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Search Results for: precognition

Precognition of Ep. 110: Whitehead

February 1, 2015 by Mark Linsenmayer 8 Comments

Mark Linsenmayer outlines Alfred North Whitehead’s book The Concept of Nature (1920)

Precognition of Ep. 109: Karl Jaspers

January 18, 2015 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

Mark Linsenmayer introduces Karl Jaspers’s existentialist tract, “On My Philosophy.” (1941)

Precognition of Ep. 104: Robert Nozick

October 26, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

Seth Paskin introduces Anarchy, State, and Utopia about libertarianism and the limits of legitimate government power.

Precognition of Ep. 96: Oppenheimer’s Rhetoric

June 28, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 3 Comments

Guest Lynda Walsh describes her book Scientists as Prophets: A Rhetorical Genealogy, focusing on J. Robert Oppenheimer’s conflicted position after WWII as science advisor and anti-nuke spokesman.

Precognition of Ep. 95: Gödel

June 15, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 5 Comments

Guest Adi Habbu lays out Kurt Gödel’s famous incompleteness theorems and describes some highlights from “Some Basic Theorems on the Foundations of Mathematics and their Implications” (1951) and “The Modern Development of the Foundations of Mathematics in Light of Philosophy” (1961).

Precognition of Ep. 93: Free Will (via Strawsons)

April 29, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 7 Comments

Guest Tamler Sommers (from the Very Bad Wizards podcast) summarizes Galen Strawson’s “The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility” (1994) and his father P.F. Strawson’s “Freedom and Resentment” (1960).

Precognition of Ep. 92: Henri Bergson

March 30, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 5 Comments

Guest Matt Teichman introduces Bergson’s essay “An Introduction to Metaphysics.”

Precognition of Ep. 90: Sci-Fi and Philosophy with David Brin

March 24, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

Introductory salvo by Mark Linsenmayer before our interview with author David Brin.

Precognition of Ep. 89: Berkeley’s Idealism

March 11, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

Wes Alwan introduces George Berkeley’s Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous.

Precognition of Ep. 88: G.E.M. Anscombe

January 18, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

Guest Philosophy Bro introduces Elizabeth Anscombe’s “Modern Moral Philosophy,” and Intention sections 22-27.

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.

Precognition of Ep. 86: Thomas Kuhn

December 23, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 3 Comments

Dylan Casey lays out Thomas Kuhn’s thesis in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

Precognition of Ep. 85: John Rawls

December 6, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 6 Comments

Seth Paskin summarizes the John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice.

Precognition of Ep. 83: New Work

October 9, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 31 Comments

An introduction to and summary of Frithjof Bergmann’s New Work, New Culture, read by Mark Linsenmayer.

Precognition of Ep. 82: Popper

September 23, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 7 Comments

A summary of the first three essays in Karl Popper’s collection Conjectures and Refutations, read by Dylan Casey.

Precognition of Ep. 81: Jung

August 28, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 11 Comments

An introduction to Carl Jung’s Man and His Symbols, read by Wes Alwan.

Precognition of Ep. 80: Heidegger

August 7, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 17 Comments

A short summary of Heidegger’s “Essay on Humanism,” read by Seth Paskin.

Pretty Much Pop #49: Conspiracy Theories as Pop w/ Al Baker

June 29, 2020 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

Al works for Logically, a company that fights misinformation. He joins Mark, Erica, and Brian to try to discuss the appeal of conspiracy theories, whether their fandom is like other fandoms, the relation between pernicious and fun theories, and theories that end up true.

We touch on echo chambers, the role of irony and humor in spreading these theories, how both opponents and proponents claim to be skeptics, Dan Brown Novels, Tom Hanks, the Mel Gibson film Conspiracy Theory, and documentaries like Behind the Curve and The Family.

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

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.

Hume on Religion: A Video Introduction to PEL Ep. 167

June 29, 2017 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 Comments

Watch a video introduction to David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion where he considers the argument from design. Does experience ground the inference from the orderliness of nature to a divine creator?

Phi Fic #1 “In the Penal Colony” by Franz Kafka

April 30, 2016 by Nathan Hanks 8 Comments

The first “official” episode of the new Phi Fic podcast! (What used to be the Not School Philosophical Fiction group, now gone public.) We talk about the short story In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka. The crew: Nathan Hanks, Cezary Baraniecki, Daniel St. Pierre, Laura Davis, and Mary Claire.

Hear more Phi Fic discussions at PhiFicPodcast.com.

Episode 123: Economics with Hayek and Sen (Intro by Seth Benzell)

September 7, 2015 by Mark Linsenmayer 24 Comments

On F.A. Hayek’s “The Use of Knowledge in Society” (1945) and Amartya Sen’s On Ethics and Economics (1987). Is economics a pseudoscience? Are its assumptions by necessity too over-simplifying? Hayek objects to the idea of planning an economy, because the planners aren’t in a position to know enough. With guest Seth Benzell, who starts us off with a “precognition” of the material.

End song: “People Who Throw Away Love” by Mark Lint.

Topic for #123: F.A. Hayek and Amartya Sen on Assumptions of Economics

August 19, 2015 by Mark Linsenmayer 24 Comments

We were joined by econ grad student Seth Benzell to discuss “The Use of Knowledge in Society” by F.A. Hayek and On Ethics and Economics by Amartya Sen. What’s wrong with central economic planning? Need economics assume that we’re all predictably selfish?

Go listen to Seth Benzell’s introduction for a straight-up summary of the two essays and how they relate.

Topic for #116 Freud on Dreams

May 23, 2015 by Mark Linsenmayer 3 Comments

We’ll talk about what Freud thinks dreams are for. Citizens can listen now, and the public episode will be released on two parts starting Monday.

Episode 110: Alfred North Whitehead: What Is Nature?

February 2, 2015 by Mark Linsenmayer 46 Comments

On The Concept of Nature (1920). Nature, i.e. the object of our experience, is events, not things, ya dig?

Topic for #110: Whitehead’s “The Concept of Nature”

January 20, 2015 by Mark Linsenmayer 3 Comments

We read a foundational work in process philosophy, chock full of idiosyncratic four-dimensional geometry! Aw, yeah!

Episode 109: Jaspers’s Existentialism with Guest Paul Provenza

January 19, 2015 by Mark Linsenmayer 22 Comments

On Karl Jaspers’s “On My Philosophy” (1941), featuring comedian/actor/director/author Paul Provenza

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.

Thoreau’s Unsupported Anti-Technology Sentiments and New Work

October 16, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 9 Comments

In trying to solve the problem of too much meaningless work, it’s irrational to reject any potential technological solutions based on Thoreau’s biases.

Topics for #103 & #104: Thoreau and Nozick

October 7, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 8 Comments

We discussed Thoreau’s “Walden,” and then recorded a fresh conversation on Robert Nozick’s defense of libertarianism to replace the lost conversation from last May. We were rejoined for that by Slate’s Stephen Metcalf.

Episode 96: Oppenheimer and the Rhetoric of Science Advisers

July 1, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 18 Comments

Discussing Lynda Walsh’s book “Scientists as Prophets: A Rhetorical Genealogy” (2013) with the author, focusing on Robert J. Oppenheimer.

Topic for #96: Oppenheimer and the Rhetoric of Science Advisers

June 26, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 9 Comments

We interviewed Lynda Walsh about her book “Scientists as Prophets,” focusing on J. Robert Oppenheimer’s rhetoric about the boons and dangers of science.

Episode 92: Henri Bergson on How to Do Metaphysics

April 11, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 60 Comments

On Bergson’s “An Introduction to Metaphysics” (1903). With guest Matt Teichman.

Precogs: Eps. 80-83, 85-87 on Heidegger, Sartre, Jung, Popper, Kuhn, Rawls, and Bergmann

April 11, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Transcribed introductions to Heidegger, Jung, Popper, Bergmann, Rawls, Kuhn, and Sartre written by the PEL crew.

