Search Results for: episode sartre

Episode 212: Sartre on Literature (Part Two)

April 8, 2019 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

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?

Start with part one, or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition.

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)

April 1, 2019 by Mark Linsenmayer 3 Comments

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.

Continue on part 2, or get your ad-free, unbroken Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!

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

March 25, 2019 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

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?

Listen to parts one and two first, or get the ad-free, unbroken Citizen Edition, which will also get you access to (sub)Text#5 on Checkhov’s Uncle Vanya. Please support PEL!

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)

March 18, 2019 by Mark Linsenmayer 3 Comments

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.

Listen to part one first. Don’t wait for the last part; get the full, ad-free Citizen Edition now. Please support PEL! Join us for PEL Live on 4/6!

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

March 11, 2019 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 Comments

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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Episode 87: Sartre on Freedom and Self-Deception

January 1, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 11 Comments

On Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Existentialism is a Humanism” (1946), “Bad Faith” (pt. 1, ch. 2 of Being & Nothingness, 1943), and his play No Exit (1944).

PREVIEW-Episode 47: Sartre on Consciousness and the Self

November 30, 2011 by Mark Linsenmayer 36 Comments

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”

June 3, 2019 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

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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A Glimpse into Philosophy: Pilot Episodes of a Short-Form Podcast for Your Consideration

April 24, 2019 by Mark Linsenmayer 27 Comments

Three short episodes (on Sartre, Nietzsche, and Machiavelli) by Mark Linsenmayer of a new potential podcast for the PEL network. We’d like your feedback, and even more importantly, the feedback of your friends for whom the long-form PEL discussions are or would be just TOO MUCH.

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

February 25, 2019 by Mark Linsenmayer 8 Comments

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.

Don’t wait for part two; get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition now. Please support PEL! Don’t miss PEL Live in NYC on April 6.

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

December 18, 2017 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

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)

September 18, 2017 by Mark Linsenmayer 8 Comments

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.

Don’t wait for part 2, get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition now. Please support PEL!

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

September 17, 2017 by Mark Linsenmayer 6 Comments

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.

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)

July 31, 2017 by Mark Linsenmayer 7 Comments

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)

March 20, 2017 by Mark Linsenmayer 9 Comments

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

May 30, 2016 by Mark Linsenmayer 11 Comments

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

October 30, 2015 by Leave a Comment

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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Episode 120: A History of “Will” with Guest Eva Brann

July 27, 2015 by Mark Linsenmayer 13 Comments

We discuss Un-Willing: An Inquiry into the Rise of Will’s Power and an Attempt to Undo It (2014) with the author, covering Socrates, Augustine, Aquinas, Heidegger, Nietzsche, Sartre, compatibilism, the neurologists’ critque of free will, and more.

End song: “I Insist” by Mark Lint. Read about it.

Not School: Sartre’s “Nausea”

April 11, 2014 by 1 Comment

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 …

Mark’s Close Reading file for Sartre’s Being & Nothingness

January 23, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Length: 1/2 hour.
Read about it.
Listen to a sample.

Topic for #87: Sartre on Human Nature and Freedom

January 2, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 Comments

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 …

Precognition of Ep. 87: Sartre

December 30, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 8 Comments

Mark Linsenmayer lays out some themes from Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Existentialism is a Humanism” and the “Bad Faith” chapter (Part 1, Ch. 2) of Being & Nothingness.

Dec. Not School: Sartre, Joyce, Nietzsche, Theater, Natural Law

December 8, 2013 by Evan Gould Leave a Comment

For this post, I give you some theme music by a very talented musician named Sumner McKane. I chose this nice little tune not for the music itself (deserving though it may be), but for its title: “The Winter I Got Louder than Bombs and Standing on a Beach.” I’m going to assume this title reveals that Sumner has memories Continue Reading …

Citizens, Get the Ayn Rand Episode Ad-Free, and Join July Not School Groups

June 28, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

We put up the Rand episode early and without ads on the Free Stuff for Citizens page. Not sure if we’ll make a habit of this. Maybe. In any case, folks who sign up for PEL Citizenship will get any such things in the future, so perhaps you’d like to sign up? Just to remind you, you’d also be buying Continue Reading …

Fink on the Split Subject (Lacan vs. Sartre)

April 8, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 10 Comments

I ended our episode bemoaning that I feel like I still don’t understand this talk of “subject” as opposed to “self.” A few of you have made some good comments on this, but I’m still not satisfied. Let me pull a few things out of the Fink book: 1. In chapter 2 about “The Nature of Unconscious Thought,” he concludes Continue Reading …

Will PEL Ever Do an Ayn Rand Episode?

