About the Podcasters
The podcasters were all graduate students in philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin back in the Clinton years. They all left the program at some point before getting their doctorates and have consequently since had time to get outside that whole weird world of academia and reflect on it and the various philosophical topics with a different, and probably much more lazy, perspective.
Mark Linsenmayer has lived in Madison, WI since 2000, has two little kids, and works from home writing about transportation research. He’s got a band called New People, a big catalog of work with previous bands, and dabbles in fiction (read this. When in grad school for philosophy, he mostly studied continental philosophy and philosophy of mind, with interests in phenomenology and explanations of consciousness. He more recently taught an ethics course for several semesters at Lakeland College.
After growing up as an Air Force brat, Seth Paskin went to Reed College in Portland, OR for undergrad and UT @ Austin in 1992 for grad school. After taking a leave of absence from his dissertation, he never went back and has spent 12 years in various roles in the technology industry. Seth is strongly committed to the Austin community, recently retiring from the Board of Crime Prevention Institute, an area non-profit that serves ex-offenders. In grad school he focused on German philosophy, particularly Martin Heidegger, and spent some time looking at the intersection of Jewish and Western thought.
Wes Alwan (wesalwan@gmail.com) lives in Boston, Massachusetts, where he works at home as a writer and researcher. Born in Savannah, GA, he spent part of his childhood in England and Ireland, and has also lived in Maryland, Texas, Manhattan, Maine, and Virginia. In grad school he focused on Ancient philosophy and then Kant and Nietzsche. For his undergraduate degree he attended a small liberal arts (“great books”) school in Annapolis Maryland, called St. John’s college, where he studied the history of science and mathematics, philosophy, and comparative literature.
Dylan Casey studied physics and political philosophy as an undergrad at Michigan State University and experimental high energy particle physics as a graduate student at the University of Rochester, working primarily on the Dzero experiment at Fermilab in Illinois. For the past ten years he’s been on the faculty at St. John’s College. He has abiding interests in pragmatism, field theory, and the notion of authority. He’s currently on leave, living in Middleton, WI, working for Accuray, Inc. He’s also Mark’s brother-in-law. Dylan is the newest “regular” on the ‘cast, but appeared as a guest as far back as episode 13.
You may also read blog posts here by occasional guest Daniel Horne; he also helps with our Twitter feed and is entirely responsible for our YouTube presence. Daniel lives in San Francisco with his wife and cat and practices immigration law for a living. He provides pro bono legal aid through the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and AILA’s Military Assistance Program. A philosophy dilettante, his sole undergraduate exposure to the subject was reading too much Camus and Sartre. He turned to philosophy later in life after developing an interest in ontology, and is currently obsessed with Wittgenstein. He speaks Japanese poorly.
We include guest participants on many of our episodes, and can often rope those folks into contributing to this blog as well. To learn about any of these people, just do a search on this site to find the episode the person appeared on, which will typically link to his or her blog or other web page. If you would like to appear on the ‘cast and/or contribute to the blog, you can pitch yourself to us via e-mail.
"I’ve never before heard my work discussed like that, and rarely as intelligently ... I listened to the whole podcast, and felt exalted afterward." -- Arthur Danto
The Partially Examined Life is a philosophy podcast by some guys who were at one point set on doing philosophy for a living but then thought better of it. Each episode, we pick a text and chat about it with some balance between insight and flippancy. You don't have to know any philosophy, or even to have read the text we're talking about to (mostly) follow and (hopefully) enjoy the discussion. Discuss episodes and provide feedback here or via our Facebook group. You can also e-mail comments to mark@marklint.com or wesalwan@gmail.com.
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#1 by Dai on June 30, 2011 - 10:28 pm
Hey guys, I really enjoyed the episode on Nagarjuna.
One question I didn’t feel was resolved by either Nagarjuna or your discussion of him is:
If there is no self, what is there to reincarnate?
