Discuss!
Announcing our first live-with-the-podcasters audience participation discussion!
Here are the most recent comments on our blog posts, i.e. the active discussions at this time. Jump into a thread and say your peace! If you want to start a conversation yourself, join our Facebook Group and go right ahead. Note that within the next month we’ll be unveiling additional discussion options to support listener-initiated ongoing group studies in a member-access portion of the site. Stay tuned for details.
Note that the first time you post (or if you post from a different IP than your usual, I think), it goes into moderation, i.e. we have to approve it, so you won’t see your comment immediately, but we’re pretty quick about approving things. It should go without saying that if you get very nasty and belligerent, we reserve the right to remove any post and ban you (though that’s only happened maybe twice in three years of doing this). Think “with this comment I am elevating the level of the discussion” and you’ll be OK.
- May 25, 8:22 am - Podcast Episodes
Thanks for the suggestions. However, tell me a bit about what major themes we're missing by not covering these folks. The only ones I'm really familiar with here are the moral rationalists you mention, which I tried to cover enough for our purposes in the Hume on moral sense episode. Likewise I tried to get some juice out of Locke in covering Hume on epistemology, though we have a perpetually planned ep on personal identity that would pull out another chunk of Locke's essay. More Leibniz is definitely a possibility, and if we ever do a series on the history of logic we'd hit Arnauld, but the rest of those guys aren't on our radar; give me some more motivation to consider one or two of them seriously! - May 25, 8:18 am - "Conceptual Primaries" (Rand vs. Deleuze)
I didn't know this and find it very interesting. I do think this is very common re the Scholastics who had access to Aristotle preserved by scholars in the Middle East who spoke Aramaic. It this correct, Daniel? - May 25, 8:17 am - "Conceptual Primaries" (Rand vs. Deleuze)
Adam, Thanks for pulling that argument out; we discussed that on the Russell ep but didn't actually I think look at that passage in Kant. That argument is obviously not the one that Russell or Rand is going to draw on, so there are evidently multiple ways to argue this. The simplest would be to say there is no potential entity; potential entities are not part of the ontology. One could say "potentially there could be X entity here," but that's not making a definite ontological claim, because it could mean that there are conditions that could cause such an entity to appear or that there may be such an entity here or may not but I just don't know, or conditions are such that nothing would physically present such an entity from being here even though it's definitely not. So avoiding potential entities is a matter of ontological parsimony, which per the Quine episode is not exactly a knock-down argument if you have some particularly motivating counter-argument in favor of such entities. Though it still seems like, even you admit them, that it's not that you're adding a property to make such a potential real but that you're swapping... - May 24, 5:07 pm - Podcast Episodes
Some suggestions: John Balguy, Ralph Cudworth******, Samuel Clarke, Richard Price (all these 4 wrote important works on morality, which I can refer you to, but Cudworth and Clarke had important things to say about metaphysics, etc.). Also: Suarez, Malebranche, Arnauld, Louis de La Forge, Arnold Geulincx, Pufendorf. Locke's 'Essay'... Leibniz's 'New Essays'...etc. - May 24, 4:39 pm - "Conceptual Primaries" (Rand vs. Deleuze)
I like how you consider this point settled, and take it for granted: "And Rand is right in saying that “existence” is not a property that existing things have; that was Kant’s response to the ontological argument for the existence of God and a point made formally in mathematics by Russell." In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant uses money as an example: "A hundred real dollars contain no more than a hundred possible dollars. For, as the latter indicate the conception, and the former the object, on the supposition that the content of the former was greater than that of the latter, my conception would not be an expression of the whole object, and would consequently be an inadequate conception of it." This is absurd- of course his conception of the hundred possible dollars is an inadequate conception of the hundred real dollars, because it leaves out the crucial predicate "real", otherwise known as "existent". He goes on: "But in reckoning my wealth there may be said to be more in a hundred real dollars than in a hundred possible dollars—that is, in the mere conception of them. For the real object—the dollars—is not analytically contained in my conception,... - May 24, 2:31 pm - "Conceptual Primaries" (Rand vs. Deleuze)
Hi Lewis, A tiny point, but one that might help explain at least some of the disdain often shown toward Ayn Rand: It was Sartre, not Rand, who first coined the phrase "all consciousness is consciousness of something," in Being and Nothingness (1943): http://bit.ly/Z5Etq1 And Sartre didn't first devise this concept ("intentionality"); he learned it from Husserl, who in turn developed it from Brentano, who in turn revived a concept from the old medieval Scholastics. That Rand was either unaware of the intellectual history behind many of her propositions, or simply chose not to acknowledge it, I think helps explain a bit of the contempt in which some hold her. - May 24, 1:33 pm - "Conceptual Primaries" (Rand vs. Deleuze)
Just to clarify: Rand's objectivism is not the only breed of metaphysical realism. The latter is a common philosophical position (Wes recommended this book to me: Fear of Knowledge: Against Relativism and Constructivism.) The former is held largely by students and those dedicated to free-market capitalism who feel they need justification for their life choices. Thanks for the link, though. I find Van Til-based Christianity maddening in much the same way that I find objectivism; I had brush with it in listening a bunch to a Christianity podcast: http://www.partiallyexaminedlife.com/2012/11/25/theologians-on-quine/. - May 24, 1:17 pm - "Be Reasonable!"
