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Paywalled and Ad-Free Episodes

Citizen Feed Episodes: Paywalled and Ad-Free

Available only to PEL Citizens: All of our paywalled and ad-free regular episodes in a single feed. That includes paywalled full episodes from the back catalogue, Nightcap and (Starting in September 2020) Part 2 of all episodes.  You can add this feed to the podcast app of your choice by following the instructions here. You can download them, listen to them here, or get them on the podcast app of your choice by following the instructions here. Not a Citizen? Join here.

Episode 206: Lucretius’s Epicurean Physics (Citizen Edition)

December 31, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 3 Comments

On Lucretius’s poem about Epicurean science: On the Nature of Things aka De Rerum Natura from the first century BCE.

How does the world work? Lucretius presents a system that is surprisingly modern, and raises philosophical issues that are still on point today: What are the basic building blocks of the universe? How could these give rise to minds? What ethical views does a mechanistic worldview imply?

End song: “Came Round” by Mark Lint. Read about it and get the new album.

Keep an eye out for the follow-up discussion where Mark and Wes go into more details from the text.

Episode 205 Follow-Up: Durkheim and Explanation Types (Citizens Only)

December 20, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

Following on our discussion with Dr. Drew, Mark and Wes discuss Emile Durkheim’s Suicide (1897), getting into more of the details of his account and in particular exploring comparative modes of explanation: Are there really “sociological facts” distinct from mere generalizations about psychological facts?

This leads us to more discussion of the legitimacy of psychoanalytic explanations (and more details about Julia Kristeva’s Powers of Horror) vs. those of evolutionary psychology. Are either of these scientific in the manner of physics, or are they rather closer to speculative philosophy?

Episode 205: Suicide with Dr. Drew (Durkheim et al) (Citizen Edition)

December 16, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 12 Comments

We are rejoined by Drew Pinsky to discuss philosophical and psychological readings on suicide by Seneca, Arthur Schopenhauer, Sigmund Freud, Emile Durkheim, Albert Camus, plus some 2017 survey papers on the state of research into predictors of suicide.

Is suicide ever morally permissible? If it’s a symptom of mental illness rather than a chosen behavior, is it even appropriate to morally evaluate it?

End song: “Disappear” by Chris Cacavas as heard on Nakedly Examined Music #87.

Check the PEL Store for our Wall Calendar and new offerings including Mark’s new album, tutoring, and your very own Personal Philosophy.

Visit DrDrew.com.

Episode 204: The Bhagavad Gita’s Hindu Theology (Citizen Edition)

December 3, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 Comments

On the classic Hindu text (ca. the third century BCE), part of the Indian Epic poem Mahabharata, attributed to Vyasa, using Keya Maitra’s 2018 translation/commentary.

What is it to live wisely? What grounds duty? Listen as the supreme God Krishna convinces archer hero Arjuna that it’s OK for him to kill his relatives because, you know, reincarnation and determinism and caste-related duties. With guest Shaan Amin.

End song: “Om Hari Om 1” by Tim Jordan Kirtan feat. Michael Manring. Hear Michael on Nakedly Examined Music #31.

Get the 2019 PEL Wall Calendar!

Episode 203: Kristeva vs. Lovecraft on Horror and Abjection (Citizen Edition)

November 19, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 Comments

More on Julia Kristeva’s Powers of Horror (1980) plus H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu” (1928).

Mark, Seth, and Dylan reflect on the nature of horror, how well Lovecraft’s story captures it, and how well Kristeva explains it. Plus, more clarity on the establishment of self and how Kristeva advances over Freud.

End song: “The Other” by Mark Lint feat. Lucy Lawless. Read about it and support the project.

Episode 202 Follow-Up: Close Reading of Kristeva’s “Approaching Abjection” (Citizens Only)

November 10, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

Mark takes a very close look at pages 1-4 of the first chapter of On Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (1980) to follow up on our Kristeva discussion.

Episode 202: Julia Kristeva on Disgust, Fear and the Self (Citizen Edition)

November 5, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 6 Comments

On Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (1980), ch. 1 and 2.

