Mark and Wes Closeread through the 1975 ordinary language philosophy paper. What are the assumptions behind everyday conversation? When someone violates a conversational norm by, e.g., giving too much information or stating something literally untrue, what are the strategies by which we try to make sense of what they're saying as still a sensible contribution to the Continue Reading …
Ep. 325: Paul Grice on Meaning and Conversation (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one on "Meaning" (1957), "Utterer’s Meaning and Intentions" (1969), and "Logic and Conversation" (1975) with guest Steve Gimbell. We tie Grice's initial project about meaning into this apparently new project in "Logic and Conversation": What are the rules that people tend to follow in conversation to actually be engaged in the cooperative enterprise of Continue Reading …
Ep. 325: Paul Grice on Meaning and Conversation (Part One for Supporters)
On "Meaning" (1957), "Utterer’s Meaning and Intentions" (1969), and "Logic and Conversation" (1975), featuring Mark, Seth, Dylan, and guest prof. Steve Gimbell of Gettysburg College. Someone who utters something typically means something in particular, but is that meaning determined just by the definitions of the words uttered? Clearly not, as words can be used in Continue Reading …
Ep. 324: Plato’s “Cratylus” on Language (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one on Plato's mid-period dialogue about language. Is attaching a word to a thing, i.e. naming it, like other activities such as carpentry or sewing that can go wrong? Can we put the "form" of a thing into letters and syllabus of its name? Socrates argues (at least through most of the dialogue) that we can, that some names can be more appropriate than Continue Reading …
Ep. 324: Plato’s “Cratylus” on Language (Part One for Supporters)
On Plato's mid-period dialogue from around 388 BCE. How do words relate to the things they represent? Featuring Mark, Wes, and Dylan. We're all familiar with the feeling when we see someone really hot but with a very dweeby name that something seems to have gone wrong. We also know Native names like "Running Eagle" that may or may not seem to really fit the person with that Continue Reading …
Ep. 323: Acquiring Language: Tomasello vs. Chomsky (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one on Michael Tomasello's "Language Is Not an Instinct" (1995) and Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition (2003), as contrasted with Chomsky universal grammar (the flag that Steven Pinker continues to carry). With guest Christopher Heath. We get into more of the insights and studies that drove Chomsky and Pinker to argue Continue Reading …
Ep. 323: Acquiring Language: Tomasello vs. Chomsky (Part One for Supporters)
On Michael Tomasello's "Language Is Not an Instinct" (1995) and ch. 1, 2, 8 and 9 of Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition (2003), plus the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article Innateness and Language by Fiona Cowie (posted 2008, updated 2017). Featuring Mark, Wes, Seth, Dylan, and guest Christopher Heath. Clearly we are not born Continue Reading …
Ep. 322: Schelling on Art vs. Nature (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing (sans Seth) from part one on "On the Relation Between the Plastic Arts and Nature" (1807) and Part 6 of System of Transcendental Idealism (1800). We finish up the 1807 speech by talking about sculpture vs. painting and then move on to this penultimate chapter of this early, systematic, seminal work whose beginning we treated in episodes 273 and 274. The System of Continue Reading …
Ep. 322: Schelling on Art vs. Nature (Part One for Supporters)
Discussing Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling's "On the Relation Between the Plastic Arts and Nature" (1807) and Part 6 of System of Transcendental Idealism (1800), featuring Mark, Wes, Dylan, and Seth. Is the goal of art to imitate nature? Schelling says "sort of." It's not supposed to just be a copy, but is supposed to convey the true inner nature of its subject: It copies Continue Reading …
Ep. 321: August Schlegel on Beauty (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one on our excerpt from Theory of Art (ca. 1800), we get more into the text, covering Schlegel's critique of various elements of Kant's philosophy of art. We start with the distinction between free and accessory beauty: Are there some perceptions of beauty that are entirely divorced from a notion of the purpose or type of thing that we're perceiving as Continue Reading …
Ep. 321: August Schlegel on Beauty (Part One for Supporters)