#2 by Charles Vermette on December 14, 2011 - 4:33 am
Awesome podcast guys. It’s nice to hear other people discuss Hegel without either “Russelling” him into the ground, taking him to be the “manipulative” intellectual freak of the 19th century, OR discussing his philosophy only in Hegelian terms, engaging in discussions which, if taken seriously, end with the two interlocutors realizing they are “identical-in-difference” to each other, as well as the turkey sandwiches they are eating. Doing programming homework while listening to your podcast is akin to religious experience.
Keep it up!
#3 by Mark Linsenmayer on December 14, 2011 - 9:28 am
Thanks, Charles! No, our instruction on Hegel in school was too good to permit that kind of thing; trying to talk about continental philosophy in understandable English is one of the most fun and I think needed parts of this enterprise.
#4 by Ben on July 1, 2011 - 7:02 pm
Howdy, I’ve only just discovered your podcast and having listened to the first few episodes I’m sold. It seems like a podcast which makes philosophy entertaining and palatable to the layman but also interesting and entertaining to somebody with some pre-existing knowledge of the subject is long overdue, and you guys do a fantastic job of it. The episode on Descartes really helped me generate some thoughts on his ideas (as an undergraduate philosophy major who has never taken enough interest in the French rationalist tradition) and sparked an interest for me to investigate further (at least as far as Spinoza and Leibniz).
Apologies if you’ve answered this question before (which I suspect you have many times, I’m just too lazy check through prior comments), but I was wondering if you’ll be doing anything on French thought deriving from the poststructuralist/postmodernist movement – Derrida, Foucault, Debord, Baudrillard etc?
Keep up the good work (and forgive me for signing off with a clichéd platitude).
#5 by Seth Paskin on July 3, 2011 - 6:59 pm
Thanks for listening and I’m glad you enjoy it!
We’ve discussed covering Foucault, Merleau-Ponty and some others. We want to work through some of the other stuff you need to understand their projects first. Check out our FB page for several interminably long comment threads about topic requests.
–seth
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_78865634659&ap=1
#6 by Robert Smith on July 16, 2011 - 12:49 pm
You guys were are a bunch of rich kids.
#7 by Seth Paskin on July 17, 2011 - 9:31 am
What to infer from Robert’s (at least not anonymous) statement? Is this a good thing or a bad thing? How is it a judgment on PEL? What’s the point of making this comment?
I can only perform the inference, Robert will have to speak for himself on the latter three. I assume he means that we were spoiled, having the luxury to go to grad school and spend time on a frivolous pursuit like philosophy, as rich kids are wont to do. In reality, rich kids usually go to better schools and study things like business and finance, so they can continue to be rich. Perhaps what Robert meant to say was that we were are [sic] like Berkeley trust fund kids, which implies the means and the spoiled without the compulsion to grow the family legacy via industry.
Would that it were true, dear Robert! Would that my family connections enabled me to go to an Ivy League school and that I didn’t have to teach and work while I was there, or apply for grants and fellowships, or actually begin a career starting from the bottom when I left. As it is, the kinds of people you meet in the military are – not surprisingly – more military folks. And they generally are not connected to the upper class, old-boy, spoil their kids culture to which I think you are referring.
There is no trust fund for me, I’m not a legacy at a top 10 university, there are no residence halls or science buildings named after my family. My grandfather, the first of my family born in the US, was a teacher in the NY public school system for 30 years. My dad was in the military. I chose to study philosophy at the schools I to which I applied and to which I was accepted. Now I work as a professional in technology.
So I dispute your assertion without having a fucking clue what you were trying to say with it or why you felt motivated to post. And now I feel somewhat angry with myself that I took the time to respond instead of letting Mark just delete it like he wanted to. Next time contribute something useful or interesting or save us the trouble instead.
#8 by Dylan McCombe on July 22, 2011 - 4:39 pm
Hey guys,
Thanks for doing this. It’s nice to listen to people discuss philosophy whom don’t sound like they played tennis with William Buckley.