Hi Lewis, Thanks for the kind words. I like to think of myself as the Chris Elliott to Mark's (80s-era) Letterman. I kind of pop up when least expected: http://youtu.be/89GrBnmYwXY - May 24, 1:00 pm - Philosophy Doesn't Make Propositions?
very good, the man who wrote the book(s) on the subject: http://hiram.academia.edu/LeeBraver - May 24, 12:31 pm - Philosophy Doesn't Make Propositions?
For example: “How do we understand the world in which we find ourselves? How does the universe behave? What is the nature of reality? Where did all this come from? Did the universe need a creator? Most of us do not spend most of our time worrying about these questions, but almost all of us worry about them some of the time. “Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.” Really Stephen? (Stephen Hawking, The Grand Design, p. 5) - May 24, 12:18 pm - "Conceptual Primaries" (Rand vs. Deleuze)
Mark, you mentioned that the axioms might be empty enough that they couldn't found a whole system. Dawson Bethrick discusses all of this in tremendous detail on his blog. He is interacting primarily with a certain brand of Calvinist Christianity known as Van-Tillian presuppositionalism. It's Bethrick's project to use the axioms to establish that existence holds metaphysical primacy over consciousness. As Rand puts it "consciousness is consciousness of something." Bethrick attacks the presuppositionalist stance that a supreme consciousness - God - is primary to existence. Now I don't necessarily like Bethrick's attitude sometimes, but his writing prowess is pretty undeniable. I don't agree with all of his arguments, but they are worth examining. I'm still making my way trying to figure out my positions on all of these philosophical questions. I don't like everything on offer when it comes to Ojbectivism, but I think writing Objectivism off without delving into it more deeply is a mistake. There is fertile ground to till here. I'm excited to hear you guys cover this topic. Thanks, Mark. - May 24, 12:08 pm - Philosophy Doesn't Make Propositions?
dmf I was just reading a post (maybe one of yours) or book or article which was arguing for replacing the philosophical distinction between Analytic vs Continental with Realism vs Anti-realism, which will be my new categories. My own intent is to speak and think analytically about continental philosophers and speak and think like a continental author about analytic positions. - May 24, 11:47 am - "Conceptual Primaries" (Rand vs. Deleuze)
for a Sellars-ian look @ Deleuze see: http://deontologistics.wordpress.com/ - May 24, 11:26 am - "Be Reasonable!"
Thanks, Mark. By the way, I've been listening to your Schleiermacher episode today. It is excellent. Any chance you'll get Daniel to be on another episode? He seemed to mesh well with you guys. - May 24, 10:45 am - Philosophy Doesn't Make Propositions?
I imagine that sometime down the PEL road the realism/antirealism tension will rise to the surface but to prime the intuition pump a bit: http://www.academia.edu/1125097/Between_Realism_and_Anti-realism - May 24, 10:34 am - Philosophy Doesn't Make Propositions?
Excellent point, but Deleuze is much more radically declaring a new metaphysics of the Virtual as foundational to the nature of the real. - May 24, 10:32 am - Philosophy Doesn't Make Propositions?
Also, I am not not claiming that Deleuze is denying the "truth" of science, but that science is not privileged in speaking about the significance of its findings, and that it is subject to the same false propositional thinking of philosophers and "common sense" thinking in general which relies on propositional thinking. (regardless of Delanda's reinterpretation) - May 24, 9:49 am - "Be Reasonable!"
Hi, Lewis, This is timely; I've been reading Rand in preparation for a future episode of late. I'm writing a full blog post to try to feel my way through this now. - May 24, 9:47 am - Philosophy Doesn't Make Propositions?
http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/2013/05/alexander-douglas-and-christoph-schuringa-spinoza-and-nietzsche-on-valuing/ - May 24, 9:22 am - Philosophy Doesn't Make Propositions?
Couldn't Deleuze's claim be related to Nietzsche's idea that the true philosopher is a creator of values? For Nietzsche, creating values is somehow "higher" than describing the world in propositional terms, perhaps because creation is more affirmative, more powerful, more active. - May 24, 8:55 am - Philosophy Doesn't Make Propositions?
An additional clarification regarding propositional thinking: Ultimately, what grounds the real for Deleuze is the Idea, which he expresses as the problem (Virtual" rather than the solution (Actual). This quote from Sommers-Hall (p. 160) points out the inadequacy of propositional thinking: "Whereas for Plato, Deleuze claims , this process leads to a ground in an apodictic principle, for Deleuze it instead leads to an unground in the problem. This difference between grounds and ungrounds ultimately simply relates to the fact that apodictic [necessarily or demonstrably true] principles [versus problematic principles in which truth is possible] have the same structure as the system of propositions they ground (they are amenable to the structure of judgment). On the contrary, the problem differs in kind from the solutions it engenders. As such, it cannot ground solutions by providing a principle that we know to be true, because truth is a function of judgment, and the problem is different in kind to judgments." "Thus, rather than a ground it serves as an 'unground', destabilizing the vision of the world as amenable to judgement in its entirety. Rather than invoking "the moral imperative of predetermined rules' (DR, 198)" Sommers-Hall is referring to the invalidity of... - May 24, 8:31 am - "Be Reasonable!"
