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The Diamond-Water Paradox and the Subjective Theory of Value

April 3, 2018 by Adam De Gree 12 Comments

In his famous work The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith articulated a paradox that he could not resolve: water is essential to life; diamonds a mere decoration. Yet for all that, we are willing to lavish enormous sums on pretty rocks while taking clean water for granted. What could explain this disconnect? Smith’s confusion stemmed from his understanding of the source of  Continue Reading …

The Open Society and Its Frenemies: Karl Popper’s Defense of Science and Liberalism for the 21st Century

December 23, 2015 by Daniel Halverson 26 Comments

In 1919, a total eclipse of the sun provided a rare opportunity to test Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Arthur Eddington, a British astronomer and admirer of Einstein who had resisted the nationalist hatreds of the First World War, sent two teams to the mid-Atlantic to observe Mercury during the eclipse, and test the German scientist’s theory. To the astonishment of  Continue Reading …

Philosophy of History Part XIII: Karl Marx’s Historical Materialism

October 8, 2015 by Daniel Halverson 6 Comments

The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it. –Karl Marx Karl Marx (1818–1883) was a German philosopher and sociologist whose scientific approach to history, combined with his revolutionary socialism, has made him one of the most influential, famous, and indeed infamous, intellectuals who ever lived. His major works  Continue Reading …

Not School Digest #4: Sartre, Heidegger, Zizek, Marx, and Theater

February 28, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 4 Comments

Not School

Excerpts from PEL podcaster & listener discussions on Sartre's Nausea, Heidegger's "The Question Concerning Technology," Slavoj Zizek's Year of Dreaming Dangerously, Marx and Engels's "Communist Manifesto," Peter Schaffer's play Equus, and Cormac McCarthy's The Sunset Limited: A Novel in Dramatic Form. Plus an interview with Hillary Sydlowski, leader of the Not School  Continue Reading …

Not School: Marx’s “Communist Manifesto”

November 16, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

Karl Marx

Featuring Andy Langley and Glen Stratton. Recorded November 16, 2013. Here's the Marxism group.  Continue Reading …

Episode 83 Follow-Up: Q&A with Frithjof Bergmann

November 1, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 18 Comments

In light of our ep. 83, many listeners had questions on Frithjof's social/political/economic proposals for creating a post-job, pro-meaningful-work world. Mark Linsenmayer here pitches a number of these questions (culled from our blog and Facebook group) to Frithjof. What would a future New Work world look like? How do first-world folks fit into the project? How can I make  Continue Reading …

Episode 83 Follow-Up: Q&A with Frithjof Bergmann

October 11, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

In light of our ep. 83, many listeners had questions on Frithjof's social/political/economic proposals for creating a post-job, pro-meaningful-work world. Mark Linsenmayer here pitches a number of these questions (culled from our blog and Facebook group) to Frithjof. What would a future New Work world look like? How do first-world folks fit into the project? How can I make  Continue Reading …

Frithjof Bergmann on the Post-Work Culture for Not School

July 2, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 18 Comments

Might as well get this crush of Not School-related posts up in one wash so we can get on to other things... In our Marx episode we talked at the end about what happens after technology makes all of our jobs obsolete. I purposefully cut that line of discussion short because we're planning a whole episode on it, which will involve either reading works by or (if I can make it  Continue Reading …

Iván Szelényi Lectures on Marx & Alienation

February 5, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 5 Comments

I referred in the episode to a number of lectures on Marx that helped me to put the German Ideology into perspective with Marx's other texts and filled me in on few of the Young Hegelians that he criticized. These were from Yale's Foundations of Modern Social Theory course by Iván Szelényi. (Get them from iTunes U.) Lectures 9-13 are all on Marx, and the series starts off with  Continue Reading …

Episode 70: Marx on the Human Condition (Citizens Only)

January 30, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

Karl Marx

On Karl Marx's The German Ideology, Part I, an early, unpublished work from 1846. What is human nature? What drives history? How can we improve our situation? Marx thought that fundamentally, you are what you do: you are your job, your means of subsistence. All the rest, this culture, this religion, this philosophy, is just a thin layer over our basic situation. Ideas are  Continue Reading …

PREVIEW-Episode 70: Marx on the Human Condition

January 30, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 90 Comments

Karl Marx

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 …

Topic for #70: Karl Marx’s “German Ideology”

January 16, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 5 Comments

On 1/13 we recorded a discussion of an early work of Karl Marx, from about 20 years before the publication of his famous Das Capital, The German Ideology. Listen to the episode. We read just part 1 of the work, which was written in 1845-6 but not published until 1932 (with some portions of it coming out earlier in the 20th century). The work is credited to Marx and Engels, but  Continue Reading …

Structuralism Summarized in 30 Minutes

March 7, 2012 by Daniel Horne 6 Comments

Watch on YouTube. Here is a surprisingly edifying and entertaining synopsis of structuralism. I particularly like how Prof. Louis Markos connects Saussure's work to the "proto-structuralism" of Freud and Marx. Also enjoyable is Markos' mini-rant, in light of Wes's recent post: Structures are found in all areas of thought and study, from history to linguistics, psychology to  Continue Reading …

Peter Singer on Hegel & Marx

April 12, 2011 by Seth Paskin 2 Comments

In this series of videos of Bryan Magee interviewing a young Peter Singer, Singer provides an explication of Hegel's overall philosophical enterprise.  We've linked to Magee's show in other places (like here, here and here) and in this interview we get to see Peter Singer actually doing traditional philosopher-type stuff.  He has an outstanding 'stach and nice square  Continue Reading …

Debating Individual vs. Environmental Forces in History (or, Lord Bragg Loses his Bearing!)

December 28, 2010 by Daniel Horne 3 Comments

Among my favorite podcasts is the BBC Radio 4 show In Our Time. IOT is usually a genteel forum dedicated to discussing "the history of ideas." Topics and tone range from Oxbridge middlebrow to Oxbridge highbrow, but I always walk away learning something. I almost swerved the car, however, when tempers flared on last week's episode. IOT's host, Lord Melvyn Bragg, just about  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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