For a possible topic -one I’d love to hear discussed- I suggest an examination of David Foster Wallace’s Amherst thesis, which criticized, and possibly disproved, fatalism. DFW, throughout all his writing, Infinite Jest, Consider the Lobster…, presents a wide breadth of possible topics, and a great way to culminate many of your past podcasts and show their contemporary uses.
Thanks guys, keep it up.
#9 by Charles Myro on July 30, 2011 - 11:50 pm
Hi Charles Myro here,
In answer to Dai up top on Nagarjuna,
let me take a stab at what Nagarjuna meant.
Reality is basically two things: the manifest and the unmanifest. The unmanifest gives rise to the manifest. Without the unmanifest there is no manifest. The manifest is not apart from the unmanifest but of the same substance as the wave is with the sea, but when the manifest goes the unimanifest remains. The unmanifest may be described within manifestation as unchanging being and love like a vast space. Beyond the manifest it has no qualities since it is unmanifest and qualities are of the manifest. It is the source of all the world manifest. The unmanifest is not a personality–rather it gives birth to all personality and all individuality and all entity.
This includes the sense or notion of “I”. The “I” is not independent from the unmanifest source source and does not exist independently of its source. There is no independent entity corresponding to “I”. All, including the “I” is the manifestation of the source only and nothing separate from it.
Thus the sense or notion of a separate self is only a manifestation of the source and is a kind of fiction, since in actuality there is only the unmanifest, being– if you will, which produces all the world. There is nothing of the world that has independence from the unmanifest or is self existing. There is no existence at all except the unmanifest and it alone is self existing.
And the manifest is entirely separate and untouched by the unimanifest.
The “I” is not self existing either;
the “I” is also a kind of fiction, for there is no separate “I”. When a thought of self arises saying, “I am this” or “I want this” or “I did this” or “I fear this” or “I will avoid this”, there is no separate entity there corresponding to the “I”. All separation is fiction. –all is only the operation of the manifest. Death then, is not the death of a separate individual entity but death is a manifestation of the unmanifest only. No independent separate entity has died because there is no such entity.
If there is survival of something of a personality or memory after death then this again is just the manifestation of the unmanifest and nothing else–there is no independent entity.
ANd this is why reincarnation does not imply a
self –as an independent entity separate from the being, the unmanifest—anymore than the person who died implies a separate entity.
It is as though the unmanifest represents itself as persons, creates the fiction of a separate person in a separate world to engage in a drama.
As waves upon the sea.
The Rishis of India say the highest realization is to realize that there is no separate self–only the unmanifest. To realize that one is unknowable yet one is, is to realize that one has always been free of all things and yet one is all things at the same time, and this is moksha– liberation.
Nisargadatta, a Kalicut sage said that when he looked within he realised he was this unknown, and when he looked outward he realized he was everything and between these two poles he lived his life.
At once completely absent and completely present. Yes, it is paradoxical. Part of the manifest dream of separation is to see this unknown being as a nothing, for it is the end of all knowing, all subject object relation. But the sage recognizes this as home, as the unchanging truth, complete, needing nothing (unlike the manifest world, which is based upon ever new desire and aim).
You could say that each of us is a dream of separation being dreamt by the unmanifest. Strip away all the dream and the unchanging being remains.
There is my stab at it, according to my understanding. Hope it helped.
#10 by Mark Satta on August 15, 2011 - 11:47 pm
Hey guys,
I was directed to your podcast earlier this spring and have really enjoyed and benefited from listening to your material. I’m starting grad school in philosophy this fall (ironically, I guess I’m a guy who at one point considered doing something other than philosophy for a living and then thought better of that. Although, somewhere in my currently anticipated 5 years of grad school I may change my mind once again).
I did my undergrad work at a school where analytic philosophy was the dominant focus so much of your commentary on continental philosophers in particular has provided a lot of useful insight (the Heidegger podcast being a great example).