Covering the elder Schlegel brother's Theory of Art (ca. 1800), as excerpted in Theory as Practice: A Critical Anthology of Early German Romantic Writings. August Wilhelm Schlegel was five years older than Friedrich, and was also a well known art critic of his time. This text is a Romantic response to Kant's Third Critique, and we looked back at Kant's comments on the Continue Reading …
Ep. 320: Friedrich Schlegel on Romanticism (Part Three for Supporters)
Mark and Wes conclude our discussion of the younger Schlegel brother by going through more of his critical fragments, largely published in 1797 in the journal Lyceum tier schonen Kunste. Start with parts one and two. We relate appreciation of art to appreciation of purposiveness a la Shaftesbury, try to figure out what Schlegel means by "wit," the place of otherness in a Continue Reading …
Ep. 320: Friedrich Schlegel on Romanticism (Part Two for Supporters)
We continue on Schlegel's "Dialogue on Poesy" (1799) and "Concerning the Essence of Critique" (1804). How can Romantic art always aim at some common source of our humanity yet also require originality? How can having some sort of common mythology help artists be original in this way, and how can we embrace mythology as modern people? We try to figure out this "Speech on Continue Reading …
Ep. 320: Friedrich Schlegel on Romanticism (Part One for Supporters)
On selected fragments from 1797-1801, "Dialogue on Poesy" (1799), and "Concerning the Essence of Critique" (1804). What makes art "Romantic"? Friedrich Schlegel (and his older brother August Schlegel, whom we'll read for ep. 321) were both art critics based in Jena, Germany, which was also where Fichte, Schelling, Schiller, and even Goethe were based at the time. The Continue Reading …
Ep. 319: Schiller on Experiencing Beauty (Part Three for Supporters)
In our final word on Friedrich Schiller's On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1795), we cover letters 24-27 in more detail than we had time for in supposedly finishing with this reading in part two. Schiller talks first about hypothetical Reason, where Reason doesn't actually pull us toward Kantian morality, but just lets us get what we want more effectively. By granting us Continue Reading …
Ep. 319: Schiller on Experiencing Beauty (Part Two for Supporters)
Starting with letter 20 in On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1795), we tell more of the story of how art is supposed to get us from sensation to thinking. This continues from part one and ultimately from ep. 318. As a Romantic, Schiller's aesthetic theory is very central to his take on epistemology and human nature. For Kant (whose aesthetic theory Schiller is working off Continue Reading …
Ep. 319: Schiller on Experiencing Beauty (Part One for Supporters)
On the second half of Friedrich Schiller's On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1795), with Mark, Wes, and Dylan. You might want to listen to ep. 318 first. While the overall argument is still that an education in appreciating art can transform the masses from desire-driven savages into rational beings worthy of representative government, starting around letter 14 through the Continue Reading …
Ep. 318: Friedrich Schiller on the Civilizing Potential of Art (Part Three for Supporters)
Mark and Wes dive deeper into the text of the first several letters of On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1795). Start with part one. Are verbal descriptions of art destined to fall short? Beauty for Kant (and hence Schiller) is semi-conceptual, in that it uses the cognitive tools that are employed in making concepts, but doesn't actually come up with a concept; instead the Continue Reading …
Ep. 318: Friedrich Schiller on the Civilizing Potential of Art (Part Two for Supporters)
We continue (from part one) working through letters 1-15 of On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1795), helped by Markus Reuter. By the end of this, we get a clearer picture of what Schiller means by the experience of Beauty. We have a sensuous drive on the one hand to fill our experience with material stuff, and a form drive on the other that raises us up (a la Plato) to wonder Continue Reading …
Ep. 318: Friedrich Schiller on the Civilizing Potential of Art (Part One for Supporters)
Can art make us better people? Musician Markus Reuter joins Mark, Wes, and Seth to discussion the first half of On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1795). Schiller was a famous poet of early German Romanticism, and this book is partly political philosophy and partly philosophy of art. The work takes the form of a series of letters. We read 1-15 for this discussion and will cover Continue Reading …