Mark and Wes read through and discuss Karl Marx's "The German Ideology" (1846), delving deep into the middle of his critique of Max Stirner's "The Ego and Its Own" (recently covered on The Partially Examined Life ep. 358). Marx articulates and criticizes Stirner's attempt to distinguish the mere common egoism of an unt... more
Mark and Wes read through and discuss Edmund Husserl's Ideas (1913), ch. 1, "Matter of Fact and Essence" in First Book, "General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology," Part One, "Essence and Eidetic Cognition."This is the book that basically designed phenomenology as a movement, and this part of the reading lays some ... more
We're discussing John Stuart Mill's A System of Logic (1843), specifically from Book III, "Of Induction," ch. 8, "Of the Four Methods of Experimental Inquiry." What is induction, and why is it part of logic? Science doesn't just observe regularities, but tries to isolate what is connected with what through a combinatio... more
We continue reading Part One of Being and Nothingness, with ch. 2, "Negations." We get some context and then jump into the classic question of whether existence in itself is just pure being, such that nothingness is just a result of human judgments on it, or whether nothingness is something objective that we grasp. We ... more
We skip the introduction of Being and Nothingness (1943) and start with Part One, "The Problem of Nothingness," Ch. 1, "The Origin of Negation."Read along with us, starting on p. 33, i.e. PDF p. 84.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We begin Bradley's argument for idealism: The world as we perceive it is appearance, not reality. In ch. 1, "Primary and Secondary Qualities," we see him give Locke's arguments for the distinction and Berkeley's response that both alike are in the mind, not the world.We try to make sense of this given our recent readi... more
Bradley was a prominent British Hegelian, best known now for being the springboard for Bertrand Russell, who was initially a follower but then rejected idealism entirely to co-create what is now known as analytic philosophy. Today we read just the Introduction to this massive 1893 tome, where Bradley argues that metaph... more
We move from the discussion of the four types of causes, to "disclosure," to an environmental critique.Read along with us starting on p. 10.To get parts 3-5, subscribe at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What is technology, REALLY? People think of it as neutral, as something that can be used for good or misused, but what is it really to be a TOOL in such a way? Heidegger analyzes causality itself, arguing that our modern emphasis on the mechanical (efficient) cause of something is impoverished as compared to Aristotle'... more
On "The Varieties of Religious Experience," the conclusion of lecture 15. Why do some saintly types engage in ascetic practices like voluntary poverty? James thinks we could all do with some self-discipline of this sort, as extreme as the examples of literary saints may be. Self-denial is a less destructive way of expr... more
On "The Intelligence, The Ideas, and Being," starting on section 6. What is "The Intelligence" anyway? How does its storehouse of Forms get into the material world?Read along with us, starting on p. 51.To get part 3, subscribe at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/a... more
On "The Intelligence, The Ideas, and Being" from the Enneads (270 C.E.), about the various elements of Neo-Platonist cosmology: You've got The One, which is so awesome that it has literally no properties (so you can't even say it's awesome), then The Intelligence, which is the repository of the Forms (these first two t... more
We begin a long series on Maurice Merleau Ponty's "Phenomenology of Perception" (1945), focusing on Part I, "The Body": "Experience and Objective Thought." M-P talks first about what seeing an object (like a house) in the world involves. It pre-supposes a relation to us as perceivers, which involves our situatedness in... more
Continuing on "Martin Buber and the Theory of Knowledge," with the "Experience and Meeting" section, whereby we try to make sense of the theory that the self is metaphysically a relation to other people. How does a model of philosophy based on the cogito (first person perception) necessarily objectify other people? How... more
We read the first pages of Emmanuel Levinas' 1958 article, "Martin Buber and the Theory of Knowledge."In these initial sections, subtitled "The Problem of Truth" and "From the Object to Being," he's recounting how Heideggerian phenomenology argued that being (including our unarticulated awareness of being) is more fun... more
We discuss the fact-value distinction, both with regard to ethics but also epistemology, i.e. how the search for facts depends on what we're looking for.Read along with us, starting on p. 6.To get part 3, subscribe at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We're reading a 1984 essay by Mark's U. of Michigan undergrad advisor, included among the most cited philosophy papers in some list that Wes found. Railton's goal is to give a naturalistic account of ethics (i.e. ethics within a framework of natural science) that both connects tightly to observed empirical facts and al... more
Continuing on this text about the mechanics of how mind and body work together. Is this schematically useful or hopelessly archaic? You decide!Read along with us, starting at article 22.To get parts 3 and 4, subscribe at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We're reading the final text by René Descartes, published in 1649, about how mind and body relate to each other.Read along with us.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Continuing on "Two Concepts of Liberty" (1969), we finish up the negative conception ("freedom from") and give Berlin's strange account of positive freedom ("freedom to"), which involves an identification of some part of you (e.g. for Plato, your rationality), the obeying of which makes you free, even if what you "want... more
We're reading through the beginning of "Two Concepts of Liberty" (1969). What are the various ways we can conceive of freedom, and is the concept necessarily political? Can you legitimately say you've been deprived freedom because, e.g., you can't afford some necessity?Read along with us.Learn more about your ad choi... more
Continuing on Aristotle's Metaphysics, book 1, ch. 9. Why does Aristotle insist that Forms have to be in objects, contra Plato? What would it mean for the Forms to be mathematical objects per the Pythagoreans' view?Read along with us starting on p. 23.At some point we'll return to Aristotle's take on Plato's forms vi... more
Aristotle offers a critique of Plato's theory of forms at a few points in his Metaphysics, and in this and the following part of this series, we'll be tackling this by reading part of book 1, ch. 9.Read along with us.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Continuing on Yaqub ibn Ishaq Al-Kindi's Islamic, Stoic-flavored ethical treatise. What habits should we instill that will immunize us against loss? What constitutes enough mourning? How does a feeling of loss go away, and can (and should) we hasten this?Read along with us, starting on p. 124.To get part 3, subscribe... more
We're reading a 9th century Arabic philosopher (from what's now Iraq), in fact the "father of Arab philosophy," Yaqub ibn Ishaq Al-Kindi, writing about how we can immunize ourselves to the sorrows of life through some means akin to Stoicism, which Al-Kindi as scholar of the Greeks knew all about.Read along with us.Le... more