Berkeley Discussed on BBC’s “In Our Time”

March 26, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 Comments

A few listeners have pointed us at Melvyn Bragg’s recent podcast on Berkeley (listen to it here). It starts off with the oft-cited anecdote about Samuel Johnson claiming to have refuted Berkeley by kicking a stone: obviously, such a stone that I can kick is not an “idea in my head.” As should have been clear from our episode (and Continue Reading …

Episode 89: Berkeley: Only Ideas Exist!

March 12, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 27 Comments

George Berkeley

On Bishop George Berkeley’s Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous (1713).

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 …

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 …

Topic for #89: Bishop George Berkeley’s Empiricist Idealism

February 18, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

Listen to Wes’s introduction and summary to this text. On Tuesday 2/18/14 we recorded our episode on George Berkeley. Berkeley is the middle of the three “modern” (i.e. he lived in the early 1700s) empiricists that folks generally have to read in philosophy classes, the first being John Locke and the last being David Hume. We tried to cover the Continue Reading …

Episode 88: G.E.M. Anscombe: Should We Use Moral Language?

February 18, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 3 Comments

On Elizabeth Anscombe’s “Modern Moral Philosophy” (1958), Intention sections 22-27 (1957), and “War and Murder” (1961). With guest Philosophy Bro.

Topic for #88: G.E.M. Anscombe on Ethical Judgment and Action

January 23, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 Comments

On Wed. 1/24 we spoke with Philosophy Bro about Elizabeth (aka G.E.M.) Anscombe. Go listen now to Bro’s introduction to Anscombe. Anscombe was a student of Wittgenstein’s and is most famous for translating his Philosophical Investigations, and when Bro pitched this topic to me, he described her as the transition from Wittgenstein to Alasdair MacIntyre. This is puzzling, as Wittgenstein Continue Reading …

Truth Without the Capital “T”

January 20, 2014 by David Buchanan 6 Comments

“Man tries to make for himself in the fashion that suits him best a simplified and intelligible picture of the world.  . . . The supreme task is to arrive at those universal elementary laws from which the cosmos can be built up by pure deduction. There is no logical path to these laws; only intuition, resting on sympathetic understanding Continue Reading …

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 …

Sartre’s “No Exit” Read with Lucy Lawless & Jaime Murray

January 2, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 26 Comments

In support of our ep. #87 discussing Sartre, the PEL Players present our 2nd annual dramatic reading of a work of philosophical theater.

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).

Episode 86: Thomas Kuhn on Scientific Progress

December 24, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 26 Comments

On The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, published mostly in 1962.

Topic for #86: Thomas Kuhn on Scientific Progress

December 11, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 Comments

Listen now to Dylan’s introduction to the text. Science is just us accumulating more and more knowledge and getting a more and more accurate picture of the world, right? Not according to Kuhn, in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, first published in 1962. Yes, there’s progress, in terms of better and better answers to a given question, more and more Continue Reading …

Episode 85: Rawls on Social Justice

December 7, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 30 Comments

On John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice (1971), most of ch. 1-4.

Topic for #85: John Rawls’s Theory of Justice

November 10, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 3 Comments

Listen now to Seth’s Precognition for this episode. On the evening of 11/10, we’re discussing John Rawls. What is justice? Rawls interpreted this question as asking what basic social rules and structures would result in a society that we’d consider fair. Justice is fairness, on a social level. Fairness, of course, is an intuitive notion, and begs for a philosophical Continue Reading …

Episode 83: New Work with Guest Frithjof Bergmann

October 10, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 90 Comments

Talking with Frithjof Bergmann, Prof. Emeritus from U. of Michigan, Ann Arbor about his book New Work, New Culture (2004, English release coming soon).

PREVIEW-Episode 82: Karl Popper on Science

September 24, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 58 Comments

On Popper’s Conjectures and Refutations (1963), the first three essays.

