The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

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Episode 199: Guest Elizabeth Anderson on Private Government (Part One) Sep 17, 2018

Show notes

The U. of Michigan prof joins us to discuss Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don't Talk about It) (2017) and "What Is the Point of Equality?" (1999).

What is a government? Liz argues that this includes companies, and that we should thus apply political science concepts in evaluating their power. Her egalitarianism involves everyone retaining a minimum level of inalienable autonomy, and we should resist encroachments on this not just by the state but from employers as well.

Continue on parts two and three, or get them together via the ad-free Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!

PREMIUM-Ep 198 Plato's "Parmenides" (Part Three) Sep 13, 2018

Show notes

Mark and Seth continue our conversation from ep. 198 by going through the arguments in the second half of the dialogue.

This puzzling section is largely a monologue by the character Parmenides, with the stated aim of showing the implications from first, the assumption that the One exists, and then that the One does not exist. But is this really Parmenides's One or the Platonic Form of Oneness? Can these be the same thing?

Episode 198: Plato's Forms in the "Parmenides" (Part Two) Sep 10, 2018

Show notes

We get down to the specific questions considered this perplexing Platonic dialogue: Are there forms for all adjectives? Does the form of a property itself have that property? How do Forms connect with particulars? How can we mortals have any connection to heavenly Forms anyway?

Listen to part one first or get the full, ad-free Citizen Edition along with the follow-up episode. Please support PEL!

End song: "Young and Lovely" by Jherek Bischoff. Hear him on Nakedly Examined Music #65.

Episode 198: Plato's Forms in the "Parmenides" (Part One) Sep 03, 2018

Show notes

On the most peculiar Platonic dialogue, from ca. 350 BCE. Are properties real things in the world, or just in the mind?

Plato is known for claiming that these "Forms" are real, though otherworldly. Here, though, using Parmenides as a character talking to a young Socrates, Plato seems to provide objections here to his own theory. What's the deal?

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Bonus: (sub)Text #3: Spielberg's "AI: Artificial Intelligence": What Is It to Be Human? (Part One) Sep 02, 2018

Show notes

Wes discusses the film by Steven Spielberg with philosophy professor David Kyle Johnson. What is there to fear in artificial intelligence? How does this shed light on what it means to be fully human?

Note: Part two will NOT be appearing on this feed. Become a PEL Citizen to get the full discussion. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to learn how.

Episode 197: Parmenides on What There Is (Part Two) Aug 27, 2018

Show notes

Continuing with guest Peter Adamson with "On Nature" (475 BCE).

We finally get to fragment 8, which describes why Being must be singular and eternal, given that the notion of Non-Being is nonsense. But how could we as individuals be asking these questions then? Does his "Way of Seeming" work to explain the appearances, as opposed to reality?

Listen to part one first, or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!

End song: "Circle" by Gareth Mitchell, as discussed on Nakedly Examined Music #4.

Episode 197: Parmenides on What There Is (Part One) Aug 20, 2018

Show notes

On the fragments referred to as "On Nature" from ca. 475 BCE, featuring guest Peter Adamson from the History of Philosophy without Any Gaps podcast.

Parmenides gives "the Way of Truth," which is that there is only Being, and talking of Non-Being is nonsense. So everything you experience is wrong!

Continue on part two or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!

Episode 196: Guest Simon Blackburn on Truth (Part Two) Aug 13, 2018

Show notes

Continuing with Simon on his book On Truth (2018).

We move to part two of the book, where we get down to the procedures used to obtain truth in art, ethics, and science. Yes, truth is objective, but it's not best described as correspondence, and in fact this elaboration of how truth is actually obtained is more enlightening than any abstract definition meant to cover all the different types of truth-seeking.

Listen to part one first, or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition, and also Wes's bonus conversation on Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five.

End song: "with you/for you" from the new cold/mess EP by Prateek Kuhad, interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #79.

Episode 196: Guest Simon Blackburn on Truth (Part One) Aug 06, 2018

Show notes

The Cambridge/etc. prof joins Mark, Wes, and Dylan to discuss his book On Truth (2018).

What is truth? Simon's view synthesizes deflationism and pragmatism to avoid relativism by fixing on the domain-specific procedures we actually engage in to establish the truth of a claim, whether in ethics, science, art, or whatever. A gift of clarity after two episodes threshing through the jungles of analytic philosophy!

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Episode 195: Truth-The Austin/Strawson Debate (Part Two) Jul 30, 2018

Show notes

Continuing on "Truth" by J.L. Austin and "Truth" by P.F. Strawson both from 1950.

We proceed to the Strawson article, which critiques the notion of a "fact" as explaining why a sentence might be true. A "fact" is not a thing in the world! So what do we add when we change "The cat is on the mat" to "'The cat is on the mat' is true?"

Listen to Part One first, or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!

End song: "Troof" by Shawn Phillips, as interviewed for Nakedly Examined Music #77.

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