philosophy

Discussing Camus’s “An Absurd Reasoning” and ”The Myth of Sisyphus” (1942).

Does our eventual death mean that life has no meaning and we might as well end it all?  Camus starts to address this question, then gets distracted and talks about a bunch of phenomenologists until he dies unreconciled.  Also, let’s all push a rock up a hill and like it, okay?  Plus, the fellas dwell on genius and throw down re. the Beatles, the beloved Robert C. Solomon and Malcom Gladwell’s Outliers.

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Camus on the Absurd - Partially Examined Life

Listen to this here episode first. A priori, that is. Before experiencing the world yourself.

Why should you bother to go through the trouble of downloading and listening to one of the full length episodes? Who are we anyway? Why shouldn’t you just go listen to some philosophy lectures posted by university professors instead of this thing? Do you need to listen to the episodes in order? Do you need to already know a lot about philosophy to get anything out of this podcast? Should you listen to it while pleasuring yourself? Most of these questions will be answered here!

Introduction to the Podcast - Partially Examined Life

On Karl Marx’s The German Ideology, Part I, an early, unpublished work from 1846.

What is human nature? What drives history? How can we improve our situation? Marx thought that fundamentally, you are what you do: you are your job, your means of subsistence. All the rest, this culture, this religion, this philosophy, is just a thin layer over our basic situation. Ideas are not primarily what changes the world; it’s economics. In fact, you can’t even have an idea that doesn’t end up being in some way a product of your economic situation, and any given culture inevitably reflects and reinforces the interests of the rich within that culture. Marx saw history as following an inevitable progression driven by the division of labor and development of technology, which would inevitably lead to a situation so awful for the vast majority that we’ll have no choice but revolution leading to Communist paradise.

OK, so that last part is a pretty big stretch, but some of Marx’s diagnoses seem on point: our alienation from our jobs, the fact that our opinions really do more often than not reflect our situation and are not therefore the product of a wholly free intellectual choice, the fact that a lot of philosophy ignores our practical situation to its detriment (Marx really rips into the “Young Heglians” that were dominating German thought at the time), our general lack of self-knowledge (this idea among others being lifted from Hegel), and some of his analysis of past cultural advances (mostly lifted from Adam Smith). The original threesome of Mark, Seth, and Wes are back to hack into these issues and more

Marx on Social Organization - Partially Examined Life

On Robert M. Pirsig’s philosophical, autobiographical novel from 1974.

What’s the relationship between science and values? Pirsig thinks that modern rationality, by insisting on the fundamental distinction between objects (matter) and subjects (people), labels value judgments as irrational. Society therefore largely ignores aesthetic considerations in the buildings and machines that litter our landscape.

People rebel against this ugly commercialism by rejecting technology altogether, and Pirsig thinks this is a mistake. If we realize that value judgments (where we sense “Quality”) are fundamentally a part of experience, that they drive what what we consider “rational” (e.g. a “good” scientific explanation) in the first place, then we can stop with the hippie rebellion and more sensibly and peacefully co-exist with technology. Though the book is not about historical Zen, it is about keeping centered, connected, and in the moment.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Partially Examined Life

On Ferdinand de Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics (1916) (Part I and Part II, Ch. 4), Claude Levi-Strauss’s “The Structural Study of Myth” (1955), and Jacques Derrida’s “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences” (1966).

What is language? What is the relation between language and reality? Saussure argued that a language at a given time has a structure, where you can only really understand the meaning (or “value”) of a word by contrasting it with other words. Structuralists like Levi-Strauss generalized this to all of culture, and Derrida, while rejecting the structuralist project, takes the notion of “difference” between words to uproot all meaning from any non-linguistic reality. (Probably… even our guest C. Derick Varn who’s read the Derrida essay dozens of times isn’t sure what it means.)

Structuralism - Partially Examined Life

On Carl Jung’s “Approaching the Unconscious” from Man and His Symbols, written in 1961.

What’s the structure of the mind? Jung followed Freud in positing an unconscious distinct from the conscious ego, but Jung’s picture has the unconscious much more stuffed full of all sorts of stuff from who knows where, including instincts (the archetypes) that tend to give rise to behavior and dream imagery that we’d have to call religious. We neglect this part of ourselves at our psychological peril, and Jung also attributes the ills of the age (like nihilism and WWII) to being out of touch with our larger, unconscious selves.

