The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

Discussing articles by Alan Turing, Gilbert Ryle, Thomas Nagel, John Searle, and Dan Dennett. What is this mind stuff, and how can it "be" the brain? Can computers think? What is it like to be a bat? With guest Marco Wise. Looking for the full Citizen version? The post PREVIEW-Episode 21: What Is the Mind? (Turing, et al) first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast .

On Pragmatism (1907) by William James and "The Fixation of Belief" (1877) and "How to Make Our Ideas Clear" (1878) by Charles Sanders Peirce. Is truth a primitive relation between our representations and things objectively in the world, or is it an analyzable process by which propositions "prove their worth" by being useful in some way, like by fitting well with other portions of our experience or...

Discussing Immanuel Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783). Do we have any business doing metaphysics, which is by definition about things that we could not possibly experience? With guest Azzurra Crispino. Looking for the full Citizen version? The post PREVIEW-Episode 19: Kant: What Can We Know? first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast .

Discussing Plato's Theatetus and Meno . In the Theaetetus, Plato considers and rejects a series of mostly very lame conceptions of knowledge and replaces them at the end with... NOTHING. In the Meno, knowledge is "remembrance" (maybe)." Looking for the full Citizen version? The post PREVIEW-Episode 18: Plato: What Is Knowledge? first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast .

On David Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748). Hume thinks that all we can know are our own impressions, but that no experience shows us one event causing another event. So, causality must just be regular patterns of conjoined events. Looking for the full Citizen version? The post PREVIEW-Episode 17: Hume’s Empiricism: What Can We Know? first appeared on The Partially Examined L...

Discussing three essays by Arthur Danto from The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art (1986): the title essay, "The Appreciation and Interpretation of Works of Art," and "The End of Art." I understand you may not have heard of Danto, and you may think modern art is goofy, but you'll definitely enjoy this discussion and the reading anyway. Note that Danto listened to this episode and liked it ....

Discussing G.W.F Hegel's Introduction to the Philosophy of History . The post Episode 15: Hegel on History first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast .

Discussing Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince and Ch. 1-20 of The Discourse on the First Ten Books of Titus Livy The post Episode 14: Machiavelli on Politics first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast .

On Werner Heisenberg’s Physics and Philosophy . Dylan Casey's first appearance (as a guest). The post Episode 13: What Are the Metaphysical Implications of Quantum Physics? first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast .

On the Chuang Tzu (now transliterated as Zhuangzi), Chapters 2, 3, 6, 18, and 19. With guest Erik Douglas. The post Episode 12: Chuang Tzu’s Taoism: What Is Wisdom? first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast .

Discussing The Genealogy of Morals (mostly the first two essays) and Beyond Good and Evil Ch. 1 (The Prejudices of Philosophers), 5 (Natural History of Morals), and 9 (What is Noble?). The post Episode 11: Nietzsche’s Immoralism: What Is Ethics, Anyway? first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast .

Discussing Fundamental Principles (aka Groundwork) of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785). The post Episode 10: Kantian Ethics: What Should We Do? first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast .

Discussing Jeremy Bentham’s An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation chapters 1-5, John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism , and Peter Singer's "Famine, Affluence, and Morality." The post Episode 9: Utilitarian Ethics: What Should We Do? first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast .

Continuing last ep's discussion of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus with some Rudolph Carnap from his 1935 book Philosophy and Logical Syntax . The post Episode 8: Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (and Carnap): What Can We Legitimately Talk About? first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast .

Discussing the beginning (through around 3.1) of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus . The post Episode 7: Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: What Is There and Can We Talk About It? first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast .

Discussing Liebniz's Monadology . The post Episode 6: Leibniz’s Monadology: What Is There? first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast .

Discussing Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics , Books I and II. The post Episode 5: Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast .

Discussing Camus's "An Absurd Reasoning" and "The Myth of Sisyphus" (1942). The post Episode 4: Camus and the Absurd first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast .

Discussing Hobbes's Leviathan , Chapters 13-15. The post Episode 3: Hobbes’s Leviathan: The Social Contract first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast .

On Descartes's Meditations 1 and 2. The post Episode 2: Descartes’s Meditations: What Can We Know? first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast .

Discussing Plato's "Apology." Does studying philosophy make you a better person? No. The post Episode 1: “The Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living.” first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast .

What are we trying to do here? Why should you bother to listen to us? The post Episode 0: Introduction to the Podcast first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast .