Philosophy vs. Improv

It’s another TEAM PLAY episode, with our returning champions, star of improv stages and podcasts Chris and College of Southern Nevada philosophy prof Cole receiving NOT THE INFORMATION THEY EXPECT and gettin’ all rational and such when consoling a friend and wrangling about a math quiz. Luxuriate in the rich characters and philosophy tools! Cole photographs nature (her Insta is @super_...

If people would be uniquely healed by your blood, how much would you charge for it? Would it make a difference if they were wealthy vampires? Bill entices Mark to join a cult. You can watch video for this episode, including all our post-game chatting, all ad-free, just by visiting our Patreon page; you need not subscribe. The episode image was snatched from here . Hear more PvI . Support the podca...

Jonny taught philosophy at Oxford, wrote the international bestseller Mini Philosophy , and now writes for Big Think . We talk Kierkegaard and act out some scenes about scouting and military recruitment. Do we have to live within labels? Does one have to leap to a label, without justification? For much more Kierkegaard, see our series on The Partially Examined Life . Watch Jonny do mini philosophy...

Katie is the co-artistic director of Chicago’s IO theater and used to do Comedy Sports improv with Bill. She also took a lot of classes in philosophy and religion, so we talk some about cults, Kierkegaard, tolerance, and more. In our scenes, a family contemplates celebrating Christmas differently this year, and people debate the appropriate gift for a newborn king. Follow @KatieCaussin...

It’s our office holiday party, where we engage in chit-chat then enter into a few holiday scenes. Is there any philosophy content in this one at all? We do talk a bit about status and authority. Was there any particular improv lesson? We forgot to actually lay out our lessons at the end, and (SPOILER) declined to name a winner. Our Post-Game discussion is a mere 2.5 minutes long, so we&#8217...

Sukaina teaches philosophy at U. of Pennsylvania , combining work from ancient Greek, contemporary moral, and feminist philosophy. She lets Mark and Bill know about critiques by feminist philosophers of the idea of consent. We talk a bit about moral agency, teaching dynamics given these kids today , Aristotelian virtue, and testing personality types by turning them up to 11. Also, did our last epi...

Kevin is the creator and host of the storytelling podcast RISK! and is the alphabetically foremost member of the MTV-televised, newly reformed, celebrity-infested sketch comedy troupe The State . He tells us he was also the creative director of an improv troupe for a year, but it’s not his primary jam, so we talk about that before launching into a scene about a suspicious hotel. How does one...

Recorded on 9/11 (a date not known primarily for its improv activities), only now making its way to you, this discussion between Mark and Bill talk child deification, pop philosophy vs. pop improv, foreign accents, and guns in schools in the hands of improvisers. The image is from this Reddit article asking for ideas on how to “spice up” a potential tattoo drawing of mice by the poster...

Returning freedom fighters Andrew and Linda and join Bill and Mark to talk about philosophical liberalism: Its rationales and varieties. Plus, preschool orientation, and Greek gods creating a new world. Follow Linda @IrisCutter . Her weekly improv show is with the troupe Dumb John . Listen to Andrew’s philosophy podcast, Reductio , which has dwelt further on Rawlsian liberalism , as has Mark...

The New York University Prof and author of many influential books including the new Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy joins Mark and Bill to simulate debates about AI, cybersex, actor vs. character, and keeping children safe from reality. We refer to Nick Bostrom’s argument that we’re most likely now in a simulation . In a past episode , we discussed Robert Nozick...

The author of The Accomplished Creative , a sort of anti-self-help book based around Jeremy’s improv experience and what he learned as a philosophy major, joins Mark and Bill to talk impostor syndrome and benign violations, get real meta about Die Hard scenarios, and have a cheese intervention.  Follow @JeremyRichards . Listen to Jeremy’s podcast Think Like An Improviser . His Sea...

It’s our season three premiere, and the elephants are in the room! It’s St. Lawrence University philosophy prof Jenny (a frequent PEL guest ) in the ring with UIC Theater instructor /Podcaster with Hey Riddle Riddle and Hello From the Magic Tavern Adal, along with Mark and Bill, of course. And the Bullshot is flying! Who will be hit? Who will master the rings? Who will shoot from the h...

