The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
A Philosophy Podcast and Philosophy Blog
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We discuss “Dazy Bones” and “Rat’s Opus” from that 2018 album, then look back to The Damned’s “History of the World (Part One)” from The Black Album (1980), then end by listening to Rat’s cover of the Kraftwerk classic “Autobahn” with The Germans from Do Not Fuck With the Germans (2003). Intro/outro: “Love Song” by The Damned from Machine Gun Etiquette (1979). For more, visit ratscabies.com.
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Continuing on Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (2017) and “What Is the Point of Equality?” (1999).
Should the amount of respect that a worker gets be proportional to his or her market value? Our guest tells us more about how all citizens have the right to have their interests considered and what this means for how the relationship between employers and employees might change. We talk health care, income inequality, Tyler Cowen, libertarianism, and more.
Start with part one. We’ll do some post-guest discussion in part 3, but you needn’t wait: Get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition now. Please support PEL.
If you enjoyed Mark’s music on our episodes 1–149, please contribute to the new album through patreon.com/marklint.
The U. of Michigan prof joins us to discuss Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don’t Talk about It) (2017) and “What Is the Point of Equality?” (1999).
What is a government? Liz argues that this includes companies, and that we should thus apply political science concepts in evaluating their power. Her egalitarianism involves everyone retaining a minimum level of inalienable autonomy, and we should resist encroachments on this not just by the state but from employers as well.
Continue on parts two and three, or get them together via the ad-free Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!
The U. of Michigan prof joins us to discuss Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don’t Talk about It) (2017) and “What Is the Point of Equality?” (1999).
What is a government? Liz argues that this includes companies, and that we should thus apply political science concepts in evaluating their power. Her egalitarianism involves everyone retaining a minimum level of inalienable autonomy, and we should resist encroachments on this not just by the state but from employers as well.
End song: “Straight Job” by Rod Picott. Hear him on Nakedly Examined Music #80.
Mark and Seth continue our conversation from ep. 198 by going through the arguments in the second half of the dialogue.
This puzzling section is largely a monologue by the character Parmenides, with the stated aim of showing the implications from first, the assumption that the One exists, and then that the One does not exist. But is this really Parmenides’s One or the Platonic Form of Oneness? Can these be the same thing?
We get down to the specific questions considered in this perplexing Platonic dialogue: Are there Forms for all adjectives? Does the Form of a property itself have that property? How do Forms connect with particulars? How can we mortals have any connection to heavenly Forms anyway?
Listen to part one first or get the full, ad-free Citizen Edition along with the follow-up episode. Please support PEL!
End song: “Young and Lovely” by Jherek Bischoff. Hear him on Nakedly Examined Music #65.
On the most peculiar Platonic dialogue, from ca. 350 BCE.
Are properties real things in the world, or just in the mind? Plato is known for claiming that these “Forms” are real, though otherworldly. Here, though, using Parmenides as a character talking to a young Socrates, Plato seems to provide objections here to his own theory. What’s the deal?
Continue on part two or get the full, ad-free Citizen Edition now! Please support PEL!
Sponsor: Check out Sam Yang’s Must Triumph podcast at musttriumph.com.
On the most peculiar Platonic dialogue, from ca. 350 BCE.
Are properties real things in the world, or just in the mind? Plato is known for claiming that these “Forms” are real, though otherworldly. Here, though, using Parmenides as a character talking to a young Socrates, Plato seems to provide objections here to his own theory. What’s the deal?
End song: “Young and Lovely” by Jherek Bischoff. Hear him on Nakedly Examined Music #65.
Wes discusses the film with philosophy professor David Kyle Johnson. What is there to fear in artificial intelligence? How does this shed light on what it means to be fully human?
Note: Part two will NOT be appearing on this feed. Become a PEL Citizen to get the full discussion. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to learn how.
Continuing with guest Peter Adamson with “On Nature” (475 BCE).
We finally get to fragment 8, which describes why Being must be singular and eternal, given that the notion of Non-Being is nonsense. But how could we as individuals be asking these questions then? Does his “Way of Seeming” work to explain the appearances, as opposed to reality?
Listen to part one first, or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!
End song: “Circle” by Gareth Mitchell, as discussed on Nakedly Examined Music #4.
Sponsors: Explore Peter Singer’s The Life You Can Save at partiallyexaminedlife.com/savealife.
On the fragments referred to as “On Nature” from ca. 475 BCE, featuring guest Peter Adamson from the History of Philosophy without Any Gaps podcast.
Parmenides gives “the Way of Truth,” which is that there is only Being, and talking of Non-Being is nonsense. So everything you experience is wrong!
Don’t wait for part two! Get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!
Sponsors: Explore Peter Singer’s The Life You Can Save at partiallyexaminedlife.com/savealife, and visit thegreatcoursesplus.com/PEL for a one-month free trial of The Great Courses Plus Video Learning Service. Get $15 off tickets at usegametime.com/pel, promo code PEL.
On the fragments referred to as “On Nature” from ca. 475 BCE, featuring guest Peter Adamson from the History of Philosophy without Any Gaps podcast.
End song: “Circle” by Gareth Mitchell, as discussed on Nakedly Examined Music #4.
Episode 2 of Wes’s new podcasting endeavor, featuring Mary from the Phi Fic podcast, who’s also the managing editor of the PEL blog.
Note: Part two will NOT be appearing on this feed. Become a PEL Citizen to get the full discussion. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to learn how.
Continuing with Simon on his book On Truth (2018).
We move to part two of the book, where we get down to the procedures used to obtain truth in art, ethics, and science. Yes, truth is objective, but it’s not best described as correspondence, and in fact this elaboration of how truth is actually obtained is more enlightening than any abstract definition meant to cover all the different types of truth-seeking.
Listen to part one first, or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition, and also Wes’s bonus conversation on Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five. Please support PEL!
End song: “with you/for you” from the new cold/mess EP by Prateek Kuhad, interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #79.
Sponsors: Visit Peter Singer’s The Life You Can Save at partiallyexaminedlife.com/savealife, and thegreatcoursesplus.com/PEL.
The Cambridge/etc. prof joins Mark, Wes, and Dylan to discuss his book On Truth (2018).
What is truth? Simon’s view synthesizes deflationism and pragmatism to avoid relativism by fixing on the domain-specific procedures we actually engage in to establish the truth of a claim, whether in ethics, science, art, or whatever. A gift of clarity after two episodes threshing through the jungles of analytic philosophy!
Continued on part 2, or get the full, unbroken Citizen Edition, as well as Wes’s discussion on Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five.
Sponsors: Listen to the Hi-Phi Nation podcast at hiphination.org, and explore Peter Singer’s The Life You Can Save at partiallyexaminedlife.com/savealife.
The Cambridge/etc. prof joins Mark, Wes, and Dylan to discuss his book On Truth (2018).
What is truth? Simon’s view synthesizes deflationism and pragmatism to avoid relativism by fixing on the domain-specific procedures we actually engage in to establish the truth of a claim, whether in ethics, science, art, or whatever. A gift of clarity after two episodes threshing through the jungles of analytic philosophy!
End song: “with you/for you” from the new cold/mess EP by Prateek Kuhad, interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #79.
Continuing on “Truth” by J.L. Austin and “Truth” by P.F. Strawson, both from 1950. We proceed to the Strawson article, which critiques the notion of a “fact” as explaining why a sentence might be true. A “fact” is not a thing in the world! So what do we add when we change “The cat is on the mat” to “‘The cat is on the mat’ is true”?
Listen to Part One first, or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!
End song: “Troof” by Shawn Phillips, as interviewed for Nakedly Examined Music #77.
Sponsors: Listen to the Hi-Phi Nation podcast at hiphination.org, and visit lightstream.com/PEL for a discounted loan.
On two articles in the “ordinary language” tradition of philosophy called “Truth” from 1950 by J.L. Austin and P.F. Strawson.
Is truth a property of particular speech acts, or of the propositions expressed through speech acts? Does truth mean correspondence with the facts, or does the word “fact” make this definition totally uninformative? Does saying “is true” add any information content to a sentence over and above just stating that sentence?
Don’t wait a week to hear about Strawson! Get the full, unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition of this discussion. Please support PEL!
Sponsor: Visit thegreatcoursesplus.com/PEL.
On two articles in the “ordinary language” tradition of philosophy called “Truth” from 1950 by J.L. Austin and P.F. Strawson.
Is truth a property of particular speech acts, or of the propositions expressed through speech acts? Does truth mean correspondence with the facts, or does the word “fact” make this definition totally uninformative? Does saying “is true” add any information content to a sentence over and above just stating that sentence?
End song: “Troof” by Shawn Phillips, as interviewed for Nakedly Examined Music #77.
Wes Alwan and Bill Youmans discuss the 1611 play about revenge, forgiveness, and authorship. Or maybe it’s about exploitation, or how we react to changes in status, or perhaps how a liberal education can give you magical powers!
Note: Part two will NOT be appearing on this feed. Become a PEL Citizen to get the full discussion. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to learn how.
Nakedly Examined Music is a podcast about making music: Why do we do it? Why do we do it the way we do it? Mark Linsenmayer interviews songwriters and composers famous and otherwise about specific recordings, which are presented in full on the podcast. 
