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Episode 84: Netzsche’s “Gay Science” (Citizens Only)

November 11, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

Friedrich Niezsche

On Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Gay Science (1882, with book 5 added 1887). What is wisdom? Nietzsche gives us an updated take on the Socratic project of challenging your most deeply held beliefs. Challenge not just your belief in God (who’s “dead”), but uncover all your habits of thinking in terms of the divine. Realize how little of your life is actually a matter of conscious reflection, and the consequent limits on self-knowledge. The very act of systematization in philosophy overestimates what we can know; instead, we need a “gay” (in the sense of cheerful, carefree, and subversive) science (in the sense of organized knowledge) that chases after fleeting insights and is able to question, i.e. laugh at, the pretensions of its own activity.

End song: “Take a Hike,” by Mark Lint and Stevie P.

Episode 82: Karl Popper on Science (Citizens Only)

September 24, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

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. Learn more.

End song: “Falsifiable,” by Mark Lint, written and recorded just for this episode. Read about it.

Episode 81: Jung on the Psyche and Dreams (Citizens Only)

August 29, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

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!

End song: “Bedlam” by Mark Lint and the Simulacra.

Episode 80: Heidegger on Our Existential Situation (Citizens Only)

August 8, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

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. Learn more.

End song: “Into the World” by the MayTricks from “So Chewy!” (1993).

Episode 79: Heraclitus on Understanding the World (Citizens Only)

July 15, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

Eva Brann discusses her book The Logos of Heraclitus (2011). What is the world like, and how can we understand it? Heraclitus thinks that the answer to both questions is found in “the logos.”

End song: “Trading Away” by New People, from Impossible Things (2011).

Episode 78: Ayn Rand on Living Rationally (Citizens Only)

July 1, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

Ayn Rand

On Rand’s Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (1967) and “The Objectivist Ethics” (1961). First Rand grounds everyday human knowledge, largely by dismissing the concerns of other philosophers (even those whom she unknowingly parrots) as absurd. Then she uses this certainty to argue for her semi-Nietzschean vision of Great Men who master their emotions and rely only on themselves. Learn more.

End song: “Things We Should Do” by Mark Lint featuring Lucy Lawless (2013). Read about it.

Episode 77: Santayana on the Appreciation of Beauty (Citizens Only)

June 9, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

On George Santayana’s The Sense of Beauty (1896). What are we saying when we call something “beautiful?” Are we pointing out an objective quality that other people (anyone?) can ferret out, or just essentially saying “yay!” without any logic necessarily behind our exclamation? The poet and philosopher Santayana thought that while aesthetic appreciation is an immediate experience–we don’t “infer” the beauty of something by recognizing some natural qualities that it has–we can nonetheless analyze the experience after the fact to uncover a number of grounds on which we might appreciate something. Learn more.

End song: “Sense of Beauty” by Mark Lint. Read about it.

Episode 76: Deleuze on What Philosophy Is (Citizens Only)

May 14, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

On Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s What Is Philosophy? (1991).

How is philosophy different from science and art? What’s the relationship between different philosophies? Is better pursued solo, or in a group? Deleuze described philosophy as the creation of new concepts, whereas science is about functions that map observed regularities and art is about creating percepts and affects. With guest Daniel Coffeen. Learn more.

End song: “Tolerated” by New People, the new album Might Get It Right. Download the album.

Episode 75: Lacan & Derrida Criticize Poe’s “The Purloined Letter” (Citizens Only)

April 19, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

Edgar Allen Poe

On Jacques Lacan’s “Seminar on ‘The Purloined Letter'” (1956), Jacques Derrida’s “The Purveyor of Truth” (1975), and other essays in the collection The Purloined Poe: Lacan, Derrida, and Psychoanalytic Reading. How should philosophers approach literature? Lacan read Edgar Allen Poe’s story about a sleuth who outthinks a devious Minister as an illustration of his model of the psyche, and why we persist in self-destructive patterns. Derrida thought this reading not only imposed a bunch of psychobabble onto the story, but demonstrated that Lacan just didn’t know how to read a text.

Episode 74: Jacques Lacan’s Psychology (Citizens Only)

April 3, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

On Bruce Fink’s The Lacanian Subject (1996) and Lacan’s “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience” (1949). What is the self? Is that the same as the experiencing subject? Lacan says no: while the self (the ego) is an imaginative creation, cemented by language, the subject is something else, something split (at least initially) between consciousness and the unconscious. Lacan mixes this Freudian picture with semiotics–an emphasis on systems of linguistic symbols–using this to both create his picture of the psyche and explain how psychological disorders arise. Learn more.

End song: “Something Else” by Madison Lint.

Episode 73: Why Do Philosophy? (And What Is It?) (Citizens Only)

March 22, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

Mark, Seth, Wes, and Dylan share what drove them into philosophy and keeps them there. How is philosophy different than (or similar to) science? Than religion? Art? The consensus seems that philosophy, to us, is inevitable for the curious. It’s just inquiry, unbounded (in principle at least) by any fixed assumptions. We did no formal reading for this discussion, but did tell each other to keep in mind Plato’s “Apology.” Learn more.

