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Ep. 240: David Lewis on Possible Worlds and Language Games (Part One)

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On Ch. 4 of Lewis’s book Counterfactuals (1973) and the essays “Scorekeeping in a Language Game” (1979) and “Truth in Fiction” (1978).

What makes a sentence about possibility true? Lewis thinks that we need possible worlds that really exist in order to make sense of our modal intuitions. He uses this possible-world talk to make sense of conversations and the worlds created by fiction writers. With guest Matt Teichman from Elucidations.

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Ep. 240: David Lewis on Possible Worlds and Language Games (Citizen Edition)

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On Ch. 4 of Lewis’s book Counterfactuals (1973) and the essays “Scorekeeping in a Language Game” (1979) and “Truth in Fiction” (1978).

What makes a sentence about possibility true? Lewis thinks that we need possible worlds that really exist in order to make sense of our modal intuitions. He uses this possible-world talk to make sense of conversations and the worlds created by fiction writers. With guest Matt Teichman from Elucidations.

End song: “Real Life” by Matt Wilson, as interviewed for Nakedly Examined Music #118.

Episode 198 Follow-Up: More on Plato’s “Parmenides” (Citizens Only)

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Mark and Seth continue our conversation from ep. 198 by going through the arguments in the second half of the dialogue.

This puzzling section is largely a monologue by the character Parmenides, with the stated aim of showing the implications from first, the assumption that the One exists, and then that the One does not exist. But is this really Parmenides’s One or the Platonic Form of Oneness? Can these be the same thing?

Episode 198: Plato’s Forms in the “Parmenides” (Part Two)

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We get down to the specific questions considered in this perplexing Platonic dialogue: Are there Forms for all adjectives? Does the Form of a property itself have that property? How do Forms connect with particulars? How can we mortals have any connection to heavenly Forms anyway?

Listen to part one first or get the full, ad-free Citizen Edition along with the follow-up episode. Please support PEL!

End song: “Young and Lovely” by Jherek Bischoff. Hear him on Nakedly Examined Music #65.

Episode 198: Plato’s Forms in the “Parmenides” (Part One)

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On the most peculiar Platonic dialogue, from ca. 350 BCE.

Are properties real things in the world, or just in the mind? Plato is known for claiming that these “Forms” are real, though otherworldly. Here, though, using Parmenides as a character talking to a young Socrates, Plato seems to provide objections here to his own theory. What’s the deal?

Continue on part two or get the full, ad-free Citizen Edition now! Please support PEL!

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Episode 198: Plato’s Forms in the “Parmenides” (Citizen Edition)

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On the most peculiar Platonic dialogue, from ca. 350 BCE.

Are properties real things in the world, or just in the mind? Plato is known for claiming that these “Forms” are real, though otherworldly. Here, though, using Parmenides as a character talking to a young Socrates, Plato seems to provide objections here to his own theory. What’s the deal?

End song: “Young and Lovely” by Jherek Bischoff. Hear him on Nakedly Examined Music #65.

Episode 197: Parmenides on What There Is (Part Two)

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Continuing with guest Peter Adamson with “On Nature” (475 BCE).

We finally get to fragment 8, which describes why Being must be singular and eternal, given that the notion of Non-Being is nonsense. But how could we as individuals be asking these questions then? Does his “Way of Seeming” work to explain the appearances, as opposed to reality?

Listen to part one first, or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!

End song: “Circle” by Gareth Mitchell, as discussed on Nakedly Examined Music #4.

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Episode 197: Parmenides on What There Is (Part One)

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On the fragments referred to as “On Nature” from ca. 475 BCE, featuring guest Peter Adamson from the History of Philosophy without Any Gaps podcast.

Parmenides gives “the Way of Truth,” which is that there is only Being, and talking of Non-Being is nonsense. So everything you experience is wrong!

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REISSUE-Ep. 24: Spinoza on God and Metaphysics

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Discussing Spinoza’s Ethics (1677), books 1 and 2. God is everything, therefore the world is God as apprehended through some particular attributes, namely insofar as one of his aspects is infinite space (extension, i.e. matter) and insofar as one of his aspects is mind (our minds being chunks or “modes” of the big God mind). A 2010 discussion with a new intro by Dylan and Mark.

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Episode 163: Guest Stewart Umphrey on Natural Kinds (Part One)

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On Natural Kinds and Genesis: The Classification of Material Entities (2016). Are general terms like “water” or “dog” just things that we made up to order the world? Aristotle thought that some universals constitute natural kinds, with a nature that explains their behavior. “Kinds” were replaced with “laws,” but Stewart wants us to reconsider, and bring back “natural philosophy” in the process.

Episode 163: Guest Stewart Umphrey on Natural Kinds (Citizen Edition)

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On Natural Kinds and Genesis: The Classification of Material Entities (2016). Are general terms like “water” or “dog” just things that we made up to order the world we experience? Aristotle thought that some universals constitute natural kinds, with an internal structure that explains their behavior. “Kinds” were replaced with “laws,” but Stewart wants us to reconsider, and bring back “natural philosophy” in the process.

End song: “Destroy the Box” by Wertico, Cain and Gray from Organic Architecture (2014), as elucidated on Nakedly Examined Music #30.

Episode 143: Plato’s “Sophist” on Lies, Categorization, and Non-Being (Citizen Edition)

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On the later Platonic dialogue. What is a sophist? These were guys in Ancient Greece who taught young people the tools of philosophy and rhetoric. They claimed to teach virtue. In Sophist, “the Eleatic Stranger” (i.e. not Socrates) tries to figure out what a sophist really is, using a new “method of division.” This leads to a long digression on the nature of “not-being” as a necessary component of false beliefs, which is what the Stranger claims that sophists provide.

End song: “Dumb,” by Mark Lint and the Fake from the album So Whaddaya Think? (2000).

Episode 135: Hegel on the Logic of Basic Metaphysical Concepts

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A whole second discussion on G.F.W. Hegel’s Encyclopedia Logic, hitting sections 78–99 on the dialectic and Understanding vs. Reason. Hegel thinks we can use Reason to objectively come up with basic metaphysical categories, but can we really? With guest Amogh Sahu.

This continues ep. 134. PEL Citizens can listen to the Aftershow.

End song: “Flow” by Gary Lucas and Mark Lint. Listen to Gary interviewed about this instrumental on Nakedly Examined Music #7.

Episode 135: Hegel on the Logic of Basic Metaphysical Concepts (Citizen Edition)

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A whole second discussion on G.W.F. Hegel’s Encyclopedia Logic, hitting sections 78–99 on the dialectic, Understanding vs. Reason, and then how the Concept of Being, when analyzed, shows itself to be identical to Nothingness, and how those in turn considered together “logically” lead to Becoming, which is the same as Determinate Being and also Quality. With guest Amogh Sahu.

Continued from ep. 134, and concludes with the Aftershow.

End song: “Flow” by Gary Lucas and Mark Lint. Listen to Gary interviewed about this instrumental on Nakedly Examined Music #7.

Episode 134: Hegel on Thought & World (or “Logic”)

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On G.F.W. Hegel’s The Science of Logic (1812–1816), §1–§129 and The Encyclopaedia Logic (1817) §1–§25. “Logic” for Hegel isn’t about symbolic logic; it’s about how thought interacts with the world. Our thoughts about fundamental metaphysical categories bear the same relations to each other as the the categories themselves do. Just take Hegel’s many, many words for it! With guest Amogh Sahu.

End song: “Procrastination” by Steve Petrinko from The MayTricks’ Happy Songs Will Bring You Down (1994). Hear Mark interview Steve on Nakedly Examined Music.

Episode 134: Hegel on Thought & World (or “Logic”) (Citizen Edition)

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On G.F.W. Hegel’s The Science of Logic (1812–1816), §1–§129 and The Encyclopaedia Logic (1817) §1–§25. “Logic” for Hegel isn’t about symbolic logic; it’s about how thought interacts with the world. Our thoughts about fundamental metaphysical categories bear the same relations to each other as the the categories themselves do. Just take Hegel’s many, many words for it! This is the first of two discussions on the Logic. With guest Amogh Sahu.

End song: “Procrastination” by Steve Petrinko from The MayTricks’ Happy Songs Will Bring You Down (1994). Hear Mark interview Steve on Nakedly Examined Music.

About The Partially Examined Life

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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