The PEL and Philosophy Bites podcasts have definitely sparked my interest in philosophy. As a result, I've been looking into all sorts of philospophical systems lately (including even Objectivism). I've relied primarily on Dawson Bethrick's blog at http://bahnsenburner.blogspot.com to familiarize miyself with the Objectivist approach to philosophy. You seem to be saying that the Objectivist axioms are bullshit, but I 'm having a tough time seeing how we could get around them. Bethrick says that axioms are "conceptually irreducible primaries" and self-evident concepts that form the basis for all higher-level knowledge. To belabor the point a bit more, "the axioms are not inferred from prior truths; on the contrary, they are the truths on which all other truths stand." Objectivists claim that a person would be affirming the axioms even as he attempted to refute them. 1. The first axiom is that existence exists (there is something rather than nothing). 2. The second axiom is that to exist is to be something (the law of idenitity or A = A). 3. The third axiom is that consciousness exists (any assertion about reality implies that some conscious entity is making the assertion). What are your thoughts? - May 24, 6:02 am - Walter Mignolo On Postcolonial Philosophy
Thanks Rian for the posting and for disseminating the debate. However, there is a point i would like to correct in your interpretation: i do not rely on Zizek, quite the contrary, my argument is a diplomatic and radical critic to his position. That is why he did not like a bit what i say and responded shortly after it was published http://www.lacan.com/thesymptom/?page_id=2787 My argument is totally with Dabashi, at the same time recognizing the Zabala's right of his own opinion, and so for Zizek. What he says about Wang Hui misses the point: i was not discussing Wang Hui's arguments (which i find always sophisticated), but the fact that Wang Hui is one of the many non-Western philosophers i mentioned as an entry point to a wide world of thoughts constantly silenced and overtaken by European philosophers and philosophies. - May 23, 9:41 pm - Topic for #51: Semiotics and Structuralism (Saussure, Levi-Strauss, Derrida)
BBC on Levi-Strauss and how his stance for Marxism and psychoanalysis and against phenomenology/existentialism lead into RamonJakobson/Saussure and his own antidialectical structuralism: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01sjjxl - May 23, 8:19 pm - Philosophy Doesn't Make Propositions?
Thanks for clarifying, Mark: I think the issue here is with the definition of “truth:” (some of your quotes here:) “specific propositions . . . Beauty is pleasure objectified . . . accurately represent Santayana’s view . . . of scientific value . . .testable by means of empirical science . . . testable hypotheses, whether philosophy is making claims . . . putting forth propositions . . . knowledge . . . scientific knowledge.” All of these phrases indicate to me that you are challenging Deleuze’s claim that concepts turned into propositions become mere opinions of no scientific value, that you are looking to find “truth” in propositional statements which can be verified as true as science can verify truth through testable hypotheses and propositions which result in knowledge. I believe Deleuze fundamentally challenges this form of thinking as false to begin with, as he describes in his example with Descartes. His problem with Descartes was not just with propositional thinking, but his use of reason itself as the primary faculty for knowing. Deleuze believes that reason gives the illusion of truth, and that an entirely new way and purpose of thinking needs to be forged. There is no...
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173 Responses to “Discuss!”
Comments (173)
I usually dig myself deeper by trying (at least according to my wife) to clarify, but I’ll take a shot. I love the podcast. Two huge thumbs up. You guys are able to investigate the topics and express yourselves in a way I, obviously, can’t. As a 40-something, yada-yada…I do feel like I identify with the perspectives you all bring to the discussions. I just want to hear your perspectives on different topics. Kind of turn around the format. Instead of focusing on a few sources, you guys state how you feel about that topic, reference whoever you want to justify your point. I would be interested in your perspectives as they are more modern and relevant to me, and I’m guessing, many others that love the podcast. It’s not that I think philosophy isn’t practical, I think it isn’t drawn into modern life enough and I don’t feel like I am knowledgable or articulate enough to bring it there. Guess I’m wanting to live vicariously through you guys, some more. I’ll stop now. Thanks and sorry (whichever is more appropriate).
Thanks, Steve. We’ll keep this in mind, and I think we edged into this approach with our ep54.
Written by Daniel R Guzman
Improving the Entertainment Industry
We need to decelebrate celebrities. They are fucking garbage, a bad influence, and they don’t deserve their status. The way we can do this is by deprivatizing profits in the entertainment industry (music, movies, sports, etc), hire actors, musicians, athletes, and more as government employees, and make sure that they don’t get pay more than school teachers, or other agreed upon government employee. We can start by freezing their banks accounts, taking all their money and possessions, and take them into custody until a final verdict is achieved; if they try to escape, we’ll hunt them down like Osama Bin Ladin. They must be striped away completely, and start from zero. They already abused their fame; it’s time for payback.
They are nothing but a waste of time that takes people’s money and turns them into losers. Why does someone so unworthy, and in most cases not talented at all, get to have a higher social status than someone who benefits society so much like a doctor, teacher, scientist, and more? In a society that permits you to become a celebrity, then everything you do should be in the interest of that society. The society that turns you into a celebrity does not deserve your misconduct. We don’t want to take aver the women you’ve fuck. We don’t want to see you spending millions of dollars on frivolous shit, when we need more ambulances, and more support for our schools. If we deprivatize the money made in entertainment industry, then we can use that money on things that go back to the same society that turned you to become a celebrity in the first place.
Kids are becoming a waste of society by being seduced by fortune and fame, pursuing worthless careers (many becoming drug addicts, or failed entertainers), when they should be trying to improve their society by becoming, lawyers, scientists, and more. I am not saying that we don’t need entertainment, or that we should control it’s content; we are still going to get it in one way or another, but without the crap we have to put up with because of some retarded celebrity.
Entertainment should have a lower prestige than being a soldier, a firefighter, a nurse, or any other, and we can achieve this by deprivatizing the profits. Celebrities owe their lives to society, and they are abusing their fame for no other reason than self-worship, and we can no longer tolerate this crap. We must take action, and dethrone these waste of society. There is no reason why the rest of the population should be seen as lesser. We can change that. It is our duty to change that. We owe it to those who we love. We have had enough with their behavior. We the people, can achieve a higher, or equal, better deserved status by deprivatizing the entertainment industry. We don’t want to see these society exploiters just take everything, and everyone. If you are giving more to society, maybe losing your arms and legs in combat, then you deserve a better life than these loser creators.
Society turns people into celebrities. Society should be the one who benefits, but we are not. Instead, we are bombarded with worthless crap about celebrities every day. We are left with no choice but to take over their disposable women (unless you want to end up lonely), we are pushed into painful solitude, envy, jealousy, and dehumanization by women who we truly care about, just because women are chasing the rich and famous, and to make it worse, most celebrities can’t even do anything special to have a celebrity status, and even if they did, it is no better than risking your life as a fire fighter, or working long hours doing surgery, or grading papers.
But one can say, “It is not their fault that they make so much money. It is the invisible hand which does justice.” The invisible hand will still be in place, but the profits will go towards the well being of society, and real justice will finally take to place.
Celebrities have abused us with their fame. Now they have to pay. They brought this upon to themselves. They deserve a punishment.
Pass these message to as many people as you can. You deserve a better life. By doing these, we’ll improve the society we might have spend the rest of our lives, and those who we love, in.
Steve
I am a bit older than you, but likewise, I would like to hear the speakers tell us what they believe to be their own philosophical preference(s), and how it impacts their lives. It would add ‘flesh’ to the discussion.
It may be the nature of the beast that folks – especially younger ones – come to a philosophy site such as PEL precisely because they do not have a formulated credo yet, and are in process of looking for something to grab hold of.
For my part, I would say that my career as a researcher and professor of structural engineering influenced my attraction to metaphysics – an interest in how things hang together. AFAIR, I came across Whitehead via Pirsig and Unitarian discussions on process theology. His dogged determination to say everything just right, to keep his units straight, as engineers say – appeals to me. I now look at things thru process eyes – everything is flux, even the bridges I designed. Whitehead’s attention to an organic reality pulsing with emotion and energy makes a lot of sense to a structural engineer since a structure is nothing but a society of energy absorbing ‘spring’ elements (posts, beams, trusses, etc.)
FWIW.
First off, love the podcast. I listen on my long walks to/from work and it really helps to focus my mind. So thanks so much for doing this. I’d really love it if you did some more Foucault. History of Sexuality in particular would be a good one to tackle. I really enjoyed your take on Discipline and Punish, it was actually my introduction to the podcast. I would say I am familiar with roughly 30% of the authors you discuss, and some of those only vaguely. I for one really appreciate the effort you make to refrain from name dropping and spell out ideas in clear English as I am unlikely to find the time to read the complete works of Kierkegaard (nor would I want to based on what I know about him) but I do enjoy getting the context of knowing who these people were and having a basic understanding of their ideas. I’ve noticed some of the later episodes loosing this aspect though, so my humble suggestion would be to try and reel yourselves in and give a little more explanation to the laity.One other suggestion I would make is to find more guests to talk about eastern philosophy. I feel like the Chuang Tzu episode fell a bit flat for me as you all are coming at it with all the baggage of western philosophy. Why not start with the Tao Te Ching by the way? A Dhammapada episode would be very welcome as well. All in all though I’ve been really enjoying the podcast and recommend it to anyone who will listen. Thanks you guys!
Glad you’re enjoying it Nate, and thanks for the suggestions; point well taken — we’d like to make sure we’re spending enough time explaining things in clear English, which we may have gotten away from a little bit.
Hello.
I’ve just discovered your podcast. At I graduated with a Science, Technology, and Society degree a few years back, and have been taking post-bac classes in philosophy in the hopes of eventually getting into a PhD program, though I’m a bit nervous about fitting into the world of academia. Anyway! My suggestion would be to have some more contemporary philosophers—Nussbaum, Chalmers, Dennett, Rorty, Fodor, the Churchlands, Kripke, Quine. And some positivists? Definitely Rorty and Russell and logicians as well! It’d be nice if you covered more female philosophers in general. I know it may seem like there is a dearth, but there are some if you dig in.
Thanks for your podcast!
Thanks, eiaboca. We’ll continue to work in some contemporary folks, and Quine and Kripke should both be covered w/in the next six months if current projections are correct. Chalmers tentatively agreed to come on and talk with us when his new book comes out…
Best,
-Mark
Agree to both of those suggestions. Haberas on rationality is very interesting (though a difficult read). Jurisprudence is also very intriguing (and practical…well, most of it anyway).
Just started listening to the podcast and I love it. A real discussion, and not dry. I’d love to see an episode on Levinas.
Hey guys I have a question, I’m on your Camus Podcast at the moment and am kinda enthused by it to be honest so have slowed down to learn a bit more about Camus and Absurdism.