So thanks. I look forward to continuing to listen.
#11 by Seth Paskin on August 16, 2011 - 8:19 am
Thank you Mark and congrats on going to grad school!
#12 by Frank W. Callo on August 19, 2011 - 6:41 am
Hey guys
Just wanted to say I love your podcast. Like you, I studied philosophy with an eye to entering academia. by the time I got through my undergraduate work, (with a few side tracks), I decided that academia was the last place I wanted to be, especially doing philosophy. I am now a gardener and homemaker.
I have especially enjoyed your podcasts on Chaung Tzu (who I adore) and Freud. Looking forward to listening to the one on Schopenhauer.
Thanks
Frank
#13 by Seth Paskin on August 19, 2011 - 8:26 am
Thanks Frank!
#14 by stable on August 23, 2011 - 12:20 am
You guys come across like you were a bunch of smart kids. I know not to mess with you guys or else either deletion or a smack down of Will Hunting competence is what’s in store. I’m a fan. Rich kids? Perhaps it is just a little typical indicator/reminder of the fact that America is still very much what’s been called, for lack of a better term, anti-intellectual? And why can’t poor kids have casual in depth and informed conversations about ideas and abstract systems of thought? “You must be some ‘elitist’ spoiled left-coaster”. Sad comment
#15 by Seth Paskin on August 29, 2011 - 8:25 am
I still think of myself as a smart kid.
#16 by Sharon on August 26, 2011 - 11:38 am
You guys are awesome!! I just listened to your podcast on Heidegger. I read him about four years ago. I didn’t get to go to college – I’ve been struggling to understand all this philosophy stuff for 30 years on my own. Being and Time was really tough. I checked it out four times from the library. Each time I had it for weeks and oh! what the fines cost me. I don’t know why I was so compelled to read him but the fourth time was the charm. It took forever. I had to sit with a dictionary and sometimes could only get through one paragraph in a day because of all the notes you have to read to just understand all his meaning on words like “dasein”. But, it changed my whole world view. For as long as I can remember, I’ve woken up each day wondering “what is this?!? this “thisness”? this experience?” Heidegger helped me understand something about this question at a very fundamental level. It changed so much for me and was worth all the work. I’ve so often wished I could talk to others about what I learned. I wished for a teacher to help me make connections and get the most out of it. That’s you guys!! And, you’re giving it away for free!! I love listening. Thanks.
#17 by Seth Paskin on August 29, 2011 - 8:30 am
Sharon–
If it’s any consolation, that was my experience with Heidegger as well (although I bought the book so didn’t incur the library fines). One of the things that I hope comes across through what we do is that if you approach a text with a generous heart and open mind, you will find that walking the path with the thinker is much more rewarding and enlightening than seeking to criticize or extracts ‘ideas’.
What I find by taking this approach is that some thinkers really reward such attentiveness and some don’t. It becomes clear very quickly which are which. Heidegger, Hegel, Kant, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Wittgenstein to name a few are in the former camp.
–seth
#18 by trekker on August 30, 2011 - 12:15 pm
Seth,
I really appreciated reading your comment “if you approach a text with a generous heart and open mind, you will find walking the path with the thinker is much more rewarding and enlightening than seeking to criticize or extract ‘ideas’”.
Thank you for that. If only I had heard that as a young undergrad wanting to understand philosophy. I’m glad you are back. I wish you guys many, many, more years of sharing your insightful and entertaining dialogue.
#19 by Seth Paskin on August 31, 2011 - 8:16 am
Thank you trekker, it is much appreciated and a very, very nice way to comment to start my day!
#20 by Bob on September 4, 2011 - 3:04 pm
Hi Guys,
I’d just like to thank you for the nice podcasts. I enjoy them very much and also learned quite a lot. I wish you all the best and hope you will be able to continue for long!
