The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

Seth is an improviser and aspiring professional "muse," which is a type of life coach that hangs out with you to see where you could be more in touch with your humanity so that you can then work out a coherent plan for your adult life. He discusses with Mary and Mark the conflict between authentic individual humans and a social structure filled with oppressive systems. Should we "deprogram" oursel...

More on The Problem of Christianity , discussing how communities relate to history, how individuals relate to communities, and what's unique about Royce's ideal Christian world community. Get more at  partiallyexaminedlife.com . Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support  to get ad-free episodes and tons of bonus discussion. Sponsors: Get $45 off Aura's best-selling Carver Mat electronic picture fram...

In light of One Battle After Another , Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Al walk through the range of his films from his 1996 crime film Hard Eight through his much lauded Magnolia , Boogie Nights , Punch-Drunk Love , and There Will Be Blood and his more controversial recent ones like Licorice Pizza , The Master , The Phantom Thread , and Inherent Vice . Get an ad-free experience, plus bonus talking f...

On sections of The Problem of Christianity (1913) which establish Royce's concept of a community of interpretation: individuals working together with a sense of shared history and expectation. He claims that such a grouping can be counted as a literal mind and that it solves the problem of human meaning. Get more at partiallyexaminedlife.com . Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to get ad-free...

Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. Continuing on sources from ancient Egypt, finishing up the instructional literature: "The Instruction of Ptahhotep," and "The Instruction Addressed to King Merikare," and then we move to the dialogues, ""The Eloquent Peasant," and "The Dispute Between a Man and His Ba." Sponsors: Rula patients typically pay $15 per se...

Nurse Ratched likes a rigged game, according to R.P. McMurphy. And it’s true that the game he is playing—lawless and hedonistic, but also vital and free-spirited—is unwinnable on her sandlot. As their conflict develops, we seem to be asked to compare the therapeutic value of McMurphy’s introduction of the Dionysian, to Ratched’s attempt to enforce an ordered calm within the psychiatric ward over w...

Scott, ex-professor at Oklahoma State University and author of "Thinking Ethically: A Handbook for Making Moral Choices," chats with Mark and Mary about ethical debate in our age of seemingly unbridgeable divides. We engage in some suspect philosophical counseling, have a staged mini-debate about affirmative action, and simulate a new class of discussion-intensive air travel. More at scottgelfand....

In light of Noah Hawley TV show Alien Earth , Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn and Al revisit the franchise through its seven canon films beginning with Ridley Scott's 1979 classic. While there's plenty of sheer repetition (alien loose, killing people one by one) throughout these properties, the various filmmakers attempt to avoid sure repetition by shifting genres. On the new show, we get a pronounced sh...

Sign up for Closereads at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy to get previous and future installments of this podcast. On Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, Part C (AA) Reason, V. The Certainty and Truth of Reason. This section comes right after the self-consciousness sections, and so its big puzzle is why? Why is full recognition by another self-consciousness necessary for Reason, and consequently wha...

Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. The co-author of the African run of the History of Philosophy Podcast (and new book) joins us to go over philosophical works from 2200-1400 BCE: "The Instruction of Ptahhotep," "The Instruction Addressed to King Merikare," "The Great Hymn to the Aten," "The Dispute Between a Man and His Ba," and "The Eloquent Peasant....

Sign up for Closereads at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy to get previous and future installments of this podcast. In this famous, impossibly ancient (ca. 1900 BCE) Egyptian text, a man negotiations with the part of his soul that's supposed to help him in the afterlife. Can he kill himself now and still get all the benefits of an honorable death? His ba says no. Is this actually philosophy, or ju...

Sign up for Closereads at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy to get previous and future installments of this podcast. Why are there two audio players? Because PEL supporters get this ad-free! From Disputed Questions in De Anima (1269) as presented in Thomas Aquinas: Selected Philosophical Writings (Oxford 1993), “Passage 18: Soul in Human Beings.” The question is how Aquinas, as an Arist...

Subscribe to get parts 1, 2 and 3 of this now, ad-free, plus a supporter-exclusive part 4 . Listen to a preview . We're now moving on to the "mind" portion of our discussion, covering how reason motivates us, how free will is possible, and the degree to which the mind is passive or active. Sponsor: Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health. The post Ep. 3...

