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Combat and Classics logoCombat and Classics is a series of podcasts and online seminars that explores the nature of man in conflict and cooperation through socratic dialogue and the great books. For more info visit combatandclassics.org

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Combat & Classics Episode 50. “Warspeak” by Lise van Boxel

December 18, 2020 by Brian Wilson 1 Comment

Brian and Jeff are joined by Michael Grenke, St. John’s College – Santa Fe, to discuss Lise van Boxel’s posthumously published book “Warspeak” from PoliticalAnimalPress.com.

Combat & Classics #33: Nietzsche’s “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” Part I

February 19, 2020 by Sanya Kerksiek 1 Comment

Lise, Jeff, and Brian discuss Nietzsche’s first two sections of Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which conclude with the famous line “God is dead.”

Get more C&C on the PEL site or at combatandclassics.org.

Phi Fic #28 A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

June 4, 2019 by Laura Davis Leave a Comment

Join Cezary Baranieckli, Laura Davis, Nathaniel Hanks, Daniel Johnson, and Jennifer Tejada, as we all struggle with what is defined as truly “evil”.
.
I see what is right and approve, but I do what is wrong.
-A Clockwork Orange

Phi Fic #21 “Foe” by J.M. Coetzee

March 27, 2018 by Nathan Hanks Leave a Comment

Join us as we delve into Coetzee’s rich, complex exploration of story and authorship in this novel that presents an origin story of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. Coetzee writes about Susan Barton, a castaway at sea who discovers an island inhabited by two men, Robinson Crusoe and Friday. Once rescued, she seeks the renowned author Daniel Defoe to help tell her story, but struggles to communicate her experiences.
Hear more Phi Fic discussions at PhiFicPodcast.com.

Phi Fic #5 “Pale Fire” by Vladimir Nabokov

September 1, 2016 by Nathan Hanks 8 Comments

So, you think Lolita was Nabokov’s best? We humbly submit a solid contender. Structured as a 999-line poem followed by an extensive afterword and index, Pale Fire has been described by the critic Harold Bloom as “the surest demonstration of [Nabokov’s] genius…”

Check out more episodes and be sure to subscribe at phificpodcast.com.

Philosophical Fiction Reading: Woolf’s To The Lighthouse

March 7, 2015 by Nathan Hanks Leave a Comment

We are going to read To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf for our conversation this March in Philosophical Fiction. A few regulars and I chose a book from our List of Suggestions to read before our conversation where we’ll go over the plot, discuss the characters, recall apt passages, and try to get at what everything is all about anyway. To The Lighthouse will be my first Virginia Woolf Continue Reading …

Reading Fiction in February, ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’ by Flannery O’Connor

February 24, 2015 by Nathan Hanks 1 Comment

Our Philosophical Fiction story for February is ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’ by Flannery O’Connor, where a grandmother and her family go on vacation yet encounter an outlaw known as The Misfit.

The Not School Discussion of The Body Artist by Don DeLillo

March 31, 2013 by Nathan Hanks 1 Comment

PEL’s Not School Fiction Group read Don DeLillo’s novel The Body Artist, and Paul Harris and I recorded our discussion of the unique relationship between Lauren and Mr. Tuttle, the ghostly being that arrives after her husband’s suicide. You can get it on the Citizen Free Stuff page. [Spoiler]’Mr. Tuttle’, as Lauren decides to call him, has a haunted look, he Continue Reading …

Dyson on Philosophy

October 23, 2012 by Dylan Casey 3 Comments

Freeman Dyson has a review of Jim Holt’s Why Does the World Exist? in the early November issue of The New York Review of Books. Dyson is an esteemed physicist who, as a young man, cinched the link between accounts of quantum electrodynamics given separately by Richard Feynman, Julian Schwinger, and Sin-Itiro Tomonanga in the late 1940s. He probably should’ve Continue Reading …

Better Philosophy through Science Fiction?

