Posts Tagged philosophy
Brian Leiter’s New Philosophical Categories
Posted by Daniel Horne in Other (i.e. Lesser) Podcasts, Web Detritus on December 24, 2011
A really good interview with Nietzsche scholar and opinionator Brian Leiter appears in 3:AM Magazine, where he drops pithy quotes on Obama, Nietzsche, Marx, and Foucault.
But he also appears to have a new argument to sell. Leiter advocates a new way to divide the philosophical canon, not into “contintentals” or “analytics,” but rather into “naturalists” and “anti-naturalists”. You can also listen to Leiter’s argument on the latest Philosophy Bites episode, where Nigel Warburton thankfully pushed back a bit.
It seems to me that Leiter focuses too much on outlier examples to deny the boundaries of the “continental” and “analytic” camps. Sure, perhaps Marx wouldn’t have thought much of Derrida (though who can say, and what kind of an argument is that, really?). But that doesn’t mean they weren’t both united as students of Hegel, and therefore assignable to a certain intellectual camp. I mean, Heidegger didn’t think much of Sartre, either, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t more similar than different when compared to Frege and Russell. Not all Republicans agree on all points with their fellow Republicans, but they can still sense when a Democrat has entered the room; there’s a reason these camps evolved in the first place. Read the rest of this entry »
Georg Cantor and Ever Larger Infinities
Posted by Daniel Horne in Things to Watch on May 26, 2011
A big name-drop during the middle of the Russell episode was the sad story of Georg Cantor and his insanity-inducing continuum hypothesis. Anyone unaware of Cantor and his contributions might want to look at this clip from the Dangerous Knowledge BBC documentary. I thought it provided a good visual explanation of higher levels of infinity. But perhaps they horribly oversimplified it for the sake of television — mathematicians, share your thoughts!
If you like the clip, you can find the whole episode out on the wild web.
-Daniel Horne
Montaigne, Mirror Neurons, and Men with Guns
Posted by Daniel Horne in Web Detritus on March 7, 2011
Here’s an excerpt from a good series on Montaigne the Guardian UK ran last year, written by Sarah Bakewell, who just published a well received book on Montaigne:
To take just one example of how we can derive wisdom from Montaigne: his Essays give us a wealth of anecdotes exploring ways of resolving violent confrontations. As a teenager in Bordeaux, Montaigne had witnessed one such scene, which apparently stayed with him for life. Riots had broken out following a new tax imposed in 1548, and an angry mob besieged the home of the city’s lieutenant-general Tristan de Moneins. Ignoring friends’ advice to stay indoors, he went out to meet them. This showed courage, but he failed to see it through with a show of authority and confidence. Shocked by seeing their aggression close-up, Moneins fawned and pleaded with the crowd. They responded by tearing him to pieces. Montaigne never forgot this, and he suggested that Moneins might have survived had he either behaved more boldly, or bowed to his fear and stayed in hiding. The mixture of the two was unwise, and fatal.
Tripe, the full PDF
Posted by Mark Linsenmayer in Misc. Philosophical Musings, Web Detritus on December 6, 2010
Just right click this here link to and choose “save target as” or whatever your browser’s version of that is to get the full book:
Tripe, the full and naked PDF.
(The commentary starts here. Its ending is forever indistinct.)
-Mark Linsenmayer
Episode 16: Danto on Art
Posted by Mark Linsenmayer in Podcast Episodes on March 4, 2010
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:13:28 — 122.3MB)
What effect should the avant garde have on our understanding of what art is? We read three essays by modern, first-rate American philosopher Arthur Danto, all published in The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art (1986): the title essay, “The Appreciation and Interpretation of Works of Art,” and “The End of Art.”
I understand you may not have heard of Danto, and you may think modern art is goofy, but you’ll definitely enjoy this discussion and the reading anyway. Danto gives a picture of philosophy and art at war throughout history: philosophy says that art can’t get at truth and is otherwise useless, yet philosophers like Plato seem afraid of the power of art to corrupt. What’s the deal?
Also, Danto claims that art is over; the end of art has happened. So suck it, artists. (Actually, artists can keep on doing what they’re doing; they’re fine, yet art is still over.) Plus, can you stare at a urinal and thereby make it art? What if it’s in a museum? Danto loves them crazy ass post-modern artists, and thinks that their work shows that art was not what we thought it was.