Can you tell me the absurd that Camus talks about, could you extrapolate that back, to mean ANY desire that is incapable of being fulfilled or does it only work with the search for meaning?
Thanks
Gary
human-being is absurd in toto but only because of our all too human capacity for knowing/reflecting/imagining/etc.
Great stuff. I think the podcast needs to devote some time to John Rawls. I feel that you all implicitly subscribe to a his views and I would like to hear you explicitly analyze his stuff.
Thanks — Rawls is coming soon.
As someone who’s currently working my way through “Being & Event” at a slow and arduous pace, I’d say that its pretty unlikely that a 2 hour or so podcast could do much for you in terms of getting the “full gist.” That being said, the more of his work I read, the more I start to suspect that, if there is human civilization some centuries from now, Badiou will come to be regarded as one of our most important thinkers – on the level of a Parmenides, Buddha, Plato etc. He has much to say on the PEL guys recurring struggles with concepts of “nothingness”; he give a modern, analytic argument in favor of an ontology which turns out to be very much in line with Leibniz’s thought (and, in my opinion though he doesn’t seem to promote this connection himself, Buddhist thought).
I love the podcast. Any more Nietzsche planned for future episodes?
Yes! If our planned guest comes through, you’ll have some more N. this summer.
Hi. I just got done listening to your first “Wittgenstein on Language” (Philosophical Investigations) episode. First off, thanks! Wittgenstein is one of my favorite philosophers, and I think P.I. is by far his more interesting work. So I had been waiting and wondering if you’d do an episode on it. So thanks. I know ol’ Witty is difficult (in many senses of the word), so I appreciate your effort and gameness. And as a reader of Philosophy Bro, I was pleasantly very surprised to hear him as a guest.
I just wanted to comment on the “meaning is use” vs “meaning is definition” discussion (not that it’s necessarily all one or the other). I just wanted to point out that I see a problem with the “meaning is definition” claim: definitions are themselves made up of words. So where did the words in the definition get their meaning? Other definitions? By introducing the idea of meaning as use, Wittgenstein cuts the circularity or infinite regress present in the “meaning is definition”. Now, that’s not to say that meaning can’t be conveyed through definition, it’s just that definition conveys meaning by at least one level of indirection; all roads eventually lead back to use. Just a thought.
Thanks and keep up the good work!
Thanks Mike; and the point on definitions is well taken, although there may be other ways to exit the infinite regress than the concept of use.
Please do some late Heidegger. It would be a delight to hear you guys discuss “What is called Thinking”
Thanks guys!
Thanks for the suggestion Harlow — I’ll put that on my list of possibilities.
Yes, we’ll definitely get to these guys, and I’m very much looking forward to reading some Badiou.
Yep, media theory is on the list.
Thanks David! Deleuze is coming.
Thanks Gabriel, glad you’re enjoying it!
Thanks for the suggestion Adam — we’ll put it on the list.
Don’t know where to turn and I’m desperate for help — I’m pretty sure there’s an anecdote floating around about an atheist philosopher whose wife had him buried in a church-yard/religious ceremony and explained her decision by saying that if he was right (i.e. ain’t no God) then no harm done, but if he was wrong she was doing him a favor. Perhaps she took Pascal’s Wager into consideration… BUT who was the philosopher? Or am I just inventing false memories again? I’m asking in this forum ’cause I know youse guys is smrt and your listeners too and you all know things and stuff.
You should post this on our FB group too.
Hey Mark, thanks for the suggestion, will do.
cheers…Fels
As soon as I figure out how.
Greatly enjoying the podcast. The topics are great; I haven’t come across a stinker yet. Thanks!
I’d really like to hear you guys discuss Richard Rorty. “Was Rorty a relativist?” = a question that seems to get the nerds riled up. Just a suggestion. Thanks, again.
So, I was wondering…when you bid the listeners and eachother goodnight at the end of each podcast, do you end the skype call (or whatever you use as a forum for the discussion) or do you carry on chatting, one hangs up, the other two continue etc.? I know it’s editied, so how long are you actually ‘on the line’?
Excellent podcast. Does PEL have anything to say, philosophically, about humor?
I suggest a podcast on complexity theory, Murray Gell-Mann, The Quark and The Jaguar, etc.
On the philosophy of humor: “Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer the Mind” by Hurley,Dennet,Adams. Discovering mistaken assumptions is not only funny, but at the heart of good philosophy.
Ironically, athiest Baron d’Holbach was buried in the Church of Saint Roch in Paris in 1789, perhaps thanks to his wife.
Your podcasts are wonderful and have helped me with some big questions I’ve faced especially suicide.
Would it be possible for you to do a session on Morally Obligatory Suicide- something I heard that Kant came up with. And how would Camus react to it?
Thanks for the Wittgenstein podcasts. It makes a nice send-off as I head off to grad school.
Can you compare/contrast exactly what Nietzsche means when he develops his ideas on the master morality and slave morality. Also how each point of view would perceive what is good and what is evil. I am having a hard time with his reading.
You know we did an episode on that, right? Or are you asking us to clarify what was said there?
Also, for quick summaries, try Wikipedia, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and sometimes the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
I did but I am asking for clarity please and what your thoughts on that are.
If you’re asking so as to help you answer an essay question on your homework or something, you’ll have to dive into the text for some quotes, but the upshot is that N. thinks “master” morality is what free people would naturally adopt, where ordinary, not-specifically-moral virtues are what is praised: strength, speed, intelligence, cheerfulness, energy, creativity. The heroes described in Homer would even include wealth, good looks, etc.
He contrasts this with what those people who lack the master virtues would instead promulgate as REALLY virtuous. Out of spite, these people would say that being strong and brave and well spoken and and smart and all that are actually evil, and that what is good is what instead raises up these oppressed people, which would be kindness, pity, charity, etc. There is some overlap here, like “restraint” might be a master’s virtue, as a species of wisdom, like knowing when not to go too far in some enterprise, but “restraint” as praised by the slave would be “master, stop being a master! Restrain yourself!”
So he thinks both of these things are matters of individuals and groups trying to exert their own power, but that slave morality does this in a more reactive, sick way.
Incidentally, A. MacIntyre, whom we’re reading for an upcoming episode, criticizes N. for romanticizing these old-time heroes: in fact, they were not exerting themselves in the way a modern individual would, but instead, they didn’t have the conceptual apparatus to distinguish between moral commandments and social commandments. They were the ultimate conformists, not creative, individual spirits of the kind N. would recommend. However, since N. is arguably trying to give something like a parable which gets at moral psychology and not a real history, it’s unclear whether that objection really impacts his argument.
I was delighted to find your podcast a few months ago. I took a lot of philosophy and logic in college, but I couldn’t figure out what they were talking about a good part of the time. I remember reading the first page of Kant’s Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics over and over and over….. My teacher was Kent Bach at San Francisco State, but he wasn’t much help.
So I was glad to find you guys.
Was glad, that is, until the podcast on Taoism. You all broke my heart on that one because you seemed to not understand Taoism on purpose. Especially Mark who wouldn’t shut up about how much smarter he is than Taoism.
Wes barely said a word except that he seemed to believe that the idea of not taking action actually meant not doing anything. Were you pretending to not understand what they were saying? You are smarter than that, really. It’s not that tough.
Seth made the most sense. Thanks, Seth, but you couldn’t save the day.
The kicker came when Mark proclaimed Taoism bullshit. Nice work, smart guy! 5000 years of Chinese wisdom is bullshit. Has it ever occurred to you that being willing and able to bloviate non-stop doesn’t make you smart? It just makes you the Donald Trump of the Unexamined Life podcast.
I stopped listening for months. Now I’m back. I decided I had to write to you guys and let you know how I felt. I don’t expect you to publish this…I’m not sure what purpose it would serve. But I feel so familiar with you all that I had to write.
Sorry for the vitriol. Thanks for listening.
Carl
Hi, Carl,
I’ll have to listen back to that one; I don’t recall dismissing the whole of the tradition and in fact find Taoism (and that text in particular) pretty rich. It was one of my favorite books from undergrad, and I was entirely responsible for having us read it.
I’m guessing that you’re not down with the whole analytic philosophy approach as it was ground into me, which I know can appear as a purposeful stupidity. You read a claim and try to parse it; can you interpret it so it really makes sense? Exactly what making sense entails is of course part of the problem, but like, say Bertrand Russell (a paradigm analytic philosophy guy who Wes at least at the outset of this podcast dismissed as an idiot), if I can’t break things into simple bits that you could explain to a 9-year-old (this is how one of my TAs explained philosophical writing to me during undergrad), then I suspect that there’s some handwaving going on. …And OF COURSE 5000 years of tradition can be fucked up… that’s pretty much the story of religion, and the more something gets ossified, the more we accept that it makes sense out of some form of reverence. If you want to actually argue with me, go find the passage that apparently inspired what you took to be my blanket dismissal and explain it.
My approach is to alternate between giving the benefit of the doubt to any text that has inspired people (meaning that it’s worth my time to study) and this analytic bullheadedness that makes me only accept what I can honestly take in. Without getting into some specifics I’m not sure I can be at all convincing, but suffice it to say that apart from whatever stupidity I may be guilty of, I think you’re also just not getting the approach (which is pretty similar to that of at least half of American/English philosophers; the difference being that on the podcast we let our id out to fly), and you’re taking the use of this method on one of your sacred cows much too personally. My only evidence is that, as you may have noticed, that episode was published a few years back now, and no one else appears to have had the reaction you had (see the comments at http://www.partiallyexaminedlife.com/2009/12/06/episode-12-chuang-tzus-taoism-what-is-wisdom/), including not least our guest Erik, a pretty hardcore Taoist devotee, who was happy to then do a Buddhism episode with us despite my apparently obvious idiocy.
The podcast as a whole was recently blasted for a similar reason by a Wittgenstein fetishist, so here’s a bit more on our method: http://www.partiallyexaminedlife.com/2012/05/29/ignorance-arrogance-and-competence/. If it helps, the swaggering became less fun for me over time; I’m pretty sure I tamed up after a year or so of recording these things.
Best,
-Mark
OK, I’ve skimmed through the episode and think I get what you’re reacting to. Here we’re reading a sentence like “the way that can be expressed is not the true way” and instead of nodding at the sageness, I’m trying to make sense of it by bringing up comparisons to Socrates, Leibniz, etc. You’re interpreting this is me trying to show how much smarter I am (and presumably, these people I’m bringing up that Chuang Tzu couldn’t have read) than the text, but that’s not at all the case. It’s just that one of the ways of understanding something is relating it to these other things that you think you did understand (making namedropping hard to avoid). You can also try to relate it to your everyday experience of come up with a hypothetical example to try to flesh it out, but those things are a bit more problematic, in that they provide more things that beg interpretation, whereas the philosophies as we’ve covered in other episodes are them are interpretations, which we can then try to apply to the current work.
