The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

In his poem “You Who Never Arrived,” Rainer Maria Rilke suggests that we can mourn love as an unrealized possibility, and see this loss signified everywhere in the ordinary objects of the external world. In “Be Ahead of All Parting” (II.13 from his “Sonnets to Orpheus”), he seems to claim that poetry has the capacity to redeem such losses—and retrieve them, so to speak, from their underworld. Wes...

Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. Continuing on Ecclesiastes with guest Jesse Peterson, getting into some more close reading of particular sections. We make some connection from the author's observations to ancient Greek Skepticism, Epicureanism, and Stoicism. How is the world "absurd" according to this book? Sponsors: Learn about St. John's College a...

Are we taking for granted this unique, talent-filled weekly nationally televised live comedy event that’s been around for 50 years? (as in “What do we think this show is? Chopped liver?”) Does its format even make sense at this time given YouTube and streaming? What will its legacy be? Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Al discuss the casts, highlights, and the  Continue Reading...

Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. Ecclesiastes is often cited as one of the most philosophical books of the Bible, so we approached it in that spirit with the help of Jesse M. Peterson, whose soon-to-be-published book is called Qoheleth and the Philosophy of Value . Sponsor: Check out the History of the Germans podcast at historyofthegermans.com . The...

Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn and Al discuss the Coralie Fargeat/Demi Moore film The Substance in light of its Oscar nominations, along with related reflections on lost youth, e.g. Sunset Boulevard (1950), Death Becomes Her  (1992), and Neon Demon (2016). We also touch on other cloning scenarios. Is this film a serious meditation on aging in Hollywood, or just a particularly vivid but logically confuse...

Mark and Bill are joined by two north-of-the-border podcasters, Shawn Vulliez and Aaron Moritz, who incorporate both improv and philosophy in their dirty leftist podcast . We simulate conversation as competing knowers-of-the-good-life and talk about using improv for political purposes. Note that this was recorded back in December when we were in the thick of Luigi Mangione fever and not yet consum...

Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. On "Fragment on Machines" (1858). Shouldn't automating work free workers? Not according to Marx, until capitalism is overthrown. Until then, automation actually just makes labor conditions worse and certainly doesn't give people more free time, since the capitalist keeps all the surplus gained by greater productivity....

Sign up for Closereads at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy to get future parts on this reading, as well as our previous and future installments of this podcast. Mark and Wes read through and discuss the beginning of Felix Guattari's "Everybody Wants to Be a Fascist" (1973). Guattari was a Lacanian psychotherapist, and he argues for explaining fascist tendencies via a "micropolitics of desire," i.e...

Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. We finish our treatment of Capital , Ch. 1, covering the little bit that Marx says about actual communism (he was wary of utopianism, contra his reputation), and think through a number of related practical problems. We introduce "Fragment on Machines" (1858). Sponsor: Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel...

Django is a singer/songwriter/guitarist who released his first solo album in 1996 and has released seven albums with The Old Ceremony since 2004 plus several more solo releases. We discuss The Old Ceremony songs "Too Big to Fail" (and listen to "Hangman's Party at the end) from Earthbound (2024), "The Disappear" from Walk On Thin Air (2009), and "Reservations" from Our One Mistake (2006). Intro: "...

In light of the recent release of the James Mangold film A Complete Unknown , Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Dylan superfan Al discuss the man, the myth, and the music. The film clearly aimed to make the music, environment, and political activity of the '60s come alive today, but does the simplification required to make a coherent film undermine that goal? We also touch on his Chronicles , plus I'm...

It begins with the “stupidest song ever written,” as Robert Altman called it, and ends with a self-referential jab at the very idea of finding comic relief in the tragedy of war. But it is equally unserious, the film “M.A.S.H” seem to suggest, to take seriously the authority of war-making institutions, and their pretense to putting violence in service of an ideal. And so morality succumbs to mocke...

Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. Continuing on Capital , Ch. 1 on commodities. We go into detail on his account of how money gets derived from the continued comparison of various commodities, how use value comes back into play when we compare the economic value of one commodity as compared to another, and finally, the details of commodity fetishism....

Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. On Capital (1867), Ch. 1, "The Commodity." What makes something we buy or sell valuable? Marx says it's ultimately the labor that goes into it, though there are some wrinkles in formulating this accurately, and the commodities and surrounding marketplace activity blind us to labor's role and its ethical import. Sponso...

Sign up for Closereads at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy to get future parts on this reading, as well as our previous and future installments of this podcast. Mark and Wes read through and discuss Karl Marx's The German Ideology (1846), delving deep into the middle of his critique of Max Stirner's The Ego and Its Own . Marx articulates and criticizes Stirner's attempt to distinguish the mere com...

Randy  is a literature guy who has written a couple of books about improv and here joins Mark and Bill to talk about WINGING IT: Improv's Power and Peril in the Age of Trump , wherein he basically blames improv for giving us the orange man. Our scenes are about Trumpers hustling a fast food joint and improv for dogs. Mark and Bill stick around for some post-game bringing in yet another metaphor: m...

In light of Robert Eggers' film Nosferatu  and the end of What We Do in Shadows , Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Al discuss the many vampire shows and films all the way back to Bram Stoker's 1897 novel. For more, visit prettymuchpop.com . Hear this ad-free with bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel . Sponsors: Get 10% off...

Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. We continue on the introduction to Marx's Grundrisse , going through his criticisms of prior economists who were too ahistorical and didn't understand how production, consumption, distribution and exchange hang together as a single system. Sponsor: Learn about St. John's College at sjc.edu/pel . The post Ep. 359: Karl...

Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. On the intro to Marx's Grundrisse (1857) and "Theses on Feuerbach" (1845). Why economics, and why do it the way Marx does? We see Marx argues that Feuerbach's materialism was not materialistic enough, start looking at production, consumption, distribution, and exchange as moments within a single process, and talk abou...

Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. Continuing on The Ego and Its Own , focusing now on the sections "The Owner" and "My Power." Stirner lets us know that his egoism ("ownness") is not compatible with liberal egalitarianism, which he sees as just a continuation of the Christian project of perfecting humanity. Sponsor: Learn about St. John's College at s...

Of all the great American Modernists, the poetry of Marianne Moore is perhaps the most idiosyncratic, even the most radical, of them all—no small feat in a group of friends and admirers that included Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, e. e. cummings, and HD. Moore’s preferred form was a syllabic stanza bespoke to each poetic occasion, like the unique shell of each i...

Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. On The Ego and its Own (1844), another big influence on Karl Marx and a precursor of Nietzsche, or perhaps an early Ayn Rand. Sponsor : Have up to a $100 donation to effective charities matched at GiveWell.org . The post Ep. 358: Max Stirner’s Egoism (Part One) first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy...

When the film starts, its two leads are already dead, more or less. Silent Screen legend Norma Desmond’s career is dead, and because she’s nothing more than her career, the best she can do is linger in the tomb of her former glory, hoping for a resurrection. And failed screenwriter Joe Gillis quite literally enters the film as a corpse, so, as the film’s narrator, he has no choice but to tell his...

Read more about Mark's online class that starts later this month at partiallyexaminedlife.com/class , and sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/enroll . The post Enrollment Now Open for Core Texts in Philosophy Spring 2025 first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast .

Subscribe to get this ad-free, plus numerous other Nightcap recordings of this sort and many hours of bonus content. Mark, Wes, Seth, and Dylan reflect on our past year of PEL recording, catch you up on our habits and interests, and talk about what might come next. Learn about Mark's spring Core Texts in philosophy class at partiallyexaminedlife.com/class. The post PEL ’24-’25 Transition Nightcap...