If I can put a request I’d liek to here more about odern philosophy (say post war until now). I am a physicist interested in philosophy and while it’s easy to get lot’s of info from Aristotle to Wittgenstein, I don’t really have a overview of contemporary stuff… (Kripke maybe?) I know you covered a few guys and I just want to encourage you to do more!
My other wish is a bit harder. I very enjoyed the first episode, when you talked bit about leaving academia… I just a got my PhD and even found a really great post-doc, but yet… I have very serious doubts, how long I can carry on… I love science and have no illusions about “real” jobs… but leaving is a very serious possibility… I very much appreciated you talking about this a bit and seeing clever guys going on outside academia gives me hope, I guess… I realize this is not really in the mold of the podcast, but if you guys feel like talking more about this period of your life, I am sure I wouldn’t be the only one interested to hear about it.
Thanks in any case for the podcast and good luck in the future!
#21 by Seth Paskin on September 5, 2011 - 9:34 am
Thanks for the kind words Bob and we’re glad you are enjoying PEL. We do have a long list of ‘to-dos’ including post-war philosophers, although we will probably be focusing on so-called Continental thinkers in the near term (as there has been a lot of demand from our listenership.
Rather than have us talk more about our experience, why don’t you share your doubts and point of view on our FB page and see what others have to say.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/78865634659/
Thanks again,
–seth
#22 by Daniel on September 21, 2011 - 5:16 am
Any chance that you will do a podcast on Alfred North Whitehead and process philosophy?
#23 by Mark Linsenmayer on September 21, 2011 - 8:35 am
Yep, it’s on the list. Probably not in 2011 though.
#24 by Laura on October 14, 2011 - 9:59 pm
I just think you guys are so amazing. I’ve just started listening to your podcast which I plan to do completely and in consecutive order. I’ve developed a passion for philosophy recently (yes it was my favorite class in college) as I’ve turned away from lawyer work and been writing a novel. But the search for meaning haunts me then I found your podcast! And was thrilled to listen to super intelligent guys who made this search fun and…well, hopeful. Recently finished your 1st two podcasts and I can’t tell you how enjoyable it was to listen to everyone’s struggle to lead an “examined” life particularly the great clash between the contemplative life and the “real world”. Oh how I long for that peaceful life of contemplation–well, peaceful is a matter of perspective I guess…thanks so much guys! (though this probably not the last you’ve heard from me…haha)
Laura
#25 by Jonnie on October 15, 2011 - 7:01 am
Thank you! From a prodigal philosopher considering returning to the fold…
#26 by Mark Linsenmayer on October 16, 2011 - 10:35 am
Thanks, Laura and Jonnie! Great to hear from you. I’m definitely interested in the impressions of those just jumping in now who choose to go back and hear our progression through 45 discussions: how ya’ll like the directions things have taken, whether the old stuff is sticking with you as we take it for granted in discussing the later stuff (or the degree to which we ourselves lose track of what we already talked about as the years pass and new people jump into the mix).
Best, Mark
#27 by Jonnie on October 16, 2011 - 6:14 pm
Hey Mark, i found the podcast a few months back and have been cherry-picking episodes that attract me, which are generally those that look at the more Analytical topics, rather than going through sequentially. Having exhausted these, I’m now checking out the old-timey and Continental stuff. I’m a fan – like the way you guys are going with it. Best, Jonnie
#28 by Laura on October 18, 2011 - 8:34 pm
So I have a question: you mentioned in one of your first podcasts doing a discussion on technology and how it’s destroying our lives (joke though only partly)–anyway, I think this would be a fascinating talk–I think there are very important issues here regarding privacy and whether the Internet and its tangled arms of influence is hurting or helping our consumption and retention of knowledge (I have 12 partially read books on my iPad–concentration issue? Hmm)….though this veers a bit from the philosophy realm I am concerned about technology today vs twenty years ago, the internet’s effect on our brains biologically and thus our minds.
Hope everybodys good!