August 19, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 32 Comments

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

March 26, 2012 by Daniel Horne 3 Comments

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

December 2, 2011 by Seth Paskin 14 Comments

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

November 19, 2011 by Mark Linsenmayer 5 Comments

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

November 11, 2011 by Mark Linsenmayer 3 Comments

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 …

Episodes Categorized 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. 246: Susan Sontag on Interpreting Art (Part One)

June 22, 2020 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

On Sontag’s essays “Against Interpretation” (1964), “On Style” (1965), and “The Death of Tragedy” (1963).

What is it to understand a work of art? Sontag objects to critics’ need to decode art into its “meaning” or “content,” divorcing it from how this content is embodied. She argues that the content vs. form distinction isn’t tenable; that the style of a work is an essential part of experiencing it. Sontag thinks we’re too analytical, too divorced from our instincts, and a direct encounter with art is essential to enliven us.

Don’t wait for part two; get the full, ad-free Citizen Edition now. Please support PEL!

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Ep. 244: Camus on Strategies for Facing Plague (Part One)

May 25, 2020 by Mark Linsenmayer 3 Comments

On Albert Camus’s existentialist novel The Plague. How shall we face adversity? Camus gives us colorful characters that embody various approaches. Yes, the plague is an extreme situation, but we’re all dying all the time anyway, right?

Join Mark, Wes, Dylan and Seth to tease out Camus’s positions from this bleak yet colorful text.

Don’t wait for part two; get the unbroken Citizen Edition now. Please support PEL!

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

January 20, 2020 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

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!

Don’t wait for part two; get the full, ad-free, unbroken Citizen Edition now! Please support PEL!

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Pretty Much Pop #10: The Handmaid’s Tale

September 14, 2019 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

Mark, Erica, and Brian take on both Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel plus the TV series, getting into the transition from page to screen, taking the work as political speech vs. art, Atwood’s phenomenology and neologisms (prayvaganza!), plus the roles of race and (lack of) comic relief in the story.

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear bonus content for this episode patreon.com/prettymuchpop.

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

April 16, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 6 Comments

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?

Bojack Horseman and Aristotelian Self-Love

November 1, 2016 by Ana Sandoiu 1 Comment

The popular Netflix show is rife with philosophical questions. “Can Aristotle teach Bojack a thing or two about self-love?” is one of them.

What Do Existentialists Think about Love?

July 10, 2016 by Ana Sandoiu 12 Comments

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

June 15, 2016 by Ana Sandoiu Leave a Comment

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?

Beauvoir, Freedom, and Feminism

June 6, 2016 by Ana Sandoiu Leave a Comment

What’s the connection between existentialism and feminism in Simone de Beauvoir’s work?

Holiday Special 2015: Mark Lint’s “Songs from the Partially Examined Life” with Many Guest Greetings

December 24, 2015 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

Mark is joined by numerous previous guests to catch up and engage the musical part of PEL’s past episodes by introducing and playing the entirety of Mark Lint’s “Songs from the Partially Examined Life,” which you can own, along with the 2016 PEL wall calendar.

Rereading Hannah Arendt’s “The Jew as Pariah”

August 10, 2015 by Samm Deighan 5 Comments

Hannah Arendt’s essay “The Jew as Pariah: A Hidden Tradition,” in which she locates exiled Jewish culture in pre-WWII works of film and literature, takes on new dimensions in light of current global conflicts.

Topic for #120: Guest Eva Brann on Will (and Aquinas, Augustine, Heidegger, etc.)

July 24, 2015 by Mark Linsenmayer 10 Comments

Eva Brann (from our Heraclitus episode) returns to talk with us about her 2014 book, Un-Willing: An Inquiry into the Rise of Will’s Power and an Attempt to Undo It, which gives an intellectual history of the notion of will and diagnoses a the current pernicious effect of the concept in our philosophy and culture.