Analytic philosophy as I’ve described it above has trouble with mysticism, and we’ve dealt with that not only in this episode, but later in the most recent Wittgenstein episode and the Pirsig episode, among others. I don’t think I’m dismissing “the unspeakable,” but it begs for more speaking…
My heaviest criticism of Taoism on the episode was re. its arrogance in dismissing Confucianism, and I explicitly drew it as a piece of self-criticism, i.e. despite the wisdom or lack thereof of the historical Taoist, that doesn’t mean that Western students who fashion themselves Taoists as a form of rebellion against the standards presented to them aren’t just being pretentious and juvenile. Where I actually called it bullshit was toward the end, referring specifically to my own experiences as a 19-year-old saying “I don’t mind it being cold out. I will take things as they come and enjoy the cold.” In my case, that was an unsustainable, bullshitty view, and I think your apparent hypersensitivity to criticism of things New Agey (I’m just guessing here, of course) made you miss my point.
[Just for readers, we continued this exchange off-line, and I think I badgered the dude into not dismissing us and convinced him that I was not dissing the whole of Taoism. I think in general "arrogance" is an interesting philosophical topic and will try to think of a good reason to spout off about it.]
diggin’ the new site layout. very hip.
i do miss the comment #/amount below each blogpost. i would use that # to see if a discussion was going on here on the blog, as i gave up Facebook for lent long ago.
peace.
Thanks. We’ll look into it.
thanks, mark. and, well, if i’m complaining, might as well say it all…i also prefer the comment posts to be descending order from most recent, as it was in the beginning!
geez. i normally do not mind change, at all. guess i like what i like!
peace.
It does list the # of comments at the top of the post (when there have been some). The comments were never listed as most recent first.
i see the comment/# now! thanks. i totally did not see it on the new format.
and i think i confused you with another blog in regards to order of comments.
tho my attention may be fickle, you are my favorite!
I love the podcast. You guys are great; I’m learning a lot!
It would be nice to hear more episodes on female philosophers. Some I would be interested in hearing more about: Nussbaum, Arendt, Beauvoir (especially Ethics of Ambiguity–though The Second Sex is lovely too), Korsgaard, Millikan…
Am I missing any episodes on female philosophers? So far I’ve only noticed the episode with Patricia Churchland (which was brilliant!) and the one on feminism. Thanks!
You aren’t. We have some of those you mentioned on our list, but there aren’t any other past episodes covering female philosophers. Not quite the same thing, but I am organizing a discussion on female experiences in philosophy that I hope to get done in the next couple of months.
–seth
Thanks, Rachel. Any particular recommendations especially for Arendt or Nussbaum?
-Dylan
I was really happy to receive such a positive response from you guys about this. I look forward to your upcoming discussions/podcasts!
I took a long time to reply in part because I wanted to come up with a really good suggestion of Arendt’s or Nussbaum’s work. But it turns out that I really just don’t know their stuff very well. I’ll keep asking around and let you know if I figure out what the people want to hear. Thanks!
A new meetup in the NYC area to discuss the podcast with fellows fans of PEL! Come discuss recent episodes with other listeners!
http://www.meetup.com/The-Partially-Examined-Life-Podcast-Discussion/
Hi guys, i like the format of discussion and i think from hearing you talk on Kant ,… i kinda got the categorical imperative and the blah blah which i think you guys have difficulty in making sense of his turd ball notions that im suspecting he Kant created all his verbal systematized crap to avoid killing him self out of despair of some circumstance in his life or childhood…. i have 2 questions for you- 1) is it possible that all these German – Austrian philosophers of that era have somewhat of a difficulty accepting and understanding simple self evident axioms?, you know, deep inside.
2 ) How much of Rand’s objectivism do you acknowledged as valid
As i see it they feel a need to give forced birth to a system of epistemological alternatives, that is divorced completely from their classic progenitors… I even dare say they had developed a psychology of envy to be as profound … I dont know what is your take? be clear about this
I love the show guys! Will you guys ever do a show on Karl Marx? Texts from Marx that I would like to hear you guys analyze is either the Communist Manifesto, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, or probably certain chapters or volumes of Das Kapital. Also, would you consider analyzing any philosophical discourses about Latin American Philosophy or topics that philosophers in Latin America talk about, such concepts like philosophy of liberation or “decolonial” studies.
Thanks!
Marx will be w/in the next five eps: German Ideology, Part 1. I’m sure we can review the Communist Manifesto while we’re at it.
Thanks for listening!
I wish! I barely got into this kind of philosophy like 6 months ago. I am still trying to wrap my head around it. And I am only a philosophy fan, not necessarily a competent amateur philosopher. The only thing I would recommend is to read some texts by philosophers like Enrique Dussel, Leopoldo Zea, Linda Martin Alcoff (from Hunter’s College), Eduardo Mendieta (Stony Brook), and Walter Mignolo (Duke). Here’s a link to some texts: .
Thanks for asking though!
