Sound Philosophy

Eric Taxier and I explore Chapter 1 of Book 3 of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Forrest Gump comes in for some rough treatment--in service of the greater cause of understanding moral agency.

Eric Taxier and I finish discussing Book 2 of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. We revisit the "key passage" concerning the Doctrine of the Mean (from chapter 6) then discuss the arrangement and choice of virtues and Aristotle's advice for self-improvement.

Eric Taxier and I discuss chapters 5 and 6 of Book 2 of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. These books truly introduce and start to define the Doctrine of the Mean but immediately demonstrate that the concept is much more complex than summaries of Aristotle often allow.

Eric Taxier and I discuss Book 2, Chapters 3-4 of Aristotle's celebrated Nicomachean Ethics. We explore how one enters the circle of learning, the monkeys typing Shakespeare thought experiment, consequentialism, and more.

Eric Taxier and I explore the opening two chapters to Book 2 of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. We discuss the two types of virtue (virtues of character and virtues of mind) and spend some real time on the learning paradox--if you learn to build by building, how do you get started if you don't know already how to build?

Eric Taxier and I conclude our discussion of Book 1 of Aristotle's Nicomachean ethics.

Eric Taxier and I discuss Chapters 10-11 of Book 1 of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics . These chapters ask the rather odd question of whether we can truly say someone is happy before they are dead.

I'm joined by Eric Taxier to continue our discussion of Book 1 of Aristotle's celebrated Nicomachean Ethics . This episode covers chapters 8-9 of Book 1.

Eric Taxier and I discuss chapter 7 of Book 1 of Aristotle's celebrated Nicomachean Ethics. This is arguably the central chapter to the first book and provides the initial "outline" of Aristotle's take on happiness and the human good.

Eric Taxier and I discuss Chapters 5-6 of Book I of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics . We discuss various candidates for happiness and what they are lacking and then examine Aristotle's critique of Plato's Form of the Good.

Eric Taxier and I discuss chapters 3 and 4 of Book 1 of Aristotle's celebrated treatise, Nicomachean Ethics . We discuss the differences between two forms of attaining or justifying knowledge (demonstration and dialectic), the nature of proof and whether ethical thought can be proven or demonstrated (and to what extent), and many other things.

I'm joined by Eric Taxier in the first of several episodes exploring Aristotle's celebrated treatise, the Nicomachean Ethics . This episode carefully examines chapters 1 and 2 of Book 1.

This episode examines the relationship between ambiguity and ambivalence and looks at two indie rock songs: "Oh Comely" by Neutral Milk Hotel and "Mississippi Swells" by Nana Grizol.

This episode looks at the issue of ambiguity in art and then examines "William, It Was Really Nothing," by the Smiths, looking at the ambiguous nature of the lyrics and the music.

This episode looks at the materiality of language, particularly in the use of rhyme and examines MF DOOM's idiosyncratic approach to rhyme and what is sometimes termed holorime.

This episode continues to explore the narcocorrido, now focusing on Chalino Sanchez and the theme of agency striving against fate.

This episode looks at the border genre of the narcocorrido (a Mexican folk music genre based on drug trafficking) in relation to the rhetorical nature of borders, the law, and the self.

This episode explores the role of suffering and self-developed narrative in the forming of a self in the music of Edith Piaf.

This episode explores the nature of the subject position in popular music (the implicit or explicit "I" in a song). It posits that most songs ask us to identify (or disidentify) with the subject but that some songs, including Björk's "Bachelorette" question the very notion of what it means to be a subject in the world.

This episode examines Tom Waits's debts to Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski, and the notion of melancholy. It examines "The Piano Has Been Drinking" and "Invitation to the Blues."

This episode looks at Randy Newman's vision of the American as essentially out of balance. I examine songs including "I Think It's Going to Rain Today," "Sail Away," and "Rednecks."

This episode looks at Cole Porter and the comic list song as exemplified by "Let's Do It."

This episode uses Aristotle's Rhetoric to examine the use of wit in the music and lyrics of Cole Porter. I begin by considering general characteristics and functions of wit. Then I turn to Aristotle's three elements of rhetoric and his notion that rhetoric is central to human experience. Finally, I analyze the verse of Porter's "Just One of Those Things" in light of my discus...

This episode continues my discussion of lyrics, now by paying attention to the lyrics in their materiality (rather than semantics), focusing on rhyme, repetition, and the notion of the lyrics as museme (that is, as a musical element--not a linguistic center of gravity).

This episode begins to explore how we might think about lyrics beyond considering them as a "key" to the meaning of a song.