The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
A Philosophy Podcast and Philosophy Blog
Continuing on The Spirit of the Laws (1748) by Charles Louis de Secondat, aka Baron de Montesquieu. Mark, Wes, Dylan, and Seth talk more about the “motive force” behind each type of government and the separation of powers.
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End song: “King of the Hill” by MINUTEMEN. Listen to Mark interview Mike Watt on Nakedly Examined Music #108.
Be sure to check out The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast.
On The Spirit of the Laws (1748) by Charles Louis de Secondat, aka Baron de Montesquieu.
What keeps a society functioning? Montesquieu, though of course not the first political philosopher, was perhaps the first to systematically explore correlations between characteristics of a government, its people, its climate, dominant industries, religion, and other factors. Some of his ideas directly influenced the American Constitution, and some of them are very very weird.
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On The Spirit of the Laws (1748) by Charles Louis de Secondat, aka Baron de Montesquieu.
What keeps a society functioning? Montesquieu, though of course not the first political philosopher, was perhaps the first to systematically explore correlations between characteristics of a government, its people, its climate, dominant industries, religion, and other factors. Some of his ideas directly influenced the American Constitution, and some of them are very very weird.
End song: “King of the Hill” by MINUTEMEN. Listen to Mark interview Mike Watt on Nakedly Examined Music #108.
Continuing on Benjamin’s “Critique of Violence” (1921).
Mark, Wes, and Seth keep trying to figure out this difficult essay. Is Benjamin really advocating a workers’ revolution to end the state, or just reflecting on a hypothetical to explore the limits of the concept of violence?
According to Judith Butler’s interpretation of the essay, the takeaway is the alternative to motivation through force, i.e. speech, which Benjamin (in other essays) gives some religious significance, but the way he actually concludes the essay is in a discussion of “divine violence” as somehow transcending means-end analysis and the corruption inherent in violence.
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End song: “Jericho” from hackedepiciotto, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #116.
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On “Critique of Violence” (1921). What is violence? Benjamin gives us a taxonomy: law-creating, law-preserving, mythological, and divine. Then he deconstructs his own distinctions to demonstrate that all state power is rotten through its being founded on and continually re-established by violence or the threat of it.
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On “Critique of Violence” (1921). What is violence? Benjamin gives us a taxonomy: law-creating, law-preserving, mythological, and divine. Then he deconstructs his own distinctions to demonstrate that all state power is rotten through its being founded on and continually re-established by violence or the threat of it.
End song: “Jericho” from hackedepiciotto, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #116.
On The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind (2020).
What is it to be nonviolent in political activity? Most ethics allow for self-defense, but Judith has a problem with defining “self” as well as “violence,” and offers a full critique of the individualism that underlies typical Western approaches to both ethics and politics.
Mark, Seth, and Wes interview Judith about these issues and the connection to Gender Trouble.
End song: “Dancing with Death,” discussed on Nakedly Examined Music #111 with Marty Willson-Piper.
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On The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind (2020).
What is it to be nonviolent in political activity? Most ethics allow for self-defense, but Judith has a problem with defining “self” as well as “violence,” and offers a full critique of the individualism that underlies typical Western approaches to both ethics and politics. Mark, Seth, and Wes interview Judith about these issues and the connection to Gender Trouble.
End song: “Dancing with Death,” discussed on Nakedly Examined Music #111 with Marty Willson-Piper.
Continuing on Kwame Anthony Appiah’s “Race, Culture, Identity: Misunderstood Connections” (1994), Charles Mills’s “But What Are You Really?, The Metaphysics of Race” (1998), and Neven Sesardic’s “Race: A Social Destruction of a Biological Concept” (2010) with guest Coleman Hughes.
Racial classifications vary geographically, therefore race is socially constructed. Given this, can we retain the positive aspects of group identification without hierarchies and what Appiah calls “imperialism of identity”?
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End song: “Tired Skin” by Alejandro Escovedo, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #60.
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Continuing Ian Hacking’s The Social Construction of What (1999) and Peter Berger’s “Religion and World Construction” (1967).
We break down Hacking’s typology of construction arguments: Are they exploring where our ideas came from or trying to change things? Are they trying to state facts about nature vs. nurture or essentially political solicitations for us to reconceptualize in healthier ways? Plus, more about the supposed divide between science wars and the culture wars and Berger’s picture of the nomos (custom) defining what it is for us to live a meaningful life.
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End song: “The ConstruKction of Light, Part 1” by King Crimson; listen to Mark with Trey Gunn on Nakedly Examined Music #21.