Sound like goofy pop psychology? Well, Jung’s book was written specifically for the populace, and many have run with his emphasis on spiritual self-knowledge and his openness to talk of the paranormal to conclusions less well founded than Jung would have liked. Mark, Seth, and Wes keep trying to make the text speak to other philosophical works but eventually get sidetracked and occasionally personal on this very special episode.

Jung on the Psyche and Dreams - Partially Examined Life

On Henry David Thoreau’s Walden (1854).

What is the appropriate life for a truly thoughtful person? Thoreau warns against getting ensnared by social bullshit like jobs and charity, and instead living simply, in direct contact with nature, relying as much as possible only on your own effort. His time in the woods on Walden pond was meant to be an experiment to see what life lived this way really has to offer.

Mark, Wes, and Dylan argue about how to best take Thoreau’s brand of opinionating, and what the ethical upshot of the attempt to live naturally is supposed to be. Read more about the topic and get the book.

End song: “Green Song” by Mark Linsenmayer, originally released on The MayTricks (1992), newly remixed.

Thoreau on Living Deliberately

On Sigmund Freud's On Dreams (1902), a bit of The Interpretation of Dreams (1899), and the lecture, “Revision of the Theory of Dreams” (1933).

Are dreams just a bunch of random crap? Freud says, no, they're actually the first and best way to figure out the structure of the mind, which (surprise) involves the unconscious and how repressed, anti-social desires get (sort of) revealed to us, albeit smashed together through chains of association with what seems like random crap.

How can Freud support such a view? Is it science? What are its implications for our capacity to philosophize? Mark, Wes, Seth, and Dylan are here to sort of hint at telling you, but in a repressed sort of way. Read more about the topic and get the texts. Sign up to attend the Aftershow on Sun., 6/7, 3pm Eastern.

Freud on Dreams (Part 1)

Continuing our discussion of Sigmund Freud's On Dreams (1902) and related works. Listen to Part One first:

https://soundcloud.com/partially-examined-life/freud-on-dreams

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End song: "Sleep" by Mark Lint. 

Freud on Dreams (Part 2)

On the Manual of Epictetus, aka The Enchiridion, from around 135 CE.

What's a wise strategy for life? What is freedom? Stoicism says that the secret is mastering yourself. If you let yourself be perturbed by things that happen to you, then you're a slave to those external things. Your good lies only in the things you can (with practice) control, i.e., your own attitudes, judgments, and opinions. Even a slave can be free, according to this strategy: Nothing external can break your spirit unless you let it.

The full four are joined by comedian Alex Fossella of the Modern Day Philosophers podcast to argue about how weird and misguided Epictetus's advice actually is.

The Stoic Life with Epictetus (Part One)

More on the Manual of Epictetus, aka The Enchiridion, from around 135 CE.

In this part we discuss more about Epictetus's directives, including making your will "conformable to nature," different levels of Stoic expertise, the connection between controlling your emotions and seeing truth, what exactly about our mentality we're supposed to be able to control, personal integrity, how to deal with other people, how not to be a snooty philosopher, and how to behave at parties. Listen to part one first or get the racier, unchopped Citizen Edition.

The Stoic Life with Epictetus (Part Two)

On The Human Condition (1958), Prologue and Sections 1 and 2.

How has our distinction between the private and public evolved over time? Arendt uses this history, and chiefly the differences between our time and ancient Athens, to launch a critique of modern society. In thinking about public, practical necessities like the economy, we've lost sight of the distinction between labor (what we need to do to sustain ourselves), work (the creation of things that will last longer than our lifespan), and political action (which needs to involve a real dialogue among equals, not the rote party posturing driven by economic interests that we have now).

We've become a society of laborers, defining ourselves in terms of our jobs and looking at politics as chiefly tasked with economic administration, which is kind of like national housekeeping. ""The social"" has erased the distinction between public and private realms, crushing us with its demands for conformity and leaving the private realm as merely ""the intimate."" We need both robust political engagement and a space for deep, private contemplation in order to live fully and avoid catastrophic political blunders (e.g., creating technologies that will destroy us).

The fab four conducted this podcast live at the Pittsburgh Continental Philosophy Conference.

Hannah Arendt on the Private and Political (Part One)

Continuing on The Human Condition (1958), focusing on the rise of "the social," how that erodes the private sphere (unless you post it on Facebook, it's not real!), yet leads to feelings of loneliness and meaninglessness.

The audience at this live Pittsburgh event (with a notable lack of input from people watching from around the world on the live feed!) then joins us in the latter of this release to help us try to figure out what Arendt's positive picture is (including conference headliner Fred Evans). What sort of "great deeds" does she have in mind for the political sphere? Where does philosophy fit into this picture of the public and private? Can one of us eventually pronounce "vita contemplativa" correctly?

