Mark Linsenmayer reads the 1951 article, discussed on our episode 66. Read about the essay. Continue Reading …
Theistic Objectivism (more on Dallas Willard)
This post is a follow-up on my Dallas Willard post from a few days ago. A couple of reader comments on that (on the blog and Facebook) shamed me into re-listening to the second half of Willard's lecture and newly listen to the Q&A afterwards. I can now say that his positive story is not anywhere as oversimplistic as I was implying, and in fact I agree with several of his main Continue Reading …
Dallas Willard on Nietzsche and Jesus
Here's another Nietzsche lecture, from Stanford's Veritas forum, which you can listen to as a podcast (iTunes link) or watch a video: Watch it on Vimeo. Dallas Willard is an unapologetic Christian, and pursues a post-modern tack similar to the one I cited in my review of the Philosophy for Theologians podcast: Modern philosophy tried to ground knowledge on non-revelatory, Continue Reading …
PREVIEW-Episode 61: Nietzsche on Truth and Skepticism
This is a short preview of the full episode. Buy Now Purchase this episode for $2.99. Or become a PEL Citizen for $5 a month, and get access to this and all other paywalled episodes, including 68 back catalogue episodes; exclusive Part 2's for episodes published after September, 2020; and our after-show Nightcap, where the guys respond to listener email and chat more Continue Reading …
Episode 61: Nietzsche on Truth and Skepticism (Citizens Only)
On Friedrich Nietzsche's "On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense" (1873). What is truth? This essay, written early in Nietzsche's career but unpublished during his lifetime, is taken by many to make the extreme claim that there is no truth, that all of the "truths" we tell each other are just agreements by social convention. The regular foursome are joined by a U. Texas Continue Reading …
Topic for #61: Nietzsche on Truth
Listen to the episode. We discussed Nietzsche's conception of truth as presented in his essay "On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense," written in 1873 but unpublished until after his death with guest Jessica Berry of Georgia State University, who published Nietzsche and the Ancient Skeptical Tradition just last year. This Nietzsche essay has been extremely influential for Continue Reading …
Peter Kail’s Hume Overview on the Elucidations Podcast
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, Continue Reading …
Diet Soap (C. Dereck Varn and Doug Lain) on Epistemology
I've been talking to Dereck (aka Skepoet) about coming on as a guest with us (on Saussure), and I noticed this new episode of Diet Soap features he and Doug Lain in a wide-ranging conversation on skepticism and its relation to phenomenology. One interesting point to add to the PEL deliberations on the growth of the self is from the post-structuralists (I guess) on consciousness Continue Reading …
Episode 48: Merleau-Ponty on Perception and Knowledge (Citizens Only)
Discussing Maurice Merleau-Ponty's "Primacy of Perception" (1946) and The World of Perception (1948). What is the relation of perception to knowledge? In M-P's phenomenology, perception is primary: even our knowledge of mathematical truths is in some way conditioned by and dependent on the fact that we are creatures with bodies and senses that work the way they do. Science Continue Reading …
PREVIEW-Episode 48: Merleau-Ponty on Perception and Knowledge
This is a 33-minute preview of a 1 hr, 42-minute episode. Buy Now Purchase this episode for $2.99. Or become a PEL Citizen for $5 a month, and get access to this and all other paywalled episodes, including 68 back catalogue episodes; exclusive Part 2's for episodes published after September, 2020; and our after-show Nightcap, where the guys respond to listener email and chat Continue Reading …
Daniel Coffeen on Bergson’s Matter and Memory
One of the name-drops on the Sartre episode is Henri Bergson, a philosopher who was in vogue in France at the time Sartre wrote, famous among other things for promoting and anti-atomic epistemology. Kant, for instance, thought that we get our idea of number out of time, meaning that time is essentially something we can count. For Bergson, time is a flow: if we break it up for Continue Reading …
Quassim Cassam (via Elucidations) on Skepticism
I've been listening of late to more Elucidations (which we've written about before), which features Matt Teichman from our Frege episode. Their episode 23, "Quassim Cassam discusses transcendental arguments," serves as a nice point of re-engagement with epistemology in light of our touching on that in our Sartre episode (and moreso in my Close Reading). Sartre, following Continue Reading …
Topic for #48: Merleau-Ponty on the Role of Perception in Knowledge
Maurice Merleau-Ponty's magnum opus--his equivalent to Being & Nothinginess or Being & Time--is The Phenomenology of Perception. It is reputed (by Seth, at least) to complete Heidegger's project by paying proper attention to our embodiedness: we have bodies, with specific perceptual limitations and are not only culturally but physically situated in ways that (as Heidegger Continue Reading …
Metaphors of Deception in “The Matrix” (incl. Plato’s Cave)
Back in our Descartes episode, we brought up the movie The Matrix as an example of the kind of situation whose possibility motivates Descartes's project of doubt. Here's a video getting into some of the other ways of interpreting this metaphor about deception: Watch on YouTube. One type mentioned here is Marxist "false consciousness" (which we got into a little in our Continue Reading …
Russell’s Epistemology: “The Problems of Philosophy”
I wanted to follow up on a reference I made on the episode for folks who want to know more about Russell's epistemology: His book The Problems of Philosophyis an easy-reader intro to his take on traditional epistemological problems. Some of it will be familiar if you've listened to our episodes (from p. 42). For instance, he claims: "The faculty of being acquainted with Continue Reading …
Episode 31: Husserl’s Phenomenology (Citizens Only)
Discussing Edmund Husserl's Cartesian Meditations (1931). How can we analyze our experience? Husserl thinks that Descartes was right about the need to ground science from the standpoint of our own experience, but wrong about everything else. Husserl recommends we "bracket" the question of whether the external world exists and just focus on the contents of our consciousness Continue Reading …
PREVIEW-Episode 31: Husserl’s Phenomenology
This is a 32-minute preview of a 1 hr, 50-minute episode/Buy Now Purchase this episode for $2.99. Or become a PEL Citizen for $5 a month, and get access to this and all other paywalled episodes, including 68 back catalogue episodes; exclusive Part 2's for episodes published after September, 2020; and our after-show Nightcap, where the guys respond to listener email and chat Continue Reading …
Episode 30: Schopenhauer on Explanations and Knowledge (Citizens Only)
Discussing Arthur Schopenhauer's On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, published in 1847 (as an expansion of his doctoral thesis from 1813). What kinds of explanations are legitimate? S. thought that causal and logical explanations are often confused, resulting in philosophical errors. In laying out the four types of explanation -- the four versions of Continue Reading …
PREVIEW-Episode 30: Schopenhauer on Explanations and Knowledge
This is a 33-minute preview of a 2 hr, 14-minute episode.Buy Now Purchase this episode for $2.99. Or become a PEL Citizen for $5 a month, and get access to this and all other paywalled episodes, including 68 back catalogue episodes; exclusive Part 2's for episodes published after September, 2020; and our after-show Nightcap, where the guys respond to listener email and chat Continue Reading …
Boghossian vs. Goodman on Fact Constructivism
One book we'd mentioned on the episode as a counter to Goodman's epistemology was Paul Boghossian's Fear of Knowledge: Against Relativism and Constructivism. Boghossian's target is any theory of knowledge that says that facts are constructed, reflecting the contingent needs and interest of some society, and that consequently some different society with different needs could Continue Reading …