapters 1 & 7, and Psychology, the Briefer Course (1892), the chapters on “The Stream of Thought,” “Habit,” and some of “The Self.”

Can we talk about the mind in a way that is both scientific and also does justice to our everyday experiences? James thought his method, which involved both introspection and physiology, yielded more accurate descriptions of the mind than associationism (the mind is made up of ideas) or spiritualism (the mind is a faculty of the soul). Consciousness is a stream, not a concatenation of ideas!

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Episode 172: Mind, Self, and Affect with Guest Dr. Drew (Part One)

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Radio legend Dr. Drew Pinsky talks with us about “Attachment and Reflective Function: Their Role in Self-organization” by Peter Fonagy and two articles by Allan Schore.

The focus is “theory of mind”; how do we develop the ability to impute thoughts and intentions to others? What in our upbringing can interfere with this development? We relate this back to previous episodes (Hegel, Buber, etc.) on recognition by others of the self.

Visit DrDrew.com. He has interviewed Wes and Mark.

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Episode 172: Mind, Self, and Affect with Guest Dr. Drew (Citizen Edition)

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Radio legend Dr. Drew Pinsky talks with us about “Attachment and reflective function: their role in self-organization” by Peter Fonagy and two articles by Allan Schore.

The focus is “theory of mind”; how do we develop the ability to impute thoughts and intentions to others? What in our upbringing can interfere with this development? We relate this back to previous episodes (Hegel, Buber, etc.) on recognition by others of the self.

Listen to more Dr. Drew at DrDrew.com, especially his interviews with Wes and Mark.

End song: “Anything but Love” by Steve Hackett, as featured on Nakedly Examined Music #45.

Episode 169: Analyzing Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” (Part One)

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On the 1958 film and articles including Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (1975) and Robin Wood’s “Vertigo” (1965). What is love? Are we really just loving a built image while remaining isolated? And is it just an illusionary social construct that keeps us all from feeling fundamental vertigo? Lacan, existentialism, and more!

Part 2 is for supporters only! It won’t be on the public feed, so get the full discussion now at patreon.com/partiallyexaminedlife or through a PEL Citizenship.

Episode 160: Orwell on Totalitarianism and Language (Part Two)

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Continuing with 1984. How does the book relate to real-world politics? Is this something that we should actually be afraid our society will turn into? Was he predicting history, or was it satire, or what? We discuss the the realms of intimacy vs. surveillance, how a state might “contain” a mind that it controls, and “doublethink.”

Episode 140: Beauvoir on the Ambiguous Human Condition

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On The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947), parts I and II. We return to existentialism! Instead of describing our predicament as “absurd,” de Beauvoir prefers “ambiguous”: We are a biological organism in the world, yet we’re also free consciousness transcending the given situation. Truly coming to terms with this freedom means not only understanding that you transcend any label, but also recognizing that your freedom requires the freedom of others. The full foursome discuss whether this attempt to ground an existentialist ethics works.

End song: “Reasonably Lonely,” by Mark Lint.

Ep. 47: Sartre on Consciousness and the Self

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Episode for Purchase: Discussing Jean-Paul Sartre’s The Transcendence of the Ego (written in 1934). What is consciousness, and does it necessarily involve an “I” who is conscious of things? Sartre says no: typical experience is consciousness of some object and doesn’t involve the experience of myself as someone having this consciousness. It’s only when we reflect on our own conscious experiences that we posit this “I.” The ego is our own creation, or more precisely a social creation. This means that far from being some primordial structure of all experience, this transparent thing inside us that we have more immediate knowledge of than anything else, the ego is an object: it has parts we don’t see, and we can be wrong when we make judgments about it. Other people might even know us better than we know ourselves.

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Not School: Sartre’s “Nausea”

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Recorded 1/26/14 by Mark Linsenmayer with Stanley Martin, Sean Webb, and Yannick Kilberger as a follow-up to PEL ep. 87. The novel Nausea gives perhaps a more vivid picture than his straight-up philosophy writings of what existentialism feels like. The narrator feels the raw existence of his surroundings: “existence which unceasingly renewed itself and which was never born” (p. 132). Continue Reading …

Topic for #87: Sartre on Human Nature and Freedom

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Listen to Mark’s summary of the two main readings, then Listen to the PEL Players act out the play “No Exit.” At long last, we’re returning to existentialism after an initial foray into it with Camus. We’ve previously covered Sartre talking about phenomenology and the self, and also Kierkegaard talking about the self and values, so those are related, as Continue Reading …

Will PEL Ever Do an Ayn Rand Episode?