October 13, 2012 by Dylan Casey 3 Comments

For your weekend podcast-listening pleasure, a friend of the podcast pointed me to the most recent episode of the Rationally Speaking podcast in which the hosts take up science fiction and chew on what kinds of philosophical insight might garnered from such speculative fiction. (Beware those who, like Seth, abhor the thought experiment!) In the words of the podcasters themselves: Continue Reading …

Literature and Philosophy: Antagonists or Partners?

September 28, 2012 by Chris Mullen 16 Comments

Can literature be philosophical? Can philosophy be considered literature? What are the roles of literature and philosophy in relation to “truth?” Why should philosophers be interested in literature? While trying to come up with something to post in relation to the recent PEL discussion on Cormac McCarthy’s “No Country for Old Men” I came across an interesting discussion over at Continue Reading …

Sailing Philosophy

August 12, 2012 by Dylan Casey 2 Comments

Every August for the past ten years my family and I have spent a couple of weeks on a smallish lake in northwest Michigan. I say small, but it’s about 1800 acres, plenty big for most purposes, if tiny compared to the big water of Lake Michigan just five miles away. Most every afternoon the breeze picks up and I Continue Reading …

Wisdom Studies

July 16, 2012 by Dylan Casey 10 Comments

 It is oft said (at least when exercising etymology muscles) that philosophy is “love of wisdom.” Just like other mind-related topics such as emotion and creativity, wisdom is getting the scientific treatment. One of our listeners pointed us to a book by Stephen S. Hall titled Wisdom: From Philosophy to Neuroscience which surveys a variety of answers to the question of Continue Reading …

Brian Leiter’s New Philosophical Categories

December 24, 2011 by Daniel Horne 7 Comments

A really good interview with Nietzsche scholar and opinionator Brian Leiter appears in 3:AM Magazine, where he drops pithy quotes on Obama, Nietzsche, Marx, and Foucault. But he also appears to have a new argument to sell. Leiter advocates a new way to divide the philosophical canon, not into “contintentals” or “analytics,” but rather into “naturalists” and “anti-naturalists”. You can also Continue Reading …

Georg Cantor and Ever Larger Infinities

May 26, 2011 by Daniel Horne 12 Comments

Watch on youtube. A big name-drop during the middle of the Russell episode was the sad story of Georg Cantor and his insanity-inducing continuum hypothesis. Anyone unaware of Cantor and his contributions might want to look at this clip from the Dangerous Knowledge BBC documentary. I thought it provided a good visual explanation of higher levels of infinity. But perhaps Continue Reading …

Montaigne, Mirror Neurons, and Men with Guns

March 7, 2011 by Daniel Horne Leave a Comment

Here’s an excerpt from a good series on Montaigne the Guardian UK ran last year, written by Sarah Bakewell, who just published a well received book on Montaigne: To take just one example of how we can derive wisdom from Montaigne: his Essays give us a wealth of anecdotes exploring ways of resolving violent confrontations. As a teenager in Bordeaux, Montaigne had Continue Reading …

Tripe, the full PDF

December 6, 2010 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

Just right click this here link to and choose “save target as” or whatever your browser’s version of that is to get the full book: Tripe, the full and naked PDF. (The commentary starts here. Its ending is forever indistinct.) -Mark Linsenmayer

Tripe, the full PDF

December 6, 2010 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

Just right click this here link to and choose “save target as” or whatever your browser’s version of that is to get the full book: Tripe, the full and naked PDF. (The commentary starts here. Its ending is forever indistinct.) -Mark Linsenmayer

Episode 5: Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics

July 16, 2009 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

Discussing Books 1 and 2 of the Nicomachean Ethics.

What is virtue, and how can I eat it? Do not enjoy this episode too much, or too little, but just the right amount. Apparently, if you haven’t already have been brought up with the right habits, you may as well give up. Plus, is Michael Jackson the Aristotelian ideal?

End song: A newly recorded cover of Billie Jean by Mark Lint and the TransAmerikanishers.

Episode 5: Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics

July 16, 2009 by Mark Linsenmayer 27 Comments

Discussing Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Books I and II.

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