History of Philosophy Audio Archive

Judith Herman wrote an incredible book called "Trauma and Recovery" which I would wholeheartedly recommend to everyone. Advisory: Discusses incest, sexual assault, and PTSD. --- The original video can be found here: https://youtu.be/USTKmffoQms?si=mikorNz7weMjdNpu My thanks to University of California television for providing and maintaining this recording which was first recorded in March 2002. As always these talks are syndicated for educational and nonprofit purposes in accordance with Fair Use. They are produced ad-free, because I listen to my own stuff on here and like you, I hate ads. They are free, as in libre, and free as in “beer”. These recordings have been remastered for clarity, ease of listening, and concision and have been downmixed to mono so that they are lighter and easier to stream, wherever you are.  Furthermore my historical and philosophical writing, which is also entirely free is available at my blog, ⁠⁠⁠⁠Hemlock⁠⁠⁠⁠, on Substack. The music of the intro and outro (Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, performed by Gregor Quendel) is licensed under non-commercial attribution, and can be ⁠⁠⁠⁠found here⁠⁠⁠⁠ and has been remixed by me. Enjoy.

In this talk, Jonathan Lear reviews one of my favorite philosophers, the British virtue ethicist and founder of the Neoareatic movement Alasdair MacIntyre, whose 2016 book Ethics In the Conflicts of Modernity has been hugely influential in my own thinking about how we relate, socially and individually, to the questions about justice, beauty, goodness, and truth that run through our lives. Professor Lear is a practicing clinical psychoanalyst, moral philosopher, and First Nations scholar and advocate whose work on the Crow Nation, "Radical Hope" I strongly recommend. --- The original video can be found here, my thanks to the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame for providing and maintaining this recording which was first recorded July 25-27, 2019. As always these talks are syndicated for educational and nonprofit purposes in accordance with Fair Use. They are produced ad-free, because I listen to my own stuff on here and like you, I hate ads. They are free, as in libre, and free as in “beer”. These recordings have been remastered for clarity, ease of listening, and concision and have been downmixed to mono so that they are lighter and easier to stream, wherever you are.  Furthermore my historical and philosophical writing, which is also entirely free is available at my blog, ⁠⁠⁠⁠Hemlock⁠⁠⁠⁠, on Substack. The music of the intro and outro (Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, performed by Gregor Quendel) is licensed under non-commercial attribution, and can be ⁠⁠⁠⁠found here⁠⁠⁠⁠ and has been remixed by me. Enjoy.

On March 22, 2005, Martha Nussbaum visited the John Adams Institute to talk about Upheavals of Thought - The Intelligence of Emotions. For everybody who thinks that philosophy is a stuffy dull science, practiced by unworldly absent-minded professors: Martha Nussbaum isn’t an abstract scientist who occupies herself with the universe and metaphysics. She is in touch with daily life. The underlying assumption of her ideas is based on human emotions. According to Nussbaum emotions are no irritating uncontrollable upheavals, which we have to master at all cost, but sensible reactions to everything that really matters to us. For that reason Nussbaum is considered (as) a typical female philosopher, also because she has an open eye for commonplace things, and knows to empathize with all kind of people. The above was reproduced from a video description. --- The original video can be found here, my thanks to the John Adams Institute for American Culture in the Netherlands for providing and maintaining this recording, made in 2005. As always these talks are syndicated for educational and nonprofit purposes in accordance with Fair Use. They are produced ad-free, because I listen to my own stuff on here and like you, I hate ads. They are free, as in libre, and free as in “beer”. These recordings have been remastered for clarity, ease of listening, and concision and have been downmixed to mono so that they are lighter and easier to stream, wherever you are.  Furthermore my historical and philosophical writing, which is also entirely free is available at my blog, ⁠⁠⁠⁠Hemlock⁠⁠⁠⁠, on Substack. The music of the intro and outro (Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, performed by Gregor Quendel) is licensed under non-commercial attribution, and can be ⁠⁠⁠⁠found here⁠⁠⁠⁠ and has been remixed by me. Enjoy.

