The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
A Philosophy Podcast and Philosophy Blog
In which we talk about the novel Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. This origin/zero-episode is taken from an older (2013) recording of the Philosophical Fiction group, before our current group of readers got together. Included in this crew is Nathan Hanks, Jordan Payne, and special guest Dylan Casey from the Partially Examined Life Podcast.
Hear more Phi Fic discussions at PhiFicPodcast.com.
Excerpts from discussions on Sartre’s Nausea, Heidegger’s “The Question Concerning Technology,” Slavoj Zizek’s Year of Dreaming Dangerously, Marx and Engels’s “Communist Manifesto,” Peter Schaffer’s play Equus, and Cormac McCarthy’s The Sunset Limited: A Novel in Dramatic Form.
This “novel in dramatic form” reads like a sort of twisted Socratic dialogue, with “Black” and “White” arguing about the relative merits of life and death. Featuring Daniel Cole, Philip Cherny, and Carlos Franke. Recorded Feb. 1, 2014.
Excerpts of discussions about Frithjof Bergmann’s New Work, New Culture, Cormac McCarthy’s novel Blood Meridian, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, and Martin Heidegger’s “Letter on Humanism.”
This June I met with Jordan Payne, Fiction-group regular, and Dylan Casey, of PEL-fame, to discuss Cormac McCarthy’s novel Blood Meridian. We discussed the Judge, the kid, the landscape, the language, the title and touched on the same author’s No Country for Old Men, The Road and The Crossing in just under two great hours. Here’s the conversation. We cover a Continue Reading …
This May, PEL’s Not School Fiction Group read Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, the author of No Country for Old Men (which PEL covered) and The Road. Blood Meridian is a dark masterpiece set in 1849 where a runaway kid joins a gang of scalp-hunters led by the Judge, a philosophizing warmonger. The Judge’s views on existence come out in several stories and Continue Reading …
There’s a long history of philosophers bashing poets, back to Socrates bashing rhetoriticians (poetry being a species of rhetoric, to him) for pursuing felicity of expression over an actual search for the truth. Though in the McCarthy episode, we were very upbeat about the utility of literature for conveying philosophical ideas, today I’m in a grumpy mood about it and Continue Reading …
On philosophical issues in McCarthy’s 2005 novel about guys running around with drug money and shooting each other, and about fiction as a form for exploring philosophical ideas. What can morality mean for people who have witnessed the “death of God,” i.e. a loss in faith in light of the horrors of war? Who knows what McCarthy himself thinks? With guest Eric Petrie.
On philosophical issues in McCarthy’s 2005 novel about guys running around with drug money and shooting each other, and about fiction as a form for exploring philosophical ideas. What can morality mean for people who have witnessed the “death of God,” i.e. a loss in faith in light of the horrors of war? Who knows what McCarthy himself thinks? With guest Eric Petrie. Learn more.
End song: “My Grandfather” by Dylan Casey (2001).
Following the path of reading novels (which we don’t necessarily intend to make a habit of) begun with #62, we have now recorded our discussion of No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy. We had as a guest one of Dylan’s teachers from undergrad, Eric Petrie, Professor at James Madison College at Michigan State University, who has been presenting Continue Reading …
Phi Fic means Philosophical Fiction. Each episode, we have a candid dicussion on a heady work of of fiction, full of SPOILERS. Join host Nathan Hanks and readers Cezary Baraniecki, Daniel St. Pierre, Laura Davis, and Mary Claire, plus the occasional guest.
