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Combat and Classics logoCombat and Classics is a series of podcasts and online seminars that explores the nature of man in conflict and cooperation through socratic dialogue and the great books. For more info visit combatandclassics.org

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Combat & Classics Ep. 58 Homer’s “Iliad” Book 1

July 19, 2022 by Jeff Black 1 Comment

We embark on our journey through Homer's "Iliad," humanity's longest surviving poem on war. We ask "why is human rage a good subject for a war poem, and not the wrath of gods?" You can ask us questions on our pod by emailing us at combatandclassics.org and follow us on social media @combatandclassics.   Continue Reading …

Combat & Classics Ep. 56 Xenophon’s “Anabasis” Book 6

July 19, 2022 by Jeff Black Leave a Comment

How are dance parties related to diplomacy? The schisms continue in Book 6 within the Greek army, but some schisms seem better than others. Some try to make friends with the locals, some go for help, some go raiding. Xenophon turns down the generalship of the whole army.   Continue Reading …

Combat & Classics Ep. 55 Xenophon’s “Anabasis” Book 5

July 19, 2022 by Jeff Black Leave a Comment

The rebels have arrived at the Black Sea, but through betrayal and bad decisions, things go awry..... Xenophon leads an expedition for provisions, but the ships they are waiting for don't show up. We flash forward to Xenophon the writer, who's bought some land in exile and wants to build a temple to Artemis. Xenophon toys with the idea of founding a city where the army is  Continue Reading …

Ep. 279: Aristotle’s “Categories” of Being (Part One)

October 10, 2021 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode. Listen to a preview. Hear this part ad-free. On the Categories (ca. 350 BCE), which purports to describe all the types of entities that exist. The participants are Mark, Wes, and Dylan. Sponsors: Get a free month of Great Courses lectures and lots of other great content at Wondrium.com/PEL. Get a free month's access to a vast  Continue Reading …

Ep. 279: Aristotle’s “Categories” of Being (Part Two for Supporters)

October 9, 2021 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

Continuing from part one on the Categories, we finish up our discussion of substance by talking about artifacts: Only "genuine unities" are substances, and hammers and cups, for Aristotle, don't count as such unities. Should being a cup be considered instead a property like being white? Can properties be complex? We're actually not sure about natural objects like rivers,  Continue Reading …

Ep. 279: Aristotle’s “Categories” of Being (Part One for Supporters)

October 9, 2021 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

On the Categories (ca. 350 BCE), which purports to describe all the types of entities that exist. The participants are Mark, Wes, and Dylan. The most important of these Categories is substance, a term which primarily picks out individual natural things (a particular person, animal, plant, or material) and secondarily picks out the kinds that group those things (e.g. the  Continue Reading …

PREVIEW-Ep 206 Lucretius’s Epicurean Physics (Part Three)

January 12, 2019 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

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. This is a preview; become a PEL Citizen or $5 Patreon supporter to get the full, 50 minute conversation. Lucretius believes in something like entropy: all conjoined atoms eventually break apart, but his account of the  Continue Reading …

Ep. 206 Follow-Up Lucretius’s Epicurean Physics (Citizens Only)

January 12, 2019 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

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. Lucretius believes in something like entropy: all conjoined atoms eventually break apart, but his account of the mechanism by which they join is less spelled out: When you get two heat atoms  Continue Reading …

Ep. 206: Lucretius’s Epicurean Physics (Part Two)

January 7, 2019 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 Comments

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  Continue Reading …

Ep. 206: Lucretius’s Epicurean Physics (Part One)

December 31, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 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  Continue Reading …

Ep. 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  Continue Reading …

Episode 198: Plato’s Forms in the “Parmenides” (Part Two)

September 10, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 25 Comments

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? (Is the Form Large itself large?) How do Forms connect with particulars? How can we mortals have any connection to heavenly Forms anyway? Why even think there are Forms outside of particulars? Listen  Continue Reading …

Episode 197: Parmenides on What There Is (Part Two)

August 27, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

Continuing with guest Peter Adamson with "On Nature" (475 BCE). We finally get to the great "fragment 8," which describes why Being must be singular and eternal, given that the notion of Non-Being is nonsense. So does it make any sense to talk of this eternal, uniform Being as a finite sphere? Would this absolute unity of Being make it impossible for us to even be  Continue Reading …

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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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