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Ep. 229: Descartes’s Rules for Thinking (Part Three)

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Concluding René Descartes’s Rules for Direction of the Mind (1628).

We finish rule 12 through the end, talking about simples, the faculties of intuition and judgment, perception and imagination, necessary vs. contingent truths, and how to do Cartesian science, including what constitutes a “perfectly understood problem.”

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End song: “Perfect Design” by Ian Moore, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #94.

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Ep. 229: Descartes’s Rules for Thinking (Part Two)

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Continuing on René Descartes’s Rules for Direction of the Mind (1628), covering rules 7 through the first part of the lengthy rule 12.

We try to figure out what he means by “enumeration”; the faculties of imagination, sense and memory; the virtues of perspicacity and sagacity; his psychology of the senses, the “common sense” where all sense data comes together, and the understanding; how Descartes recommends we do scientific investigation; why syllogisms stink; and whether some people are just better at philosophy than others.

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Ep. 229: Descartes’s Rules for Thinking (Part One)

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On René Descartes’s Rules for Direction of the Mind (1628).

Is there a careful way to approach problems that will ensure that you’ll always be right? What if you just never assert anything you can’t be sure of? This is Descartes’s strategy, modeled on mathematics. We likewise carefully move step-by-step through this text.

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Ep. 229: Descartes’s Rules for Thinking (Citizen Edition)

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On René Descartes’s Rules for Direction of the Mind (1628).

Is there a careful way to approach problems that will ensure that you’ll always be right? What if you just never assert anything you can’t be sure of? This is Descartes’s strategy, modeled on mathematics. We likewise carefully move step-by-step through this text.

End song: “Perfect Design” by Ian Moore, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #94.

Episode 191: Conceptual Schemes: Donald Davidson & Rudolf Carnap (Part One)

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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. With guest Dusty Dallman.

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

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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.

REISSUE-Ep. 24: Spinoza on God and Metaphysics

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Discussing Spinoza’s Ethics (1677), books 1 and 2. God is everything, therefore the world is God as apprehended through some particular attributes, namely insofar as one of his aspects is infinite space (extension, i.e. matter) and insofar as one of his aspects is mind (our minds being chunks or “modes” of the big God mind). A 2010 discussion with a new intro by Dylan and Mark.

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Episode 155: Richard Rorty Against Epistemology

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On Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979), Part II: “Mirroring.”

Is a “theory of knowledge” possible? Rorty thinks that any such account will be a fruitless search for foundations. Knowledge is really just a matter of social agreement, and beliefs must be justified from other beliefs, not from any alleged relationship to reality.

End song: “The Ghosts Are Alright” from The Bye-Bye Blackbirds (Houses and Homes, 2008), as discussed on Nakedly Examined Music #32.

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Episode 155: Richard Rorty Against Epistemology (Citizen Edition)

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On Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979), Part II: “Mirroring.”

Is a “theory of knowledge” possible? Rorty thinks that any such account will be a fruitless search for foundations. Knowledge is really just a matter of social agreement, and beliefs must be justified from other beliefs, not from any alleged relationship to reality.

End song: “The Ghosts Are Alright” from The Bye-Bye Blackbirds (Houses and Homes, 2008), as discussed on Nakedly Examined Music #32.

Episode 154: Wilfrid Sellars on the Myth of the Given

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On “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind” (1956).

Is knowledge based on a “foundation,” as Descartes, Locke, et al. thought? Sellars says no: The allegedly basic elements upon which knowledge would be built either have to be propositions, in which case they involve a lot of prior knowledge involved in language use and so aren’t really basic, or they’re “raw feels,” in which case they can’t actually serve as reasons for anything; reasons have to be propositional. With guest Lawrence Dallman.

End song: “Senses on Fire” by Mercury Rev. Check out the interview with singer Jonathan Donahue in Nakedly Examined Music ep. 14.

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Episode 154: Wilfrid Sellars on the Myth of the Given (Citizen Edition)

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On “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind” (1956).

Is knowledge based on a “foundation,” as Descartes, Locke, et al. thought? Sellars says no: The allegedly basic elements upon which knowledge would be built either have to be propositions, in which case they involve a lot of prior knowledge involved in language use and so aren’t really basic, or they’re “raw feels,” in which case they can’t actually serve as reasons for anything; reasons have to be propositional. With guest Lawrence Dallman.

