Sign up for Closereads at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy to get part 2 of this reading, as well as our previous and future installments of this new podcast. For the first time since 2015, we return to this foundational Stoic figure, reading through ch. 1 of this series of informal lectures written down by Epictetus' student Arrian in around 108 C.E. What is it about Continue Reading …
Ep. 324: Plato’s “Cratylus” on Language (Part Three for Supporters/Closereads)
Mark and Wes do a Closeread on the latter part of the dialogue, where Socrates argues to Cratylus that even if names (words) were devised to somehow depict the things they stand for, that wouldn't guarantee that they ACCURATELY describe the world. You can't look at the definitions of words to learn about the world; you have to actually investigate the world directly. Follow Continue Reading …
Closereads: Reason in Hobbes’ “Leviathan” (Part One)
Sign up for Closereads at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy to get parts 2 and 3 of this reading, as well as our previous and future installments of this new podcast. We've covered a lot of rationalists (I'm including the Romantics in this, strangely enough) and wanted to turn back to one of the original Enlightenment empiricists, Thomas Hobbes. His Leviathan (1651) is best Continue Reading …
Closereads: How to Hear and Watch Emerson’s Oversoul Parts Two, Three and Four (and Future Installments)
Continuing from part one, we took three more sessions to get through the rest of the essay. You can hear these if you sign up to support Closereads via Patreon at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy. You can listen to audio previews of all the episodes there as well (here's part two). I'm not going to keep making posts like this on this site to tantalize you, but the plan is Continue Reading …
Closereads on Emerson’s Oversoul: Audio and Video Podcast Premiere
Subscribe to get this discussion ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. Are we underlyingly all really a single, unified organism? Or do we just have a lot in common? We begin unraveling this puzzling claim by reading Ralph Waldo Emerson's 1841 essay "The Over-Soul." Read along with us. This is the public premiere of a new weekly series by the most verbose of your PEL Continue Reading …
Closereads: Emerson’s Oversoul (Part One for PEL Supporters)
Are we underlyingly all really a single, unified organism? Or do we just have a lot in common? We begin unraveling this puzzling claim by reading Ralph Waldo Emerson's 1841 essay "The Over-Soul." Read along with us. This is the first of four parts of this series. The others will all be up this week, but will only be visible to those support Closereads through Continue Reading …
Closereads: Hegel on Spinoza (Part Three)
We conclude our Closeread of the Spinoza section from Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy (1830) by getting into some heavy metaphysical issues. Read along with us. Start with parts one and two. Watch the video: Sign up to the new Closereads Patreon: patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy, to get every episode of the new endeavor. We've provided this first series Continue Reading …
Closereads: Hegel on Spinoza (Part Two)
We're continuing from part one reading through the entry on Spinoza from Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy (1830). Read along with us. You can listen via the Citizen feed or watch the video: Note that this is a new project, not just more PEL, so we're creating new Closereads-specific supporter mechanisms like a standalone Closereads Patreon page, which Continue Reading …
Closereads: Hegel on Spinoza (Part One)
It's a brand new podcast! Closereads: Philosophy with Mark and Wes, where we read through and talk about a text line by line. Today we're starting the entry on Spinoza from Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy (1830). Read along with us. But you don't have to just listen: This is a video podcast... not that you have to watch the video, but maybe you'd like to. Continue Reading …