This talk describes the ethics and aesthetics of unsentimentality as practiced by some of the late twentieth-century’s most notable women artists and intellectuals. We will consider what it would mean to have an ethics without empathy even in the face of extreme suffering. Deborah Nelson's Franke Forum talk is titled “An Unsentimental Education: Arbus, Arendt, Didion, McCarthy, Sontag, Weil." Deborah Nelson is Chair and Professor in the Department of English Language & Literature and the College. Her book: Tough Enough: Arbus, Arendt, Didion, McCarthy, Sontag, and Weil won the Modern Language Association’s James Russell Lowell Prize for Best Book of 2017 and the Gordan Laing Prize in 2019 for the most distinguished contribution to the University of Chicago Press by a faculty member. The above is reproduced from the YouTube video description. The original video can be found here, my thanks to the University of Chicago, my alma mater, for providing and maintaining this recording which was first recorded in November 2017. As always these talks are syndicated for educational and nonprofit purposes in accordance with Fair Use. They are produced ad-free, because I listen to my own stuff on here and like you, I hate ads. They are free, as in libre, and free as in “beer”. These recordings have been remastered for clarity, ease of listening, and concision and have been downmixed to mono so that they are lighter and easier to stream, wherever you are. If I provide links to books, they are affiliate links, all others are not.  Furthermore my historical and philosophical writing, which is also entirely free is available at my blog, ⁠⁠⁠⁠Hemlock⁠⁠⁠⁠, on Substack. The music of the intro and outro (Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, performed by Gregor Quendel) is licensed under non-commercial attribution, and can be ⁠⁠⁠⁠found here⁠⁠⁠⁠ and has been remixed by me. Enjoy.

Chris Hedges explores the cultural, economic, and political forms of fascism that are dredged up by the political phenomenon of Donald Trump's presidency. Advisory: This presentation is graphic, and contains many detailed descriptions of violence. --- The original video can be found here, my thanks to Media Sanctuary for providing and maintaining this recording which was first recorded in November of 2017. As always these talks are syndicated for educational and nonprofit purposes in accordance with Fair Use. They are produced ad-free, because I listen to my own stuff on here and like you, I hate ads. They are free, as in libre, and free as in “beer”. These recordings have been remastered for clarity, ease of listening, and concision and have been downmixed to mono so that they are lighter and easier to stream, wherever you are.  Furthermore my historical and philosophical writing, which is also entirely free is available at my blog, ⁠⁠⁠⁠Hemlock⁠⁠⁠⁠, on Substack. The music of the intro and outro (Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, performed by Gregor Quendel) is licensed under non-commercial attribution, and can be ⁠⁠⁠⁠found here⁠⁠⁠⁠ and has been remixed by me. Enjoy.

John Searle, a leading philosopher of mind famous for his critique of machine intelligence, engages with Nick Bostrom, an AI safety expert. They dissect the nature of consciousness, rejecting fears of machines gaining self-awareness. Searle argues that machines lack the necessary semantics to possess true motivation or understanding. The conversation explores the distinctions between subjective and objective experiences, blindsight phenomena, and the complexities of visual perception. Their insights challenge contemporary misconceptions about AI and consciousness.

Ladies and Gentlemen, comrades and compadres, narcs and Feds I proudly present: the only Michael Parenti lecture in existence with good quality audio. The gentlemen requires no introduction, but the book on imperialism in the Roman Republic he mentioned in the "E. Badian" quote is none other than Roman Imperialism in the Late Republic, which was less than simple to find. Repuloaded to fix some minor audio bugs/content. The original video can be found here, my thanks to AfroMarxist on YouTube for making this presentation available. As always these talks are syndicated for educational and nonprofit purposes in accordance with Fair Use. They are produced ad-free, because I listen to my own stuff on here and like you, I hate ads. These recordings have been remastered for clarity, ease of listening, and concision and have been downmixed to mono so that they are lighter and easier to stream, wherever you are.  Furthermore my historical and philosophical writing, which is also entirely free is available at my blog, ⁠⁠⁠⁠Hemlock⁠⁠⁠⁠, on Substack. The music of the intro and outro (Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major) is licensed under non-commercial attribution, and can be ⁠⁠⁠⁠found here⁠⁠⁠⁠ and has been remixed by me. Enjoy.