What is horror? Kristeva’s book is about a process she calls “abjection,” where we violently reject things like corpses, bodily wastes and other fluids, and the Lovecraftian unnameable that lurks at the edge of our awareness.

The book is also all about the self, suggesting modifications to Freud’s Oedipal complex and Lacan’s mirror-stage story. With guest Kelley Citrin.

End song: “Eyes of Fire” by Jill Freeman, as discussed on Nakedly Examined Music #28.

Watch out for Mark’s Close Reading/follow-up on this text, coming soon!

Episode 201 Follow-Up: More on Marcus Aurelius’s “Meditations” (Citizens Only)

October 29, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 3 Comments

Mark and Seth get further into the specifics of Marcus’s metaphysics and how this is supposed to relate to behavior. Can his directives really come solely “from reason” as he claims? How does this interact with the behaviors that we pursue (appropriately, according to Marcus) “by nature,” i.e., without conscious deliberation required? Seth is concerned with how individualistic the philosophy is. Mark is concerned that if you discard the metaphysics (as modern skeptics largely do), why should you expect the rest of the philosophy to be coherent?

Listen to episode 201 first.

Episode 201: Marcus Aurelius’s Stoicism with Ryan Holiday (Citizen Edition)

October 22, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 8 Comments

On The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (ca. 180 CE) plus Ryan’s The Daily Stoic (2016).

What does Stoicism look like in practice, in both ancient and modern contexts? You might think that eschewing the shallow, out-of-our control trappings of fame and wealth in favor of personal cultivation would make one unambitious, but Ryan uses Marcus as a prime example of how to be a Stoic while trying to accomplish great things.

End song: “Any Way the Wind Blows” by MIR; listen to Mark talk with Asif Illyas on Nakedly Examined Music #33.

Help us plan our 10th Anniversary show by taking our planning survey.

Episode 200: Kant/Mendelssohn/Foucault on Enlightenment (Citizen Edition)

October 8, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 8 Comments

On “What Is Enlightenment” by Immanuel Kant (1784), “On Enlightening the Mind” by Moses Mendelssohn (1784), and “What Is Enlightenment” by Michael Foucault (1984).

At the end of the historical period known as the Enlightenment, a Berlin newspaper asked what exactly that is, and Kant and Mendelssohn responded. Both were concerned with whether too much enlightenment among the public can cause social unrest, and so whether there should be freedom of speech and opinion. Foucault thinks that we’re not yet Enlightened, that it’s an ongoing process of critique.

Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/pel-live to help us plan the 10-year anniversary live event!

End song: “Holy Fool” by Love and Rockets. Listen to singer Daniel Ash on Nakedly Examined Music #35.

(sub)Text #4: Freud’s “Mourning and Melancholia” (Citizens Only)

October 7, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

Wes Alwan is joined by Tracy Morgan and Louis Scuderi to discuss Freud’s classic 1917 essay. Read it online.

Listen to more (sub)Text.

Episode 199: Guest Elizabeth Anderson on Private Government (Citizen Edition)

September 17, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 12 Comments

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.

Episode 198 Follow-Up: More on Plato’s “Parmenides” (Citizens Only)

September 13, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

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?

Episode 198: Plato’s Forms in the “Parmenides” (Citizen Edition)

September 2, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 5 Comments

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.

(sub)Text #3: Spielberg’s “AI: Artificial Intelligence”: What Is It to Be Human? (Citizens Only)

September 2, 2018 by Wes Alwan 5 Comments

Wes discusses the Steven Spielberg 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?

Episode 197: Parmenides on What There Is (Citizen Edition)

August 20, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 13 Comments

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.

(sub)Text #2: Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse Five”: Is There Such a Thing as a War Story? (Citizens Only)

August 9, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 4 Comments

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.

Listen to more (sub)Text.

Episode 196: Guest Simon Blackburn on Truth (Citizen Edition)

August 5, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 5 Comments

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.

Episode 195: Truth-The Austin/Strawson Debate (Citizen Edition)

July 22, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

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.

(sub)Text #1: Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”: Poesis as Revenge Forsaken (Citizens Only)

July 19, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 7 Comments

A new, Wes-driven endeavor! He 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! Listen and decide for yourself! And tell Wes if you like this kind of thing so he’ll do more.

