The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

Does it make sense to try to have everyone get what they "deserve"? Your hosts Mark Linsenmayer and Bill Arnett ( Chicago Improv Studio ) act out the desert machine but yet get no predictable cake. Hear more PvI at philosophyimprov.com . Support the podcast to get bonus stuff and good karma!

Continuing on the Introduction, we get into more detail on Hegel's goal and his tricky terminology. If you're not hearing the full version of this part of the discussion , sign up via one of the options described at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support .

On G.W.F. Hegel's 1807 opus: A series of treatments of various theories in epistemology (among other things), seeing how they're internally incoherent, which then moves us to more sophisticated theories. Part two of this episode is only going to be available to you if you sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support or via Apple Podcasts . Get it now  or listen to a preview . Don't miss Mark's new...

Concluding on Schelling's System of Transcendental Idealism (1800), Parts 1 and 2. What sort of self is created in the act of self-consciousness that according to Schelling grounds all knowledge? We further consider this primordial act. To hear the full second part , you'll need to go sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support .

What is Philosophy vs. Improv? Hear about the new podcast by Mark Linsenmayer ( The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast ) and Bill Arnett ( Chicago Improv Studio , The Complete Improviser author). Go listen to the show at philosophyimprov.com  or subscribe via Apple , Audible , Stitcher , Spotify , or however you get your podcasts. Get more episodes than are now publicly available plus supp...

On Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling's System of Transcendental Idealism (1800), Parts 1 and 2. What is self-consciousness, and how did Schelling think that it grounds all of knowledge? Part two of this episode is only going to be available to you if you sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support . Get it now  or listen to a preview .

Continuing on the Introduction to Friedrich Schelling's System of Transcendental Idealism (1800), focusing on the harmony between mind and world and imputing intelligence to nature. To hear the full second part , you'll need to go sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support .

On Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling's System of Transcendental Idealism (1800). What's the relationship between mind and world? Schelling thought that our minds produce the world, but also that the perceiver-world dichotomy comes to us as a single piece. "Transcendental philosophy" is an exploration of the internal logic of that revelation. Part two of this episode is only going to be available...

Continuing on The Vocation of Man (1799), Book II. We focus on how ethics fits in with Fichte's epistemology in a unified theology with humans literally united (in this world or the next) in a shared, divine Will. To hear the full second part , you'll need to go sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support .

Our second full discussion on The Vocation of Man (1799). What are the ethical implications of believing that the world is all in our minds? You could be a solipsistic nihilist, but Fichte thinks the path of faith is unavoidable for a reasonable person: faith that the world is real and matters, that other people have moral status, and yes, he's going to argue for God and heaven, though unconventio...

Continuing on The Vocation of Man (1799), Book II. In this preview, we clarify whether Fichte is trying to keep the notion of a "real world" beyond our experience or not. It's part of the progression of the text that while at first he assumes that there must be something real behind this experienced world we as individuals create, he gives up that notion in the middle of Book II. So how does he ge...

On The Vocation of Man (1799), Books I and II. What is reality? Fichte's armchair journey starts him considering nature and thus himself as determined, but then he backtracks to say that actually, experience doesn't tell us whether we're determined or free. In Book II, he argues that since our experience is always of something going on in ourselves, then causality, the external world, the self, et...

Continuing (without Stephen Phillips) on God and the World's Arrangement: Readings from Vedanta and Nyaya Philosophy of Religion . What does this treatment give us that's fundamentally different than the Western version of the design argument? We talk about these readings in the context of liberation and reflect on reason vs. revelation in this milieu. To hear that full second part , you'll need t...

On God and the World's Arrangement: Readings from Vedanta and Nyaya Philosophy of Religion with one of its translators, Stephen Phillips . Does nature require an intelligent designer? Śaṅkara (710 CE) and Vācaspati Miśra (960 CE), commenting on the Brahma-sūtra (ca. 200 CE) and Nyāya-sūtra (ca. 200 BCE), argue that it does against atheistic Buddhists, Sāṃkhya believers in a primordial matter that...

Continuing on two of Hannah Arendt's 1953 essays on totalitarianism. We further discuss its logic and in the full episode get into its relevance for contemporary political movements. To hear that full second part , you'll need to go sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support . Sponsor : See headspace.com/PEL for a free month's access to a library of guided meditations. Try The Class X Podcast on...

On "On the Nature of Totalitarianism" and On the Origins of Totalitarianism ch. 13 (both from 1953). Is totalitarianism just an especially virulent form of tyranny, or something unique to the modern age? Arendt says that unlike other forms of government, totalitarianism is not animated by an active psychological principle that motivates its participants. Instead terror is designed to make citizens...

Continuing on Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business with guest Brian Hirt. Is the written word really so much more suited for providing context than television? To hear the full second part , you'll need to go sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support .

On Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985) with guest Brian Hirt. How does the form in which we receive media affect how we think? Education theorist Postman (building on Marshall McLuhan) claimed that television has eroded our capacity to reason and given us the expectation that everything in the world must entertain. Is this a viable piece of social constr...

Continuing on Avicenna's arguments for the existence of God and on the soul's immateriality. What metaphysical and epistemological picture grounds these views? To hear the full second part , you'll need to go sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support .

On selections and commentary about Avicenna's argument from around 1020 C.E. for the existence of God as a necessary being, plus arguments to prove that God has the person-like properties that Islam imputes to him, and his "flying man" argument for the soul's essential independence from matter. Featuring Mark, Dylan, and our guest Peter Adamson from the History of Philosophy podcast . Part two of...

Continuing on Lear's Open Minded: Working Out the Logic of the Soul (1988). Our highlight is about the relation between the three parts of the soul: which (if any) is basic? To hear the full second part , you'll need to go sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support .

On essays from Lear's Open Minded: Working Out the Logic of the Soul (1988): "Inside and Outside the Republic," "Eros and Unknowing: The Psychoanalytic Significance of Plato's Symposium," and "An Interpretation of Transference," which compares Socrates' questioning with psychotherapy. Is Plato's analogy between mind and state in The Republic a good one? What can we learn from it about what makes f...

Continuing on the Phaedo , we start with a point from Plato's physics that's supposed to hep prove the immortality of the soul, then lay out his theory of Forms. To hear the full second part , you'll need to go sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support .

On Plato's middle dialogue depicting the death of Socrates (390 BCE) depicting the death of Socrates. Should philosophers fear death? In the course of giving arguments for the immortality of the soul, we get an elaboration of the recollection theory of knowledge (from the Meno ) into Plato's first full account of Forms. But how literally are we supposed to take the words of Socrates as he comforts...

Continuing on the Timaeus , we consider some quotes and details starting at the beginning of the dialogue where Plato argues for differences between the perceived, created, impermanent world and its perfect model.  To hear this second part , you'll need to go sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support .