End song: “Wake Me” by Mark Lint and the Fake from So Whaddaya Think? (2000).

Episode 72: Terrorism with Jonathan R. White (Citizens Only)

March 9, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

We’re joined by an international terrorism expert to discuss how to define terrorism and whether it can ever be ethical. With readings by Donald Black, J. Angelo Corlett, Igor Primoratz, Karl Heinzen, Bhagat Singh, and Carl von Clausewitz. Learn more.

End song: “1000 Points of Light” by The MayTricks (1992).

Episode 71: Martin Buber’s “I and Thou” (Citizens Only)

February 15, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

On Buber’s 1923 book about the fundamental human position: As children, and historically, we start fully absorbed in relation with another person (like mom). Before that, we have no self-consciousness, no “self” at all. It’s only by having these consuming “encounters” that we gradually distinguish ourselves from other people, and can then engage in what we’d normally consider “experience,” which Buber calls “the I-It relation.” Buber thinks that unless we can keep connected to this “I-Thou” phenomenon, through mature relationships, art, and nature. With guest Daniel Horne. Learn more.

End song: “Luscious You” by Mark Lint and the Fake, from So Whaddaya Think? (2000).

Episode 70: Marx on the Human Condition (Citizens Only)

January 30, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

Karl Marx

On Karl Marx’s The German Ideology, Part I, an early, unpublished work from 1846. What is human nature? What drives history? How can we improve our situation? Marx thought that fundamentally, you are what you do: you are your job, your means of subsistence. All the rest, this culture, this religion, this philosophy, is just a thin layer over our basic situation. Ideas are not primarily what changes the world; it’s economics.

End song: “Job” by Mark Lint and the Fake from So Whaddaya Think? (2000).

Episode 69: Plato on Rhetoric vs. Philosophy (Citizens Only)

January 12, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

Plato

On Plato’s Dialogue, “Gorgias” (380 BCE or so). Why philosophize? Isn’t it better to know how to persuade people in practical matters, like a successful lawyer or business leader? Plato (via Socrates) thinks that the “art” of rhetoric isn’t an art at all, in the sense of requiring an understanding of one’s subject matter, but merely a talent for saying what people want to hear. Learn more.

End song: “Fallen Sun” by New People. Download the album.

Episode 68: David Chalmers Interview on the Scrutability of the World (Citizens Only)

December 21, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

On David Chalmers’s book Constructing the World (2012). How are all the various truths about the world related to each other? David Chalmers, famous for advocating a scientifically respectable form of brain-consciousness dualism, advocates a framework of scrutability: if one knew some set of base truths, then the rest would be knowable from them. Learn more.

End song: “What You Want” by New People, from Might Get It Right (2013). Download the album.

Episode 67: Carnap on Logic and Science (Citizens Only)

December 7, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

Rudolph Carnap

On Rudolph Carnap’s The Logical Structure of the World (1928). What can we know? Carnap thinks that all the various spheres of knowledge are logically interrelated, that you can translate sentences about any of these into sentences about sets of basic, momentary experiences. This book, aka the Aufbau, is his attempt to sketch out how this system of linguistic reduction can work (it doesn’t). WIth guest Matt Teichman. Learn more.

End song: “Undershirt” by Mark Lint with Edison Carter (1996).

Episode 66: Quine on Linguistic Meaning and Science (Citizens Only)

November 21, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

On W.V.O. Quine’s “On What There Is” (1948) and “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” (1951). What kind of metaphysics is compatible with science? Quine sees science and philosophy as one and the same enterprise, and he objects to ontologies that include types of entities that science can’t, even in principle, study. Also, troubles with the concept of synonymy, i.e. “same meaning.” WIth guest Matt Teichman. Learn more.

End song: “Granted” by Mark Lint (2012).

Episode 65: The Federalist Papers (Citizens Only)

October 27, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

James Madison and Alexander Hamilton

On Alexander Hamilton/James Madison’s Federalist Papers (1, 10-12, 14-17, 39, 47-51), published as newspaper editorials 1787-8, plus Letters III and IV from Brutus, an Anti-Federalist. What constitutes good government? These founding fathers argued that the proposed Constitution, with its newly centralized (yet also separated-by-branch) powers would be a significant improvement on the Articles of Confederation, which had left states as the ultimate sovereigns. Learn more.

End song: “Feeling Time” by Madison Lint (2002).

Episode 64: Celebrity, with guest Lucy Lawless (Citizens Only)

October 6, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

On Fame: What the Classics Tell Us About Our Cult of Celebrity by Tom Payne (2010). What’s the deal with our f’ed up relationship with celebrities? Payne says that celebrities serve a social need that’s equal parts religion and and aggression. TV’s Lucy Lawless (Xena, Spartacus, Battlestar Galactica) joins us to discuss the accuracy of this thesis. Learn more.

End Song: “Celebrity” by New People from Might Get It Right. Download the album.

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