Mark and Mary are joined by improvisor-comedian-actress-filmmaker-host Vickie to talk about code switching and authenticity. Can you be authentic and still work a day job? Can Problem Solvers, Inc. solve the office restroom schedule? Are authentic hippies really beatniks? Also, displaying comic America on Korean talk shows, ethical pornography, commerce vs. art, granola in your hair, and more. Vic...

The short stories we cover in this episode pit the magic of art against that of scientific discovery. In one story, a woodcarver transcends his materials and his own humble talents to create a sculpture that bears an otherworldly resemblance to a real woman. In the other, a scientist uses his estimable but flawed powers to improve on Nature’s design by removing a birthmark from his wife’s otherwis...

It's a special two-hander where Mark and Lawrence reflect on the appeal of horror and how the new Monster: Ed Gein Netflix show has to contribute, given that it is not merely a (very loose) presentation of real events, and itself a horror drama, but also a commentary on the Hollywood properties influenced by the Ed Gein murders, including Psycho , The Texas Chainsaw Massacre , and Silence of the L...

Subscribe to get parts 1, 2, and 3 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. Continuing on bits of Thomas Aquinas: Selected Philosophical Writings , completing our analysis of his arguments for the existence of God and then turning to eternity and the possibility of actually talking about God, given our finitude. Sponsor: Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action...

Singer-songwriter-multi-instrumentalist Jonathan (currently based in Minneapolis) has been putting out indie rock solo albums since 1992, but has also ventured into traditional Finnish folk music and has multiple releases of tunes that I won't call Christian rock, but more rock that grapples with being someone who goes to church. We discuss "Diner by the Train" (and listen at the end to "Evidence"...

Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. On selections from Thomas Aquinas: Selected Philosophical Writings , mostly taken from the Summa Theologica (1268). Given our flawed, finite human nature, how do we fit into the universe? In particular, how can we know and talk about things far beyond our experience such as God and eternity? In this part, we discuss a...

Sign up for Closereads at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy to get previous and future installments of this podcast. On Leviathan (1651), ch. 21, "On the Liberty of Subjects." Thomas Hobbes is known for defending absolute monarchy, so as you'd predict, he's not going to say we have a lot of "natural" liberties. The post Closereads: Hobbes on Liberty first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Phi...

How does your body talk to you? Your favorite hosts-of-a-philosophy-and-improv-comedy show Mark Linsenmayer and Merry Mary Hynes re-connect after both being sick to get a bit Halloweeny so as to talk about various food-related monsters, experiencing art by disgraced creators, inner homunculi a la "Inside Out," movie talk, Nietzsche's nose fetish, and more. Hear more at philosophyimprov.com . Suppo...

Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Al watched Spinal Tap and its new sequel, and we throw these into a mix with K-Pop Demon Hunters and other films and shows involving made-for-TV (and film) bands, including We Are Lady Parts , That Thing You Do , Fear of a Black Hat , CB4 , Atlanta , The Blues Brothers , The Commitments , Almost Famous , The Rutles , and The Monkees . Get an ad-free experience, plus b...

Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. Continuing on "Directions for Decomposition" from A Short History of Decay (1949). What is it that humans are inevitably trying to avoid that seems so bad to us? It's our existential separation from others, our essential, incommunicable solitude. Plus, ennui, sloth, and being a "traitor to existence." Sponsor: Visit f...

The clash between Eli Sunday and Daniel Plainview, between religion and industry, steeple and oil derrick, might come down to something like the difference between a gift and a skill. Eli calls himself a son of the hills of Little Boston, an inheritor of land and legacy, a member of a family, and of a faith imagined as a family. Daniel calls himself an oil man, but only after reciting his resume a...

Sign up for Closereads at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy to get previous and future installments of this podcast. On Aristotle's Physics, book 2, ch. 8 on "final causation," i.e. purposiveness as a natural explanation. Modern science doesn't much like this kind of explanation, but Aristotle found it essential, and here's his argument for it. The post Closereads: Aristotle on Final Causes first a...