-Laura
#29 by Mark Linsenmayer on October 19, 2011 - 11:21 pm
That would be a fun topic; I think we’re just not sure what exactly to read in that area for an episode. Heidegger has an essay about technology that maybe we’ll look at at some point.
#30 by Laura on October 25, 2011 - 8:03 pm
Well, this may be an interesting start:
http://www.salon.com/2011/10/23/why_chomsky_is_wrong_about_twitter/
This is from the article: “Claiming that certain styles of communicating and knowing are not serious and not worthy of extended attention is nothing new. It’s akin to those claims that graffiti isn’t art and rap isn’t music. The study of knowledge (aka epistemology) is filled with revealing works by people like Michel Foucault, Jean-François Lyotard or Patricia Hill Collins who show how ways of knowing get disqualified or subjugated as less true, deep or important.
And this is where it gets more interesting than Chomsky seems to realize.”
and
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/books/review/Lehrer-t.html
Though Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows, is not a philosopher, the effect of the internet on our brains and ultimately on the nature of knowledge is critical, I think at this time in history….
more to come…
-Laura
#31 by Billy on October 25, 2011 - 8:36 pm
thank you
#32 by Laura on November 3, 2011 - 9:00 pm
Like chess…philosophy instantly turns hard and difficult to master.
#33 by Laura on November 11, 2011 - 5:32 pm
Not sure where to post this: but…
“…you talk to God, you’re religious. God talks to you, you’re psychotic.” –G. House
I just thought of this because I was reading about Freud’s atheism in The Question of God (which I believe was caused by the abandonment of his first nanny) and I thought House and Freud would have been thrilled with one another.
I am not sure where to post to just talk.
#34 by Mark Linsenmayer on November 11, 2011 - 6:09 pm
Oh, anywhere’s fine, but on the Facebook page will immediately get you a mass of replies.
#35 by Brian on January 10, 2012 - 12:54 pm
@Laura. The writers of House stole (borrowed?) this from Thomas Szasz.
#36 by Laura on November 12, 2011 - 7:50 pm
Well I’m not on Facebook, mostly because I have always had a problem with how they’ve handled user privacy issues–I’m a bit of a privacy nut and am fascinated to see how this rapidly changing techno-global world addresses individual privacy–really, what else do we have if not our personal privacy…..seems like everything else is compromised….anyway, if anywhere’s fine then I’ll say whatever here….thanks………………
#37 by Shaun Rieley on December 13, 2011 - 6:18 pm
Hey guys,
I just wanted to say that I really enjoy the podcast. I randomly discovered the podcast browsing through itunes looking for something interesting to listen to for my commute to work. Imagine my surprise when one night, driving home from class at St. John’s College (I’m a graduate student there), when I heard Wes say that he had attended there for undergrad studies! Anyway, I just wanted to drop a line and say that I enjoy listening (even if I don’t always agree – I’m a conservative and a Christian of sorts). Keep up the good work!
#38 by Seth Paskin on January 5, 2012 - 11:41 pm
Thanks Shaun! Dylan has a St. John’s connection as well. We’re literally sick with Johnnies around here…
#39 by Wes Alwan on January 2, 2012 - 2:47 am
Thanks Shaun – glad you’re enjoying it!
#40 by Steven on January 5, 2012 - 8:42 pm
After reading a few recent reviews, I’m nodding in appreciation of the well written comments and compliments preceding me. The PEL team is a dream team, as far as I’m concerned, and after listening to about seven of your casts, I add my admiration and thanks to the rest. Great job, guys, and may I add, I enjoy your whimsy! (Isn’t that de rigeur around here?)
#41 by Seth Paskin on January 5, 2012 - 11:49 pm
Thanks Steven, that’s high praise! And yes, whimsy is always welcome.
#42 by Brian on January 10, 2012 - 12:56 pm
Noting the quote by Danto at the masthead. I hope this does not mean he was experiencing aesthetic pleasure at any time short of the New Jerusalem.