Closereads: Philosophy with Mark and Wes

We read the conclusion to Soren Kierkegaard's On the Concept of Irony (1841), "Irony as a Controlled Element, the Truth of Irony." The discussion starts with the role of irony in good art, and then moves on to discuss the proper role of irony as an existential strategy in a well-grounded, thoughtful life. Read along with us , starting at PDF p. 321. Get all Closereads episodes ad-free at patreon.c...

Sign up for Closereads at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy to get additional parts of this reading, as well as our previous and future installments of this new podcast. On Book II of A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), this time reading sections 1 and 2 in Part I, “Pride and Humility.” How does David Hume deal with human emotions, given his empiricism that  Continue Reading … The post Closereads: H...

Toward the end of Book VI and into Book VII of the Republic , Plato gives a series of metaphors for the role "the good itself" plays in our knowledge and values. We read here starting at line 507b of the G.M.A. Grube/C.D.C Reeve translation, where we hear that the form of the good is to our ability to know anything as the sun is to our ability to see anything. We conclude by discussing the first h...

We read through Paul Grice's 1975 ordinary language philosophy paper. What are the assumptions behind everyday conversation? When someone violates a conversational norm by, e.g., giving too much information or stating something literally untrue, what are the strategies by which we try to make sense of what they're saying as still a sensible contribution to the conversation? Follow along with us in...

On Ch. 1 of this classic of ancient Stoicism, a series of informal lectures written down by Epictetus' student Arrian in around 108 C.E. What is it about us that enables self-control? Read along with us . You can choose to watch this on video . Get all episodes of Closereads ad-free at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy . The post Closereads: Epictetus’ “Discourses” (Part One) first appeared on The...

On the latter portion of Plato's middle-period dialogue, where Plato argues to Cratylus that even if names (words) were devised to somehow depict the things they stand for, that wouldn't guarantee that they ACCURATELY describe the world. You can't look at the definitions of words to learn about the world; you have to actually investigate the world directly. Follow along with us in the text , start...

Reading ch. 5 in Thomas Hobbes' "Leviathan" (1651) to see how a materialist empiricist with a highly restrictive view of what counts as real knowledge tries to account for our ability to reason. Read along with us (start on p. 16) . You can choose to watch this on video . Get parts 2 and 3 at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy . The post Closereads: Reason in Hobbes’ “Leviathan” (Part One) first app...

Are we underlyingly all really a single, unified organism? Or do we just have a lot in common? We begin unraveling this puzzling claim by reading Ralph Waldo Emerson's 1841 essay "The Over-Soul." Read along with us . You can choose to watch this on video. Get parts 2-4 of our treatment of this reading at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy . The post Closereads on Emerson’s Oversoul: Audio and Video...

We're continuing reading through the entry on Spinoza from Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy (1830). Let's Make Philosophy Mathematical Again! Read along with us . Part Three can only be found at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy . The post Closereads: Hegel on Spinoza (Part Two) first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast .

It's a brand new podcast! Closereads: Philosophy with Mark and Wes, where we read through and talk about a text line by line. Today we're starting the entry on Spinoza from Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy (1830). The post Closereads: Hegel on Spinoza (Part One) first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast .