Combat 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 
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. Purchase your copy here. Continue Reading …
Combat & Classics #33: Nietzsche’s “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” Part I
We begin our next “close read” series with the first two sections of Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which conclude with the famous line “God is dead.” Lise, Jeff, and Brian discuss Nietzsche’s imagery, allusions, and treatment of questions concerning love, envy, and humanity. Get more C&C on the PEL site or at combatandclassics.org. Continue Reading …
Phi Fic #28 A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
I see what is right and approve, but I do what is wrong. -A Clockwork Orange In this episode we are discussing “A Clockwork Orange” by Anthony Burgess. As many of us know from the infamous 1962 book and the 1971 Stanley Kubrick film based on it, the story takes place in a dystopian futuristic Britain. It tracks the dark, torturous, amoral acts performed by our hero--or Continue Reading …
Phi Fic #21 “Foe” by J.M. Coetzee
The true story of Friday will not be heard till by art we have found a means of giving voice to Friday. We discuss J.M. Coetzee's novel Foe, which presents an origin story of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. Coetzee writes about Susan Barton, a woman castaway at sea who discovers an island inhabited by two men, Robinson Crusoe and Friday. Once rescued, Crusoe dies and Barton Continue Reading …
Phi Fic #5 “Pale Fire” by Vladimir Nabokov
So, you think Lolita was Nabokov’s best? We humbly submit a solid contender. Cezary, in his wisdom, suggested the book for this episode: Pale Fire. 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…” Join us as Cezary kicks it off with an Continue Reading …
Philosophical Fiction Reading: Woolf’s To The Lighthouse
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 Continue Reading …
Reading Fiction in February, ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’ by Flannery O’Connor
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 grandmother didn’t want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennessee and she was seizing at every chance to change Bailey’s mind. Bailey was the Continue Reading …
The Not School Discussion of The Body Artist by Don DeLillo
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 mimics old Continue Reading …
Dyson on Philosophy
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 been included in Continue Reading …
Better Philosophy through Science Fiction?
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 Continue Reading …
Literature and Philosophy: Antagonists or Partners?
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 Continue Reading …
Sailing Philosophy
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 take a good sail on our Laser. Sometimes it's peaceful and the Continue Reading …
Wisdom Studies
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 what Continue Reading …
Brian Leiter’s New Philosophical Categories
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 Continue Reading …
Georg Cantor and Ever Larger Infinities
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 they Continue Reading …
Montaigne, Mirror Neurons, and Men with Guns
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 witnessed one Continue Reading …
Tripe, the full PDF
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 Continue Reading …
Tripe, the full PDF
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 Continue Reading …
Episode 5: Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics
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? Buy the book or read it online. End song: A newly Continue Reading …
Episode 5: Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics
Discussing Books 1 and 2. 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? Buy the book or read it online. End song: A newly recorded cover of Continue Reading …