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We get this question often enough that I thought a general announcement that I could refer back to in the future might be in order. What’s said here is my take and shouldn’t be taken to speak for Wes, Seth, or Dylan. I recognize the cultural influence of Ayn Rand and that it would be a public service to have Continue Reading …

Stokely Carmichael’s Sartrean Influences

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One of the names dropped during the Race and Philosophy episode was that of Stokely Carmichael. Below is a famous recording of one Carmichael’s “Black Power” speeches, given after Carmichael was appointed Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC: Watch on YouTube.

Some additional thoughts on Sartre

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When we were recording the episode, we were all aware that we got hung up on unreflected consciousness and how consciousness of consciousness was not reflected consciousness or self-consciousness.  As a result, I thought we gave short shrift to the latter half of the essay.  If that sounds convoluted, listen to the episode.  There’s nothing wrong with the way the Continue Reading …

Get a Jump on Sartre with a Close Reading of Being & Nothingness

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Our Sartre episode will still take a couple of weeks probably to edit and post, but you needn’t wait for that brain-crushing Sartre experience. To supplement the episode, I’ve recorded a new kind of podcast file: half an hour of guided reading through the opening pages of Being and Nothingness. This also marks the first for-sale audio product made specifically Continue Reading …

Topic for #47: Sartre on the Self

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Jean-Paul Sartre is best known for his 1960’s existentialism and Marxist activism, but before he was a big celebrity, he was a phenomenologist who spent a lot of time grappling with Heidegger (his book Being and Nothingnessis an homage in part to Heidegger’s Being and Time, but more importantly (to this topic) with Edmund Husserl. Part of Husserl’s analysis of Continue Reading …

PEL Episodes by Topic

Updated 8/13/18 Given how many episodes we’ve done, even we lose track of where we’ve been. We aim (among other things) to present the equivalent of an introductory course in all the major areas of philosophy, and in some areas get you to an intermediate level. Here’s where I’ll periodically comment on our progress. Feel free to weigh in on Continue Reading …

Ep. 234: Beauvoir on Romance in “The Second Sex” (Part One)

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On Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949): “The Woman in Love” and “Myths” with guest Jennifer Hansen. What is love under patriarchy? We all want to achieve solidity in another’s eyes, but the Othered woman wants to live through the man, and the man sees the woman as his rejected corporeal character. Party time!

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“Lysistrata” w/ Lucy Lawless, Emily Perkins, Erica Spyres, Bill Youmans & Aaron David Gleason

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The PEL Players return to perform a “cold read” of Aristophanes’s play about using a sex strike to end war, first performed in 411 BCE. Jeffrey Henderson’s translation makes this very accessible, and it’s still really damn funny. Your hosts are joined by five real actors from TV, film, and Broadway. We will be following this up in ep. 188 with a full discussion of the play and the issues it raises.

We’re pleased to bring you this performance without commercial interruptions. Why not respond in loving kind by tipping some pennies into the hat?

What Do Existentialists Think about Love?

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Given the existentialist emphasis on concrete personal experience, freedom, authenticity, responsibility, awareness of death, and personal determination of values, it is not surprising that existentialist philosophers should also consider the question of romantic love.

Truth and Authenticity in Michael Haneke’s Caché

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The films of Austrian director Michael Haneke seem to start out “normally” and then slowly descend into an abyss—but what if that abyss is in fact living authentically? Could we see Haneke’s award-winning Caché (2005) as an exemplification of Sartrean existentialism? And what are some other philosophical influences in his work?

Emerson on the Over-Soul

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A walk through Emerson’s essay “The Over-Soul.” We learn a lot about how the Divine is supposed to affect us if we’re in the proper mood, but get no information about what it actually is.

