• Log In

The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

A Philosophy Podcast and Philosophy Blog

Subscribe on Android Spotify Google Podcasts audible patreon
  • Home
  • Podcast
    • PEL Network Episodes
    • Publicly Available PEL Episodes
    • Paywalled and Ad-Free Episodes
    • PEL Episodes by Topic
    • Nightcap
    • Philosophy vs. Improv
    • Pretty Much Pop
    • Nakedly Examined Music
    • (sub)Text
    • Phi Fic Podcast
    • Combat & Classics
    • Constellary Tales
  • Blog
  • About
    • PEL FAQ
    • Meet PEL
    • About Pretty Much Pop
    • Philosophy vs. Improv
    • Nakedly Examined Music
    • Meet Phi Fic
    • Listener Feedback
    • Links
  • Join
    • Become a Citizen
    • Join Our Mailing List
    • Log In
  • Donate
  • Store
    • Episodes
    • Swag
    • Everything Else
    • Cart
    • Checkout
    • My Account
  • Contact
  • Mailing List

Ep. 246: Susan Sontag on Interpreting Art (Part Two)

June 29, 2020 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

Continuing on Sontag's essays “On Style” (1965) and "The Death of Tragedy” (1963). We keep talking about the appropriate distance to retain (or not) to a work of art, which is supposed to be relevant to moral action in the world. Art give us models of consciousness, of ways of being, with which we can identify. So what does all this mean for the evaluation of tragedy that  Continue Reading …

Ep. 246: Susan Sontag on Interpreting Art (Part One)

June 22, 2020 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

On Sontag's essays “Against Interpretation” (1964), “On Style” (1965), and "The Death of Tragedy” (1963). What is it to understand a work of art? Sontag objects to critics' need to decode or translate literature into it's "meaning" or "content," divorcing it in the process from how this content is embodied. She argues that this content vs. form distinction isn't tenable;  Continue Reading …

Ep. 246: Susan Sontag on Interpreting Art (Citizen Edition)

June 22, 2020 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

On Sontag's essays “Against Interpretation” (1964), “On Style” (1965), and "The Death of Tragedy” (1963). What is it to understand a work of art? Sontag objects to critics' need to decode or translate literature into it's "meaning" or "content," divorcing it in the process from how this content is embodied. She argues that this content vs. form distinction isn't tenable;  Continue Reading …

Ep. 212: Sartre on Literature (Part Two)

April 8, 2019 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

Continuing on What is Literature? (1948). We've finished with poetry and moved on to prose, completing chapter 1 where Sartre expresses how literature is not primarily about style, how it has to actually say something, and so of course it should be political, or philosophical, or otherwise important, and we readers of "great books" should take these arguments seriously (if  Continue Reading …

Episode 94: Schopenhauer on Reading, Writing, and Thinking

May 22, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 17 Comments

On Arthur Schopenhauer's essays, "On Authorship and Style," "On Thinking for Oneself," and "On Genius" (all published 1851). Is the best way to do philosophy (or any art) to self-consciously build on the work of others to advance the genre? Schopenhauer says no! Geniuses are solitary, original, authentic, naive thinkers. They write because they have something to say, not  Continue Reading …

Episode 94: Schopenhauer on Reading, Writing, and Thinking

May 22, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

On Arthur Schopenhauer's essays, "On Authorship and Style," "On Thinking for Oneself," and "On Genius" (all published 1851). Is the best way to do philosophy (or any art) to self-consciously build on the work of others to advance the genre? Schopenhauer says no! Geniuses are solitary, original, authentic, naive thinkers. They write because they have something to say, not  Continue Reading …

Topic for #94: Schopenhauer on Reading, Writing, and Thinking

May 11, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 4 Comments

First, a sad story: on 4/27, we recorded a discussion of Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia with Slate's Stephen Metcalf. It went fairly well (Stephen was impressed, and gave us a nice traffic bump by promoting us on his Culture Gabfest podcast), but within the next couple of days, the hard drive on which my part and much of the guest's part were recorded on went  Continue Reading …

Episode 75: Lacan & Derrida Criticize Poe’s “The Purloined Letter” (Citizens Only)

April 19, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

Edgar Allen Poe

On Jacques Lacan's "Seminar on 'The Purloined Letter'" (1956), Jacques Derrida's "The Purveyor of Truth" (1975), and other essays in the collection The Purloined Poe: Lacan, Derrida, and Psychoanalytic Reading. How should philosophers approach literature? Lacan read Edgar Allen Poe's story about a sleuth who outthinks a devious Minister as an illustration of his model of the  Continue Reading …

PREVIEW-Episode 75: Lacan & Derrida Criticize Poe’s “The Purloined Letter”

