The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
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Mark and Wes go into more textual detail re. Lucretius’s take on atomism and the metaphysical and epistemological problems it entails. Start with Part one.
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Mark and Wes go into more textual detail re. Lucretius’s take on atomism and the metaphysical and epistemological problems it entails. Listen to the full episode discussion first.
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More on Lucretius’s poem about Epicurean science: On the Nature of Things from the first century BCE.
We talk more about how macroscopic phenomena are supposed to come out of the interaction of atoms, including mind and its processes of knowledge and illusion, including the illusion of love. One conclusion: life after death is not possible. Can the properties of the atoms themselves be explained?
Listen to part one first or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition; this will also get you the follow-up discussion (coming soon). Please support PEL!
End song: “Came Round” by Mark Lint. Read about it and get the new album.
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?
Continued on part two, or get the full, ad-free Citizen Edition now, as well as the Citizen-only follow-up discussion.
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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.
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.
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.