A Wealth of Not School Offerings in June

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Summer has arrived, and in case you can’t decide whether to take Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason or Franz Kafka’s The Trial to the beach with you, let me help: take them both and be prepared for Not School in June.  Thinking of taking summer classes?  Think better of it.  That’s expensive, and for a measly $5 a month you can Continue Reading …

Topic for #93: Free Will and Moral Responsibility (Strawson Father vs. Son)

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Listen now to Tamler Sommers’s summary of the two Strawson articles. On 4/6, Mark, Wes, and Seth were joined by Tamler Sommers of the Very Bad Wizards podcast to discuss the following articles: 1. P.F. Strawson’s “Freedom and Resentment” (1960) 2. Galen Strawson’s “The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility” (1994) 3. Gary Watson’s “Responsibility and the Limits of Evil: Variations on Continue Reading …

Topic for #92 (and a Not School Group): Henri Bergson

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Listen to Matt Teichman’s introduction to the reading. Listen to the episode. Henri Bergson is an early 20th century French philosopher that PEL listeners may recall from our philosophy of humor episode, and we’ll be tackling his philosophy proper via the entrance drug “An Introduction to Metaphysics,” a short essay from 1903 (freely available online) that is essentially pheonomenology without Continue Reading …

Not School Group Proposal: Zizek!

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For March I’m proposing a Not School reading group on Zizek. The group will read a 25-page transcript of a talk he gave at the International Journal of Zizek Studies 2012 conference. It is, I think, a very nice summary of some of his key philosophical positions and where his current theoretical interests lie. The added advantage of this reading Continue Reading …

Topic for #90: Science Fiction and Philosophy with Guest David Brin

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Listen to Mark’s Precognition framing our discussion now. We talked on the evening of Tuesday 2/25 with David Brin, one of our most philosophical science fiction authors, whose most recent novel Existence (2012) certainly has a philosophical sounding name. But no, it’s not about ontology, about Being, or about existentialism, but about our continued existence as a species on the Continue Reading …

Is Jesus Asking Too Much?

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  “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you”  Matthew 5:43-44 Boy, if there was ever a case of ‘easier said Continue Reading …

Bad Faith and Death OR How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the “They”

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But what are we then if we have the constant obligation to make ourselves what we are, if our mode of being is having the obligation to be what we are? (386) Sartre builds an obnoxiously robust case against humanity for its pervasive “bad faith,” a delicious doublethink meal that our minds keep feasting on (one which we must forget we consume, Continue Reading …

The BBC’s Adaption of No Exit – review

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About half way through the BBC’s 1962 production of No Exit, I started rewriting it in my head. The reason? I got tired of watching the same four white-washed walls, the same three benches, and the same half-dozen paintings which make up the film’s only set. Yes, I know, it’s based on a play, but I wanted something more cinematic. Continue Reading …

Partially Naked Self-Examination Music Blog: Authentic and Roots Music

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Listen to “Minnesota Freak” on the Mark Lint and the Fake album, So Whaddaya Think? which you can download in its entirety for free. Also listen to “No Exit.” Today’s musing comes thanks to my visit back to Austin–my first since 2000 when I left grad school and moved to Madison–for Seth’s wedding (Sorry, Seth-lovers! He’s taken now!), which coincidentally Continue Reading …

The Subject: A Brief History

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[A post from Michael Burgess.  This reiterates some of the first half of our Popper episode.] The Cartesian subject, the “I” of the “I think”, sits apart from the world, receiving it. Descartes’ 17th Century inheritors, the British Empiricists took “the world” to be little more than a series of sense perceptions, perhaps perceptions of something – but we would never Continue Reading …

Not School Groups for May

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We’ve come again to a new month, which means it’s time to figure out what you want to read next, and the best way to read is with company, so go join Not School (read about it!) to have some people to read with. There are a few proposals on the table, for instance one on Just War Theory, which Continue Reading …

Topic for #74: Lacan on the Self/Subject

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Listen to the episode. What is that thing I call “I?” While most of your grade-A philosophers of the past hundred years or so agree that it’s not a Cartesian Cogito, i.e. an immortal soul characterized by continuous consciousness, the alternatives are many and varied. With Hegel, we got the idea that the self is built, and this through our Continue Reading …

Rick Roderick and The Self Under Siege

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A complaint I often hear from people averse to the subject of philosophy is that, as interesting as it can often be,  it’s really sort of irrelevant to our daily lives.  In such conversations Rick Roderick is always the guy who comes to my mind.  It’s a criticism he himself made of certain philosophers from time to time, but not Continue Reading …

