A longtime listener and participant here on the PEL blog wrote in to suggest that we share our current reading list. Seemed like a good idea, so here is mine. I preface by saying that I typically have multiple texts to hand in different modalities (Kindle, Audible, actual book) on different topics and read/listen according to my mood and situation. And so here's the list Continue Reading …
Seth will be in Portland January 25th
Hey folks, Seth here. I'll be in Portland, Oregon on Saturday, January 25th visiting my undergraduate alma mater - Reed College - talking about a podcast project I'm sponsoring. The event is open to the public and I'd like to invite any PEL fans in the area to swing by. I'd love to meet any listeners and will be happy to talk PEL at or after the event. The event is at 2pm Continue Reading …
Come See Seth Deliver Keynote at Houston Community College Philosophy and Humanities Conference Nov. 4
I will be delivering the keynote address at the Inaugural Houston Community College Philosophy and Humanities Conference at 5:30pm on Friday November 4th in Houston, TX. My talk is entitled "Reason, Memory, Habit and Discourse in the Age of On-Demand Content." Admission is free and I encourage PEL fans to attend the talk on Friday and the sessions following on Saturday. After Continue Reading …
Where’s Seth? (And Who Are You?)
We recently kicked off a survey to get feedback from you folks about what we are doing well and what you would like to see us improve. We also asked for some demographic and behavioral data to satisfy our corporate sponsor overlords. With typical PEL Citizen and Fan aplomb you responded in numbers to our request. I'd like to share some of what you told us with you and answer Continue Reading …
On Power, Knowledge and Wall Calendars
Avis! The 2016 PEL wall calendar is for sale here. This is no mere concept, rather it is a physical object like your body on which you can inscribe words, images and - if you are creative - power relations. I myself used our galley proof as a canvas for a History of My Sexuality. It was just the right size... This year we opted to go with 12" by 12" pages (up from 8 1/2" Continue Reading …
Seth’s African Leadership Bridge Challenge
Hey, folks. I don't talk much about my involvement in local organizations here in Austin because our audience is global and everyone has issues, causes, and groups they support in their own communities. I want to make a personal appeal today, however, for your help with The African Leadership Bridge (ALB) on whose Advisory Board I sit. ALB's vision is to help prepare leaders Continue Reading …
Listen to Ep. 114 Aftershow
Sunday afternoon we recorded the aftershow for on our episode 114 covering Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation (sometimes called The World as Will and Idea). Host Danny Lobell (whom you can hear ad nauseam on his own podcast, Modern Day Philosophers with such guests as Gilbert Godfried, Marc Maron, Louis Black, Aisha Tyler, Wyatt Cenac, etc. etc.) Continue Reading …
What is Satire for?
When we recorded the Jaspers episode with Paul Provenza I had the good fortune to be in his home of Los Angeles. I was able to meet up with him and his assistant for the recording and along with my wife we met for a meal several days later. I had been re-reading his book ¡Satiristas! and he and I got into a spirited discussion of whether comics, specifically the satirist, have Continue Reading …
A Solution to the Washington Redskins’ Name Problem
Overseas fans scroll to the end for context. Last Thursday the Washington football team lost 45-14 to the NY football Giants. The game was nationally televised and, as has so often happened in the last 20 or so years, the Redskins failed to rise to the occasion. After another embarrassing beatdown by a hated rival I, a long suffering fan, am ready yet again to renounce my Continue Reading …
Is Rawls’ Difference Principle Egalitarian?
[From PEL Citizen and friend of the podcast Roy Spence] The publication of John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice in the early 1970s led welfare economists to derive various interpretations of the Rawls’ second principle of justice, generally known as the “difference principle. By way of background, a primary objective of “welfare economics” is to provide a guide for Continue Reading …
Cooperative Society and Natural Rights
When reading Rawls for the podcast, I took note of a seemingly innocuous distinction between Rawls and the traditional social contractarians that nonetheless struck me as odd given his appeal to social contract theory. The traditional social contract theorists assume that rational individuals enter into social contracts to secure natural rights. "Secure" here means 'protect Continue Reading …
Transcription – Nietzsche’s Gay Science Episode
Hey all! Just a quick note to let you know you know that we are making available a transcript from the Gay Science episode. Special thanks to Jessica T. for her generous donation. The file was Professionally transcribed by Rev.com. Read the transcript here. Note that while we are releasing this to the hoi polloi we have others available for PEL Citizens so join! Continue Reading …
Call for Papers – Toward a Science of Consciousness
It was 20 years ago today... The Center for Consciousness Studies (CCS) at the University of Arizona is holding its annual Toward a Science of Consciousness (TSC) conference in Tucson, Arizona on April 21 - 26, 2014. Fans of the discipline and podcast will be aware that CCS was co-founded by previous guest David Chalmers. This year PEL is proud to help promote Continue Reading …
Interviewing Eva Brann
So Eva was a terrific guest and a great sport on the podcast and while Dylan had talked her up to the rest of us, I didn't realize what a towering figure she is. She has been teaching at St. John's for 57 !?!?! years, which is longer than most of us have been on this planet. She's the author of 15 books, not including translations, on subjects as diverse as Time, Plato and Continue Reading …
Is Experimental Philosophy Bad Science?
http://youtu.be/tt5Kxv8eCTA Wikipedia tells us that Experimental Philosophy (X-Phi) is: an emerging field of philosophical inquiry that makes use of empirical data—often gathered through surveys which probe the intuitions of ordinary people—in order to inform research on philosophical questions. This use of empirical data is widely seen as opposed to a philosophical Continue Reading …
Cognitive and Affective Empathy in Moral Sentiment
[DISCLAIMER: Although I am using a conceptual distinction I got from the embedded Simon Baron-Cohen TEDx talk (where ever he got it from), I am not taking a position on his stance on Autism or Psychopathy. I have no point of view about Autism and have reflected on empathy and psychopathy in this blog before, here and here. I'm interested in the constituent parts of empathy Continue Reading …
Paul Fry on Lacan
One of the groovy things about our new "open" society is how venerated institutions of higher learning like Yale are being strong-armed into sharing their course content online with the unwashed masses (aka you and me). This means you don't have to go to The Interwebs or TedX to get quasi scholarly ramblings about your favorite intellectuals or ideas: you can get qualified Continue Reading …
The Not School Discussion of Heidegger’s Letter on Humanism
Last week Being spoke through me in the saying of Martin Heidegger's Letter on Humanism as part of a PEL Not School study group. Joining me were Marilynn, Daniel, Rian and Alyson. We worked through Heidegger's idea that Humanism as a concept was inextricably tied to the history of western metaphysics that sees man as a animal rationale, language as techne and understands Continue Reading …
Engaging with Buber
In looking for web resources on Buber to blog about, I've come across an interesting phenomenon: there are very few and they are mostly introductory. Every time we do a podcast, I cast the Google net to see if there are interesting, useful or funny things out there on the net I can share with our audience about the subject of the episode. When I did this for I and Thou, the Continue Reading …
Socrates’ Attack on Rhetoric in the “Gorgias”
I have never shared the vitriol in Plato's dialogues for rhetoric. I understand why he goes after people for holding what he considers to be untenable positions, particularly if they are teachers or otherwise influencers of others. But only insofar as they hold beliefs which don't accord with his own or if they appear to have a methodology or agenda that is Continue Reading …