Topic for #117: Sophocles’s Play “Antigone”

June 6, 2015 by Mark Linsenmayer 5 Comments

We’ll be discussing the famous Greek tragedy, and also performing a version of it with Lucy Lawless and Paul Provenza. What can such a work teach philosophy about ethics and the human condition?

Bonus Discussion: Jaspers’s “Truth & Symbol”

March 11, 2015 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

A Not School discussion about Karl Jaspers’s 1947 work about his existential ideal and how that relates to religion and ontology.

Topic for #111: Gadamer’s Hermeneutics: How to Interpret

February 16, 2015 by Mark Linsenmayer 16 Comments

We’ll discuss parts of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Truth and Method (1960) and three subsequent essays about the art of textual interpretation (or interpretation of a work of art, or someone you’re having a conversation with, or anything else).

Topic for #109: Karl Jaspers’s Existentialism on Science vs. Philosophy

January 5, 2015 by Mark Linsenmayer 7 Comments

We were joined by comedian Paul Provenza to talk about Jaspsers’s essay “On My Philosophy” about the existentially necessary philosophical leap beyond what science can justify. Hint: The alternative is not embracing religious dogma.

Emerson on the Over-Soul

September 20, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 Comments

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.

Topics for #97-100: Sandel, Symposium, and What We’ve Learned

July 18, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 4 Comments

Ep 97 and 98: Michael J. Sandel, Ep 99: What Have We Learned, Ep 100: Plato’s Symposium

Partially Naked Self-Examination Music Blog: “Axiomatic”

June 14, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

Listen to “Axiomatic” by Mark Lint & the Simulacra (as well as the version by New People). For our Gödel episode, I thought it fitting to remix one of the last-to-be-completed tracks for the Mark Lint & the Simulacra album (mostly recorded in 2000 with folks in Austin, but still not done now due to my having moved on to Continue Reading …

A Wealth of Not School Offerings in June

June 3, 2014 by Daniel David 1 Comment

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 …

“Modern Day Philosophers”: Reading Wikipedia with Comedians

April 12, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 6 Comments

I was recently alerted to the existence of an up-and-coming podcast that just started last summer called Modern Day Philosophers. Hmmmm, is that like the New Books in Philosophy podcast, bringing to light the work of under-appreciated academics? No, as you can see by the guest list: These are for the most parts established comedians like Artie Lang, or Bill Continue Reading …

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

April 12, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 5 Comments

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

March 4, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 Comments

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!

March 3, 2014 by Michael Burgess 2 Comments

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

February 24, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 6 Comments

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?

February 20, 2014 by Al Baker 26 Comments

“You have heard that it was said, â€˜You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.â€™ 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”Â 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”

February 5, 2014 by Lou Canelli Leave a Comment

But whatÂ 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 deliciousÂ doublethink meal that our minds keep feasting on (one which we must forget we consume, Continue Reading …

Sincerity. Sincerely.

February 2, 2014 by Dylan Casey Leave a Comment

The BBC’s Adaption of No Exit – review

January 31, 2014 by Noah Dunn 2 Comments

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

January 19, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

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 …

“No Exit” Outtakes Posted for PEL Members

January 5, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

A few comments about our recent No Exit performance, in numbered list form, because I like numbered lists: 1. Thank you thank you thank you to Jaime Murray and Lucy Lawless, who were a lot of fun and made this easy. You can hear this on the 18-min outtakes reel I’ve now posted on the Free Stuff page of our Continue Reading …

Nick Mount on Samuel Beckett and Existentialist Drama

November 21, 2013 by Daniel David 1 Comment

As our Philosophy in Fiction Not School group has begun to dig into Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting For Godot” this month, questions about how to interpret the play have started to crop up. Who or what is Godot, and why are these guys waiting for him? What do we make of the seemingly aimless and repetitive dialogue, the bare stage, and Continue Reading …

The Subject: A Brief History

October 19, 2013 by Michael Burgess 2 Comments

[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 …

Bergmann as Philosopher (Before All that “New Work” Stuff)

September 20, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 29 Comments

We’re barely more than a day away right now from our interview with Frithjof, which he says he’s “thrilled” about, and I’m certainly looking forward to as well, though I can picture any number of things going less than ideally as I introduce these two known elements (Frithjof on the one hand and Seth/Wes/Dylan on the other) to each other. Continue Reading …

The Architecture of Compatibilism (Are We REALLY free?)