Not School Proposals for January

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Merleau-Ponty! Buber! Lacan! Physics! Aesthetics! The Residents! Derrida! Deleuze! Searle! Pynchon! DeLillo! The holidays have definitely made it more difficult for me at least to be on top of my Not School activities, but nonetheless the new month is immanent, and I thought I should convey to those not currently monitoring the Citizens’ Forum what new groups look to be Continue Reading …

Listening Unto Death

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Following my thread of “if something feels weird, let’s call it some kind of existentialism,” I’ve been listening a lot to Badfinger lately. See who I’m talking about on YouTube. Of course there’s something a little disconcerting about the passage of time itself, and the fact that, if you’re listening to anything from a few decades back, some of the Continue Reading …

The Existential Weirdness of Fandom

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In one of Woody Allen’s films (Annie Hall?), one of the characters remarks that existentialism is a matter of projecting one’s neuroses onto the world. Instead of me being depressed, I am in an ontological state of despair. Instead of being a person who is considering what to do with my evening, it is the world that is pulsing with Continue Reading …

A Belated Rant Against Literature as Philosophy (Featuring Murakami’s “IQ84”)

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There’s a long history of philosophers bashing poets, back to Socrates bashing rhetoriticians (poetry being a species of rhetoric, to him) for pursuing felicity of expression over an actual search for the truth. Though in the McCarthy episode, we were very upbeat about the utility of literature for conveying philosophical ideas, today I’m in a grumpy mood about it and Continue Reading …

Dallas Willard on Nietzsche and Jesus

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Here’s another Nietzsche lecture, from Stanford’s Veritas forum, which you can listen to as a podcast (iTunes link) or watch a video: Watch it on Vimeo. Dallas Willard is an unapologetic Christian, and pursues a post-modern tack similar to the one I cited in my review of the Philosophy for Theologians podcast: Modern philosophy tried to ground knowledge on non-revelatory, Continue Reading …

David Burrell on Nietzsche and “Trust”

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Stony Brook University’s Templeton Research Lectures series features several lectures from early 2007 by David Burrell, an Emeritus Professor in philosophy and theology from Notre Dame University, as well as a Catholic Priest. His specialty appears to be Medieval Studies, focusing on the ties between the various Abrahamic religions, and the lectures on Maimonides and al-Ghazali are excellent. What may Continue Reading …

MacIntyre Speaks on Academic Moral Philosophy

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In this 2009 lecture (posted in four parts), MacIntyre describes the progress of his thinking on moral philosophy. Watch on YouTube. He started as a Thomist, i.e. a Catholic Aristotelian, briefly embraced verificationism (well, he admired Ayer, in any case), and was frustrated with the number of seemingly permanent disagreements within both philosophy and politics/culture generally. He describes Sartre as Continue Reading …

Gregory Sadler on Emotivism

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Last post showed a piece of theological propaganda that distorted what emotivism is. This introductory ethics lecture by Gregory Sadler of Marist College uses a more academically respectable approach, to make essentially the same point, which is that emotivism and relativsm are essentially the same thing as subjectivism, which amounts to giving up on ethics altogether. Watch on YouTube. Sadler’s Continue Reading …

Behold our Web Redesign

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As you may have noticed, we’ve got a nifty new web redesign here that we’ve just deployed. Behold our new features: -New art from Genevieve Arnold (thanks!), a fan/volunteer who took Ken Gerber’s original PEL guy icon and 3-man-caricature to create our new header, a cool philosophy vending machine picture, and a recolored caricature with Dylan in it. Yes, the Continue Reading …

Naturalized Phenomenology?

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Here’s a conference-lecture by Dan Zahavi (of the “Center for Subjectivity Research” at the University of Copenhagen/Danish National Research Foundation) that asks whether it’s a good idea to try to “naturalize” phenomenology. Watch on YouTube. He distinguishes early on what Flanagan means by phenomenology (referring to Owen by name), i.e. reports on what things seem like to us, and what Continue Reading …

Derrida’s “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences” Dissection, Part I

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Yesterday I started trying to record a “Close Reading” on the Derrida essay we read for the podcast, and I just couldn’t get more than a few sentences into it before losing patience, so I thought I’d either as a substitution for that effort or possibly a warm-up do a few posts dissecting the essay here. I want this to Continue Reading …

