The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
A Philosophy Podcast and Philosophy Blog
Continuing on Sontag’s essays “On Style” (1965) and “The Death of Tragedy” (1963).
Mark, Wes, Seth and Dylan 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. We also spell out how this is relevant to our recent episodes on tragedy.
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End song: “Mela” by Julie Slick, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #115.
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 art into its “meaning” or “content,” divorcing it from how this content is embodied. She argues that the content vs. form distinction isn’t tenable; that the style of a work is an essential part of experiencing it. Sontag thinks we’re too analytical, too divorced from our instincts, and a direct encounter with art is essential to enliven us.
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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; that the style of a work is an essential part of experiencing it. Like Nietzsche, Sontag thinks we’re too analytical, too divorced from our instincts, and a direct encounter with art is essential to enliven us.
End song: “Mela” by Julie Slick, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #115.
Continuing on What is Literature? (1948).
Sartre gives a phenomenology of reading and writing that makes reading into a creative act of completing the writer’s work, and calls this cooperation ethical: the work is an appeal to the reader’s freedom, and also the reader’s responsibility to then know what the work reveals. Are you shirking, all you skimmers?
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End song: “Things I Shouldn’t Have Told You” by Sam Phillips, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #90.
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On Arthur Schopenhauer’s essays, “On Authorship and Style,” “On Thinking for Oneself,” and “On Genius” (all published 1851).
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! Learn more.
End song: “Drake’s Song” from The Maytricks (1992)
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 Continue Reading …
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 psyche, and why we persist in self-destructive patterns. Derrida thought this reading not only imposed a bunch of psychobabble onto the story, but demonstrated that Lacan just didn’t know how to read a text.
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 psyche, and why we persist in self-destructive patterns. Derrida thought this reading not only imposed a bunch of psychobabble onto the story, but demonstrated that Lacan just didn’t know how to read a text.
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 Continue Reading …
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 Continue Reading …
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 Continue Reading …
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 Continue Reading …
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 with the slow pace Continue Reading …
