Episode 24: The Perils of Empathy (with Paul Bloom)

The great Paul Bloom returns to the show to explore the many mysteries of Todd Field's 2022 film "Tár." Is it a ghost story? A movie about cancel culture and abuse of power? Guilt? Professional disapp...

25 Apr 20231h 56min

David and Tamler talk about William James' chapter on mysticism from his book "Varieties of Religious Experience." What defines a mystical experience? Why do they defy expression and yet feel like a s...

11 Apr 20231h 33min

David and Tamler deliver a PODCAST episode, one of many that comes from the INTERNET, that you'll probably listen to through Air Pods or some other kind of WIRELESS HEADPHONES as you go about your day...

28 Mar 20231h 39min

Here's an episode with something for both of us – a healthy serving of Kantian rationalism for David with a dollop of Marxist criminology for Tamler. We discuss and then argue about Jeffrie Murphy's 1...

14 Mar 20231h 36min

David and Tamler get lost in the world of Susanna Clarke's "Piranesi," a hauntingly beautiful and thrilling novel with echoes of Borges, Plato, C.S. Lewis, and even Parfit. The first part of our conve...

28 Feb 20231h 43min

Tamler's earlier self committed to doing an episode on Parfit, and David holds his current self to that promise, which shows how unconvinced David was by Parfit's skepticism about personal identity. O...

14 Feb 20231h 19min

It's the episode that Tamler has been waiting for – a long deep dive into Andrei Tarkovsky's mysterious masterpiece "Stalker." A writer and professor are led by their guide (Stalker) into a cordoned o...

31 Jan 20232h 8min

David and Tamler dive into Seneca's "On the Happy Life" and stoicism, the topic selected by our beloved patreon supporters. Why is stoicism so popular today? What does Seneca actually think about Epic...

10 Jan 20231h 34min