Ep. 377: Emil Cioran's Pessimism (Part Two)

How shall we break down the universe into basic types of things? Peirce has an idiosyncratic way of thinking about this problem and coming up with his division, revolving around the steps and presuppo...

21 Aug 1h 1min

On "Mental Events" (1970) and "Actions, Reasons, and Causes" (1963), w/ guest Chris Heath. When we talk about mental events (e.g. desires) causing physical occurrences (an action to obtain what is des...

17 Aug 52min

We discuss the various films Steven Spielberg has released about alien encounters: Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), E.T. The Extra Terrestrial (1982), War of the Worlds (2005), and our incit...

16 Aug 57min

We now have a free-form discussion in light of what was raised in part one about the Federalist Papers and Frederick Douglass' Fourth of July Speech: What should we do about the problems identified? I...

10 Aug 51min

Dan was Ben Vaughn's sound-man and released his first solo album of Americana rock in 2004. We discuss "Busted" from his eighth album (produced by Vaughn), the just Dan-and-his guitar effort Dispatche...

9 Aug 1h 11min

AmirAli is a philosophy researcher in Iran who tries to make Islamic philosophy speak to and with the West. We hear about doing philosophy in the "Islamic Republic of Iran," life during wartime, the r...

7 Aug 46min

Enrollment is now open for our new online class. It will be nine 75 min sessions, running from late Aug. to mid Dec., starting with Aristotle and Descartes but then spending the rest of the time on th...

7 Aug 1min

To celebrate our nation's 250th birthday, we gathered in front of a lovely audience near Madison WI to discuss Federalist Papers 70, 78, 39, 54, 10 by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison from 1787-17...

3 Aug 1h 3min