Phi Fic means Philosophical Fiction. Each episode, we have a candid dicussion on a heady work of of fiction, full of SPOILERS. Join host Nathan Hanks and readers Cezary Baraniecki, Daniel St. Pierre, Laura Davis, and Mary Claire, plus the occasional guest.
For this episode, we discussed Edith Wharton's novel The Custom of the Country, which was published in 1913. It's a satirical novel about a very American type of ambition. At the novel's center is the shockingly narcissistic anti-hero Undine Spragg, a young woman from the midwest who comes to New York to do some major social climbing and leaves a trail of wreckage on her way Continue Reading …
Phi Fic #44 The Poetry Episode (Dickinson, Baudelaire, Bishop, Byron)
On this episode, we perform close readings of four poems, each of which was selected by one of the show's contributors: Emily Dickinson's "The Brain is Wider Than the Sky"; Charles Baudelaire's "The Albatross"; Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art"; and Lord Byron's "Darkness." Below are links to the poems and the starting point in the audio file for each segment. Regarding the poems Continue Reading …
A Philosophical Horror Story: Chaucer’s “The Pardoner’s Tale”
Perhaps what is most horrifying is being unable to turn away from one’s own destruction. This theme, particularly as it applies to greed, is explored in the Pardoner’s Tale from The Canterbury Tales, a collection of stories from fourteenth-century England by Geoffrey Chaucer, who was regarded by his earliest readers as a supremely “philosophical” poet. The frame narrative Continue Reading …
Demagogue Lover: Aristophanes’s “Wasps” in the Age of Trump
Surely if liberalism has a single desperate weakness it is an inadequacy of imagination: liberalism is always being surprised. –Lionel Trilling In the winter of 422 BCE, the Athenian comedic playwright Aristophanes presented Wasps, the play about the most fundamental political problem of his time, and of ours—the problem of persuasion. The play asks how it might be possible to Continue Reading …
Equal Protection Is Not a Reverse Popularity Contest
A misconception holds sway over how many people think of the principle that it is wrong to discriminate on the basis of personal characteristics like race and sex. The misconception is that the principle applies only to the lucky winners of a reverse popularity contest: only the unpopular get equal protection. You can see this misconception at work in a recent post on the Continue Reading …
Aquinas, MLK, and the Philosophical Foundations of Equal Protection
Natural law seems like a relic, remembered only by Catholics who use it as thin grounds for odd sexual theories: the evil of condoms, the intrinsic disorder of homosexuals. Undeterred, our Not School Philosophy of Law group decided to take a look at this relic, including selections from Aquinas and Martin Luther King. It turns out to provide some interesting foundations for our Continue Reading …
Philosophy of Law Not-School Report: Aquinas, MLK, and Equality
[From new-to-us blogger and PEL Citizen Dan Johnson] Natural law seems like a relic, remembered only by Catholics who use it as thin grounds for odd sexual theories: the evil of condoms, the intrinsic disorder of homosexuals.   Undeterred, our  Not School Philosophy of Law group decided to take a look at this relic, including selections from Aquinas and Martin Luther King. Continue Reading …