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On Ian Hacking’s The Social Construction of What (1999) and Peter Berger’s “Religion and World Construction” (1967).
Guest Coleman Hughes from Dilemma joins us to survey the types of social construction arguments: the “culture wars” (e.g., race, gender) and the “science wars” (scientific findings are not read off the world but emerge from history). Something can be constructed, yet still be an objective truth we have to deal with.
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On Ian Hacking’s The Social Construction of What (1999) and Peter Berger’s “Religion and World Construction” (1967).
Guest Coleman Hughes from Dilemma joins us to survey the types of social construction arguments: the “culture wars” (e.g., race, gender) and the “science wars” (scientific findings are not read off the world but emerge from history). Something can be constructed, yet still be an objective truth we have to deal with.
End song: “The ConstruKction of Light, Part 1” by King Crimson; listen to Mark with Trey Gunn on Nakedly Examined Music #21.
Continuing on Simone Weil’s essays “The Iliad, or the Poem of Force” (1939) and “Analysis of Oppression” (1934) with guest Corey Mohler.
We talk about the self-contradictions of power, why oppression and war are so intractable, and her positive solution (what there is of it here). Weil cuts through our left-right political dichotomy in a way that might interest you. Plus, why the Iliad is so great.
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End song: “Throw Down the Sword” from Wishbone Ash; hear Andy Powell on Nakedly Examined Music #51.
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On Simone Weil’s essays “The Iliad, or the Poem of Force” (1939) and “Analysis of Oppression” (1934).
How do circumstances oppress and dehumanize us? Weil describes the mechanisms that keep people at war and maintain oppression even through revolutions as inherent to the logic of power. With guest Corey Mohler.
Don’t wait for part two; get the full, ad-free Citizen Edition now. Please support PEL!
On Simone Weil’s essays “The Iliad, or the Poem of Force” (1939) and “Analysis of Oppression” (1934).
How do circumstances oppress and dehumanize us? Weil describes the mechanisms that keep people at war and maintain oppression even through revolutions as inherent to the logic of power. With guest Corey Mohler.
End song: “Throw Down the Sword” from Wishbone Ash; hear Andy Powell on Nakedly Examined Music #51.
Given our treatment of Game of Thrones and Life Is a Dream, and the way in which end-justifying-the-means logic plays endlessly in our real-life political situation, it’s time we looked back on our episode 14 on Machiavelli. I reviewed that episode and recorded a little essay about practicing Machiavellian politics to get you back in this spirit.
Continuing on Jean-Paul Sartre’s Anti-Semite and Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate (1946).
Is there an “authentic” way to respond to persecution? As part of his critique of anti-semitism, Sartre criticized the responses of some Jews to this situation, e.g. denying that the persecution exists, pretending to not be Jewish, or in any way accepting the terms of anti-semitism and setting up one’s life in reaction to it. Sartre instead recommends solidarity and “concrete liberalism,” which we try to figure out.
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On Jean-Paul Sartre’s Anti-Semite and Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate (1946) and “Black Orpheus” (1948).
How can we best understand the psychology of racism? Sartre condemns anti-Semitism as denying the facts of the human condition: the responsibility for fixing problems and not blaming them on a demonized other. But he also criticizes “the democrat” for a humanism that pretends we’re in a post-racial world, calling instead for “concrete liberalism” that treats Jews not as abstract individuals but as real people in an an oppressed situation.
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On Jean-Paul Sartre’s Anti-Semite and Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate (1946) and “Black Orpheus” (1948).
How can we best understand the psychology of racism and reactions to it? Sartre not only condemns anti-Semitism as denying the facts of the human condition (the responsibility for fixing problems and not blaming them on a demonized other), he also thinks that the victims of oppression can be inauthentic by denying their situation or otherwise being reactive to the racist’s attitude. “Black Orpheus” further explores this idea in characterizing the “negritude” of black poetry and how uncovering one’s negritude leads to solidarity and hence political and psychological change.
End song: “Punch Bag” by Godley & Creme as discussed on Nakedly Examined Music #3.
Continuing on Black Skin White Masks (1952), starting with the influential ch. five, “The Fact of Blackness.” Are the successive coping strategies to racism (including “anti-racist racism” and embrace of negritude) that Fanon describes, necessary steps in a dialectic that should be encouraged, or would it be best to learn from his “mistakes” and jump right to the humanistic end-point? With guest Lawrence Ware.
Start with part 1 or get the ad-free Citizen Edition. Please support PEL! See PEL Live in NYC on April 6.
End song: “Malaika” by John Etheridge and Vimala Rowe; hear John interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #85.
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