Our upcoming episode #174 will be on Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, and we've scheduled a follow-up (#176) with Russ Roberts of EconTalk, so I again have economics on the brain, and am trying to figure out exactly what rubs me the wrong way about pro-capitalist cheerleading apart from its obvious association with some pretty despicable elements in politics, given that I agree Continue Reading …
Penn Jillette’s Deceptively Simple Rhetoric of Libertarianism
One of our intermittent tasks here on The Partially Examined Life is to try to engage with current rhetoric in popular intellectualism. Our recent episode on white privilege attempted to separate the facts involved (race disparities) from the concepts used to characterize those facts ("privilege") and from what concrete actions could be used to address the actual problems Continue Reading …
Hume on Religion: A Video Introduction to PEL Ep. 167
Here's the topic announcement/summary introduction (i.e. a precognition) for our next episode, introducing Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Watch on YouTube. The text here is the introduction I'll actually lead off the episode recording itself with, just as Wes just did on #166 on Spinoza. We're interested in hearing from you, both regarding whether you Continue Reading …
Bojack Horseman and Aristotelian Self-Love
The latest Wisecrack philosophy video takes on one of my favorite shows of all time: Bojack Horseman. Under the pretext of comedy, colorful animation, and talking animals, the Netflix original sneaks in heartbreaking moments of raw human vulnerability. Its main character—the eponymous Bojack Horseman—is a charismatic, depressed, washed-out actor who in his chaotic search for Continue Reading …
What Is It Like to Be Ourselves? A Debate on Consciousness and the Mind
“Consciousness is that annoying thing that happens between naps.” This is how world-renowned philosopher and cognitive scientist David Chalmers defines the quintessentially human state in this debate, although his facetiousness is quite easy to detect: Chalmers famously formulated the “hard problem of consciousness” and built an immensely successful career around it. His Continue Reading …
Rhythm 0, Marina Abramović, and Freudian Ambivalence
As 21st-century humans, we like to think of ourselves as highly intelligent and morally developed beings. But every so often comes an artist who holds up a mirror so close to our face that we can see the fragile veneer of civilization crackle and slowly come off. Marina Abramović is one such artist, and in her 1974 performance Rhythm 0 she exposed humanity in all its primordial Continue Reading …
Facing the Other: Performance Art and Emmanuel Levinas
In one of our recent episodes, while trying to figure out what’s so special about the face-to-face encounter in the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, Seth mentioned the work of performance artist Marina Abramović. In 2010, the self-dubbed “grandmother of performance art” performed a piece entitled The Artist Is Present, which crowned her retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art Continue Reading …
The Hubris of Transhumanism
The debates around futurist tech, biotechnology, and human enhancements are usually very polarized, with one side embracing it uncritically and the other rejecting it irrationally. Geeky technophiles who see science as the be-all and end-all of thinking want to push the progress farther and faster, sometimes leaving ethics behind, whereas the more romantically minded embrace Continue Reading …
Song Self-Exam (Pilot and How-To): “Write Me Off” by Mark Lint
As an accompaniment to the Nakedly Examined Music podcast, I'm launching a project to collect song explanations from our musician listeners: Song Self-Exams. Now, I've long been doing something like this intermittently through my Nakedly Self-Examined Music posts on this blog, but video, where the song and the explanation are on the same video, is better, I think. Here's my Continue Reading …
Topic for #125: Hannah Arendt on the Political, Private, and Social
You can watch the streams from the 9/25-9/26 Pittsburgh 2015 Continental Philosophy Conference on their YouTube Page, including our 9/26 episode discussion on Hannah Arendt. We have a separate (better) audio recording that will be released as a PEL episode in two installments on Oct. 12 and Oct. 19, and most likely combined with a different video to post our our YouTube Continue Reading …
And now for something completely serious
Humor seems to be the Flavor of the Month here at PEL. We've had a couple of excellent posts about comedy recently (here and here), and another one is coming very soon. But in the midst of this, we shouldn't entirely lose sight of the inherent seriousness of philosophy; with that goal, I want to call attention in this post to a neglected classic, one of the foundational texts Continue Reading …
Historical File 12-1
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.” - Romans 12:1 It’s not news that The Matrix is littered with biblical references. It’s also not news that the second and third movies are terrible. But, there is a Matrix supplement that is the best Continue Reading …
New Work Entrepreneurs (and a Now-Bountiful YouTube Channel)
Folks that were interested in our Frithjof Bergmann episodes last fall about New Work should subscribe to the New Work YouTube channel, of which I am the proprietor, with Frithjof's encouragement and cooperation. All of the videos previously created on this topic for bloggingheads have been reedited and put in a playlist here, and I have continued in recent months doing Continue Reading …
A Heap of David Brin Links
If you wanted to hear or read more from David, the place to start is his blog Contrary Brin. Here also is a collection of articles, nicely categorized, which in turn links to this collection of interviews. A couple of the topics he touched on with us include the "disputation arenas" and self-righteousness as an addiction. Continue Reading …
Not School Group Proposal: Zizek!
For March I'm proposing a Not School reading group on Zizek. The group will read a 25-page transcript of a talk he gave at the International Journal of Zizek Studies 2012 conference. It is, I think, a very nice summary of some of his key philosophical positions and where his current theoretical interests lie. The added advantage of this reading is that a recording of Zizek Continue Reading …
Mark and Frithjof on Community Production at Bloggingheads.tv
Watch at Bloggingheads.TV In this follow-up to our first video, Frithjof Bergmann discusses the concept of community production in more depth. To what extent is this actually happening now? Is it actually cheaper to produce goods in this setting than via mass production? Who pays for all of this? Some lingering questions get answered. -Mark Linsenmayer Continue Reading …
Mark and Frithjof on Bloggingheads.tv
In light of our podcast discussions here and here, I'm helping Frithjof Bergmann launch what will hopefully be a series of shorter video discussions on New Work at bloggingheads.tv. We made our first recording yesterday, and it has already been posted: Watch at Bloggingheads.tv There shouldn't be much new here for PEL listeners who've already sat through our two Continue Reading …
Robert Skidelsky on Work
Robert Skidelsky in How Much is Enough?: Money and the Good Life (2012) uses a 1930 essay from John Maynard Keynes (which you can read here) as a jumping-off point to argue, like Bergmann, that productivity gains enabled by past technological advances make it totally reasonable that we now should be working fewer hours than we are. However, Skidelsky's range of suggested Continue Reading …
Topic for #83: Frithjof Bergmann on the Job System
Listen to Mark's introduction to this topic via our Precognition mini-episode. On Saturday, 9/21, we're scheduled to interview Frithjof Bergmann, Professor Emeritus from the University of Michigan, about his book New Work, New Culture (published in German in 2004 and due for English-language release this year). I've written on this topic several times on this blog already, Continue Reading …
‘Don’t Act. Just Think’: A short comment on Slavoj Zizek’s critique of Activism
[From Sotiris Triantis] Slavoj Zizek - in a video titled ‘Don’t Act. Just Think’ - suggests that in the social and political realm we should not act but think. It's an odd, somewhat counter-revolutionary thesis. Historical change has always been brought about by collective action. A more useful model might be: ‘First Think, Then Act’. When Noam Chomsky was asked by Continue Reading …