Episode 194: Alfred Tarski on Truth (Citizen Edition)

July 8, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

On Tarski’s “The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics” (1944), Hartry Field’s “Tarski’s Theory of Truth” (1972), and Donald Davidson’s “The Folly of Trying to Define Truth” (1977).

What is truth? Tarski gives a technical, metaphysically neutral definition for truth within a particular, well-defined language. So how does that apply to real languages? He thought he was defining truth (a semantic concept) in terms of more primitive (physical?) concepts, but Field and Davidson think that actually, truth as a general concept is indefinable, even though it’s still helpful for Tarski to have laid out the relations among various semantic concepts.

End song: “In Vino Vertias” by Sunspot; Mark interviewed Mike Huberty on Nakedly Examined Music #64.

Episode 193 Follow-Up: Strauss and Rorty on Liberal Education and Democracy (Citizens Only)

July 1, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 Comments

Wes and Dylan discuss Leo Strauss’s “Mass Education and Democracy” (1967) and Richard Rorty’s “Democracy and Philosophy” (2007). Must philosophical training, or liberal education more generally, necessarily be restricted a privileged minority? PEL Citizens get to find out!

Episode 193: The Theory and Practice of Liberal Education w/ Pano Kanelos (Citizen Edition)

June 25, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 10 Comments

The president of St. John’s College, Annapolis joins us to discuss Jacob Klein’s “The Idea of a Liberal Education” (1960) and “On Liberal Education” (1965), plus Sidney Hook’s “A Critical Appraisal of the St. John’s College Curriculum” (1946) and Martha Nussbaum’s “Undemocratic Vistas” (1987).

What constitutes a liberal education? Should we all read the Western canon? Klein (and our guest) think that we need to wonder at the familiar, to explore the ancestry of our current concepts in order to avoid their sedimentation.

End song: “Preservation Hill” by The Bevis Frond; Mark interviewed Nick Saloman on Nakedly Examined Music #75.

Episode 192 Follow-Up: More “Closing of the American Mind” (Citizens Only)

June 18, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 5 Comments

Mark, Seth, and Wes, continue on Bloom, getting into The Instruments of Last Manhood, i.e., the influence of Nietzsche (and his predecessor Rousseau) through Freud and Weber. Listen to ep. 192 first. Plus Seth on Lysistrata, since he missed that discussion.

Episode 192: “The Closing of the American Mind”: Allan Bloom on Education (Citizen Edition)

June 11, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 16 Comments

On Allan Bloom’s 1987 best-selling polemic. What is the role of the university in our democracy? Bloom thinks that today’s students are conformist, relativistic, and nihilistic, and that great books and thinking for thinking’s sake are the cure. Watch for the follow-up recording to be released soon.

End song: “Greatness (The Aspiration Song)” by Colin Moulding as heard on Nakedly Examined Music #74.

Episode 191: Conceptual Schemes: Donald Davidson & Rudolf Carnap (Citizen Edition)

May 28, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 6 Comments

On Davidson’s “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme” (1974) and Carnap’s “Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology” (1950).

What does it mean to say that we grasp the world through a conceptual scheme? Are schemes different between cultures or even individuals, such that we can’t really understand each other? Davidson thinks that this doesn’t make sense. Carnap gives us a picture of multiple, domain-specific vocabularies and doesn’t see a problem with the concepts of one not being translatable into concepts of another.

End Song: “Shut Up” by Chandler Travis, as heard on Nakedly Examined Music #46.

Bonus Discussion: Identity Politics Preliminaries (Citizens Only)

May 24, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 10 Comments

Wes and Mark try to figure out whether anyone wants us to have a full episode on identity politics, maybe reading some Francis Fukuyama or some Ta-Nehisi Coates. We’ve already talked about white privilege, Orwellian “nationalism,” free speech, electoral strategy, James Baldwin, etc. What’s left?

