The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
A Philosophy Podcast and Philosophy Blog
What is pop culture? Does it make sense to distinguish it from high culture, or can something be both?
Hear in advance of the actual release the new pop culture podcast hosted by Mark, Erica Spyres, and Brian Hirt.
Get involved from the start at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This episode is available there FREE for one and all, and there’s already bonus content up there for PMP supporters.
Discussing articles by Alan Turing, Gilbert Ryle, Thomas Nagel, John Searle, and Dan Dennett. What is this mind stuff, and how can it “be” the brain? Can computers think? What is it like to be a bat? With guest Marco Wise.
Plus a new intro by Mark, Wes, and Seth reflecting back on this 2010 discussion, which we’re re-releasing to help you prepare for our upcoming episodes in this area.
End Song: “No Mind” by Mark Lint and the Fake Johnson Trio (1998).
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.
Your hosts are joined by real actors to do an unrehearsed read of the 1636 comedy by Calderón’s 1636 comedy La Vida Es Sueño, using Stanley Appelbaum’s 2002 translation. Ep. 217 will cover the philosophical issues the play raises.
Recorded in NYC on 4/7: Talene Monahon (Rosaura), David Epstein (Segismundo), Bill Youmans (Clotaldo), Erica Spyres (Estrella), Chris Martin (Basilio), Mark Linsenmayer (Clarín), Seth Paskin (Astolfo), Dylan Casey (soldier 1 and servant 1), and Wes Alwan (soldier 2 and servant 2).
Music by Jonathan Segel, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #38.
Mark and Wes continue discussion of the TV show after its finale. Listen to our ep. 216 first.
Yes, of course this is now full of spoilers. How does the end of the show affect its overall political message? Was it really (as George R.R. Martin depicted) about the irreducible complexity of politics (given that any character named or unnamed can actually make a difference, at least destructively) or qua TV Show is it forced to zero-in on a select set of powerful characters that we are meant to identify with? Also, does it make sense to be performing feminist critiques on a show based on the premise of people murdering each other for power?
We welcome your feedback re. future treatment of pop culture topics (via a spin-off podcast?).
Discussing the TV show (2011-2019) based on the books by George R.R. Martin.
What’s the role of a mass-consumed fantasy series in today’s society? Is it our “fantasy” to have all these horrible things happen to us? Is this an edifying prompt to engage in public moral thinking, or a spectacular distraction of the kind that those Marxist theorists keep warning us about? We get into the function of fantasy and how a more “realistic” show plays with that, the extent to which we’re supposed to identify with the characters, depiction of moral complexity, low art vs. high art, identity issues, and more. With guest Sabrina Weiss.
End song: “Fire and Blood” by Sacrifice Feat. Mark Lint; hear the interview on Nakedly Examined Music #24.
On Aldous Huxley’s 1932 dystopian novel, recorded at Manhattan’s Caveat on 4/6/19, with audience participation.
If we harness the power of society to employ available technologies to really focus on making people happy, what would the result be? This is Huxley’s thought experiment, but is it in all respects a dystopia, and is it a fair test of the ideal of social improvement or merely of a flawed view of human nature?
You can watch this episode instead.
End song: “Brave New World” by Mark Lint. Read about it.
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On the remainder of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1885).
How can we keep our spirits up and avoid nihilism? We consider Nietzsche’s “solution” of eternal recurrence, why he uses a poetic, allegoric style, and his “new tablets” that tell us what habitual and destructive ideas we have to flush out of our systems before we can be vital and creative. And don’t count on reaching overman status; innovators are generally sacrifices to the future and only get the goal half right.
End song: “Upright Man” by Rachel Taylor Brown, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #91.
Wes Alwan is joined by Dr. Glenn Mobray to discuss this classic 1946 psychoanalytic text.
On Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, books 1 and 2 (1883).
What is wisdom? In this text whose style parodies the Bible, we get pithy advice and allegorical imagery to guide us away from self-defeating, life-denying attitudes and orient us toward creative self-overcoming (i.e., exertion of the Will to Power). The Last Man who no longer knows how to give birth to a dancing star is a rotten egg!
