The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
Mark Linsenmayer, Wes Alwan, Seth Paskin, Dylan Casey
The Partially Examined Life is a podcast by some guys who were at one point set on doing philosophy for a living but then thought better of it. Each episode, we pick a short text and chat about it with some balance between insight and flippancy. You don't have to know any philosophy, or even to have read the text we're talking about to (mostly) follow and (hopefully) enjoy the discussion. For links to the texts we discuss and other info, check out www.partiallyexaminedlife.com.
We also feature episodes from other podcasts by our hosts to round out your partially examined life, including Pretty Much Pop (prettymuchpop.com, covering all media), Nakedly Examined Music (nakedlyexaminedmusic.com, deconstructing songs), Philosophy vs. Improv (philosophyimprov.com, fun with performance skills and philosophical ideas), and (sub)Text (subtextpodcast.com, looking deeply at lit and film). Learn about more network podcasts at partiallyexaminedlife.com.
We also feature episodes from other podcasts by our hosts to round out your partially examined life, including Pretty Much Pop (prettymuchpop.com, covering all media), Nakedly Examined Music (nakedlyexaminedmusic.com, deconstructing songs), Philosophy vs. Improv (philosophyimprov.com, fun with performance skills and philosophical ideas), and (sub)Text (subtextpodcast.com, looking deeply at lit and film). Learn about more network podcasts at partiallyexaminedlife.com.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Jul 19, 2021 • 46min
Ep. 274: Schelling on Self-Consciousness (Part One)
On Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling’s System of Transcendental Idealism (1800), Parts 1 and 2. What is self-consciousness, and how did Schelling think that it grounds all of knowledge? Part two of this episode is only going to be available to you if you sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support. Get it now or listen to a preview.
Jul 12, 2021 • 10min
PREMIUM-Ep. 273: Friedrich Schelling's Foundationalist Idealism (Part Two)
Continuing on the Introduction to Friedrich Schelling's System of Transcendental Idealism (1800), focusing on the harmony between mind and world and imputing intelligence to nature. To hear the full second part, you'll need to go sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support.
Jul 5, 2021 • 49min
Ep. 273: Friedrich Schelling's Foundationalist Idealism (Part One)
On Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling’s System of Transcendental Idealism (1800). What's the relationship between mind and world? Schelling thought that our minds produce the world, but also that the perceiver-world dichotomy comes to us as a single piece. "Transcendental philosophy" is an exploration of the internal logic of that revelation. Part two of this episode is only going to be available to you if you sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support. Get it now or listen to a preview.
Jun 28, 2021 • 9min
PREMIUM-Ep. 272: Fichte's Idealist Theology (Part Two)
Continuing on The Vocation of Man (1799), Book II. We focus on how ethics fits in with Fichte's epistemology in a unified theology with humans literally united (in this world or the next) in a shared, divine Will. To hear the full second part, you'll need to go sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support.
Jun 21, 2021 • 56min
Ep. 272: Fichte's Idealist Theology (Part One)
Our second full discussion on The Vocation of Man (1799). What are the ethical implications of believing that the world is all in our minds? You could be a solipsistic nihilist, but Fichte thinks the path of faith is unavoidable for a reasonable person: faith that the world is real and matters, that other people have moral status, and yes, he's going to argue for God and heaven, though unconventionally. Part two of this episode is only going to be available to you if you sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support. Get it now or listen to a preview.
Jun 14, 2021 • 10min
PREMIUM-Ep. 271: Johan Gottlieb Fichte's Transcendental Idealism (Part Two)
Continuing on The Vocation of Man (1799), Book II. In this preview, we clarify whether Fichte is trying to keep the notion of a "real world" beyond our experience or not. It's part of the progression of the text that while at first he assumes that there must be something real behind this experienced world we as individuals create, he gives up that notion in the middle of Book II. So how does he get to his startling reversal? To hear that full second part, you'll need to go sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support.
Jun 7, 2021 • 51min
Ep. 271: Johan Gottlieb Fichte's Transcendental Idealism (Part One)
On The Vocation of Man (1799), Books I and II. What is reality? Fichte's armchair journey starts him considering nature and thus himself as determined, but then he backtracks to say that actually, experience doesn't tell us whether we're determined or free. In Book II, he argues that since our experience is always of something going on in ourselves, then causality, the external world, the self, etc. must be our own mental creations. So we're free after all, yet everything is drained of significance! Part two of this episode is only going to be available to you if you sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support. Get it now or listen to a preview.
May 31, 2021 • 11min
PREMIUM-Ep. 270: Classical Indian (Vedanta and Nyaya) Design Arguments for God (Part Two)
Continuing (without Stephen Phillips) on God and the World’s Arrangement: Readings from Vedanta and Nyaya Philosophy of Religion. What does this treatment give us that's fundamentally different than the Western version of the design argument? We talk about these readings in the context of liberation and reflect on reason vs. revelation in this milieu. To hear that full second part, you'll need to go sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support.
May 24, 2021 • 59min
Ep. 270: Classical Indian (Vedanta and Nyaya) Design Arguments for God w/ Stephen Phillips (Part One)
On God and the World's Arrangement: Readings from Vedanta and Nyaya Philosophy of Religion with one of its translators, Stephen Phillips. Does nature require an intelligent designer? Śaṅkara (710 CE) and Vācaspati Miśra (960 CE), commenting on the Brahma-sūtra (ca. 200 CE) and Nyāya-sūtra (ca. 200 BCE), argue that it does against atheistic Buddhists, Sāṃkhya believers in a primordial matter that acts on its own, and the Mīmāṃsā conservatives who so venerated scripture that they ruled out a God who created it. But if we're all Brahman (God), just trying to discover that we are and so escape the cycle of rebirth, then where is there room for a particular deity who created us? Part two of this episode is only going to be available to you if you sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support. Get it now or listen to a preview.
May 17, 2021 • 11min
PREMIUM-Ep. 269: Arendt on Totalitarianism (Part Two)
Continuing on two of Hannah Arendt's 1953 essays on totalitarianism. We further discuss its logic and in the full episode get into its relevance for contemporary political movements. To hear that full second part, you'll need to go sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support. Sponsor: See headspace.com/PEL for a free month's access to a library of guided meditations. Try The Class X Podcast on Spotify or Apple, or look it up wherever you listen.