David Ray Griffin on Whitehead on Concsiousness

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By crankular demand, I’m putting aside by irritation at hearing the name “Whitehead” to read this article on Whitehead’s theory of consciousness–Consciousness as a Subjective Form: Whitehead’s Nonreductionist Naturalism by David Ray Griffin–and see if it helps fill in the gaps in Pirsig’s account of experience. Griffin’s CV describes him as a “Professor of Philosophy of Religion and Theology, Emeritus, Continue Reading …

Thomas Sheehan (on Entitled Opinions) on Phenomenology

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If you’re still confused about what phenomenology is, what Husserl was about, and how he relates to Heidegger, this October 2011 episode of the Entitled Opinions podcast may help clear things up. Interviewer Robert Harrison starts the discussion expressing the excitement of applied, humanistic phenomenology, i.e. as it was used by existentialists like Sartre. Sheehan says that while there’s not Continue Reading …

Corey Anton on the Phenomenology of the Senses

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There’s a guy on youtube named Corey Anton, who is a Professor of Communication Studies at Grand Valley State University.  He’s posted a ton of videos on a broad range of subjects, many philosophical.  He’s one of those that comes up when you search on the usual suspect terms and I’ve had occasion to watch him from time to time.  Continue Reading …

Brian Leiter’s New Philosophical Categories

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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 …

Three Types of “Reduction” in Phenomenology

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John Townsend (who does video blogs about Merleau-Ponty) reminded me (here) that there’s more than one kind of “reduction” in phenomenology. Since pretty much none of these were covered in our Husserl episode as far as I recall, I thought this was worth my time to do some quick Wikipedia research and report back. The phenomenological reduction, or epoché, is Continue Reading …

Memory, Body, and Truth

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Both the Sartre and the Merleau-Ponty episodes have me thinking about memory, body, and truth lately. Our memories are indispensable for forming our identities and are the causal path for experience itself and its effect on our identities. So, there’s a piece to this that we can get to by thinking about memory (and the act of remembering) itself and Continue Reading …

Quassim Cassam (via Elucidations) on Skepticism

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I’ve been listening of late to more Elucidations (which we’ve written about before), which features Matt Teichman from our Frege episode. Their episode 23, “Quassim Cassam discusses transcendental arguments,” serves as a nice point of re-engagement with epistemology in light of our touching on that in our Sartre episode (and moreso in my Close Reading). Sartre, following Heidegger and possibly Continue Reading …

Paul Tillich on Religious Existentialism

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A name commonly thrown around when discussion liberal Christianity is Paul Tillich, famed for a Christian version of something like Heidegger’s philosophy of religion. Here’s a very long and slow-to-get-going (not to mention very dark on my screen) interview with him: Watch on youtube. In this first clip (around 5 minutes in), he describes how tragedy shaped his philosophy (interestingly, Continue Reading …

Capturing Schleiermacher’s Romantic Mood

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Watch in YouTube Can modern film depict Schleiermacher’s nature-obsessed 18th century Romantic mood? Probably not, but let’s go. I thought I better understood Husserlian phenomenology after reading Sartre’s Nausea, which even in translation has some gripping prose. The clip above, from Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu (1979) exudes both the German Romantic aesthetic, and a phenomenological approach of sorts. Bonus points if you catch the Continue Reading …

David Eagleman and Daniel Dennett on Free Will and Neuroscience

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Wes’s recent post on David Eagleman led to my listening to the Philosophy Bites episode interviewing him. Eagleman’s point here is that the criminal justice system assumes a model of free will that is unsustainable given what we know about neurology, and he gives examples like a normal guy with no apparent deviant impulses suddenly starts exhibiting child molester behavior. Continue Reading …

Topic for #31: Husserl’s Phenomenology

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So this whole “is the external world really there?” question is pretty tiresome: it’s the bane of intro philosophy students and the thing that turns off many of these students from ever taking another philosophy class, yet it’s still pretty much the central concern of epistemology for much of its history. Edmund Husserl asks if we can’t just set that Continue Reading …

Topic for #30: Schopenhauer’s Twist on Kant’s Epistemology

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Schopenhauer is widely known for being influenced by Buddhism’s claim that life is suffering and for in turn influencing Nietzsche, but his major influence is Kant. On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, was originally written (in 1813) as S’s dissertation but was later expanded and clarified for proper publication (in 1847). He considered this his core Continue Reading …

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