The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

On Aldous Huxley’s 1932 dystopian novel, recorded at Manhattan's Caveat on 4/6/19, with audience participation. If we harness the power of society to employ available technologies to really focus on making people happy, what would the result be? This is Huxley's thought experiment, but is it in all respects a dystopia, and is it a fair test of the ideal of social improvement or merely of a f...

A new Mark Lint tune written specifically to air with our live show #215. Mark mainlines Ramones and chuffs out this ode to the PEL project. "Just four white men, why four white men? 'Cause that's just how it happened back before 2010. And we’ve read a lot of texts. We’re still sticking out our necks, speaking off the cuff at length enough to have almost examined this..." The post PEL 10th Anniver...

Concluding Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1885). What's the wise way to live? We start in earnest into part three, treating the "spirit of gravity," where socially imposed values cover over your uniqueness; omni-satisfaction vs. being choosy; "Old and New Tablets," where Nietzsche explores various ethical and meta-ethical issues (e.g., is self-overcoming a matter of one-time self-ac...

Constellary Tales presents an audio production of "Ambassador," cover story of Issue #2. Then story author Michael Adam Robson joins us for an interview. Get more Constellary Tales podcasts, and read original sf in the magazine at constellary.com . The post Constellary Tales #8: “Ambassador” Audio Story and Author Interview first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast .

On the remainder of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1885). How can we keep our spirits up and avoid nihilism? We consider Nietzsche's "solution" of eternal recurrence, why he uses a poetic, allegoric style, and more. Please support PEL! The post Ep. 214: More Nietzsche’s Zarathustra (Part One) first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast .

Continuing on Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra , books 1 and 2 (1883). We talk through Nietzsche's symbolism (tightrope walkers and gravediggers and snakes, oh my!), the path toward the overman, his screed against the state, the Will to Power as the will to overcome oneself by reconciling oneself with the past, and more. Listen to part one first or get the ad-free, unbroken Citizen Edi...

Wes Alwan is joined by Dr. Glenn Mobray to discuss this classic 1946 psychoanalytic text. This is a preview of a 63-minute discussion. You can listen to the whole thing by becoming a PEL Citizen or $5 Patreon supporter . Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to learn how. Listen to more (sub)Text . The post PREVIEW-(sub)Text#6: Melanie Klein’s “Notes on Some Schizoid Mechanisms” first appeared o...

On Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra , books 1 and 2 (1883). What is wisdom? In this text whose style parodies the Bible, we get pithy advice and allegorical imagery to guide us away from self-defeating, life-denying attitudes and orient us toward creative self-overcoming (i.e., exertion of the Will to Power). The Last Man who no longer knows how to give birth to a dancing star is a rot...

Continuing on What is Literature? (1948). Sartre gives a phenomenology of reading and writing that makes reading into a creative act of completing the writer's work, and calls this cooperation ethical: the work is an appeal to the reader's freedom, and also the reader's responsibility to then know what the work reveals. Are you shirking, all you skimmers? Start with part one , or get the unbroken,...

On Jean-Paul Sartre's What is Literature? (1948), ch. 1 and 2. What's the purpose of literature? Why write prose as opposed to poetry? Sartre argues that while poetry is about the words themselves, prose is about the ideas, so it's necessarily political. A written work is essentially an ethical appeal for a reader to apply his or her own faculties and experiences to complete the work through the a...

Wes Alwan is joined by Monica McCarthy of the Happier Hour podcast to discuss Anton Chekhov's 1898 play about family dysfunction and potentially wasting your life. This is a preview of a 54-minute discussion. You can listen to the whole thing by becoming a PEL Citizen or $5 Patreon supporter . Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to learn how.

SFWA Grand Master and multiple Hugo and Nebula winner Joe Haldeman talks about The Forever War, The Twilight Zone, and his next novel in an exclusive Constellary Tales interview. Listen to more Constellary Tales . The post Constellary Tales #7: Interview with Author Joe Haldeman first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast .

Moving finally on to Jean-Paul Sartre's "Black Orpheus" (1948), where he introduces a book of black poetry by praising its revolutionary spirit as embodied in "negritude." Is this a legitimate consciousness-raising exercise or a weird fetishization of blackness? Listen to parts one and two first, or get the ad-free, unbroken Citizen Edition . Please support PEL! End song: "Punch Bag" by Godley &#3...