Episode 190: Film Analysis: “mother!” (Citizen Edition)

May 21, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

On Darren Aronofsky’s philosophical 2017 film about humanity’s relationship to nature. We discuss the philosophical content of the film (Gnosticism, anyone?) and explore the relation between meaning and the sensuous aspects of an artwork. Can a work be both allegorical and yet have fully fleshed out characters and the other elements that make a film feel real? This was a very polarizing film; how do the circumstances of viewing affect reception? With guest Tim Nicholas.

End song: “The Day of Wrath, That Day,” by Sarah McQuaid, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #72.

Episode 189 Follow-Up: Authorial Intent (Citizens Only)

May 7, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

A bonus discussion between Mark and Wes for supporters! We give some philosophy of language context for the issues of meaning brought up in ep 189. Plus, some discussion of the critic James Wood, and analyzing T.S. Eliot’s “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”

Episode 189: Authorial Intent (Barthes, Foucault, Beardsley, et al) (Citizen Edition)

May 7, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

On four essays about how to interpret artworks: “The Intentional Fallacy” by W. K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley (1946), “The Death of the Author” by Roland Barthes (1967), “What Is an Author?” by Michel Foucault (1969), and “Against Theory” by Steven Knapp and Walter Benn Michaels (1982). When you’re trying to figure out what, say, a poem means, isn’t the best way to do that to just ask the author? Most of these guys say no, and that’s supposed to reveal something about the nature of meaning.

End song: “The Auteur” by David J (2018). Listen to Mark’s interview with him in Nakedly Examined Music #73.

Also check out the follow-up discussion.

Episode 188: Discussing “Lysistrata” and Politics with Lucy and Emily (Citizen Edition)

April 22, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

We are rejoined by actresses Lucy Lawless and Emily Perkins to discuss Aristophanes’s bawdy play. Listen to us perform it first.

Supplementary readings included Jeffery Henderson’s introduction to his 1988 translation of the play; “Sexual Humor and Harmony in Lysistrata” by Jay M. Semel (1981); and “The ‘Female Intruder’ Reconsidered: Women in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata and Ecclesiazusae” by Helene P. Foley (1982).

End song: “Women of Industry (ABWA Charm)” by Jill Sobule, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #18.

“Lysistrata” w/ Lucy Lawless, Emily Perkins, Erica Spyres, Bill Youmans & Aaron David Gleason

April 11, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

The PEL Players return to perform a “cold read” of Aristophanes’s play about using a sex strike to end war, first performed in 411 BCE. Jeffrey Henderson’s translation makes this very accessible, and it’s still really damn funny. Your hosts are joined by five real actors from TV, film, and Broadway.

Episode 187 Follow-Up: The Limits of Free Speech (Citizens Only)

April 5, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 20 Comments

Mark and Wes continue the discussion from ep. 187. We watched some Jordan Peterson, so we talk about his position a bit, and about the appropriateness of organizations encouraging certain kinds of speech, the offense principle, the difference (and overlap!) between good-faith arguments and insults, conspiracy theories, “incoherence arguments” like Fish’s (also used by Kant, Rand, and others), and “fundamental moral principles”: Does that concept even make sense given that any principle requires judgement and probably sub-principles to apply it to real situations?

End song: “Combine Man” by RHEMA, as discussed on Nakedly Examined Music #67.

Episode 187: The Limits of Free Speech (Citizen Edition)

March 30, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 5 Comments

A free-form discussion drawing on Stanley Fish’s “There’s No Such Thing as Free Speech, and It’s a Good Thing, Too” (1994), Joel Feinberg’s “Limits to the Free Expression of Opinion” (1975), and other sources.

What are the legitimate limits on free speech? Feinberg delves into the harm and offense principles. Fish argues that every claim to free speech has ideological assumptions actually favoring some types of speech baked into it. A lively back and forth ensues, which Mark and Wes then continued in a supporter-only, 90-minute follow-up.

End song: “We Don’t Talk about It” by Steve Wynn, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #43.

Episode 186: J.L. Austin on Doing Things with Words (Citizen Edition)

March 18, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 Comments

On How to Do Things with Words (lectures from 1955).

