The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
A Philosophy Podcast and Philosophy Blog
Lise, Jeff, and Brian continue their conversation about Book I of Aristotle’s Politics.
They address Aristotle’s discussion of how a city comes to be, and his assertion that humans reach their full potential by living in a city.
Get more C&C on the PEL site or at combatandclassics.org.
It is our moral duty to call things as they are, and stop giving the asshole power by polluting the air with his name. Stop the erosion of our political discourse by using the hashtag #theasshole.
Some straightforward steps to take to not just help you grasp a fact or issue, but also arm you to survive—even thrive—in an era of limitless data, and limitless people who want to tell you how to interpret it.
This year’s bizarre election might confirm that we are entering a post-factual age, or that some other major cognitive or political transformation is happening to our species or polity. But before jumping to such a conclusion, perhaps it’s worth looking at today’s scorched political landscape based on similar first principles.
Per Wes’s election post, not voting because you don’t like the available options fails to grasp the reality of our situation. There are plenty of principled rationales for ruling out both candidates, and you may think that not voting, or voting for a third-party candidate, will send some kind of message that the system is too flawed for you to Continue Reading …
In a recent column in The Stone, Harvey Cormier considers the political oomph of pragmatists through a nice presentation of some central thinking of William James. The occasion for the piece is a recent spate of writings characterizing Obama as “a pragmatist politician.” What I like best about Cormier’s article is his refutation, through James, of the lame but pervasive Continue Reading …
Listen on YouTube. Like The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate. Even so, Bertrand Russell’s prose is entertaining enough to make this audio chapter on Aristotle’s Politics a worthwhile supplement to PEL’s Politics episode. -Daniel Horne
Aristotle’s Politics (from around 350 B.C.E.) is presented as a follow-up to his Nichomachean Ethics (which we discussed in a previous episode). Actually, we’re not sure in what order these were composed, and the Politics is internally repetitious enough that it is probably itself mashed together from different original sources; those that are into that kind of thing can read Continue Reading …
Recent political events have driven me to either reject the citizens of my country as a bunch of morons or find it within me to empathize with them in some way, so in the spirit of Kierkegaard’s pseudonyms which he used to explore other viewpoints and with a tip of the hat to Schopenhauer the pessimist (whom we’ll be reading Continue Reading …
“Christian Realism” — even Christians ought to struggle with David Brook’s latest invention. How delightful to juxtapose other-worldliness and practicality! But to really understand it, replace “Christian” with “love” and “Realism” with “War.” Meaning, “I love war, but I wage it only out of love.” It’s almost a self-parodying confirmation of Nietzsche’s critique of the human capacity for turning aggression into Continue Reading …
Discussing Hobbes’s Leviathan, Chapters 13-15. Have we implicitly signed a social contract whereby our native right to punch other people in the face is given to the President? Hobbes does things that eventually result in the U.S. Constitution and makes Wes nauseous. Plus: Star Trek and the Bible!
End song: “The Villa” by Mark Lint and the Fake Johnson Trio (1998).
Discussing Hobbes’s Leviathan, Chapters 13-15.
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 
