Subscribe to get the full episode. We made one last swipe at mopping up some outstanding issues in John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), covering Book II, ch. 21 and 28, featuring Mark, Wes, Dylan, and Seth. This preview includes only about a third of the discussion, but I'm going to give you my full essay about its contents here: What makes a moral Continue Reading …
Ep. 260: Locke on Moral Psychology (Supporters Only)
One last take on John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), covering Book II, ch. 21 and 28, featuring Mark, Wes, Dylan, and Seth. What makes a moral claim true? Do we have free will? What makes us choose the good, or not? In this coda to our long treatment of Locke's opus, we bring together all he has to say about morality, which is strangely modern yet also Continue Reading …
Ep. 259: Locke Clarifies Misleading Complex Ideas (Part Two)
More on Book II (ch. 22-33) of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), discussed by Mark, Wes, and Dylan. On relations, then personal identity, with more on substances (spiritual and material), the various ways in which ideas can go wrong, and how mental association can entrench irrationality that disrupts clear thinking. Listen to part one first, or get Continue Reading …
Ep. 259: Locke Clarifies Misleading Complex Ideas (Part One)
On Book II (ch. 22-33) of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), discussed by Mark, Wes, and Dylan. Simple ideas (as discussed in ep. 258) get complex rather quickly, perhaps as soon as you put them into words, and certainly as soon as you put them into a system. If I perceive the color blue, or a passing thought in my mind, a simple idea of this appears Continue Reading …
Ep. 259: Locke Clarifies Misleading Complex Ideas (Citizen Edition)
On Book II (ch. 22-33) of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), discussed by Mark, Wes, and Dylan. Simple ideas (as discussed in ep. 258) get complex rather quickly, perhaps as soon as you put them into words, and certainly as soon as you put them into a system. If I perceive the color blue, or a passing thought in my mind, a simple idea of this appears Continue Reading …
REISSUE-PEL Ep 37: Locke on Political Power (w/ New Intro)
Happy Holidays! Have you heard our 2020 Holiday Party yet? Discussing John Locke's Second Treatise on Government (1690). What makes political power legitimate? Like Hobbes, Locke thinks that things are less than ideal without a society to keep people from killing us, so we implicitly sign a social contract giving power to the state. But for Locke, nature's not as bad, so Continue Reading …
PEL Nightcap Mid December 2020: New Intro to ep. 37 Locke on Political Power (Citizens Only)
Recorded on Nov. 30 after Locke II, we try a new format for this Nightcap: Relevantly to our current series on Locke, we re-listened to our first visit with the learned gentleman back in 2011: Ep. 37 on his Second Treatise on Government (1690). Seth couldn't join us for this one, but that's OK, because he was on that original episode, whereas Wes and Dylan were not, so here Continue Reading …
Ep. 258: Locke on Acquiring Simple Ideas (Part Two)
Continuing on Book II (through ch. 20) of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689). What are the simple ideas that Locke thinks we acquire, and how do we acquire them? First, pain and pleasure, which are not so much just those sensory feelings as any sense of welcome or uneasiness that accompanies virtually any thought we may have. Maybe he's thinking like Continue Reading …
Ep. 258: Locke on Acquiring Simple Ideas (Part One)
On Book II (through ch. 20) of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), discussed by Mark, Wes, Dylan, and Seth. In ep. 257, we established that Locke didn't think we are born with any actual knowledge; we only have as the raw materials of knowledge what our five senses feed us. But there do seem to be some beliefs about, for instance, the existence of our Continue Reading …
Ep. 258: Locke on Acquiring Simple Ideas (Citizen Edition)
On Book II (through ch. 20) of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), discussed by Mark, Wes, Dylan, and Seth. In ep. 257, we established that Locke didn't think we are born with any actual knowledge; we only have as the raw materials of knowledge what our five senses feed us. But there do seem to be some beliefs about, for instance, the existence of our Continue Reading …
Ep. 257: Locke Against Innate Ideas (Part Two)
Continuing from part one on Book I of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689). We go through the arguments against innate ideas: There's no universal assent to foundational principles, either practical or theoretical. Plenty of people around the world deny in good conscience what we might consider foundational ethical principles, and they certainly don't all Continue Reading …
Ep. 257: Locke Against Innate Ideas (Part One)
On Book I of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), discussed by Mark, Wes, Dylan, and Seth. How do we know things? Locke is well known as a British empiricist: All knowledge must ultimately come from our experience. Contra Plato, who thought that knowledge of the important things is "recollected," perhaps from the time before we were born as individual Continue Reading …
Ep. 257: Locke Against Innate Ideas (Citizen Edition)
On Book I of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), discussed by Mark, Wes, Dylan, and Seth. How do we know things? Locke is well known as a British empiricist: All knowledge must ultimately come from our experience. Contra Plato, who thought that knowledge of the important things is "recollected," perhaps from the time before we were born as individual Continue Reading …
Steven B. Smith’s Intro to Political Philosophy Course
You can watch what appears to be all the lectures of a Yale introduction to political philosophy course from Steven B. Smith. The first is lecture is here but at this point, I want to call attention to his lectures on Locke, the first of the three being the following: Watch on youtube. I've not listened past the first few minutes here, so if you sit through it, please Continue Reading …
Debating Locke’s View of Slavery as War
Ta-nehisi Coates, a senior editor for The Atlantic, recently opened up a discussion on Locke's Second Treatise, with respect to the discussion of slavery. A fairly intelligent debate thread followed in the comments section. Check it out if you found that section of PEL's Locke episode interesting. Some of the better comments in the thread debated whether or not Locke was Continue Reading …
Russell on Locke’s Political Philosophy
On our not-yet-released Russell episode, Wes dismisses Russell's A History of Western Philosophy as pretty bad overall, but we also comment on that episode that Russell was a great admirer of Locke, so maybe he didn't do as badly in that part of the book. In any case, some nice gentleman has posted a recording of this part of that book being read aloud, which you can listen Continue Reading …
PREVIEW-Episode 37: Locke on Political Power
This is a 30-minute preview of a 1 hr, 34-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 #37: John Locke on Legitimate Powers
What gives a government the right to rule over its citizens? John Locke in his Second Treatise of Government (1689) says that government requires the real (though often implicit) consent of the people, which means it has to be in the people's interest. Unlike Hobbes, Locke thinks that the state of nature (i.e. the alternative to having a government) isn't completely chaotic Continue Reading …
Episode 17: Hume’s Empiricism: What Can We Know? (Citizens Only)
On David Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748). David Hume thinks that all we can know are our own impressions, i.e. what our moment-to-moment experiences tell us. Funny thing, though: he thinks that no experience shows us one event causing another event. We only experience one thing happening, then another, and these sequences tend to display a lot of Continue Reading …
PREVIEW-Episode 17: Hume’s Empiricism: What Can We Know?
This is a 31-minute preview a vintage 2 hr, 5-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 Continue Reading …