The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

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Episode 167: Hume on Intelligent Design (Part Two)

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Continuing on David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779), with guest Stephen West. We get further into what’s wrong with the design argument and why Hume thinks that it’s merely a verbal dispute whether we want to say that God designed the orderly universe or just say that the universe is orderly. Also, the problem of evil!

Listen to part 1 first, or get the ad-free, unbroken Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!

End song: “Shittalkers” by Ken Stringfellow, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music ep. 39.

Check out the St. John’s College Graduate Institute: partiallyexaminedlife.com/sjcgi.

Episode 167: Hume on Intelligent Design (Part One)

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On David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779). How should the scientifically minded argue for God’s existence? Is the order and complexity of nature enough to prove an infinite God of the traditional sort? With guest Stephen West.

Don’t wait until next week for part 2; get the rest of the discussion now with your ad-free Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!

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Episode 167: Hume on Intelligent Design (Philosophize This! Crossover) (Citizen Edition)

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On David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779). How would a scientifically minded person argue for the existence of God?

In Hume’s dialogue, a character named Cleanthes argues from this point of view for God’s existence based on the complexity and order apparent in nature: It looks designed. But how good is that argument, and is it enough to prove an infinite God of the traditional sort? With guest Stephen West.

End song: “Here Comes the Flood” by The Security Project. Listen to Mark’s interview with Trey Gunn on Nakedly Examined Music #21.

Why can’t life always be beautiful?

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[A blog post from friend of PEL Phillip C.  It’s a bit longer than our normal posts and is heavy with the name drops but I’m going to let it go because it’s on art, is related to a discussion group and I make the editing decisions around here – Seth] “What strikes me is the fact that in our Continue Reading …

Cognitive and Affective Empathy in Moral Sentiment

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[DISCLAIMER:  Although I am using a conceptual distinction I got from the embedded Simon Baron-Cohen TEDx talk (where ever he got it from), I am not taking a position on his stance on Autism or Psychopathy.  I have no point of view about Autism and have reflected on empathy and psychopathy in this blog before, here and here.  I’m interested Continue Reading …

The Leap of Faith: The Creative Element of Science

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[Editor’s Note: Thanks to new contributor Rob Graumans for this one!] Scientific realists are known to have a positive epistemic attitude towards the content of our best scientific theories and models. The exact interpretation of this philosophical tenet can, however, differ dramatically between each of its proponents. Some of these base their idea of the truthfulness of scientific realism upon Continue Reading …

No Self, but a Subject?

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At one time in Savatthi, the venerable Radha seated himself and asked of the Blessed Lord Buddha: “Anatta, anatta I hear said, Venerable. What, pray tell, does Anatta mean?” “Just this, Radha, form is not the self (anatta), sensations are not the self (anatta), perceptions are not the self (anatta), assemblages are not the self (anatta), consciousness is not the self Continue Reading …

Peter Kail’s Hume Overview on the Elucidations Podcast

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Folks looking for a clear, concise Hume review with some nice additional details after our epistemology and ethics episodes on him would benefit from this Elucidations episode featuring Oxford Lecturer Peter Kail. Kail gives a more comprehensive biography than we did, covers induction (note that we also discussed this issue a bit on our Nelson Goodman epsiode), reason, motivation (which Continue Reading …

David Hume and Adam Smith in the Context of Eighteenth-Century Moral Philosophy, Part 2

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As mentioned in my previous entry, moral philosophy in the eighteenth century was principally concerned with three issues: “the selfish hypothesis,” the nature of moral judgment, and the character of moral virtue. This entry regards the second component: the debate between the rationalists and sentimentalists over the nature and justification of moral judgment. Moral rationalism—exemplified most clearly in modern philosophy Continue Reading …

Amartya Sen on Hume on Ethics

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Watch on YouTube. This video records Nobel laureate Amartya Sen’s somewhat rambling lecture, wherein he discusses a few themes in Hume’s ethical work which he deems relevant today. Specifically, Sen wants to advocate for Hume’s argument that society’s globalization tends to expand its moral sensitivities. We hear that Hume was among the first to argue that a society’s mores were a Continue Reading …

David Hume and Adam Smith in the Context of Eighteenth-Century Moral Philosophy, Part 1

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Moral philosophy in the eighteenth century was principally concerned with three issues. First, was “the selfish hypothesis,” which maintained that all declarations of public interest were ultimately expressions of private interest. Second, was the explanation and justification of moral judgment. And third, was the character of moral virtue. The selfish hypothesis, though largely a minority view, was defended equally by Continue Reading …

Episode 45: Moral Sense Theory: Hume and Smith (Citizens Only)

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Discussing parts of David Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature (1740) and Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759).

Where do we get our moral ideas? Hume and Smith both thought that we get them by reflecting on our own moral judgments and on how we and others (including imaginary, hypothesized others) in turn judge those judgments. We lay out the differences between these two gents and discuss whether their views constitute an actual moral theory or just a descriptive enterprise. With guest Getty Lustila.

End song: “Honest Judge” by New People, from Impossible Things (2011) Download the album.

PREVIEW-Episode 45: Moral Sense Theory: Hume and Smith

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Discussing parts of David Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature (1740) and Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759).

Where do we get our moral ideas? Hume and Smith both thought that we get them by reflecting on our own moral judgments and on how we and others (including imaginary, hypothesized others) in turn judge those judgments. We lay out the differences between these two gents and discuss whether their views constitute an actual moral theory or just a descriptive enterprise. With guest Getty Lustila.

Looking for the full Citizen version?

Topic for #45: Moral Sense Theory: Hume and Smith

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Here’s the recorded episode. In Ep. 41, we discussed David Hume’s ethics both providing a challenge for any naturalist (meaning one compatible with a modern scientific world-view) ethics–you can’t deduce “ought” from “is”–and as providing an approach to moral psychology. In this discussion, we grappled with selections from Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature (1740) and Adam Smith’s The Theory of Continue Reading …

Hume on Miracles Revisited

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Chapter 1 of the Mackie book covers Hume’s account of miracles, which we discussed in our Hume epistemology episode. One of our blog commenters here mentioned offhand that he thought that argument had been long discredited, which was a surprise to me. You can review the argument at Wikipedia here. Basically it boils down to “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Continue Reading …

Episode 41: Pat Churchland on the Neurobiology of Morality, Plus Hume’s Ethics (Citizens Only)

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We spoke with Patricia Churchland after reading her new book Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us About Morality. We also discussed David Hume’s ethics as foundational to her work, reading his Treatise on Human Nature (1739), Book III, Part I and his Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751), Section V, Parts I and II. Learn more.

End song: “Bring You Down” by The MayTricks from Happy Songs Will Bring You Down.

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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