The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

Guest Tamler Sommers (from the Very Bad Wizards podcast) summarizes Galen Strawson's "The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility" (1994) and his father P.F. Strawson's "Freedom and Resentment" (1960). Read more about the topic and get the articles. Listen to the episode.

On "An Introduction to Metaphysics" (1903) How does metaphysics differ from science? While Kant had dismissed metaphysics as groundless speculation about things beyond human knowledge, Bergson sees it as a matter of grasping things "from the inside." He calls this "intuition": the kind of understanding we have of our own inner lives. If you try to describe this with concepts or images, you falsify it, you freeze it into position. That's necessarily what science does, and is very useful, but doesn't get at what's metaphysically fundamental for Bergson, which is the unbroken flow of duration. The regular foursome are joined by Matt Teichman to try to figure out how this proto-phenomenology is supposed to actually amount to metaphysics, like how you can sympathetically have an intuition about anything besides your own experience. Listen to Matt's introduction. Read more about the topic and get the text. End song: "I Recall" by Mark Lint & the Simulacra (recorded mostly in 2000, completed just now). Please support the podcast by becoming a PEL Citizen or making a donation.

Guest Matt Teichman (from the Elucidations podcast) introduces Bergson's essay "An Introduction to Metaphysics." Read more about the topic at partiallyexaminedlife.com.

Continuing discussion of David Brin's novel Existence (without him) and adding Nick Bostrom's essay "Why I Want to Be a Posthuman When I Grow Up" (2006). Are our present human capabilities sufficient for meeting the challenges our civilization will face? Should we devote our technology to artificially enhancing our abilities, or would that be a crime against nature, a God-play that would probably lead to disaster? Is thinking about this issue a juvenile waste of time? Mark, Seth, Dylan, and Brian Casey are rejoined by Wes to reflect on ep. 90's discussion with David Brin and figure out how his project is related to transhumanism. While you'll get a more thorough introduction to transhumanism from Rationally Speaking or many other web sources, we did confront Bostrom's argument that extending our lives and enhancing our IQ and emotional range would be good, and human-all-too-human fun was had. Read more about the topic and get the text. End song: "Waygo" from The MayTricks (1992). Read about and get the whole album for free. Please support the podcast by becoming a PEL Citizen or making a donation.

Discussing David Brin's novel Existence (2012) with the author. What's the point of thinking? Brin sees the future as a pressing threat, and Existence speculates that the reason we don't see evidence of life on other planets is that no species survives its technological adolescence. The solution? We need to be smarter than our parents and work to give our kids the tools to be smarter than we are. In the book, the ultimate hope comes from a concerted effort to develop and diversify the coalition of Earth's intelligent life, to make "humanity" encompass more than just the biological humans that we currently are. In our present political difficulties, Brin sees the solution as positive-sum games: institutions like science and markets that (are supposed to) result in everybody benefiting overall. We need to keep elites (whether corporate or governmental) from screwing these games up, and to use technology to foster reciprocal accountability. The government is illicitly spying on people? Spy back and call them out when power is abused! Instead of vainly trying to hold back technology, just make sure that it's not restricted to elites, that there can be effective debate re. its uses. The point of thinking for Brin is to "be a good ancestor." Philosophy and science fiction can help through thought experiments that visualize the outcomes of our ideas and can help in developing scientific theories. Philosophy's most Brin-approved task is to promote the critical argumentation needed for reciprocal accountability. The "examined life" is not just for navel-gazers, but for societies prone to catastrophic mistakes. As this is largely a Brin monologue (with a few interjections by Mark, Seth, Dylan, and also Brian Casey), we recorded a follow-up without him that you can listen to after this. Be sure to listen to Mark's introduction, and then read more about the topic and get the book. End song: "Persevere" by Mark Lint & the Simulacra (recorded mostly in 2000, sung and mixed now). Please support the podcast by becoming a PEL Citizen (which will get you access to that exclusive draft Brin essay) or making a donation.

Mark Linsenmayer introduces our discussion with David Brin of his book Existence. Listen to the episode. Read more about the topic and get the book.

On Bishop George Berkeley's Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous (1713). While only a goon would deny the real existence of things like tables and chairs, does "real" existence have to mean existence as matter, i.e. as something that could exist in the absence of any mind to think about it? Berkeley says no! Tables and chairs are ideas! But not just my ideas, or yours, as they obviously don't disappear when we leave the room, and certainly trees and the like were around before people. So they're God's ideas! And hey, this chain of reasoning actually provides a proof for God's existence! Sweet! Wes tries to convince Mark and Dylan that this is actually compelling, well argued, and motivated by deep philosophical concerns that were historically central and still relevant today. By all means, listen to Wes's lengthy and excellent summary before tackling this discussion, and you can also read more about the topic and get the text. End song: "I Am the Cosmos," a new recording by Mark Lint of a 1970s song by Chris Bell. Please support the podcast by becoming a PEL Citizen or making a donation.

Wes Alwan introduces George Berkeley's Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous. Listen to the full PEL episode.

