Posts Tagged skepticism
Episode 20: Pragmatism – Peirce and James
Posted by Mark Linsenmayer in Podcast Episodes on June 9th, 2010
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:07:51 — 234.2MB)
Reading Pragmatism by William James and “The Fixation of Belief” and “How to Make Our Ideas Clear” by Charles Sanders Peirce.
Is truth a primitive relation between our representations and things objectively in the world, or is it an analyzable process by which propositions “prove their worth” by being useful in some way, like by fitting well with other portions of our experience or being delicious?
Peirce, the inventor of pragmatism, focuses on the philosophy of science and thinks of inquiry as a way for us to just settle on any belief we can stomach. James, who popularized pragmatism, has a wider view that applies not only to science but to religious beliefs. If it makes you feel nice to believe in Hogwarts, should you do so?
The episode features guest podcaster Dylan Casey (previously from our quantum physics episode).
The readings are at http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5116, http://www.peirce.org/writings/p107.html, and http://www.peirce.org/writings/p119.html. Another helpful link we talk about is the chapter from James’s book The Meaning of Truth where he responds to objections: http://www.brocku.ca/MeadProject/James/James_1911/James_1911_08.html
End Song: “Friend” from 1998’s Mark Lint and the Fake Johnson Trio; the whole album is now free online.
Episode 12: Chuang Tzu’s Taoism: What Is Wisdom?
Posted by Mark Linsenmayer in Podcast Episodes on December 6th, 2009
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:50:14 — 101.0MB)
Discussing the “Chuang Tzu,” Chapters 2, 3, 6, 18, and 19.
It’s the second-most-famous Taoist text and the most humorous, with anecdotes about people singing at funerals and jumping out of moving coaches while drunk. What could it possibly mean to “make all things equal?” and how is the Taoist sage different from our other favorite paragons of virtue (hint: magical powers)?
Featuring special guest panelist Erik Douglas, another U. Texas philosophy grad school dropout now living in England, who knows more about Eastern philosophy than we do.
Read along at http://www.terebess.hu/english/chuangtzu.html.
The end song requires explanation: I had a “New Age” period where I investigated Eastern philosophy, tried to be cheerful all the time, and was generally insufferable. This song, “Pass Time Incorporeal,” is an artifact of that time, with lyrics from early fall 1989; the recording is from 1993. It finally slipped out on a 1996 album of similar goofiness rejected from my “real” albums called “Black Jelly Beans & Smokes.”
Share with your friends on...