August 19, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 28 Comments

In our discussion on Jung, I brought up the issue of free will with respect to the existence of the unconscious, and I wanted to explore this a bit further: Compatibilism is the doctrine that free will and determinism are in some way compatible, but since these terms were designed to contradict each other, any claim to be a compatibilist Continue Reading …

Topic for #80: Heidegger on our Existential Situation

July 14, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 11 Comments

Listen right now to Seth giving a 10-min summary of Heidegger’s essay via a new “Precognition” mini-sode. Back in episode 32 (over two years ago!) we covered the project of Martin Heidegger’s most famous work, Being and Time, composed early in his career. (Incidentally, I see a new and exciting looking translation of this on Amazon that you may want Continue Reading …

The Self and Selfishness (and Aesthetics and “The Fountainhead”)

June 2, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 23 Comments

I’m continuing to try to get some Rand thoughts related to The Fountainhead out of my system so that I won’t feel the need to bring them up while on the episode devoted to her more straightforwardly philosophical works. I also feel the periodic need for synthesis, to try to recap some ongoing themes in our episodes in a way Continue Reading …

“Conceptual Primaries” (Rand vs. Deleuze)

May 24, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 27 Comments

When I start responding to a comment on a previous post and find that my answer is getting longer than a paragraph, that means it’s time to either stop or to make a proper blog post out of it. This morning a newish (I guess) listener named Lewis posted a comment on a post I wrote last summer on “reason” Continue Reading …

Not School Groups for May

April 30, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

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 …

Douglas Hofstadter’s “I Am a Strange Loop” on the Self

April 9, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 8 Comments

From our Lacan episode and my comparison of Lacan with Sartre, you might think that this “no self” deal was just a Continental idea. If you remember back to our Owen Flanagan interview, however, you’ll know that (besides this being a doctrine in Buddhsim) this is also one of the main positions within the analytic philosophy of mind, due perhaps Continue Reading …

Topic for #74: Lacan on the Self/Subject

March 18, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 34 Comments

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

February 4, 2013 by Daniel David 11 Comments

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

December 31, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 3 Comments

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

October 19, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 Comments

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

October 8, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 4 Comments

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”)

September 24, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 43 Comments

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 …

Theistic Objectivism (more on Dallas Willard)

September 7, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 9 Comments

This post is a follow-up on my Dallas Willard post from a few days ago. A couple of reader comments on that (on the blog and Facebook) shamed me into re-listening to the second half of Willard’s lecture and newly listen to the Q&A afterwards. I can now say that his positive story is not anywhere as oversimplistic as I Continue Reading …

Dallas Willard on Nietzsche and Jesus

September 3, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 12 Comments

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”

August 30, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 3 Comments

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 …

Topic for #63: Cormac McCarthy’s Novel “No Country for Old Men”

August 22, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 36 Comments

Following the path of reading novels (which we don’t necessarily intend to make a habit of) begun with #62, we have now recorded our discussion of No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy. We had as a guest one of Dylan’s teachers from undergrad, Eric Petrie, Professor at James Madison College at Michigan State University, who has been presenting Continue Reading …

Philosophical Mavericks: Pirsig, MacIntyre, Solomon, Bergmann

July 17, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 8 Comments

I made the point both on the episode and in a recent post that I thought MacIntyre to be a better model of the outsider philosopher than Pirsig. This is not a point I really want to hammer, as I like Pirsig and I don’t relish dissing someone that many of our listeners have a great appreciation for. So let Continue Reading …

MacIntyre Speaks on Academic Moral Philosophy

July 13, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 16 Comments

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

July 9, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 7 Comments

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

June 26, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 5 Comments

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 …

Your Feedback: Guests, Amount of Material, Comprehensibility

May 6, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 40 Comments

As we podcasters think about how to proceed, we welcome as always your feedback. Here are three live questions for us at the moment. 1. Does having guest participants help more than it distracts? There are many smart people out there, and we’ve tried to rope many of them to come be on the show with us, participating in an Continue Reading …

Naturalized Phenomenology?