What is science, and how is it different than pseudo-science? From philosophy? Is philosophy just pseudo-science, or proto-science, or what? Popper thinks that all legitimate inquiry is about solving real problems, and scientific theories are those that are potentially falsifiable: they make definitely predictions about the world that, if these fail to be true, would show that the theory is false.

Looking for the full Citizen version?

Bergman and the Native Canadians

September 17, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 6 Comments

There was a comment (Thanks, Libby!) on my topic announcement post reacting to the short-hand way that I conveyed Bergmann’s experience with a native Canadian tribe that I thought would be best responded to simply by providing in full Bergmann’s anecdote about this from the book. So this is an account of one experience he had visiting and initiating a Continue Reading …

Topic for #83: Frithjof Bergmann on the Job System

September 12, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 20 Comments

Listen to Mark’s introduction to this topic via our Precognition mini-episode. On Saturday, 9/21, we’re scheduled to interview Frithjof Bergmann, Professor Emeritus from the University of Michigan, about his book New Work, New Culture (published in German in 2004 and due for English-language release this year). I’ve written on this topic several times on this blog already, so perhaps you’d Continue Reading …

PREVIEW-Episode 81: Jung on the Psyche and Dreams

August 29, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 18 Comments

On Carl Jung’s “Approaching the Unconscious” from Man and His Symbols, written in 1961. What’s the structure of the mind? Jung followed Freud in positing an unconscious distinct from the conscious ego, but Jung’s picture has the unconscious much more stuffed full of all sorts of stuff from who knows where, including instincts (the archetypes) that tend to give rise to behavior and dream imagery that we’d have to call religious. We neglect this part of ourselves at our psychological peril!

Looking for the full Citizen version?

Topic for #82: Karl Popper on Scientific Method

August 28, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 22 Comments

Listen now to Dylan Casey introduce these essays. On 9/3/13 we’ll be discussing the first three essays in Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963). The book is a retrospective in part, presenting the ideas in the philosophy of science that had established his reputation back in the 1930s. The first essay, “On the Sources of Knowledge and Continue Reading …

PREVIEW-Episode 80: Heidegger on our Existential Situation

August 8, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 82 Comments

On Martin Heidegger’s “Letter on Humanism” (1949). What’s our place in the world? What is it, really, to be human? Heidegger thought that being human hinges on having a proper relationship to Being, which is more basic than particular beings like people and tables and such, yet it being so close, Heidegger thinks it’s hardest to see, and easy to be distracted from.

Looking for the full Citizen version?

Transcript for Wes’s Outline of Jung’s “Man and His Symbols” Now Posted

August 6, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 Comments

In the Precognition for episode 81 on Carl Jung, Wes Alwan read off of some divinely inspired notes that we’ve now made available to PEL Citizens here, in the “Transcripts” category. Become a Citizen to download it! Listen to Wes’s Precognition of Episode 81.

Topic for #81: Carl Jung on the Psyche and Dreams

July 29, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 11 Comments

Listen now to Wes’s introductory precognition of this Jung discussion. On 8/7/13, we recorded a discussion of Carl Jung’s Man and His Symbols, specifically essay he wrote that kicks off the book (which includes several authors), “Approaching the Unconscious.” This reading (written shortly before Jung’s death in 1961 and published afterwards) was recommended to us by some Jung fans on Continue Reading …

Speaking Across History (And Other Expanses): Two Models of Reading

July 18, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 17 Comments

My concern here, as is often the case, is with our methodology at PEL. As we go through these various readings and figure out what we want to say about them, I periodically figure out some articulable point about how I’m reading and why I feel the need to express what I do as opposed to something else. On three 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 …

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The Partially Examined Life is a philosophy podcast by some guys who were at one point set on doing philosophy for a living but then thought better of it. Each episode, we pick a text and chat about it with some balance between insight and flippancy. You don’t have to know any philosophy, or even to have read the text we’re talking about to (mostly) follow and (hopefully) enjoy the discussion

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