Hannah Arendt on the Human Condition (Part Two)

On selected "moral epistles" (from around 65 CE) by Lucius Annaeus Seneca: 4. On the Terrors of Death, 12. On Old Age, 49. On the Shortness of Life, 59. On Pleasure and Joy, 62. On Good Company, 92. On the Happy Life, 96. On Facing Hardship, and 116. On Self Control. We're joined by Massimo Pigliucci of the How to Be a Stoic blog, who for a long time was on the Rationally Speaking podcast.

Back in ep. 124 we considered the Stoic Epictetus, but due to audience demand, we wanted a second and a third opinion: Seneca, unlike Epictetus, explicitly advocated a public life, and seemed to have less problem with deep friendships and other sorts of attachments, so long as these things are kept in perspective. Unfortunately, Seneca is very light on actual justifications for this perspective, and apparently sees knowing the ultimate truths of existence as a fairly simple matter, the trick being to really internalize these truths and let them guide your actions, especially when tragedy strikes. Life is a battle, says Seneca, and it's really better for us that it is, as a life without challenge would be a life without meaning.

Massimo, along with Tad Brennan's The Stoic Life: Emotions, Duties, and Fate (2007), provided a reality check for all of this, helping us to interpret the text charitably and see how ancient Stoic writings are integrated into modern practice. The key is that the only thing ultimately important is your own virtue, which is all you have control over. Other things can and should be "preferred," but aren't granted the status of moral goods. When you work hard toward a goal, it's not the goal that's good, but the working itself.

Massimo and Dylan read from this new translation: Letters on Ethics: To Lucilius (The Complete Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca), while Mark and Wes read this electronic version: Delphi Complete Works of Seneca the Younger, though during the recording we were reading some of these from Selected Letters (Oxford World's Classics), which you can read on the web.

Don't wait for part 2, get the Citizen Edition now by signing up with a $5 recurring donation. This will also enable you to participate in the Aftershow for eps. 131/132 on Aristotle's De Anima, taking place on Sunday, 1/31 at 6pm Eastern. Sign up here.

If you take the plunge and start a $50/year membership, we'll send you a coupon for $20 off our 2016 wall calendar, meaning that you'll pay only shipping! Everyone can still get a PEL Calendar for $5 off if you use the code "calendar5" at checkout. Get it at partiallyexaminedlife.com/store.

Living Stoically with Seneca and Massimo (Part One)

Continuing with Massimo Pigliucci on selected "moral epistles" by Seneca: 4. On the Terrors of Death, 12. On Old Age, 49. On the Shortness of Life, 59. On Pleasure and Joy, 62. On Good Company, 92. On the Happy Life, 96. On Facing Hardship, and 116. On Self Control.

With the preliminaries out of the way, we really get into the essays to see what Seneca has to say about love and other emotions, facing loss and other hardships, fear of death, desire, pursuing your goals, keeping company with ancient sages, and wearing nice clothes. Seneca, like Fritz Beer, thinks we're on a leash. All you have to do to be happy is have "a complete view of truth!" That's all!

Listen to part one first, or get the Citizen edition. Please support PEL!

End song: "I Lose Control" by The MayTricks from So Chewy! (1993), which you can listen to in full.

Living Stoically with Seneca and Massimo (Part Two)

A Valentine's Day special topic! What is love, really? This psychoanalyst of the Frankfurt school thinks that real love is not something one ""falls"" into, but is an art, an activity, and doing it well requires a disciplined openness and psychological health. Love is the answer to the deep human need to rid ourselves of isolation, but a mere sexual union won't provide real intimacy. To connect the center of your being with the center of another's being, you need to really know yourself and know the other, and this knowing requires an overall openness that amounts to a love of humanity, a feeling of oneness with nature, and an overall orientation toward the good, which is what he considers a mature take on ""love of God,"" which doesn't imply, e.g., a belief in a judging deity, which would be a mature imposition into nature of insecurities about the conditional love of one's father.

So yes, this is replete with psychoanalytic weirdness (and without any clinical basis presented), and very much reflects its time (prurient, sexist, homophobic), but Fromm also puts forward a Marxist social commentary that's very much in line with our New Work and Hannah Arendt episodes, i.e., we need to remake society into the kind of place where loving can be the rule and not the exception, as our current society steers us to treat others and ourselves like commodities to be used, and romantic love as likewise trying to score the best deal, find the best love object and make yourself the most desirable (attractive, successful), none of which adds up to intimacy. Oh, and also, stop watching so much TV!