Philosopher Matt, host of the Elucidations podcast and frequent PEL guest, finally gets in on Philosophy vs. Improv in this, our Season Two Finale. And many is he a de dicto. Or is he a de re? Slowly learn the difference as we make things personal through scenes of shit-talking and crime reporting. Follow @ElucidationsPod . The image is from a story about Hong Kong . Hear more PvI . Support the po...

How does new technology affect ethics? Anthony (who is on strike, but that doesn’t apply to improv) is an improviser with a computer science degree who now coaches kid TV actors . We talk personal identity, transhumanism, genetic engineering, AI, organizational ethics, Black Mirror, Beastars, and transporter virginity. Listen to more transporter talk on The Partially Examined Life’s ep...

The guests are away, and so Billy and Markaroony will play. This fast-paced, sweet-moving discussion covers the genius individual artist and how that might or might not allow collaboration, genres and definitions, strife, and more. Mark just can’t WAIT for a canoe, and getting CRAZY at the salad bar. Oops, we forgot to determine a winner, so YOU decide. The image was pulled from Reddit and i...

Watch this episode as a video . This includes the full post-game segment, so you can see what you’re missing by not being a supporter to this podcast. Don’t you think it’s time you became one ? Monica is an actor and writer who ran a live-on-stage philosophy podcast called The Happier Hour , and so naturally we talk about happiness, or flourishing (eudaimonia). Can babies with ca...

Watch this episode in its unedited video form . Chris has an act called “I Am the Show” where he improvises to a film that he hasn’t seen that’s playing silently, making up all the dialogue and sound effects. Here’s an example . Mark and Bill talk to Chris about being a spectator or critic of art: To understand a work, is it good or necessary to try to divine the arti...

We are ALL this mess. Genevieve is a comedian, podcaster , and she was a philosophy major who’s studying for her doctorate in Divinity (in the Science of Mind /New Thought tradition). We talk about the idea that “we are all one” (and thus we are all God, if you want to call the sum of all things by that name) that’s in various traditions. Ralph Waldo Emerson called this the...

Mark Oppenheimer and Jason Werbeloff of the Brain in a Vat podcast join Bill and Mark L. (aka Alf) to talk about rationality, broadly construed, while not moving a couch and not giving each other Christmas presents. Does “reason” by itself tell us what to do and what to believe? Is trypophobia really just bigotry? (It is not.) What’s the rationale for making negative comments onl...

Zach is an improvisor who’s written for MST3K , been a commentator for Resistance Pro Wrestling , and has been a recurring guest on Hello From the Magic Tavern . He joins Mark and Bill to discuss competitiveness in all its forms. Is strife part of utopia, or would all conflict be removed in an ideal political situation? Is the controlled competitiveness of sports or improv games fundamentall...

Tanner runs the popular daily podcast Practical Stoicism , so of course we brought him on to talk about on-board flight services and attitudes among retail service workers. Seriously, this is one of the most beefy philosophical discussions (about Stoicism and virtue, naturally) we’ve had on the show. Follow Tanner @stoicismtanner . Listen to PEL’s episodes on Stoicism (starting with Ep...

This episode is here, so why not listen? Philosophy vs. Improv advances to a new level of improvisation (aka half-assery) as Mark and Bill engage in a wide-ranging discussion (with scenes, of course) through the categorization of things, paradigm components and essences of things, historical advertisements, what goes in a museum, irresponsible loans, using the tools of convenience, diner culture,...

Marla is an improviser from the Whirled News Tonight iO Theater show. We talk about obeying proper forms of behavior and drawing improv inspiration from outside sources. Plus, a thruple blind date and BBQ chain of custody. And introducing a new character, Lil’ Confucius. Image from here .  Follow Marla @MarlaCaceres and @marlacaceres . Hear more PvI . Support the podcast ! You’ll...

We talk transcendental idealism and Schopenhauer with Cole, who teaches philosophy at the College of Southern Nevada. How does the idea that everything is ideas actually affect behavior? What if you think that reality is a swirling mass of chaos? What are you gonna do then? Huh? Also, the least effective confidential informant! Hear Mark talk about Schopenhauer on The Partially Examined Life . Fol...

Mark and Bill act out a couple of scenes of a person trying to convince a stubborn person of something. But there’s a twist in the characterization! Also, before you were born, the world did not exist. Part of this came out of some comments in The Partially Examined Life’s second Wittgenstein On Certainty episode and anticipates our upcoming treatment of Daoism. Mark also brings u...