The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. Continuing on the 1785 course lecture notes by Georg Ludwig Collins. We cover duties to oneself, which are actually the most important ones. There are some interesting subtleties even though Kant is clearly a creature of his time and place, e.g. in his views of sexuality. Sponsors: Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get...

Nora Helmer begins Act I as a devoted wife to her respectable husband, Torvald, and a devoted mother to her young children. She ends Act III by walking out on all of them and closing the door behind her. The emotional distance covered in these three acts (representing a span of just a few days in the lives of the Helmers) makes Nora one of the greatest and most coveted acting challenges in the the...

Sign up for Closereads at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy to get previous and future installments of this podcast. We're jumping back into a 1984 paper that we began a couple of years ago in light of our recent PEL activity on contemporary ethics. How does he jump from individual objective interests to ethical normativity? The post Closereads: Peter Railton’s “Moral Realism” (Part Four) first app...

Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. We discuss lecture notes from Kant's 1785 ethics course, which provide more examples and an emphasis on the practical than his more famous works. For instance, we get more information on ethical motivation: How can the rational recognition of ethical principles lead to moral feelings? Sponsor: Visit functionhealth.com...

LA Second City improv instructor Mary joins us to act out a pet sitting job interview, talk about sharing our public spaces with animals, and finally return to Empty Street to see if we can get some animal action going in the mart. In the post-game, we talk about Bill's new academic studies and Mark's upcoming Gen Con trip. Hear more at philosophyimprov.com . Support the podcast and listen ad-free...

In light of the new film Ballerina , we discuss the John Wick franchise that kicked off in 2014 with four films plus a (bad) Peacock TV show. We also watched the recent documentary Wick Is Pain . Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn and Al are joined by Brian Casey to mostly talk about the main four films in the series: They have a formula, but is that bad? Get an ad-free experience, plus bonus talking for th...

Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content including a supporter-exclusive Nightcap with more Korsgaard discussion. Concluding our treatment of The Sources of Normativity . We give Korsgaard's tweaks to Kant, including her distinction between the categorical imperative and the moral law. We then explain her reference to Wittgenstein's private language argument...

Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. On lectures 3 and 4 of The Sources of Normativity (1996), where we get Korsgaard's positive view on how morality becomes obligatory for an individual, which has to do with identity, reason-giving, and our fundamentally social nature. And yet, her view is an interpretation of Kant! Sponsors: Don't wait until the next b...

Mark Schiff is a legendary stand-up who currently podcasts with friend-of-PEL and philosophy enthusiast , Daniel Lobell as We Think It's Funny . These gents join Mark and Bill to talk about stand-up vs. improv, comedy LPs, waterless urinals, bad press, the path to enlightenment, and how to get rid of syphilis. We run a scene on hiring entertainment for the company party, and engage in some riffs t...

In immediate reaction to the Apple TV+ Seth Rogan show The Studio , we talk about Hollywood's obsession with itself and how studio dynamics interfere with what exactly we all get to see. Also, what's with the fascination with old Hollywood? What's the appeal of Hollywood gossip? Erica our first-season co-host returns to join Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Al. For more, visit prettymuchpop.com . Hea...

It’s Valentine’s Day in the state of Victoria, Australia in the year 1900. A group from a local girls’ school goes on an excursion to the foot of an eerie, vast geological formation called Hanging Rock. Three girls and one schoolteacher climb up to explore it. All but one are never seen again. This summary constitutes the essential plot but only the first act of Peter Weir’s 1975 film, based on th...

Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. We dive further into the text of lectures 1 and 2 of The Sources of Normativity (1996). We give Korsgaard's account of the idea of reflective endorsement through Hume and Bernard Williams to get to her own view. When you come to know the origins of your moral sentiments, do you still stand behind them? Learn more abou...

Sign up for Closereads at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy to get previous and future installments of this podcast. On "Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?" (1912). Prichard claims that we feel certain actions to be obligatory, and that we have no justification for globally doubting those raw intuitions. We can only re-check by looking more carefully, but the promise of moral philosophy to fi...

Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. On The Sources of Normativity (1996), lectures 1 and 2. How are facts related to obligations? We don't want to merely explain our moral impulses, but justify them. Korsgaard walks us through the views of Hobbes, Hume, Bernard Williams and others to arrive at her own breed of Kantianism, which we'll lay out in ep. 371....

Khafiz Kerimov and Nicholas Bellinson teach at St. John's College, and they channeled the educational style of that school into a new podcast called Invasive Thoughts . They join Mark and Bill to talk (and act) about various educational technologies, teacher-student relations, circle-drawing competitions, the passivity of thinking, bad quotation use, and more. Hear more at philosophyimprov.com . S...

On the eight-film action series that launched in 1996 (based on the 1966 TV series) in light of its apparently final film. Featuring Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn and Al. Is this a coherent narrative as the last film would have you believe, or just an excuse for a series of Tom Cruise physically challenges? Maybe the latter is enough for us! For more, visit prettymuchpop.com . Hear this ad-free with bo...

Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this ad-free, plus a supporter-exclusive part 3 . Listen to a preview . Continuing on Natural Goodness , getting more into concrete cases of moral reasoning. How and why do we decide to keep promises, even in cases where violating them would produce more utility? How do we take into account different kinds of grounds in moral reasoning? Sponsor : Visit IDOU.com/PE...

Sign up for Closereads at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy to get previous and future installments of this podcast. On Derek Parfit's "Prudence, Morality, and the Prisoner's Dilemma" (1978). What is a "prisoner's dilemma" and what is its relevance to ethics? The post Closereads: Parfit on Game Theory (Part One) first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast .

Kolby runs After Dinner Conversations , which curates short stories about philosophy. He's also been a "producer" of improv shows. We talk about what makes a story philosophical, Kolby tells some stories, and we run some scenes about teleporter shenanigans and guidance counseling. Hear more at philosophyimprov.com . Support the podcast and listen ad-free at philosophyimprov.com/support . Sponsor:...

Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Al discuss Tony Gilroy's Star Wars Disney+ two-season TV show. Should this actually be a Star Wars show given how different in tone it was? The show adds meat (and banality!) to the evil of the Empire and the rough life of a rebel. We talk characters, themes, settings, and all that other literary stuff. For more, visit prettymuchpop.com . Hear this ad-free with bonus...

Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. On Natural Goodness (2001). Can we base ethics on the model of biology? Foot argues that just as we understand what a healthy specimen of a plant or animal is, so there is a natural way for humans to work properly, which will include the ability to will according to reflective reasoning. Sponsor: Get a $1/month e-comm...

Yeats’s poem “Sailing to Byzantium” begins and ends with the concept of reproduction. In the first stanza, this reproduction is natural and sexual, and in the final stanza is entirely a matter of artifice. The living songbird is transformed into both product and producer, with a form of singing that is gilded by a consciousness of its departure from nature. Where natural reproduction replenishes e...

Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. We conclude our discussion of A Treatise of Human Nature (1739): Book III, "Of Morals," plus a bit more discussion of An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751).  How do moral sentiments fit into Hume's overall philosophy of mind? Is Hume a relativist? We talk about sociopaths, animals, incest, consent, eth...

Sign up for Closereads at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy to get previous and future installments of this podcast. On Spinoza’s Ethics, Third Part, “Concerning the Origin and Nature of the Emotions.” We want to see how emotions ground ethics, but first, we have to explain what emotions are, which means explaining how mind and body (and causality) work together on Spinoza’s...

Shannon the philosopher and Audrey the poet are Seattle improv buddies that form a duo called Closer to Clarity that uses improv to answer audience members' big life questions (BLQs). Hear philosophy and poetry face off and mind meld and do-si-do as we play through two wacky corporate office scenes and return once again to Empty Street™ for an attempted gas station poetry open mic. Hear more at ph...