Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode. Listen to a preview. Hear this part ad-free. On the Categories (ca. 350 BCE), which purports to describe all the types of entities that exist. The participants are Mark, Wes, and Dylan. Sponsors: Get a free month of Great Courses lectures and lots of other great content at Wondrium.com/PEL. Get a free month's access to a vast Continue Reading …
Ep. 279: Aristotle’s “Categories” of Being (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one on the Categories, we finish up our discussion of substance by talking about artifacts: Only "genuine unities" are substances, and hammers and cups, for Aristotle, don't count as such unities. Should being a cup be considered instead a property like being white? Can properties be complex? We're actually not sure about natural objects like rivers, Continue Reading …
Ep. 279: Aristotle’s “Categories” of Being (Part One for Supporters)
On the Categories (ca. 350 BCE), which purports to describe all the types of entities that exist. The participants are Mark, Wes, and Dylan. The most important of these Categories is substance, a term which primarily picks out individual natural things (a particular person, animal, plant, or material) and secondarily picks out the kinds that group those things (e.g. the Continue Reading …
Ep. 277: Hegel on Our Understanding of Physics (Part One)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode. Listen to a preview. Hear this part ad-free. On The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), ch. 3, "Force and the Understanding." What is "force" as physics describes it? And scientific law? Do these terms denote objects in the world, or models for how we describe the world? Sponsors: Get life insurance quickly and easily at Continue Reading …
Ep. 277: Hegel on Our Understanding of Physics (Part One for Supporters)
On The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), ch. 3, "Force and the Understanding." What is "force" as physics describes it? And scientific law? Do these terms denote objects in the world, or models for how we describe the world? For Hegel, force is a way of talking about the metaphysical relation that one object has to other objects. Or taken from another perspective, it's the Continue Reading …
Ep. 276: Hegel on Perception (Part One)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode. Listen to a preview. Hear this part ad-free. On The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), ch. 1 "Sense Certainty" and ch. 2 "Perception." After introducing Hegel's project in ep. 275, we now walk through the first two steps of his dialectic where he presents some basic theories of knowledge and shows why they're inaccurate. Sponsors: Continue Reading …
Advance Release: Philosophy vs. Improv #2
Yes, this is happening, and you're getting this second installment in the new series in lieu of a Nightcap this week, as we couldn't get it together to record one between our two Fichte recordings, though we've already got one for you ready for the run-up to Schelling. Four episodes of PvI have now been recorded, and the website should be up within the next week. This Continue Reading …
Ep. 271: Johan Gottlieb Fichte’s Transcendental Idealism (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one on The Vocation of Man (1799), Book II. Is Fichte trying to keep the notion of a "real world" beyond our experience or not? It's part of the progression of the text that while at first he assumes that there must be something real behind this experienced world we as individuals create, he gives up that notion in the middle of Book II. So how does he Continue Reading …
Ep. 270: Classical Indian (Vedanta and Nyaya) Design Arguments for God (Part One)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode. Listen to a preview. Hear this part ad-free. On the new book God and the World’s Arrangement: Readings from Vedanta and Nyaya Philosophy of Religion, which presents two takes on the argument that God must exist because the world is a "product." The first is excerpted from the Brahma-sūtra (a.k.a. the Vedānta-sutra, compiled ca. the 2nd Continue Reading …
Ep. 270: Classical Indian (Vedanta and Nyaya) Design Arguments for God (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one on God and the World’s Arrangement: Readings from Vedanta and Nyaya Philosophy of Religion after the departure of our guest, Stephen Phillips. Wes grills Seth and Mark on what's really new here philosophically: We're all familiar with the design argument, so why wade through all these unfamiliar schools and archaic formulations? So we talk more about Continue Reading …
Ep. 270: Classical Indian (Vedanta and Nyaya) Design Arguments for God (Part One for Supporters)
On the new book God and the World’s Arrangement: Readings from Vedanta and Nyaya Philosophy of Religion, which presents two takes on the argument that God must exist because the world is a "product." The first is excerpted from the Brahma-sūtra (a.k.a. the Vedānta-sutra, compiled ca. the 2nd century C.E.) verses 2.2.1-2.2.10 with commentary from Śaṅkara (710 C.E.) and Vācaspati Continue Reading …
PREVIEW-Ep. 267: Avicenna on God and Soul w/ Peter Adamson (Part Two)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode in its entirety. Citizens can get the second part here. Continuing from part one on Avicenna's argument for the existence of God and on the "flying man" argument for the soul's immateriality. This preview gets into some of the metaphysical and epistemological views that lurk behind these two arguments. We start by drilling more Continue Reading …
Ep. 267: Avicenna on God and Soul w/ Peter Adamson (Part One for Supporters)
On selections and commentary about Avicenna's argument from around 1020 C.E. for the existence of God (including arguments to prove that God has the person-like properties that Islam imputes to him) and his "flying man" argument for the soul's essential independence from matter. Featuring Mark, Dylan, and our guest Peter Adamson from the History of Philosophy Continue Reading …
PREVIEW-Ep. 264: Plato’s “Timaeus” on Cosmology (Part Two)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode in its entirety. Citizens can get the second part here. Continuing from part one on the Timaeus. In this preview, we return to look closely at the beginning of the dialogue where Plato argues for differences between the perceived, created, impermanent world and its perfect model. In the full discussion, we get into time, space, and Continue Reading …
Ep. 264: Plato’s “Timaeus” on Cosmology (Part One)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode. Listen to a preview. Hear this part ad-free. On the later Platonic dialogue from around 360 BCE, with Mark, Wes, and Dylan. How is nature put together? Plato, speaking this time through the fictional character instead of Socrates (who is present, but only Timaeus talks after the first part of the dialogue), paints a picture of the Continue Reading …
Ep. 264: Plato’s “Timaeus” on Cosmology (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one on the Timaeus. In this second part, we go more or less back to the beginning of the dialogue and talk through some quotes and details. For instance, we have arguments concerning the realms of Being and Becoming, the former being the model which the Craftsman used to create the latter. Could the model itself have been created? No, anything in that Continue Reading …
Ep. 264: Plato’s “Timaeus” on Cosmology (Part One for Supporters)
On the later Platonic dialogue from around 360 BCE, with Mark, Wes, and Dylan. How is nature put together? Plato, speaking this time through the fictional character instead of Socrates (who is present, but only Timaeus talks after the first part of the dialogue), paints a picture of the creation of the cosmos and our place in it. The overall principle is the same as it was Continue Reading …
Ep. 261: Derek Parfit on Personal Identity (Part One)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode, or listen to a preview. Citizens can get the entire second part here. On Reasons and Persons (1984), ch. 10-13, featuring Mark, Wes, Dylan and Seth. What makes a person the same over time? Parfit used Locke as a starting point: It's a matter of continuity of memory: I am the same person as my younger self because there are 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 …