Continuing on Jean-Paul Sartre's Anti-Semite and Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate (1946). Is there an "authentic" way to respond to persecution? As part of his critique of anti-semitism, Sartre criticized the responses of some Jews to this situation, e.g. denying that the persecution exists, pretending to not be Jewish, or in any way accepting the terms of anti-semitism and setting up o...

On Jean-Paul Sartre's Anti-Semite and Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate (1946) and "Black Orpheus" (1948). How can we best understand the psychology of racism? Sartre condemns anti-Semitism as denying the facts of the human condition: the responsibility for fixing problems and not blaming them on a demonized other. But he also criticizes "the democrat" for a humanism that pretends we're...

Continuing on Black Skin White Masks (1952), starting with the influential ch. five, "The Fact of Blackness." Are the successive coping strategies to racism (including "anti-racist racism" and embrace of negritude) that Fanon describes, necessary steps in a dialectic that should be encouraged, or would it be best to learn from his "mistakes" and jump right to the humanistic end-point? With guest L...

PEL's Mark Linsenmayer joins the Constellary crew to weigh in on the philosophical implications of precognitive crime fighting in Philip K. Dick's "The Minority Report." Brian quizzes Mark and Ken on PKD movie trivia. Get more Constellary Tales podcasts, and read original sf in the magazine at constellary.com . The post Constellary Tales #6: Philip K. Dick’s “The Minority Report,” Guest Mark Linse...

On Black Skin White Masks (1952). How does growing up in a racist society mess people up? Fanon's "clinical study" includes phenomenology, poetry, and a lot of existentialism, which means that the "let's embrace negritude in the face of bigotry" solution isn't ultimately available to him: We're all radically free, with no race-specific essence, whether positive or negative. With guest Lawrence War...

Morgan DeLisle, writer for the PodChaser "Behind the Streams Blog," interviewed Mark for a feature of our podcasts. Learn about the origins of PEL and NEM, how we make the shows, and what's coming up. Listen to all of the PEL network podcasts at partiallyexaminedlife.com , or subscribe to them individually on Apple Podcasts or via your preferred player. The post Podchaser Interview of Mark Linsenm...

Continuing on Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment (2018). Fukuyama recommends a "creedal national identity" as a solution for tribalism; does this work? Is this "demand for recognition" that he describes foundational for the act of making an ethical claim? For self-consciousness itself? How does ideology prejudice the sort of theorizing that Fukuyama engages in? Listen...

Talking with the author about Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment (2018). What motivates people? Frank points to thymos , the demand for recognition, as at the root of both the "end of history" (i.e., democracy as demand for equal recognition) and our current tribalist stalemates, involving desires to be seen—in virtue of group membership—as superior. Thymos...

More on the ethics-related fragments of Epicurus and accounts by Martha Nussbaum and Tim O'Keefe. What would a purely therapeutic philosophy consist of? Does philosophy as pursuit of pleasure mean that you eschew political action or other substantial goals? Mark, Wes, and Dylan try to figure out which of our desires are vain and whether society is compatible with human happiness. Listen to part on...

Robert Heinlein's short story "All You Zombies" (and the later film adaptation Predestination ) starts with the classic "grandfather paradox" trope and ties it in knots. Get more Constellary Tales podcasts, and read original sf in the magazine at constellary.com . The post Constellary Tales #5. Robert Heinlein’s “All You Zombies” and “Predestination” first appeared on The Partially Examined Life P...

On the extant fragments of Epicurus (341–270 BCE) dealing with ethics, including his "Letter to Menoceus," “The Principal Doctrines,” and “The Vatican Collection of Epicurean Sayings.” Plus Tim O’Keefe’s Epicureanism (2010) and Martha Nussabum’s The Therapy of Desire (1994). How are we supposed to act once we understand nature as atoms bouncing and swerving around in the void, temporarily producin...

Continuing on Johann Gottfried von Herder's “The Causes of Sunken Taste among the Different Peoples in Whom It Once Blossomed” (1775), then moving to “On the Influence of the Belles Lettres on the Higher Sciences” (1781), “Does Painting or Music Have a Greater Effect? A Divine Colloquy” (1785), and and some of Critical Forests: Fourth Grove (written 1769). With guest rock god John "Jughead" Pierso...