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. One of the most influential Presocratic philosophers, Parmenides gives "the Way of Truth," which is that there is only Being, and talking of Non-Being is nonsense. And guess what? Any talk of difference implies non-being, so Continue Reading …
REISSUE-Ep. 24: Spinoza on God and Metaphysics
On Baruch Spinoza's Ethics (1677), books 1 and 2. Time warp to 2010 when Mark, Seth, and Wes recorded this lo-fi burst of energy, made available to you now to kick of our June Spinoza-fest, with two full discussions coming out over the next four weeks on Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. Dylan and Mark have recorded a new introduction connecting the two works. Our Continue Reading …
Episode 163: Guest Stewart Umphrey on Natural Kinds (Part Two)
Continuing our interview about Natural Kinds and Genesis: The Classification of Material Entities. Now we get down to it: Given the argument for continuants in part 1, Stewart talks about how that founds the idea of a natural kind (the nature of a continuant) and considers what might count as one. Should the fact that there are borderline cases, i.e., vagueness in a concept, Continue Reading …
Episode 163: Guest Stewart Umphrey on Natural Kinds (Part One)
Dylan goes on location to St. John's College, Annapolis to talk with Stewart Umphrey about his book Natural Kinds and Genesis: The Classification of Material Entities (2016), with Mark and Wes lobbing in questions remotely. Are general terms like "water" or "dog" or even "chair" just things that we made up to order the world we experience? Aristotle thought that some Continue Reading …
Ep. 143: Plato’s “Sophist” on Lies, Categorization, and Non-Being (Citizen Edition)
On the later Platonic dialogue (ca. 360 BC). What is a sophist? Historically, these were foreign teachers in Ancient Greece who taught young people the tools of philosophy and rhetoric, among other things, and especially they claimed to teach virtue. In this dialogue, "the Eleatic Stranger" (i.e., not Socrates, who is present but wholly silent after the first couple of Continue Reading …
Episode 135: Hegel on the Logic of Basic Metaphysical Concepts
A whole second discussion on G.F.W. Hegel's The Encyclopaedia Logic (1817), hitting sections 78–99 on the dialectic and how it's supposed to generate basic metaphysical categories like Being, Becoming, Quality, and Quantity. We also talk about Understanding vs. Reason: Kant thought that we can't do metaphysics because we can only talk sensibly about abstractions (via the Continue Reading …
Episode 134: Hegel on Thought & World (or “Logic”)
On G.F.W. Hegel's The Science of Logic (1812–1816), §1–§129 (i.e., the two prefaces and the introduction), plus The Encyclopaedia Logic (1817) §1–§25, which is supposed to dumb it down more so we can understand what's going on. "Logic" for Hegel isn't about symbolic logic; it's about how thought interacts with the world. In short, our thoughts about fundamental metaphysical Continue Reading …
Adorno and the Reproach That a View Is “Too Subjective”
Imagine that you have seen a film with a friend. You are telling him about what you take to be the themes of the film and about what you believe the film tries to say. Your friend objects that such things are "too subjective." He prefers to talk about features of the film that, he says, are more objective—such matters as where the film was shot, who produced it, how many Oscars Continue Reading …
Entering the Stoic World, Part 2: Metaphysics
This post examines the metaphysics or philosophy of nature behind the Stoic views on community and detachment described in Part 1, and how this metaphysics changed in the later centuries of the school's history. Before going into detail, it will be helpful to contextualize the Stoics' metaphysics within their broader tradition of philosophy. Despite preferring their porticoes Continue Reading …
Episode 122: Augustine on Mind and Metaphysics
Yet more on The Confessions (400 CE), this time on books 10–13. What is memory and how does it relate to time and being? Augustine thinks that memory is a storehouse, but it contains not just the sensations we put in it, but also (à la Plato's theory of recollection) really all legitimate knowledge. It's our route to God, to real Being. Mark, Wes, and Dylan also discuss Continue Reading …
Listen to Ep. 114 Aftershow
Sunday afternoon we recorded the aftershow for on our episode 114 covering Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation (sometimes called The World as Will and Idea). Host Danny Lobell (whom you can hear ad nauseam on his own podcast, Modern Day Philosophers with such guests as Gilbert Godfried, Marc Maron, Louis Black, Aisha Tyler, Wyatt Cenac, etc. etc.) Continue Reading …
Episode 114: Schopenhauer: “The World Is Will”
On Arthur Schopenhauer's The World As Will and Representation (1818), book 2. Sure, we know from our senses and science what the world looks like to creatures like us, but if you buy Kant's view that this "world as appearance" is a construct of our minds, what's the reality behind the appearance? Schopenhauer thinks that we can know this: The world is what he calls Continue Reading …
Topic for #114: Schopenhauer on Will
On 4/8 and 4/19 we took two stabs at one of the biggie tomes of philosophical history, Arthur Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation, covering first metaphysics, and then aesthetics (focusing to a good degree on music). For Ep. #114, we read all of Book II (of Volume 1, which is really the book proper published in 1818, the other volumes having come out far Continue Reading …
Ep. 110 Aftershow (Preview) with Stephen West
Stephen West of the Philosophize This! podcast returns to host the Aftershow for PEL episode #110 on Alfred North Whitehead. In this preview you'll hear Stephen, Dylan Casey (who has a lot to say about process philosophy and science), and David Buchanan (guest from our Pirsig episode and PEL blogger). Later in the conversation they were also joined by Amough Sahu. This is a Continue Reading …
Emerson on the Over-Soul
In our Emerson discussion, Wes and Dylan didn't seem too interested in trying to figure out Emerson's religious/metaphysical views, which were drawn on in the essays we read but which were not their central feature. I think (as does Thoreau, who incidentally we're talking about next) that reading him in a secular vein is ultimately more rewarding, but my complaints about how Continue Reading …
Not School Discussion on Antonin Artaud Posted
The long running Philosophy and Theater group held not one but two discussions in August on Antonin Artaud's The Theater and Its Double, which have now been posted for Citizens as a single 3-hr file on the Free Stuff page on the "Not School Discussion Group Audio" tab. Go join up if you'd like to listen. Our subjects within the text ranged wide, since Artaud's writings are Continue Reading …
Episode 92: Henri Bergson on How to Do Metaphysics
On "An Introduction to Metaphysics" (1903) How does metaphysics differ from science? While Kant had dismissed metaphysics as groundless speculation about things beyond human knowledge, Bergson sees it as a matter of grasping things "from the inside." He calls this "intuition": the kind of understanding we have of our own inner lives. If you try to describe this with concepts Continue Reading …
Precognition of Ep. 92: Henri Bergson
Guest Matt Teichman (from the Elucidations podcast) introduces Bergson's essay "An Introduction to Metaphysics." Read more about the topic at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Listen to the episode. Continue Reading …
Episode 89: Berkeley: Only Ideas Exist!
On Bishop George Berkeley's Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous (1713). While only a goon would deny the real existence of things like tables and chairs, does "real" existence have to mean existence as matter, i.e. as something that could exist in the absence of any mind to think about it? Berkeley says no! Tables and chairs are ideas! But not just my ideas, or Continue Reading …
Precognition of Ep. 89: Berkeley’s Idealism
Wes Alwan introduces George Berkeley's Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous. Listen to the full PEL episode. Continue Reading …