Excerpts from PEL podcaster & listener discussions on Sartre's Nausea, Heidegger's "The Question Concerning Technology," Slavoj Zizek's Year of Dreaming Dangerously, Marx and Engels's "Communist Manifesto," Peter Schaffer's play Equus, and Cormac McCarthy's The Sunset Limited: A Novel in Dramatic Form. Plus an interview with Hillary Sydlowski, leader of the Not School Introductory Readings in Philosophy Group. This Digest (our first since last August) is jam-freakin' packed, with folks moaning over difficult texts and crooning over easy ones. We've got good microphones side by side with terrible microphones so you can learn the difference! Wacky sound effects! A song ("Messed Up People" by The MayTricks, from 1994's Happy Songs Will Bring You Down) spread out over two places but yet still not adding up to one whole song! The first minutes of several conversations, you know, before everyone got warmed up and comfortable! A commercial that sounds like real content, and some real content that sounds like a commercial! Such a thing is to be missed only if you have an ear infection! (We do that so you get the summary: you still learn what these works are about even just listening to these little bits, and you don't have time to get bored.) Please support our sponsor Squarespace: Go to squarespace.com/examine and use the offer code Examine to get a free trial offer and 10% off. And of course, become a Citizen to get the full discussions and join the new Not School groups for March.

Mark Linsenmayer frames our upcoming discussion with sci-fi author David Brin about his 2012 novel Existence. Read more about the topic at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Listen to the episode. Get a transcript from our Free Stuff for Citizens page.

On Elizabeth Anscombe's "Modern Moral Philosophy" (1958), Intention sections 22-27 (1957), and "War and Murder" (1961). No, Anscombe thinks that our moral language was developed in a theistic context, and without a law-giver, the idea of a moral law or obligation doesn't make sense. However, we can debate about what actions display "justice," whether some action is "harmful," whether some task was performed "well," etc. There are lots of evaluative words that have established social contexts and can be used unproblematically, but they can't be added up into some overall judgement that "This is good! You must do it!" ...at least not without a lot of work into figuring out what constitutes human flourishing. What she writes beyond that depends on her audience: In a Catholic journal, she has no problem doing ethics: Are we ever justified in killing innocents? Or in going to war? For her fellow analytic philosophers, she instead writes about how best to talk about our actions: Given that a particular action in a particular situation can be given innumerable descriptions, how do these all relate to each other? This, however is still relevant to ethics, in that we need to figure out how to talk about the intentions involved in an action in order to assess its morality. Join Mark, Wes, Dylan, and special guest Philosophy Bro as we discuss how "why" relates to "how," whether Anscombe has really overcome Hume's is-ought gap, and coitus reservatus. But first, listen to Bro's Introduction to Anscombe. Read more about the topic and get the texts. End song: "Adds Up to Nothing," a brand new song by Mark Lint. Our sponsor for this episode is Squarespace: Go to squarespace.com/examine and use the offer code Examine to get a free trial offer and 10% off. Please support the podcast by becoming a PEL Citizen or making a donation.

Listen to Wes Alwan's introduction and summary for George Berkeley's Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous. Read more about the topic and get the text at partiallyexaminedlife.com.

On Elizabeth Anscombe's "Modern Moral Philosophy" (1958), Intention sections 22-27 (1957), and "War and Murder" (1961). Anscombe thinks that our moral language was developed in a theistic context, and without a law-giver, the idea of a moral law or obligation doesn't make sense. However, we can debate about what actions display "justice," whether some action is "harmful," whether some task was performed "well," etc. There are lots of evaluative words that have established social contexts and can be used unproblematically, but they can't be added up into some overall judgement that "This is good! You must do it!" ...at least not without a lot of work into figuring out what constitutes human flourishing. What she writes beyond that depends on her audience: In a Catholic journal, she has no problem doing ethics: Are we ever justified in killing innocents? Or in going to war? For her fellow analytic philosophers, she instead writes about how best to talk about our actions: Given that a particular action in a particular situation can be given innumerable descriptions, how do these all relate to each other? This, however is still relevant to ethics, in that we need to figure out how to talk about the intentions involved in an action in order to assess its morality. Join Mark, Wes, Dylan, and special guest Philosophy Bro as we discuss how "why" relates to "how," whether Anscombe has really overcome Hume's is-ought gap, and coitus reservatus. But first, listen to Bro's Introduction to Anscombe. Read more about the topic and get the texts. End song: "Adds Up to Nothing," a brand new song by Mark Lint. Please support the podcast by becoming a PEL Citizen or making a donation.

On Jean-Paul Sartre's "Existentialism is a Humanism" (1946), "Bad Faith" (pt. 1, ch. 2 of Being & Nothingness, 1943), and his play No Exit (1944). What is human nature? Sartre says that there isn't one, but there is a universal human condition, which is our absolute freedom. This freedom is a basic certainty in our experience, and it comes out of the mere fact of our being able to will, so no subsequent alleged science can contradict it. If you claim to be determined by your character or circumstances, you're acting in "bad faith," which is what for Sartre has to serve as an ethics given the lack of good and evil floating out there in the world or duties assigned to us by nature or God or any of that. He describes his project as a matter of teasing out the often unrealized implications atheism. Though his reading is rife with fun, literary examples, we (the regular foursome) had trouble both with this insistence on absolute freedom in all circumstances and on on this claim about no human nature which ends up making bad faith seemingly inevitable: you can't be "authentic" to your "true self" because there is no true self to be authentic to! So ha! Read more about the topic and get the texts. Listen to Mark's introduction and our read-through of "No Exit." End song: "Minnesota Freak" by Mark Lint and the Fake (2000). Read about it. Please support the podcast by becoming a PEL Citizen or making a donation.

Guest Philosophy Bro introduces Elizabeth Anscombe's "Modern Moral Philosophy," and Intention sections 22-27. Listen to the full PEL episode.