Gnostism is largely at the foundation of McCarthy’s work. You’re close reading of his text using your philosophical power tools provided me with much added insight, and I’ve read all of McCarthy’s work from early on as well as copious amounts of criticism. His plays relate to a lot of what you’re talking about. I’m thinking The Stone Mason as well as the recently produced Sunset Limited (HBO).
McCarthy mostly fraternises with scientists, which I think is a smart thing. Literature that only reads itself becomes a baroque catalog of human ennui. This is what is happening to poetry, as well as it’s over professionalization.
Consider reading Shelley’s Defense of Poetry. The Romantics were a major correction to the logic in reason as opposed to the purely intuitional power of the solitary poet. Else Plato wouldn’t have wanted to ban the poet from his Republic.
All three of the Abrahamic religions have a gnostic faction. Hermeticsm in Christianity, Sufism in Islam and Kabbalah in Jewdism. I know I’ve suggested this before, but Bloom’s The Anxiety of Influence is a cross roads between psychology and gnostic thought.
More like this! I want to reread NCFOM now as well as Child of God and do a close comparison between the movie and the book. It looks like Blood Meridian is up for a film adaptation. I look forward to your close reading of Rand.
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”– Plato
Just saying–Laura
I love the podcast, you guys are just great. I was thinking maybe you could do some movies like some of Tarkovsky or Bergman stuff. That would be kinda cool .
I am proud to say I have just finished all episodes of PEL concluding my listening with the most recent episode today. So now that I have reached this point in my PEL of listening to you three and now four, I would like to shed great thanks for enabling my understanding of philosophy and the partially examined life. You all have made philosophy a great deal easier to understand and digest, so thank you. Now I can actually try reading the material ahead of time and I also felt it necessary to make a donation at this point, after all, the podcast definitely deserves it.
Thanks!
Congrats and thanks for listening!
Hello. Have you noticed the 10,000 hours/Hamburg effect yet (wrt philo podcasts)?
Hello chaps,
Do you have a list of the podcasts ordered by difficulty, or background knowledge, from pleb to Plato?
Cheers.
Hmmm. An interesting idea, but probably too difficult to put off. I know I’ve talked about enabling some kind of user rating system that would result in a “difficulty” score aggregating different users’ impressions, but haven’t seen an obvious way to do that. We’ll keep thinking about this…
I’ve listened to most of your episodes. The best part was the one where Mark and Wes misunderstand Heidegger. Mark’s words just flood out of him. He’s giddy. He’s inspired. He grinds away, dry humping the bed, not seeing the girl lying beside him. It’s a remarkable performance. Poetry.
And the songs. All those different styles. All those notes. All that effort. And not a single memorable phrase.
Hats off.
Huh, looks like I need to install that WordPress plugin that enables a button on user comments that’s kind of like the Facebook “Like” button, except it says “Fuck off.”
OMG… a ‘Fuck Off’ button… you’re a frikkin genius Mark. I’d definitely Like/Thumbs Up one of those. And if it could be connected to the offensive one’s underwear so that it administered 250 volts of ‘feedback’ with each click, that’d be great.
Hey Mark,
It looks like PEL is getting popular enough to have trolls. With the glass half full I call that success!
Love the podcast and of course the songs.
If you’re not attracting trolls, you’re doing it wrong. I consider this an important milestone!
First and foremost, thank you all for your endeavor! I came to be enlightened and found myself to be unexpectedly entertained. Not an easy feat. Well done sirs!
For us novice lovers of wisdom, your wonderful podcasts seem to be best accessed serially. The evolving style of the crew and knowledge required to understand the next topic are revealed gradually as the group wanders through ideas.
Since there is no end-goal of these ongoing explorations, organizing them to some purpose is probably not possible. Imagine trying to organize episodes of the radio shows “Car Talk” or “Science Friday” in some order that coheres. It might be possible but would be at cross purposes to the free form format they makes them pleasurable.
However, unlike these other casts of information, P.E.L. necessarily builds on previous presented information. Unlike “The Daily Show” it is much more difficult to listen to an individual episode of P.E.L. without having listened to an earlier one.
Is this just the nature of the beast? The thing in itself? Did the initial conditions of the podcast determine the results thereafter? If so then DAMN the first mover!
If you all do take a step back and set a more clear “end point” or “goal” for your series, it would be admitting there could be a finite end to the series. While we can assume there will be one, I hope you will not give it a known end. Who really wants to know the moment of their death before hand?
Perhaps some graduate student will come along and volunteer to provide a context, sorting, index or bibliography of your provided wisdom. We the faithful listeners then can mock them for not seeing the world in our own individual manner and have fun skewering their efforts.
Just drive on, I say. Exploration occurs at the edge of the known. Let others build a road behind you.
Nicely said. I personally do have the goal of providing something comparable to an intro class in each of the main disciplines: epistemology (done), ethics (done), political philosophy (getting there), metaphysics (not even close), aesthetics (need much more), continental (getting there), analytic (getting there), non-Western (more difficult to figure out what would be in an intro class, but definitely not there), philosophy of mind/psychology (need much more), philosophy of religion (not as committed to being in any way thorough on this, but still could use some more), philosophy of science (basically haven’t started this). But then there are plenty more areas, and odd things that we want to do that don’t fit into any category, and some areas like ethics that I think we’ve now exceeded what would be in an intro class, yet I’m still hungry for more… My updated-every-couple-of-months “Topics Covered” page is the best I can or will attempt in organizing them.