End song: “Senses on Fire” by Mercury Rev. Check out the interview with singer Jonathan Donahue in Nakedly Examined Music ep. 14.

Episode 153: Richard Rorty: There Is No Mind-Body Problem

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On Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979), Part I: “Our Glassy Essence.”

“The mind” seems to be an unavoidable part of our basic conceptual vocabulary, but Rorty thinks not, and he wants to use the history of philosophy as a kind of therapy to show that many of our seemingly insoluble problems like the relation between mind and body are a result philosophical mistakes by Descartes, Locke, and Kant. With guest Stephen Metcalf of Slate’s Culture Gabfest podcast.

End song: “Wall of Nothingness” from Sky Cries Mary from This Timeless Turning (1994). Listen to Mark’s interview with the band’s frontman, Roderick Romero, in Nakedly Examined Music ep. 9.

Episode 153: Richard Rorty: There Is No Mind-Body Problem (Citizen Edition)

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On Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979), Part I: “Our Glassy Essence.”

“The mind” seems to be an unavoidable part of our basic conceptual vocabulary, but Rorty thinks not, and he wants to use the history of philosophy as a kind of therapy to show that many of our seemingly insoluble problems like the relation between mind and body are a result philosophical mistakes by Descartes, Locke, and Kant. With guest Stephen Metcalf of Slate’s Culture Gabfest podcast.

End song: “Wall of Nothingness” from Sky Cries Mary from This Timeless Turning (1994). Listen to Mark’s interview with the band’s frontman, Roderick Romero, in Nakedly Examined Music ep. 9.

Episode 138: Guest John Searle on Perception

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We interview John about Seeing Things As They Are (2015). What is perception? Searle says that it’s not a matter of seeing a representation, which is then related to things in the real world. We see the actual objects, with no mediation. But then how can there be illusions? Well, it’s complicated, but not too complicated, just some funny terminology that this episode will teach you.

Searle lays out his theory for us and amusingly dismisses much of the history of philosophy in the first half, and then Mark, Wes, and Dylan continue the discussion to make sure we understood what was just said and chase down some threads of the conversation.

End song: “Flesh and Blood” from The MayTricks’ Happy Songs Will Bring You Down (1994).

Episode 138: John Searle Interview on Perception (Citizen Edition)

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We interview John about Seeing Things As They Are (2015). What is perception? Searle says that it’s not a matter of seeing a representation that is then related to things in the real world. We see the actual objects, with no mediation. But then how can there be illusions? Well, it’s complicated, but not too complicated, just some funny terminology that this episode will teach you.

Searle lays out his theory for us and amusingly dismisses much of the history of philosophy in the first half, and then Mark, Wes, and Dylan continue the discussion to make sure we understood what was just said and chase down some threads of the conversation.

End song: “Flesh and Blood” from The MayTricks’ Happy Songs Will Bring You Down (1994).

Episode 134: Hegel on Thought & World (or “Logic”)

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On G.F.W. Hegel’s The Science of Logic (1812–1816), §1–§129 and The Encyclopaedia Logic (1817) §1–§25. “Logic” for Hegel isn’t about symbolic logic; it’s about how thought interacts with the world. Our thoughts about fundamental metaphysical categories bear the same relations to each other as the the categories themselves do. Just take Hegel’s many, many words for it! With guest Amogh Sahu.

End song: “Procrastination” by Steve Petrinko from The MayTricks’ Happy Songs Will Bring You Down (1994). Hear Mark interview Steve on Nakedly Examined Music.

Episode 134: Hegel on Thought & World (or “Logic”) (Citizen Edition)

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On G.F.W. Hegel’s The Science of Logic (1812–1816), §1–§129 and The Encyclopaedia Logic (1817) §1–§25. “Logic” for Hegel isn’t about symbolic logic; it’s about how thought interacts with the world. Our thoughts about fundamental metaphysical categories bear the same relations to each other as the the categories themselves do. Just take Hegel’s many, many words for it! This is the first of two discussions on the Logic. With guest Amogh Sahu.

End song: “Procrastination” by Steve Petrinko from The MayTricks’ Happy Songs Will Bring You Down (1994). Hear Mark interview Steve on Nakedly Examined Music.

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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