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Episode 207: Herder on Art Appreciation (Part One)

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On Johann Gottfried von Herder’s “The Causes of Sunken Taste among the Different Peoples in Whom It Once Blossomed” (1775), “On the Influence of the Belles Lettres on the Higher Sciences” (1781), “Does Painting or Music Have a Greater Effect? A Divine Colloquy” (1785), and some of Critical Forests: Fourth Grove (written 1769). With guest rock god John “Jughead” Pierson.

What is aesthetic taste, and why do some societies (e.g., ancient Greece) seem rife with genius while others are not? Herder has some definite ideas about aesthetic, sensual education as grounding for abstract thinking, rages against attempts to copy another culture’s art forms, and likes melody over harmony. Plus he coined the term “zeitgeist”!

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Episode 207: Herder on Art Appreciation (Citizen Edition)

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On Johann Gottfried von Herder’s “The Causes of Sunken Taste among the Different Peoples in Whom It Once Blossomed” (1775), “On the Influence of the Belles Lettres on the Higher Sciences” (1781), “Does Painting or Music Have a Greater Effect? A Divine Colloquy” (1785), and some of Critical Forests: Fourth Grove (written 1769). With guest rock god John “Jughead” Pierson.

What is aesthetic taste, and why do some societies (e.g., ancient Greece) seem rife with genius while others are not? Herder has some definite ideas about aesthetic, sensual education as grounding for abstract thinking, rages against attempts to copy another culture’s art forms, and likes melody over harmony. Plus he coined the term “zeitgeist”!

End song: “Dear Resonance” by John’s band Even In Blackouts. Hear him interviewed about his music on Nakedly Examined Music #58.

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Episode 178: Nietzsche as Social Critic: “Twilight of the Idols” (Part Two)

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Continuing on Nietzsche’s 1888 book. Is there any ground from which we could judge life as a whole to be good or bad? Is N. more about saying “yes” to life or saying “no” to all the numerous things that piss him off? We also talk Becoming, whether producing great art is more important than being nice to everyone, and whether Nietzsche is ultimately someone we’d want to hang around.

End song: “Oblivion” by Tyler Hislop, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #24.

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Episode 178: Nietzsche as Social Critic: “Twilight of the Idols” (Citizen Edition)

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On Friedrich Nietzsche’s 1888 book summarizing his thought and critiquing the founding myths of his society. He defends “spiritualized” instinct and frenzied creativity, but also Napoleon and war. We try to figure out what kind of social critic he’d be today. Would we actually like him?

End song: “Oblivion” by Tyler Hislop, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #24.

Episode 136: Adorno on the Culture Industry

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On Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” from Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944), plus Adorno’s “Culture Industry Reconsidered” (1963).

How does the entertainment industry affect us? Adorno (armed with Marx and Freud) thinks that our “mass culture” is imposed from the top down to lull us into being submissive workers.

End song: “All Too Familiar,” from around 1992 with all instruments by Mark Linsenmayer, released on The MayTricks..

Episode 136: Adorno on the Culture Industry (Citizen Edition)

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On Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” from Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944), plus Adorno’s “Culture Industry Reconsidered” (1963).

How does the entertainment industry affect us? Adorno (armed with Marx and Freud) thinks that our “mass culture” is imposed from the top down to brainwash us into being submissive workers.

End song: “All Too Familiar,” from around 1992 with all instruments by Mark Linsenmayer, released on The MayTricks.

Episode 119: Nietzsche on Tragedy and the Psychology of Art

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On Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy (1872). Nietzsche thought that you could tell how vital or decadent a civilization was by its art, and said that ancient Greek tragedy was so great because it was a perfect synthesis of something highly formal/orderly/beautiful with the intuitive/unconscious/chaotic. But then Socrates ruined everything! With guest John Castro.

Includes a preview of the Aftershow feat. Greg Sadler.

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

Episode 119: Nietzsche on Tragedy and the Psychology of Art (Citizen Edition)

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On Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy (1872), which was his first book. Nietzsche thought that you could tell how vital or decadent a civilization was by its art, and said that ancient Greek tragedy was so great because it was a perfect synthesis of something highly formal/orderly/beautiful with the intuitive/unconscious/chaotic. But then Socrates ruined everything, and it remains ruined! Can we recapture the magic? Probably not. With guest John Castro.

End song: “Some Act” by Mark Lint and the Fake from “So Whaddaya Think?” (2000)

Episode 105: Kant: What Is Beauty? (Citizen Edition)

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On Critique of Judgment (1790), Part I, Book I. What is beauty? Kant thinks that finding something beautiful is different than merely liking it. It’s a certain kind of liking, not dependent on your idiosyncratic tastes (like your preference for one color or flavor or tone over another) or on your moral opinions. He wants these judgments to be subjective in the sense that they’re not about the object, but about the fact that people receive pleasure from it, yet he also wants them to be universal, so that if I (correctly) find something beautiful, then I expect others to feel the same way, and moreover, if they have taste, they should.
Learn more.

End song: “Cool Down” from Mark Lint & the Fake Johnson Trio (1998), newly resung/remixed.

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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