Very Bad Wizards

What is the psychology of shame? Is the experience of shame a human universal? How can we investigate the nature of shame across cultures? David and Tamler dive into Richard Shweder's "Towards a Deep ...

30 Sep 20251h 23min

David and Tamler go big game hunting and explore their first Hemingway short story "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." We dig into his characteristic themes of courage, cowardice, shifting pow...

16 Sep 20251h 33min

David and Tamler tackle the topic chosen by our beloved Patreon supporters in the first VBW madness tournament – Schopenhauer. We discuss his essays "On the Sufferings of the World" and "The Vanity of...

2 Sep 20251h 30min

David and Tamler go long on McDonagh's 2008 masterpiece "In Bruges." We talk about the terrific performances and all the weighty themes - sin, guilt, redemption, honor, language, and very inappropriat...

12 Aug 20251h 58min

David and Tamler try to wrap their heads around the metaphysics of past and future via the Borges essay(s) "A New Refutation of Time." What does it mean to be a time skeptic or a time realist for that...

29 Juli 20251h 15min

David and Tamler return to David Hume's somewhat slippery brand of skepticism, this time focusing Chapter 12 of his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Plus speaking of things to be skeptical abou...

15 Juli 20251h 16min

David and Tamler screw their courage to the sticking place and talk about their first Shakespeare play – The Tragedy of Macbeth. Plus we select 16 topics for our first VBW topic tournament suggested a...

1 Juli 20251h 26min

David and Tamler try to wrap their heads around the predictive processing theory of the mind and brain function and talk about a paper that applies the framework to meditation practices. But first a n...

10 Juni 20251h 14min