End song: “Sacrilicious” by Hedflux, i.e., Steve Young, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #92.
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.
End song: “Things I Shouldn’t Have Told You” by Sam Phillips, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #90.
Wes Alwan is joined by actress, podcaster, and educator Monica McCarthy to discuss Anton Chekhov’s 1898 play about family dysfunction and potentially wasting your life.
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 and reactions to it? Sartre not only condemns anti-Semitism as denying the facts of the human condition (the responsibility for fixing problems and not blaming them on a demonized other), he also thinks that the victims of oppression can be inauthentic by denying their situation or otherwise being reactive to the racist’s attitude. “Black Orpheus” further explores this idea in characterizing the “negritude” of black poetry and how uncovering one’s negritude leads to solidarity and hence political and psychological change.
End song: “Punch Bag” by Godley & Creme as discussed on Nakedly Examined Music #3.
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.
End song: “Malaika” by John Etheridge and Vimala Rowe; hear John interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #85.
An interview and discussion on Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment (2018).
What motivates people? Frank points to thymos, the demand for recognition, as at the root of both the “end of history” (i.e., democracy as demand for equal recognition) and our current tribalist stalemates, involving desires to be seen—in virtue of group membership—as superior. Thymos may in fact be central to self-consciousness, ethics, and the origins of political association.
End song: “Cornerstone” by Richard X. Heyman, as discussed on Nakedly Examined Music #61.
On the extant fragments of Epicurus (341–270 BCE) dealing with ethics, including his “Letter to Menoceus,” “The Principal Doctrines,” and “The Vatican Collection of Epicurean Sayings.” Plus Tim O’Keefe’s Epicureanism (2010) and Martha Nussabum’s The Therapy of Desire (1994).
How are we supposed to act once we understand nature as atoms bouncing and swerving around in the void, temporarily producing order through fortuitous collisions? Ruling out demanding gods means ethics is dictated by human nature: we avoid pain and pursue pleasure. However, we’re very bad at this, and Epicurus wants to fix all of us!
End song: “The Language of the Body” by Ant-Bee as discussed on Nakedly Examined Music #68.
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On Johann Gottfried von Herder’s “The Causes of Sunken Taste among the Different Peoples in Whom It Once Blossomed” (1775), “On the Influence of the Belles Lettres on the Higher Sciences” (1781), “Does Painting or Music Have a Greater Effect? A Divine Colloquy” (1785), and some of Critical Forests: Fourth Grove (written 1769). With guest rock god John “Jughead” Pierson.
What is aesthetic taste, and why do some societies (e.g., ancient Greece) seem rife with genius while others are not? Herder has some definite ideas about aesthetic, sensual education as grounding for abstract thinking, rages against attempts to copy another culture’s art forms, and likes melody over harmony. Plus he coined the term “zeitgeist”!
End song: “Dear Resonance” by John’s band Even In Blackouts. Hear him interviewed about his music on Nakedly Examined Music #58.
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Mark and Wes go into more textual detail re. Lucretius’s take on atomism and the metaphysical and epistemological problems it entails. Listen to the full episode discussion first.
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On Lucretius’s poem about Epicurean science: On the Nature of Things aka De Rerum Natura from the first century BCE.
How does the world work? Lucretius presents a system that is surprisingly modern, and raises philosophical issues that are still on point today: What are the basic building blocks of the universe? How could these give rise to minds? What ethical views does a mechanistic worldview imply?
End song: “Came Round” by Mark Lint. Read about it and get the new album.
Keep an eye out for the follow-up discussion where Mark and Wes go into more details from the text.
Following on our discussion with Dr. Drew, Mark and Wes discuss Emile Durkheim’s Suicide (1897), getting into more of the details of his account and in particular exploring comparative modes of explanation: Are there really “sociological facts” distinct from mere generalizations about psychological facts?
This leads us to more discussion of the legitimacy of psychoanalytic explanations (and more details about Julia Kristeva’s Powers of Horror) vs. those of evolutionary psychology. Are either of these scientific in the manner of physics, or are they rather closer to speculative philosophy?
