The Wes Cecil Podcast

Searching for what we already have is one of the keys, if not the key, messages of Sufism. If you are a god, what are you looking for out in the world that is not already inside of you? This and related Sufi parables remind us that what we already have is what we are looking for. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON  to get your questions answered by Wes! Plus, gain access to course materials, read...

An introduction into why we find it hard to understand Hinduism. It is not a faith based religion, there is no book, there are not many actual rules or commandments, it embraces the world in all its complexities and confusions and has no impulse towards evangelism. All in all, it is very difficult for people raised in the Judeo-Christian ethos to understand what, exactly, is going on with Hinduism...

CAPITALISM: EP. 9 I argue that one of the problems we face today is simply confusion. We understand the ills of global capitalism, we are cynical about it, and we are perhaps even trying to be exploitative in response. However, none of this is really an answer to or alternative that addresses the core problems introduced by capitalism. Without new standards, whether borrowed from the past or creat...

The "sound of one hand clapping" is a famous, now seemingly trite and often ridiculed, Zen Koan that is quite profound. The Koan asks to pause and reflect on how much of our world is filled by ghosts of our own creation that have little or no actual relation to the world. A simple, powerful and difficult Koan. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON  to get your questions answered by Wes! Plus, gain a...

The concept of Digital Nomadism misrepresents both the concept of digital and of nomad. By confusing these concepts a narrative is created that argues for a mode of life that is exploitative of others and generally injurious for those who attempt to pursue this path. I argue that the whole concept reveals our deep confusion about how technology shapes our lives and often damages the quality of our...

CAPITALISM: EP. 8 We reach the end of the narrative arc for the Neo-Liberal global order only to discover we have no idea what comes next. The nearly alien nature of the modern corporation combined with global events of the last 15 years have unmoored our old assumptions but provided little or no guidance for what comes next. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON  to get your questions answered by W...

A selection from the Mahabharata that presents a completely different relationship between man and the gods than is generally present in the western world. It also expresses the deep Hindu belief in the endless cycle of living and learning that encompasses even the gods. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON  to get your questions answered by Wes! Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists...

No, we’re not becoming dumber. However, because of the incentives of the few major companies that have a disproportionate impact on how content is exposed to us, what we encounter IS remarkably awful. This is driven, unsurprisingly, by a drive to maximize profit by exploiting the young and uneducated. Hence, we are exposed to what is likely to appeal not to the dumb, but to the inexperienced, uned...

CAPITALISM: EP. 7 The new entity created with the rise of the corporation was created under an old set of values and philosophies that had no precedent for thinking about what was coming with the rise of the multinational corporation. The old, intuitive models of human relations took generations to fade leaving us in uncharted territory as we tried to understand and respond to the power that had b...

This classic Zen tale asks us to consider the nature or our attachments and how what we carry in our minds is as important - perhaps even more important - than the experiences we have. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON  to get your questions answered by Wes! Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted o...

No Left Wing! In many of my conversations with folks here in France I realize that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the political spectrum in the US and this lecture is a brief reflection on the utter absence of a Liberal or Left wing party as it would be understood in much of Europe and many other Democracies as well. Indeed, I think many Americans are confused by this as well. Sign-up...

CAPITALISM: EP. 6 We have met Capitalism and it is US. The co-evolution of modern conceptions of the individual and capitalism makes it difficult for us to recognize or act on values outside the Capitalist mindset. We tend to evaluate almost everything in terms of financial returns, investments, costs, rewards etc. and imagine our buying and participation in the economy is the fundamental mode of...

From Being and Time, this example highlights the very different ways we relate to objects in the physical world. We rarely reflect on how we interact with physical objects and how they impact our experience of the world but, indeed, there are radically different modes of being that come into play in our interactions with objects like hammers. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON  to get your questi...

READ ALONG SERIES - KANT'S "PROLEGOMENA" So why would a governor of a Russian enclave denounce Kant 200+ years later? Kant’s undercutting of metaphysics fundamentally questions all of the assumptions necessary for a tyrant like Putin to justify his brutal war in Ukraine. Notions like ‘Greater Russia’ a ‘Common People’ a ‘Shared Vision of Civilization’ ‘A Divine Mission’ are all so much metaphysica...

CAPITALISM: EP. 5 When this new concept of man and new structure of political relations is let loose on the North American continent history starts to be rewritten. While the history and social norms of ancient societies resisted the transformations pressed for by these new forms, having eliminated the ancient societies in the Americas, the forces of Capitalism were given an opportunity for unrest...

In this tale, originally from the work of Chuang Tzu, a simple problem illustrates two different kind of thinking errors we make in day to day life and how Taoism seeks to help us avoid them. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON  to get your questions answered by Wes! Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  H...

READ ALONG SERIES - KANT'S "PROLEGOMENA" Having moved on from Empiricism and Idealism, Kant now undercut the foundations of Metaphysics by putting strict limits on the power of its insights while simultaneously establishing that metaphysics is, nonetheless, the best we can do in the way of thinking. He completes his run through the foundations of philosophical history much like Napoleon smashing t...

CAPITALISM: EP. 4 The birth of the Dutch East India Company in 1602 is a watershed moment in the history of capitalism. A new power is brought into the world that the Dutch political powers used to create wealth and compete with their neighbors. However, this company also had many unintended consequences that we are still living with today. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON  to get your question...

In a very simplified version of the famous Yaksha parable from the Mahabharata, we encounter the strangely rich and human nature of Hindu stories. In the original, there are something like 30 different questions so I have just mentioned a few of them here. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON  to get your questions answered by Wes! Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, bonus lecture...

READ ALONG SERIES - KANT'S "PROLEGOMENA" So we now get to the point Kant has been angling towards the whole time. What do we gain from all of this thinking for metaphysics? Answer, we gain insight into the entire possible range of human understanding - only granting that the range is quite limited. He begins his argument by refuting the two major approaches to science and thinking generally preval...

CAPITALISM: EP. 3 The need for revenue and the fracturing of the European social order that accompanied the Reformation led to the slow development of a new vision of the individual and of trade and markets that launched the capitalist world as we know it today. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON  to get your questions answered by Wes! Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, bonus l...

One of the great moments of human compassion and expressions of the utter waste of war. While Achilles is often raised as the symbol of the ultimate warrior, here he weeps and acknowledges the pointlessness and painfulness of war. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON  to get your questions answered by Wes! Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diarie...

READ ALONG SERIES - KANT'S "PROLEGOMENA" It turns out that Science is possible! That is the good news. The bad news is that what science actually tells us is not what we might hope. The limits of empiricism and logic are explored and the foundations of what gives science its power to analyze the world is completely re-defined in this section of the prolegomena.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com...

CAPITALISM: EP. 2 As a Political Philosophy Capitalism contains a theory of the individual that includes the idea of natural rights - most importantly the right to private property. However, in practice, what this amounts to is the inalienable right to sell yourself into the marketplace, an opportunity resisted by people for centuries. It is the double step of creating a private space, and th...

READ ALONG SERIES - KANT'S "PROLEGOMENA" As we dive into the foundations of natural science, I pause for a moment to consider the power of Kant’s argument relative to the foundations of mathematics. His arguments have proven pretty much correct relative to the foundations of mathematics as accepted today and so I think we should pay special attention to how he understands the foundations of the na...