What’s the relationship between language and the world? Austin says it’s not all about descriptive true-or-false statements, but also includes “performatives” like “I promise…” and “I do” (spoken in a wedding) that are actions unto themselves. They can’t be true or false, but they can be “unhappy” if social conventions aren’t fulfilled (e.g., you try to marry a pig). Austin thinks performatives will change your whole view of language and of linguistically expressed philosophical problems!

End song: “The Promise” by When In Rome. Listen to Mark interview singer/songwriter Clive Farrington on Nakedly Examined Music #40.

Episode 185: Ethics in Homer’s “Odyssey” Feat. Translator Emily Wilson (Citizen Edition)

March 4, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 Comments

On the classic Greek epic poem, written ca. 750 BC and translated by our guest Emily Wilson in 2018.

Does this story of “heroes” have anything to teach us about ethics? Wilson wrote an 80-page introduction to her new translation laying out the issues, including “hospitality” as a political tool, the value for status and identity of one’s home (including your family and slaves), and the tension between strangeness and familiarity. Can time and change really be undone?

End song: “Tiny Broken Boats” by Arrica Rose, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #66.

Episode 184: Pascal on Human Nature (Citizen Edition)

February 19, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

On Blaise Pascal’s Pensées (1670).

Is it rational to have religious faith? You’re likely familiar with “Pascal’s Wager,” but our wretchedness is such that we can’t simply choose to believe and won’t be argued into it. Pascal thinks Christianity is the only religion to accurately describe the human condition.

End song: “44 Days” by Dutch Henry, written and sung by Todd Long, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #34.

Episode 183: Mill on Liberty (Citizen Edition)

February 4, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 8 Comments

Discussing John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty (1859).

If we disapprove of certain behaviors, when is it okay to prohibit them legally? What about just shaming people? Mill’s “harm principle” says that we should permit anything (legally and socially) unless it harms other people. But what constitutes “harm”? And how can we discourage someone from, e.g., just being drunk all the time?
Mark, Wes, and Dylan bring this debate to current issues and explore some of the weirder aspects of Mill’s view.

End song: “Flavor” by Tori Amos with strings by John Philip Shenale, interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #12.

Not School Philosophy in Film: Ingmar Bergman’s “The Seventh Seal”

February 1, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

A discussion of the classic film by the Philosophy in Film Not School Group featuring PEL Citizens Mike Murray, Justin Modra, and Ray Black, recorded 10/25/17.

Episode 182: Reflections on PEL 2017 (Citizen Edition)

January 27, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 13 Comments

To what extent has our podcast changed in reaction to current politics? Mark, Seth, Wes, and Dylan reflect back on our year, discuss how we select texts and guests, and give some thumbnail sketches of potential topics. Also, does authorial intent matter, and how to talk philosophically about works that aren’t philosophical texts.

End song: “The Evening Standard” (from 1992 or so) from Mark Lint’s Black Jelly Beans & Smokes.

Episode 181: Hannah Arendt on the Banality of Evil (Citizen Edition)

January 15, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 3 Comments

On Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963).

Are we still morally culpable if our entire society is corrupt? Arendt definitely thinks so, but has a number of criticisms of the handling of the 1961 trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. The Israelis were committed to the view that Eichmann was a monster, when the reality, says Arendt, is more frightening.

End song: “Hiding from the Face of God” from Judybats 2000; listen to me interview singer/songwriter Jeff Heiskell on Nakedly Examined Music eps. 5 and 63.

NEM #63 Bonus: More with Bradley Skaught, Jeff Heiskell, Steve Petrinko

January 1, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

Another 23 minutes of catch-up talk with my ep 63 guests: Bradley works new members into the band, Jeff records a video for his new song “I Want More Life,” Steve has been doing backing instruments for his saxophone teacher (with a full song from that new project at the end of this recording), plus hear about guests I’ve been chasing around but haven’t gotten on the show yet, and more.

Episode 180: More James’s Psychology: Self and Will (Citizen Edition)

January 1, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

On Psychology, the Briefer Course (1892), chapters on “The Self,” “Will,” and “Emotions.”

Continuing from ep. 179, we talk about the “Me” (the part of me that I know) vs. the “I” (the part of me that knows), including personal identity. James thinks that emotions are just our experience of our own physiology. Finally, we tackle will, veering into ethics, free will, and more.

End song: “Join the Zoo/Live Again” by Craig Wedren, heard on Nakedly Examined Music #15.

Episode 179: William James’s Introspective Psychology (Citizen Edition)

December 17, 2017 by Mark Linsenmayer 3 Comments

On The Principles of Psychology (1890) chapters 1 & 7, and Psychology, the Briefer Course (1892), the chapters on “The Stream of Thought,” “Habit,” and some of “The Self.”

Can we talk about the mind in a way that is both scientific and also does justice to our everyday experiences? James thought his method, which involved both introspection and physiology, yielded more accurate descriptions of the mind than associationism (the mind is made up of ideas) or spiritualism (the mind is a faculty of the soul). Consciousness is a stream, not a concatenation of ideas!

End song: “Drowning Mind (feedback overload)” by AMP, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #57.

Episode 178: Nietzsche as Social Critic: “Twilight of the Idols” (Citizen Edition)

December 3, 2017 by Mark Linsenmayer 12 Comments

Friedrich Niezsche

On Friedrich Nietzsche’s 1888 book summarizing his thought and critiquing the founding myths of his society. He defends “spiritualized” instinct and frenzied creativity, but also Napoleon and war. We try to figure out what kind of social critic he’d be today. Would we actually like him?

End song: “Oblivion” by Tyler Hislop, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #24.

Episode 177: Guest Russ Roberts on Adam Smith and Libertarian Economics (Citizen Edition)

November 20, 2017 by Mark Linsenmayer 9 Comments

The host of Econtalk provides his take on our ep. 174 on The Wealth of Nations, and explores with us the idea of emergent economic order. Is the economy more like a machine or a garden or what?

End song: “Needle Exchange” by Punchy; listen to singer/songwriter Fritz Beer interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #2.

Episode 176: Situationism in Psych: Milgram & Stanford Prison Experiments (Citizen Edition)

November 6, 2017 by Mark Linsenmayer 5 Comments

On Stanley Milgram’s “Behavioral Study of Obedience” (1963), Philip Zimbardo’s “Interpersonal Dynamics in a Simulated Prison” (1973), and John Doris’s “Persons, Situations, and Virtue Ethics” (1998).

Do difficult situations make good people act badly? Are there really “good” and “bad” people, or are we all about the same, but put in different situations?

End song: “Doing the Wrong Thing – Live” by Kaki King; listen to her on Nakedly Examined Music #54.

Episode 175: Blade Runner: Androids and Humanity (Citizen Edition)

October 29, 2017 by Mark Linsenmayer 8 Comments

On Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1967) and the films Blade Runner 2049 (2007) and Blade Runner (1982).

What makes us human? Dick’s story about androids emphasized their lack of empathy, while the movie adaptations portrayed the “replicants” as plenty capable of emotion, but unjustly treated as servants or targets.

End song: “Wounds and Nihilism (Quantum Androids),” written for this episode by Tyler Hislop (feat. Mark Lint). Listen to Tyler on Nakedly Examined Music #24.

Episode 174: Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations” (Citizen Edition)

October 15, 2017 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

On the foundational, 1776 text of modern economics. How does the division of labor and our instinct to exchange lead to the growth of wealth? Is the economy sufficiently machine-like to enable us to manipulate its output, or at least to tell us how not to screw it up?

End song: “With My Looks and Your Brains” by The Mr. T Experience. Hear about the singer/songwriter on Nakedly Examined Music #56.

Not School: James B. Miles’s “The Free Will Delusion”

October 6, 2017 by Justin Modra Leave a Comment

PEL Citizens Justin Modra, Alexander Roth, and Brian Wise discuss free will as expressed by the question, “Could I have done otherwise?” The book selected is The Free Will Delusion: How We Settled for the Illusion of Morality (2015).

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About The Partially Examined Life

The Partially Examined Life is a philosophy podcast by some guys who were at one point set on doing philosophy for a living but then thought better of it. Each episode, we pick a text and chat about it with some balance between insight and flippancy. You don’t have to know any philosophy, or even to have read the text we’re talking about to (mostly) follow and (hopefully) enjoy the discussion

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