“Case by case, we find that conformity is the easy way, and the path to privilege and prestige; dissidence carries personal costs that may be severe, even in a society that lacks such means of control as death squads, psychiatric prisons, or extermination camps. The very structure of the media is designed to induce conformity to established doctrine. In a three-minute stretch between commercials, or in seven hundred words, it is impossible to present unfamiliar thoughts or surprising conclusions with the argument and evidence required to afford them some credibility. Regurgitation of welcome pieties faces no such problem.” -Noam Chomsky, Necessary Illusions In this interview, which was undertaken as source material for the incredible and highly recommended documentary Manufacturing Consent, Professor Noam Chomsky describes how the structure of the corporate media - its financial interests, its links to Washington's agenda, and its framing of issues - serves as a form of 'thought control in a democratic society'. Chomsky's critique of the media builds from the fact that media misleads its viewers primarily by omission rather than by outright deceit; it is not that the views presented are obviously false (although they often are) it is more the case that a debate on an issue will be staged between two people who appear to represent the 'entire spectrum' when in reality the Left is absent entirely. --- The original video can be found here, my thanks to Non-Corporate News for providing and maintaining this recording which first aired in 1990. As always these talks are syndicated for educational and nonprofit purposes in accordance with Fair Use. They are produced ad-free, because I listen to my own stuff on here and like you, I hate ads. These recordings have been remastered for clarity, ease of listening, and concision and have been downmixed to mono so that they are lighter and easier to stream, wherever you are. This particular recording was especially rough, and if you listen to the original video and this audio, you will easily see how much work has gone into cleaning it up. Furthermore my historical and philosophical writing, which is also entirely free is available at my blog, ⁠⁠⁠⁠Hemlock⁠⁠⁠⁠, on Substack. The music of the intro and outro (Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major) is licensed under non-commercial attribution, and can be ⁠⁠⁠⁠found here⁠⁠⁠⁠ and has been remixed by me. Enjoy.

“Some studies actually showed that that Russian drinkers lived longer than non-drinkers. [Michelle Parsons] suggested an explanation for the apparent vodka paradox: for what it is worth, alcohol may help people adapt to realities that otherwise make them want to curl up and die. Parsons, who called her book "Dying Unneeded", argued that Russians were dying early because they had nothing and no one to live for.” -Masha Gessen, The Future is History Masha Gessen is a staff writer for the New Yorker and a scholar of Russian domestic politics, especially in regard to Vladimir Putin. In this discussion, she describes why and how a resurgent cultural right-wing in Russia helmed by Putin has singled out and criminalized the queer community in Russia and pushed standards of toleration back into Russia's illiberal past. She once described herself, accurately, it would seem, as "the only openly gay person in Russia." --- The original video can be found here, my thanks to Davidson College for providing and maintaining this recording which first aired in February 2018. The keynote itself is untitled, and so the title "Putin and the Political Uses of Homophobia" is my attribution. As always these talks are syndicated for educational and nonprofit purposes in accordance with Fair Use. They are produced ad-free, because I listen to my own stuff on here and like you, I hate ads. These recordings have been remastered for clarity, ease of listening, and concision and have been downmixed to mono so that they are lighter and easier to stream, wherever you are.  Furthermore my historical and philosophical writing, which is also entirely free is available at my blog, ⁠⁠⁠⁠Hemlock⁠⁠⁠⁠, on Substack. The music of the intro and outro (Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major) is licensed under non-commercial attribution, and can be ⁠⁠⁠⁠found here⁠⁠⁠⁠ and has been remixed by me. Enjoy.

“The impoverished families of the long-term unemployed strained to the point of dysfunction, communities deprived of viable economies, interrupted educations, lost skills: these and many more results of capitalism’s crisis will put difficult demands on governments for years." -Richard Wolff, Democracy at Work Richard Wolff is an economist and political theorist associated with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and the New Left. In this discussion, Wolff provides an unauthorized history of capitalism, discusses how corporate damages to society (or 'externalities' in the vernacular of the economics profession) are transferred to the population, how capitalist ideology drives zero-sum competition, and suggests practical policies that could lead to a more equitable distribution to wealth. --- The original video can be found here, my thanks to the ACLU of Southern California for providing and maintaining this recording, which first aired on February 2015. As always these talks are syndicated for educational and nonprofit purposes in accordance with Fair Use. They are produced ad-free, because I listen to my own stuff on here and like you, I hate ads. These recordings have been remastered for clarity, ease of listening, and concision and have been downmixed to mono so that they are lighter and easier to stream, wherever you are.  Furthermore my historical and philosophical writing, which is also entirely free is available at my blog, ⁠⁠⁠⁠Hemlock⁠⁠⁠⁠, on Substack. The music of the intro and outro (Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major) is licensed under non-commercial attribution, and can be ⁠⁠⁠⁠found here⁠⁠⁠⁠ and has been remixed by me. Enjoy.