The Wes Cecil Podcast

The History of Philosophy in 16 Questions - Q16: Nihilism?Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. It is often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence. A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy. Structuralism: The term ‘structuralism’ can be applied to any analysis that emphasizes structures and relations, but it usually designates a twentieth-century European (especially French) school of thought that applies the methods of structural linguistics to the study of social and cultural phenomena. Starting from the insight that social and cultural phenomena are not physical objects and events but objects and events with meaning, and that their signification must therefore be a focus of analysis, structuralists reject causal analysis and any attempt to explain social and cultural phenomena one-by-one. Rather, they focus on the internal structure of cultural objects and, more importantly, the underlying structures that make them possible.Existentialism: Sartre's slogan—“existence precedes essence”—may serve to introduce what is most distinctive of existentialism, namely, the idea that no general, non-formal account of what it means to be human can be given, since that meaning is decided in and through existing itself.Marxism: "The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals. Thus the first fact to be established is the physical organisation of these individuals and their consequent relation to the rest of nature." Marx FeuerbachSign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, peer discussions, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dive into the unsettling shifts brought by late capitalism, where societal change feels like an invisible revolution. Explore how financialization has seeped into everyday life, altering education and culture into mere transactions. Discover the impact on historical consciousness and why imagining alternatives feels nearly impossible. Wes dissects the superficiality and fragmentation of cultural experiences, ultimately framing homelessness as a symptom of deeper systemic failures. Brace yourself for a thought-provoking look at modern existence and its bewildering complexities.

A reflection on the relative nature of Reading vs TV and the peculiarities of both mediums. Indeed, given how much time we spend engaged in watching various kinds of media, I think it is a bit shocking how little time we spend reflecting on the nature of the media and how it impacts us. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, peer discussions, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The History of Philosophy in 16 Questions - Q15: Truth?Principia MathematicaThe aim of the book is to set a limit to thought, or rather — not to thought, but to the expression of thoughts: for in order to be able to set a limit to thought, we should have to find both sides of the limit thinkable (i.e. we should have to be able to think what cannot be thought).It will therefore only be in language that the limit can be set, and what lies on the other side of the limit will simply be nonsense. Wittgenstein TractusIn the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavat Geeta, since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial; and I doubt if that philosophy is not to be referred to a previous state of existence, so remote is its sublimity from our conceptions. I lay down the book and go to my well for water, and lo! there I meet the servant of the Brahmin, priest of Brahma, and Vishnu and Indra, who still sits in his temple on the Ganges reading the Vedas, or dwells at the root of a tree with his crust and water-jug. I meet his servant come to draw water for his master, and our buckets as it were grate together in the same well. The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges. Thoreau WaldenOnce it's been proved to you that you're descended from an ape, it's no use pulling a face; just accept it. Once they've proved to you that a single droplet of your own fat must be dearer to you than a hundred thousand of your fellow human beings and consequently that all so-called virtues and duties are nothing but ravings and prejudices, then accept that too, because there's nothing to be done. Dostoyevsky Notes from the Underground1893 World Parliament of Religion in ChicagoReligious leaders from all over the world from dozens of different faith groups gathered to discuss religious and philosophical concepts. Under the Next Week: "Is This Nihilism?"Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, peer discussions, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The accumulated gap between our environment and our needs as primates have grown increasingly large over the last 100 years. As a result virtually every measure of health and well being have become shockingly negative. Yet we have little sense of why or what is happening because the systemic issues we face are difficult to identify in the sea of changes we experience in the world since the industrial revolution.Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, peer discussions, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We continually tell ourselves stories about every aspect of our lives. Taking a little time to reflect on the stories we tell ourselves is often quite revelatory about how our thinking is directed and limited. Likely it is impossible for humans to live without a rich life filled with stories, but the stories are often under our control to a remarkable degree.Image attribution: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, peer discussions, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Explore the evolution of science as Wes discusses how industrial structures shaped empirical understanding. Delve into Francis Bacon's ideas on experimental knowledge and the tension between functional truth and traditional authority. Learn about the impact of technological advancements like Watt’s steam engine and Perkins’ mauve dye on the R&D landscape. The podcast examines how science adapts through markets and cultural shifts, illustrating that empirical testing can replace outdated authorities. Finally, witness the ongoing influence of empirical thought in modern policy and innovation.

While the industrial revolution is widely recognized as a turning point in human history, less well appreciated is why it has been so influential. Each of the developments were undoubtedly important, however I argue it has been the rate of change that has had a greater impact than any particular change. As primates we are simply incapable of adapting as quickly as we have been presented with change and the stress is definitely showing.  Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, peer discussions, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two famous works that critiqued the Moral structure of turn of the century French society did so in entirely different ways. While Gide is more known for his critique, I argue Proust’s critique is far, far more important and powerful. Both authors are worth reading, however, it is Proust who forces us to join him in his reconsideration of whether we are aware of the fact or not.Image attributions: See page for author, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia CommonsSign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, peer discussions, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The History of Philosophy in 16 Questions - Q13: Enlightened?We can see from this that the sovereign power, absolute, sacred and inviolable as it is, does not and cannot exceed the limits of general conventions, and that every man may dispose at will of such goods and liberty as these conventions leave him; so that the Sovereign never has a right to lay more charges on one subject than on another, because, in that case, the question becomes particular, and ceases to be within its competency. Rousseau Social ContractWhen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.Once your faith, sir, persuades you to believe what your intelligence declares to be absurd, beware lest you likewise sacrifice your reason in the conduct of your life. In days gone by, there were people who said to us: "You believe in incomprehensible, contradictory and impossible things because we have commanded you to; now then, commit unjust acts because we likewise order you to do so." Nothing could be more convincing. Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices. If you do not use the intelligence with which God endowed your mind to resist believing impossibilities, you will not be able to use the sense of injustice which God planted in your heart to resist a command to do evil. Once a single faculty of your soul has been tyrannized, all the other faculties will submit to the same fate. This has been the cause of all the religious crimes that have flooded the earth. Voltaire Question of Miraclesadmit no more causes of natural things than are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances,to the same natural effect, assign the same causes,qualities of bodies, which are found to belong to all bodies within experiments, are to be esteemed universal, andpropositions collected from observation of phenomena should be viewed as accurate or very nearly true until contradicted by other phenomena. Newton Principia (third edition?)Next Week: "What is this Science Thing?"Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, peer discussions, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.