Plus, Seth talks about the plane crashing into the IRS building near his house, and we respond some listener postings.
This work is unfortunately not available free on the Internet, but is worth purchasing.
End song: “This Night Before the End,” by Mark Lint and the Simulacra, recorded mostly in 2000 but finished just now. Here’s more info about the song.
Episode 10: Kantian Ethics: What Should We Do?
Posted by Mark Linsenmayer in Podcast Episodes on October 19, 2009
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:05:03 — 114.6MB)
Discussing Fundamental Principles (aka Groundwork) of the Metaphysic of Morals.
We try very hard to make sense of Kant’s major ethical principle, the Categorical Imperative, wherein you should only do what you’d will that EVERYONE do, so, for instance, you should not will to eat pie, because then everyone would eat it and there would be none left for you, so too bad.
Also, Kant on free will, “things in themselves,” our duties to animals, and prostitution! Plus: Should you go to grad school?
The Kant reading can be found at http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5682. The Allen Wood article “Kant on Duties Regarding Nonrational Nature” is here: http://www.stanford.edu/~allenw/papers/Nonrational.doc.
End song: “Stop” by Madison Lint (2003).
Episode 6: Leibniz’s Monadology: What Is There?
Posted by Mark Linsenmayer in Podcast Episodes on July 31, 2009
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:39:03 — 90.7MB)
Have some tasty metaphysics, in mono!
Leibniz thinks that the world is ultimately made up of monads, which are like atoms except nothing at all like atoms, because they’re alive, and mindful, and eternal, and windowless, placed in the best kind of harmony at the beginning of time by God. Is there a concept album in all of this?
Plus, does reading philosophy make you a better conversationalist, or just get you ostracized?
Get the reading at http://www.philosophy.leeds.ac.uk/GMR/hmp/texts/modern/leibniz/monadology/monadology.html
End song: The soothing “Healthy Song” by The MayTricks, from the 1994 album Happy Songs Will Bring You Down.
Episode 0: Introduction to the Podcast
Posted by Mark Linsenmayer in Podcast Episodes on July 25, 2009
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:06 — 9.3MB)
Listen to this here episode first. A priori, that is. Before experiencing the world yourself.
Why should you bother to go through the trouble of downloading and listening to one of the full length episodes? Who are we anyway? Why shouldn’t you just go listen to some philosophy lectures posted by university professors instead of this thing? Do you need to listen to the episodes in order? Do you need to already know a lot about philosophy to get anything out of this podcast? Should you listen to it while pleasuring yourself? Most of these questions will be answered here!
End song: “New People” by New People.
Once you’ve finished this, you can jump to episode 1 (and its continuation).
Episode 5: Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics
Posted by Mark Linsenmayer in Podcast Episodes on July 16, 2009
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:41:17 — 0.0KB)
Discussing Books 1 and 2.
What is virtue, and how can I eat it? Do not enjoy this episode too much, or too little, but just the right amount. Apparently, if you haven’t already have been brought up with the right habits, you may as well give up. Plus, is Michael Jackson the Aristotelian ideal?
You can read the text discussed at http://www.constitution.org/ari/ethic_00.htm.
End song: A newly recorded cover of Billie Jean by Mark Lint and the TransAmerikanishers. (Hear it by itself here.)
Episode 4: Camus and the Absurd
Posted by Mark Linsenmayer in Podcast Episodes on June 22, 2009
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:37:18 — 89.2MB)
Discussing Camus’s “An Absurd Reasoning” and ”The Myth of Sisyphus” (1942).
Does our eventual death mean that life has no meaning and we might as well end it all? Camus starts to address this question, then gets distracted and talks about a bunch of phenomenologists until he dies unreconciled. Also, let’s all push a rock up a hill and like it, okay? Plus, the fellas dwell on genius and throw down re. the Beatles, the beloved Robert C. Solomon and Malcom Gladwell’s Outliers.
An abridged version of the reading covered with most of the good stuff in it is here. An unabridged version of “An Absurd Reasoning” is here.
End song: “My Friends” by Mark Lint and the Simulacra (2000).
"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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