Phi Fic means Philosophical Fiction. Each episode, we have a candid dicussion on a heady work of of fiction, full of SPOILERS. Join host Nathan Hanks and readers Cezary Baraniecki, Daniel St. Pierre, Laura Davis, and Mary Claire, plus the occasional guest.
Our reading this month is The House of the Dead by Fyodor Dostoevsky, a semi-autobiographical novel about life in a Siberian labor camp. Dostoevsky was sent there after being convicted for his connection with the Petrashevsky Circle, where Western philosophy and literature were discussed, which was deemed subversive by Tsar Nicholas I. Told through the eyes of Aleksander Continue Reading …
Episode 164: Dostoyevsky’s “The Idiot” on Perfection (Part Two)
More on the novel with guest Corey Mohler, considering Dostoyevsky explicitly as an existentialist in terms of his analysis of the crisis of meaning and his consequent views on religion. Listen to part 1 first, or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition. End song: "Don Quixote" (acoustic, 2010) by Nik Kershaw, as interviewed on the Nakedly Examined Music podcast #37. Continue Reading …
Episode 164: Dostoyevsky’s “The Idiot” on Perfection (Part One)
On Fyodor Dostoyevsky's philosophical novel from 1869. Could a morally perfect person survive in the modern world? Is all this "modernity," which so efficiently computes our desires and provides mechanisms to fulfill them, actually suited to achieve human flourishing? Dostoyevsky (whose name, incidentally, can correctly be spelled with either one "y" or two... the Continue Reading …
Ep. 164: Dostoyevsky’s “The Idiot” on Perfection (Citizen Edition)
On Fyodor Dostoyevsky's philosophical novel from 1869. Could a morally perfect person survive in the modern world? Is all this "modernity," which so efficiently computes our desires and provides mechanisms to fulfill them, actually suited to achieve human flourishing? Dostoyevsky (whose name, incidentally can correctly be spelled with either one "y" or two... the translation Continue Reading …