On Simone De Beauvoir's The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947), parts I and II. We return to existentialism! Instead of describing our predicament as "absurd," de Beauvoir prefers "ambiguous": We are a biological organism in the world, yet we're also free consciousness transcending the given situation. Truly coming to terms with this freedom means not only understanding that you Continue Reading …
Ep. 140: Beauvoir on the Ambiguous Human Condition (Citizen Edition)
On Simone De Beauvoir's The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947), parts I and II. We return to existentialism! Instead of describing our predicament as "absurd," de Beauvoir prefers "ambiguous": We are a biological organism in the world, yet we're also free consciousness transcending the given situation. Truly coming to terms with this freedom means not only understanding that you Continue Reading …
Episode 87: Sartre on Freedom and Self-Deception
On Jean-Paul Sartre's "Existentialism is a Humanism" (1946), "Bad Faith" (pt. 1, ch. 2 of Being & Nothingness, 1943), and his play No Exit (1944). What is human nature? Sartre says that there isn't one, but there is a universal human condition, which is our absolute freedom. This freedom is a basic certainty in our experience, and it comes out of the mere fact of our being Continue Reading …
Episode 87: Sartre on Freedom and Self-Deception
On Jean-Paul Sartre's "Existentialism is a Humanism" (1946), "Bad Faith" (pt. 1, ch. 2 of Being & Nothingness, 1943), and his play No Exit (1944). What is human nature? Sartre says that there isn't one, but there is a universal human condition, which is our absolute freedom. This freedom is a basic certainty in our experience, and it comes out of the mere fact of our being Continue Reading …
Foucault on Freedom and Domination
We opened the discussion in the Foucault podcast with the question, “are we really free?” I’d just like to take a minute to clarify this question and to raise some problems for Foucault. First of all, there’s certainly a sense in which Foucault never denied that we’re free. He even says that “freedom is the ontological condition of power,” meaning that power only works to Continue Reading …
Episode 49: Foucault on Power and Punishment (Citizens Only)
Discussing Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish (1975), parts 1, 2 and section 3 of part 3. Are we really free? Kings no longer exert absolute and arbitrary power over us, but Foucault's picture of the evolution from torture and public executions to rehabilitative, medical-style incarceration is not so much a triumph of liberty but a shift to more subtle but more Continue Reading …
PREVIEW-Episode 49: Foucault on Power and Punishment
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 …
Topic for #49: Foucault on Power and Punishment
We don't live in a totalitarian state, we're not slaves, and most of us are not so desperately poor that our power of choice has been effectively snuffed out, so we're free, right? Michel Foucault says no. In his book, Discipline and Punish, he tells a story reminiscent in style of Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals about how techniques of punishment in Europe quickly changed Continue Reading …