This recording features the core four: Mark, Seth, Wes, and Dylan.

Recommended prerequisites: Ep. 26 on Freud's Civilization and its Discontents, Ep. 100 on Plato's Symposium. We've also discussed this issue of others' recognition of you on many episodes starting with Ep. 36 on Hegel, but perhaps the clearest statement, most relevant to this episode is Ep. 71 on Martin Buber.

Erich Fromm on Love as an Art (Part One)

Continuing on Fromm's The Art of Loving (1956).

In this second half of our discussion, we talk about love as requiring knowledge: as "knowing the secret" of humanity or at least being interested. This is related to sadism. Is there a difference between motherly and fatherly love? Fromm thinks so. He also talks about different degrees of maturity in one's belief in God, the best being like Spinoza's, where God is not an entity, but is the equivalent to the world and love of God is love of humanity, i.e., general orientation toward the good. Finally, we get Fromm's social recommendations: How could we reform society's structures and norms so that healthy love as he's describing it can be the norm instead of the purview of only those rebellious enough to reject the consumerist outlook? Hint: He likes Marx, though he argues that no allegedly Marxist actual state comes anywhere close to what Marx was after in terms of letting people live free, unalienated, fulfilling lives.

Listen to part 1 first or get the ad-free Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!

End songs: "Kimmy" (recorded 1995), from Mark Lint's Black Jelly Beans & Smokes. Listen to the album free. Also its sequel, "Kimmy 2002 (Mommy)."

Erich Fromm on Love as an Art (Part Two)

On Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1967) and the films Blade Runner 2049 (2007) and Blade Runner (1982).

What makes us human? Dick's novel about androids emphasized their lack of empathy, while the movie adaptations portrayed the "replicants" as plenty capable of emotion, but unjustly treated as servants or targets.

Attention: The second half of this special bonus episode is available only to supporters. You should go ahead and get the full, ad-free Citizen Edition. You can also hear it with a $1 or more pledge at patreon.com/partiallyexaminedlife.

All of these works are about a demonized "other" that is similar to humans but not granted "personhood." A bounty hunter ("blade runner," the term used for the movie, was actually taken from an unrelated book) kills these outlaws and is supposed to feel no remorse. But what if he's an android himself? What if he doesn't know he's an android? Or what if he's attracted to the android? What if he finds himself feeling empathy for androids? What if he is assigned to kill an android that looks just like the one he just had sex with? What if he's an android in love with a programmed hologram girl who has sex with another android that the hologram girl is (nearly) synchronizing her motions with? Dark humor and/or long, slow visual effect shots set to atmospheric music is what!

One of the more interesting features of the book is the religion, Mercerism, that involves a) status and ritual attached to taking care of an animal (which are hard to obtain, as most were wiped out in World War Terminus), and b) having a technologically induced multi-users-feeling-each-other online trip up a Christlike Sisyphus's mountain. Both of these things are supposed to embody this ethic of empathy, but they may be more like social control à la 1984 lite. Or maybe not: the ubiquitous TV host "Buster Friendly" who best conveys the spectacle ends up being an android who has it out for Mercerism. Mercer himself (the guy climbing the hill with whom the people bond in the ritual) is both a self-admitted phony and an authentic divine intervenor as he appears to two characters at key moments in the book.

As is often the case with thoughtful fiction, there's a tangled mass of themes thrown out there and not explored in any systematic philosophical way (in the book and the films), and you get the feeling that key philosophical questions are simply being written as answered according to how the author happens to devise the details of the situation. For example, there's no real reflection on the question of whether machines can actually think or self-reflect; they're simply given as fulfilling all the normal qualities of personhood apart from some emotional abnormalities. They're even made of biological material (so Searle should be OK with them thinking). So the question is just, are humans justified in treating them poorly, given that many of those humans themselves act without empathy, without appropriate affect, without truly authentic motivations or an independently achieved real appreciation of life? Clearly, the answer is "no," but luckily there are more interesting things going on in the book and films beyond this simple implication of the depicted conception of humanity.

Buy the book or try this online version. If you've never seen Blade Runner, watch the climactic scene featuring replicant Roy Batty's goofy monologue. Also, here are the excised monologues. Here's a clip from the new film.

End song: "Wounds and Nihilism (Quantum Androids)," written for this episode by Tyler Hislop (feat. Mark Lint). Listen to Tyler on Nakedly Examined Music #24.

Dick pic by Olle Halvars.

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