April 19, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 84 Comments

Edgar Allen Poe

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 …

Beware of Philosophical Trick Questions

October 11, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer

A friendly listener, Alicia S., submitted this note to us: I was asked this question and had no idea how to respond to it... This is the question: "Would you rather never be able to answer a question or never be able to ask a question"? The point of the question is to tease out whether philosophy (or rather, what you see as valuable in doing philosophy) is a matter of the  Continue Reading …

A Belated Rant Against Literature as Philosophy (Featuring Murakami’s “IQ84”)

September 24, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 43 Comments

There's a long history of philosophers bashing poets, back to Socrates bashing rhetoriticians (poetry being a species of rhetoric, to him) for pursuing felicity of expression over an actual search for the truth. Though in the McCarthy episode, we were very upbeat about the utility of literature for conveying philosophical ideas, today I'm in a grumpy mood about it and feel the  Continue Reading …

The Fantastic in Literature and Philosophy

April 19, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 15 Comments

I've written a couple of posts in the past on philosophical themes in Tolkien (Incidentally, there's a thread going at the Philosophy Forums/Online Philosophy Club discussing philosophical themes in Lord of the Rings right now), and had fun going off on the supernaturalism tangent on our last episode, even though I don't see the force of Wes's objection to Harry Potter over the  Continue Reading …

Lila Notes, Pt. 1: On the Legitimacy of Skimming the Narrative Bits

February 4, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 4 Comments

Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals,as you may have heard, is Pirsig's sole follow-up book to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, though he's written some other articles and things since then that I hope to look into via future blog posts here. In it, he elaborates his Metaphysics of Quality further, applies it to critique modern society and the hippie movement in particular  Continue Reading …

Tolkien (and Cory Olsen) on Fantasy as Transcendence

February 1, 2011 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

Listening to Dreyfus's Heidegger lectures has gotten me looking around a bit among the "iTunes U" selections. It's interesting to me that these are separated from podcasts generally when there is often little difference between the two types of selections, and that podcasts sanctioned by universities can still absolutely blow, particularly if they're just unedited recordings  Continue Reading …

PEL Live Show 2023

Brothers K Live Show

Citizenship has its Benefits

Become a PEL Citizen
Become a PEL Citizen, and get access to all paywalled episodes, early and ad-free, including exclusive Part 2's for episodes starting September 2020; our after-show Nightcap, where the guys respond to listener email and chat more causally; a community of fellow learners, and more.

Rate and Review

Nightcap

Listen to Nightcap
On Nightcap, listen to the guys respond to listener email and chat more casually about their lives, the making of the show, current events and politics, and anything else that happens to come up.

Subscribe to Email Updates

Select list(s):

Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.

Support PEL

Buy stuff through Amazon and send a few shekels our way at no extra cost to you.

Tweets by PartiallyExLife

Recent Comments

  • Evan Hadkins on Ep. 309: Wittgenstein On Certainty (Part Two)
  • Bibliophile on Pretty Much Pop #143: Pinocchio the Unfilmable (Yet Frequently Filmed)
  • Mark Linsenmayer on Ep. 302: Erasmus Praises Foolishness (Part Two)
  • Mark Linsenmayer on Ep. 308: Moore’s Proof of Mind-Independent Reality (Part Two for Supporters)
  • Mark Linsenmayer on Ep. 201: Marcus Aurelius’s Stoicism with Ryan Holiday (Citizen Edition)

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

Become a PEL Citizen!

As a PEL Citizen, you’ll have access to a private social community of philosophers, thinkers, and other partial examiners where you can join or initiate discussion groups dedicated to particular readings, participate in lively forums, arrange online meet-ups for impromptu seminars, and more. PEL Citizens also have free access to podcast transcripts, guided readings, episode guides, PEL music, and other citizen-exclusive material. Click here to join.

Blog Post Categories

  • (sub)Text
  • Aftershow
  • Announcements
  • Audiobook
  • Book Excerpts
  • Citizen Content
  • Citizen Document
  • Citizen News
  • Close Reading
  • Combat and Classics
  • Constellary Tales
  • Exclude from Newsletter
  • Featured Ad-Free
  • Featured Article
  • General Announcements
  • Interview
  • Letter to the Editor
  • Misc. Philosophical Musings
  • Nakedly Examined Music Podcast
  • Nakedly Self-Examined Music
  • NEM Bonus
  • Not School Recording
  • Not School Report
  • Other (i.e. Lesser) Podcasts
  • PEL Music
  • PEL Nightcap
  • PEL's Notes
  • Personal Philosophies
  • Phi Fic Podcast
  • Philosophy vs. Improv
  • Podcast Episode (Citizen)
  • Podcast Episodes
  • Pretty Much Pop
  • Reviewage
  • Song Self-Exam
  • Supporter Exclusive
  • Things to Watch
  • Vintage Episode (Citizen)
  • Web Detritus

Follow:

Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | Apple Podcasts

Copyright © 2009 - 2023 · The Partially Examined Life, LLC. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy · Terms of Use · Copyright Policy

Copyright © 2023 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in