April 3, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 12 Comments

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

February 29, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 27 Comments

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 …

Lila Notes, Pt. 4: Pirsig Solves All Philosophical Problems in Five Pages

February 18, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 10 Comments

If my notes here have gotten a bit dismissive sounding, it’s largely to provide a counterweight to Dave’s discipleship. This is not to diss Dave (or Bo or other Pirsig fans posting on our board here), but my approach, and the approach I see in enthusiasts like Katie re. Foucault or Matt Evans did for Plato is yes, to try Continue Reading …

David Ray Griffin on Whitehead on Concsiousness

February 15, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 7 Comments

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

January 27, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 10 Comments

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

December 29, 2011 by Seth Paskin 7 Comments

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

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 …

Three Types of “Reduction” in Phenomenology

December 22, 2011 by Mark Linsenmayer 7 Comments

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

December 16, 2011 by Dylan Casey Leave a Comment

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 …

“Close Reading” of Being and Nothingness Now Reduced to 99 Cents

December 9, 2011 by Mark Linsenmayer 4 Comments

Go get it.

Bob Solomon on Existentialism and Being and Nothingness

December 7, 2011 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 Comments

We’ve often name-dropped our former U. of Texas professor Bob Solomon, perhaps best known for his great original work The Passions or his appearance in the Richard Linklater film, Waking Life. For our Hegel episode, I was clutching tightly to his work explaining it: In the Spirit of Hegel. One of his central philosophical concerns was Sartre’s view of freedom Continue Reading …

Daniel Coffeen on Bergson’s Matter and Memory

December 6, 2011 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

One of the name-drops on the Sartre episode is Henri Bergson, a philosopher who was in vogue in France at the time Sartre wrote, famous among other things for promoting and anti-atomic epistemology. Kant, for instance, thought that we get our idea of number out of time, meaning that time is essentially something we can count. For Bergson, time is Continue Reading …

Quassim Cassam (via Elucidations) on Skepticism

December 5, 2011 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

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 …

Does Post-Modern Skepticism Support Religious Belief?

October 27, 2011 by Mark Linsenmayer 15 Comments

One of our listeners (and contributors! Thanks again!) Ernie P. has posted on our Facebook page: You all (on the podcast) seem to assume that ‘belief in the irrational’ is a strongly correlated with religious belief; I would argue that (depending on how you define it), it is a factor in all human belief, and the only real irrationality is Continue Reading …

Paul Tillich on Religious Existentialism

July 3, 2011 by Mark Linsenmayer 10 Comments

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

June 14, 2011 by Daniel Horne 7 Comments

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

June 6, 2011 by Mark Linsenmayer 27 Comments

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 …

The Types and Scope of Phenomenology

January 21, 2011 by Mark Linsenmayer 8 Comments

To supplement whatever you interested folks might have encountered in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and

Topic for #31: Husserl’s Phenomenology

November 29, 2010 by Mark Linsenmayer 3 Comments

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

November 8, 2010 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 Comments

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 …

Topic for #29: Kierkegaard’s “The Sickness Unto Death”

October 23, 2010 by Mark Linsenmayer 5 Comments

We’ll be digging into the reputed “father of existentialism,” who takes his Christianity very personally and thinks the rest of you are a bunch of sheep, thank you very much. In the ole’ Sygdommen til Døden, Mr. K. writes as “Anti-Climacus,” a pseudonym which he brought out when feeling frisky, much like Richard Bachman. Did you know that you’re in Continue Reading …

Troll 2: Doubly Reflexive Irony and the Best Worst Movie

September 22, 2010 by Mark Linsenmayer 3 Comments

I recently sat through the Rifftrax of Troll 2 (see my previous post re. Rifftrax) and felt the need to relate my fascination with flavors of irony to the so-bad-it’s-good movie experience. Just to clarify, the Rifftrax guys claim that they don’t actually like bad movies. These movies are simply bad, so the humor in what they do is their Continue Reading …

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