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Ep. 252: Habermas on Communication as Sociality (Part Two for Supporters)

September 14, 2020 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

Continuing on Jürgen Habermas's “Actions, Speech Acts, Linguistically Mediated Interactions, and the Lifeworld" (1998), with guest John Foster. We get into the details about the validity claims that are inherent in speech: When I make an assertion, I'm not just uttering a fact without context, but am (ordinarily, like not if I'm saying this in the context of playing a part  Continue Reading …

Ep. 252: Habermas on Communication as Sociality (Part One)

September 14, 2020 by Mark Linsenmayer 7 Comments

Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode, or listen to a preview. Citizens can get the entire second part here. On Jürgen Habermas' "Actions, Speech Acts, Linguistically Mediated Interactions, and the Lifeworld" (1998), with guest John Foster. What's the relation between individuals and society? Habermas says it's language. But don't picture this as fully formed but isolated  Continue Reading …

Ep. 252: Habermas on Communication as Sociality (Part One for Supporters)

September 13, 2020 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 Comments

On Jürgen Habermas' “Actions, Speech Acts, Linguistically Mediated Interactions, and the Lifeworld" (1998), with guest John Foster. What's the relation between individuals and society? Habermas says it's language. But don't picture this as fully formed but isolated animal individuals that then acquire language and thereby come together to form a society. Rather, what  Continue Reading …

Ep. 237: Walter Benjamin Analyzes Violence (Part Two)

March 9, 2020 by Mark Linsenmayer 8 Comments

Continuing on Benjamin's "Critique of Violence" (1921). Mark, Wes, and Seth keep trying to figure out this difficult essay. Is Benjamin really advocating a workers' revolution to end the state, or just reflecting on a hypothetical to explore the limits of the concept of violence? According to Judith Butler's interpretation of the essay, the takeaway is the alternative to  Continue Reading …

Ep. 237: Walter Benjamin Analyzes Violence (Part One)

March 2, 2020 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 Comments

On Benjamin's "Critique of Violence" (1921). What is violence? Walter Benjamin (pronounced "Ben-Ya-Meen") breaks down the phenomenon into four types and then shows why these are not really distinct after all. First, any state is always established, he says, through at least some violent acts, so this is law-making violence. Not only does one group subdue another, but then  Continue Reading …

Ep. 237: Walter Benjamin Analyzes Violence (Citizen Edition)

March 2, 2020 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

On Benjamin's "Critique of Violence" (1921). What is violence? Walter Benjamin (pronounced "Ben-Ya-Meen") breaks down the phenomenon into four types and then shows why these are not really distinct after all. First, any state is always established, he says, through at least some violent acts, so this is law-making violence. Not only does one group subdue another, but then  Continue Reading …

Episode 136: Adorno on the Culture Industry

March 28, 2016 by Mark Linsenmayer 22 Comments

On Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer's "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception" from Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944), plus Adorno's essay "Culture Industry Reconsidered" (1963). How does the entertainment industry affect us? Adorno and Horkheimer (who co-authored the book, but it looks like Adorno mainly wrote the essay we read) are founding figures of the  Continue Reading …

Ep. 136: Adorno on the Culture Industry (Citizen Edition)

March 28, 2016 by Mark Linsenmayer 9 Comments

On Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer's "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception" from Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944), plus Adorno's essay "Culture Industry Reconsidered" (1963). How does the entertainment industry affect us? Adorno and Horkheimer (who co-authored the book, but it looks like Adorno mainly wrote the essay we read) are founding figures of the  Continue Reading …

Episode 133: Erich Fromm on Love as an Art

February 8, 2016 by Mark Linsenmayer 5 Comments

On Fromm's The Art of Loving (1956). A Valentine's Day special topic! What is love, really? This psychoanalyst of the Frankfurt school thinks that real love is not something one "falls" into, but is an art, an activity, and doing it well requires a disciplined openness and psychological health. Love is the answer to the deep human need to rid ourself of isolation, but a mere  Continue Reading …

Episode 133: Erich Fromm on Love as an Art (Citizen Edition)

February 7, 2016 by Mark Linsenmayer 5 Comments

On Fromm's The Art of Loving (1956). A Valentine's Day special topic! What is love, really? This psychoanalyst of the Frankfurt school thinks that real love is not something one "falls" into, but is an art, an activity, and doing it well requires a disciplined openness and psychological health. Love is the answer to the deep human need to rid ourself of isolation, but a mere  Continue Reading …

Remediating Marcuse: Recovering Humanity through Aestheticized Technology

December 8, 2015 by James Anderson 2 Comments

Of all the first-generation Frankfurt School writers, Herbert Marcuse offered the kind of Critical Theory most concerned with revolution. It should come as no surprise, then, that Marcuse generated condemnation from across the political spectrum. In his infamous memo to the US Chamber of Commerce, future Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell Jr. warned of college campuses  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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