Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode. Listen to a preview. Hear this part ad-free.On Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985), featuring Mark, Seth, Dylan, Wes, and guest Brian Hirt, the co-host of Pretty Much Pop with degrees in linguistics and science education. Sponsors: Save 20% on an annual membership of at Continue Reading …
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Ep. 267: Avicenna on God and Soul w/ Peter Adamson (Part One)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode. Listen to a preview. Hear this part ad-free. On selections and commentary about Avicenna's argument from around 1020 C.E. for the existence of God (including arguments to prove that God has the person-like properties that Islam imputes to him) and his "flying man" argument for the soul's essential independence from matter. Featuring Continue Reading …
Ep. 266: Jonathan Lear’s Plato: Psyche and Society (Part One)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode. Listen to a preview. Hear this part ad-free. On essays from Lear's Open Minded: Working Out the Logic of the Soul (1988), featuring Mark, Wes, Dylan, and Seth. Sponsors: Get $200 off a mattress and two free pillows at HelixSleep.com/PEL. Get 50% off The New Yorker and a free tote bag at NewYorker.com/PEL. See headspace.com/PEL for a Continue Reading …
Ep. 265: Plato’s “Phaedo”: Philosophy as Training for Death (Part One)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode. Listen to a preview. Hear this part ad-free. On Plato's middle dialogue depicting the death of Socrates from around 390 BCE, featuring Mark, Wes, Dylan, and Seth. Should we fear death? Plato's dialogue shows Socrates conversing with his followers immediately before his execution about the philosophical life and the immortality of the Continue Reading …
Ep. 264: Plato’s “Timaeus” on Cosmology (Part One)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode. Listen to a preview. Hear this part ad-free. On the later Platonic dialogue from around 360 BCE, with Mark, Wes, and Dylan. How is nature put together? Plato, speaking this time through the fictional character instead of Socrates (who is present, but only Timaeus talks after the first part of the dialogue), paints a picture of the Continue Reading …
Ep. 263: Lise Van Boxel’s “Warspeak” on Strategies for Valuing (Part One)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode. Listen to a preview. Hear this part ad-free. Lise was one of the hosts of PEL network podcast Combat & Classics and a St. John's Santa Fe tutor. She passed away last year, but not before finishing her life's work, Warspeak, which evolved over many years out of her dissertation on Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals. Dylan and Seth Continue Reading …
Ep. 262: Nietzsche on Self-Denial (Part One)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode, or listen to a preview. Citizens can get the entire second part here and hear this part ad-free. On Friedrich Nietzsche's The Genealogy of Morals (1887), "Third essay: what do ascetic ideals mean?" featuring Mark, Wes, Dylan, and Seth. When people really get serious, and try to put away frivolous things, is that good or bad? A Continue Reading …
Ep. 261: Derek Parfit on Personal Identity (Part One)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode, or listen to a preview. Citizens can get the entire second part here. On Reasons and Persons (1984), ch. 10-13, featuring Mark, Wes, Dylan and Seth. What makes a person the same over time? Parfit used Locke as a starting point: It's a matter of continuity of memory: I am the same person as my younger self because there are Continue Reading …
PREVIEW-Ep. 260: Locke on Moral Psychology
Subscribe to get the full episode. We made one last swipe at mopping up some outstanding issues in John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), covering Book II, ch. 21 and 28, featuring Mark, Wes, Dylan, and Seth. This preview includes only about a third of the discussion, but I'm going to give you my full essay about its contents here: What makes a moral Continue Reading …
Ep. 259: Locke Clarifies Misleading Complex Ideas (Part Two)
More on Book II (ch. 22-33) of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), discussed by Mark, Wes, and Dylan. On relations, then personal identity, with more on substances (spiritual and material), the various ways in which ideas can go wrong, and how mental association can entrench irrationality that disrupts clear thinking. Listen to part one first, or get Continue Reading …
Ep. 259: Locke Clarifies Misleading Complex Ideas (Part One)
On Book II (ch. 22-33) of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), discussed by Mark, Wes, and Dylan. Simple ideas (as discussed in ep. 258) get complex rather quickly, perhaps as soon as you put them into words, and certainly as soon as you put them into a system. If I perceive the color blue, or a passing thought in my mind, a simple idea of this appears Continue Reading …
Mark Lint’s PEL Network Holiday Party 2020: Merry Chatting and Songs
Join the office Christmas party at the PEL network. The hired band is Mark Lint’s Dry Folk, playing their entire album, and the guests are considerate enough to only talk between the songs. BYOB! Mark holds mini conversations on philosophy, art, and life with all the PEL and PMP co-hosts, plus special guests Ken Stringfellow (a guy who played with REM and Big Star also sang Continue Reading …
REISSUE-PEL Ep 37: Locke on Political Power (w/ New Intro)
Happy Holidays! Have you heard our 2020 Holiday Party yet? Discussing John Locke's Second Treatise on Government (1690). What makes political power legitimate? Like Hobbes, Locke thinks that things are less than ideal without a society to keep people from killing us, so we implicitly sign a social contract giving power to the state. But for Locke, nature's not as bad, so Continue Reading …
Ep. 258: Locke on Acquiring Simple Ideas (Part Two)
Continuing on Book II (through ch. 20) of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689). What are the simple ideas that Locke thinks we acquire, and how do we acquire them? First, pain and pleasure, which are not so much just those sensory feelings as any sense of welcome or uneasiness that accompanies virtually any thought we may have. Maybe he's thinking like Continue Reading …
Ep. 258: Locke on Acquiring Simple Ideas (Part One)
On Book II (through ch. 20) of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), discussed by Mark, Wes, Dylan, and Seth. In ep. 257, we established that Locke didn't think we are born with any actual knowledge; we only have as the raw materials of knowledge what our five senses feed us. But there do seem to be some beliefs about, for instance, the existence of our Continue Reading …
Ep. 257: Locke Against Innate Ideas (Part Two)
Continuing from part one on Book I of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689). We go through the arguments against innate ideas: There's no universal assent to foundational principles, either practical or theoretical. Plenty of people around the world deny in good conscience what we might consider foundational ethical principles, and they certainly don't all Continue Reading …
Ep. 257: Locke Against Innate Ideas (Part One)
On Book I of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), discussed by Mark, Wes, Dylan, and Seth. How do we know things? Locke is well known as a British empiricist: All knowledge must ultimately come from our experience. Contra Plato, who thought that knowledge of the important things is "recollected," perhaps from the time before we were born as individual Continue Reading …
Ep. 256: Kropotkin’s Anarchist Communism (Part One)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode, or listen to a preview. Citizens can get the entire second part here. On Peter Kropotkin's The Conquest of Bread (1892), discussed by Mark, Wes, Dylan, and Seth. If we want an egalitarian society, do we need the state to accomplish this? Kropotkin says no, that in fact the state inevitably serves the interests of the few, and that if Continue Reading …
Ep. 255: Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” (Part One)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode, or listen to a preview. Citizens can get the entire second part here. On the Chinese military treatise attributed to Sunzi, literally "Master Sun," an honorific for a general named Sun Wu from the 5th or 6th century BCE. Mark, Wes, Dylan, and Seth are joined by ex-Marine Brian Wilson, host of Combat & Classics. How does a Continue Reading …
Ep. 254: Michael Sandel Interview: Against Meritocracy (Part One)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode, or listen to a preview. Citizens can get the entire second part here. On The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good? (2020). Previously, Michael Sandel argued for the necessity for public policy to be driven by ethics (see our ep. 97) and then applied this to argue against a purely market-driven society (see our Continue Reading …