Épisodes

  • Kierkegaard on Irony (Part Two)

    Kierkegaard on Irony (Part Two)
    Jul 11 2024
    We complete our treatment of Soren Kierkegaard's On the Concept of Irony (1841), "Irony as a Controlled Element, the Truth of Irony." How can a controlled level of irony help us gain health and truth? Read along with us, starting at PDF p. 324 in the middle. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 h et 12 min
  • Kierkegaard on Irony (Part One)

    Kierkegaard on Irony (Part One)
    Jul 11 2024
    We read the conclusion to Soren Kierkegaard's On the Concept of Irony (1841), "Irony as a Controlled Element, the Truth of Irony." The discussion starts with the role of irony in good art, and then moves on to discuss the proper role of irony as an existential strategy in a well-grounded, thoughtful life. Read along with us, starting at PDF p. 321. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 h
  • Hume on Passions (Part Two)

    Hume on Passions (Part Two)
    Jul 4 2024
    On Book II of A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), Part I, "Pride and Humility," sections 3 and 4. Pride, according to Hume, has both a cause (whatever you're proud of) and an object (the self). Hume describes this structure as both "natural" (as opposed to being a social construction) and "original" (based on an innate psychological capacity). Pride involves both impressions (e.g. you perceive that you find pleasure in whatever you're proud of), and ideas (e.g. you understand the relation of the thing we're proud of to yourself). For both of these types of mental entities, pride or any other emotion will also involve associated ideas and impressions; pride in something will make us think of other things, and feeling pride about a particular thing gives rise to related feelings, e.g. pride in those other things. We switched which edition of the text we were reading since part one. Read along with us, starting on PDF p. 201. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 h et 15 min
  • Hume on Passions (Part One)

    Hume on Passions (Part One)
    Jul 2 2024
    On Book II of A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), this time reading sections 1 and 2 in Part I, "Pride and Humility." How does David Hume deal with human emotions, given his empiricism that begins with the premise that our minds contain only impressions and ideas (which are mainly different from impressions in that they are fainter, like a memory of an apple as compared to the perception of an apple)? Read along with us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 h et 11 min
  • Forms in Plato's "Republic" (Part Two)

    Forms in Plato's "Republic" (Part Two)
    Jun 27 2024
    We complete Plato's "divided line" schema at the end of Book VI of the Republic (and are going to hold off on the actual allegory of the cave in book VII for the time being, so this is the end of this series for now), discussing the "intelligible" realm and Socrates' strange distinction between the "mere hypotheses" of geometry, where the abstract material is based on empirical matters vs. reasoning that relies only on the forms, yet is enabled by dialectic, as opposed to some kind of intellectual intuition directly of those forms. Follow along with us, starting on PDF p. 4. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 h et 13 min
  • Forms in Plato's "Republic" (Part One)

    Forms in Plato's "Republic" (Part One)
    Jun 25 2024
    Toward the end of Book VI and into Book VII of the Republic, Plato gives a series of metaphors for the role "the good itself" plays in our knowledge and values. We read here starting at line 507b of the G.M.A. Grube/C.D.C Reeve translation, where we hear that the form of the good is to our ability to know anything as the sun is to our ability to see anything. We conclude by discussing the first half of Plato's "divided line" image, whose lower half marks off reflections/images and then the material objects that these are images of. Because these are in the lower half, we can't have any real knowledge of them; thus physical science should be impossible. Follow along with us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 h et 14 min
  • Grice's "Logic and Conversation" (Part Two)

    Grice's "Logic and Conversation" (Part Two)
    Jun 20 2024
    Continuing on the 1975 paper, we describe how the various maxims of Grice's conversational "Cooperative Principle" can be violated in systematic ways to produce conversational implicature. We talk in non-literal ways, yet other people still think we're trying to communicate and successfully understand us. Follow along with us in the text. Part Three can only be found at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 h et 9 min
  • Grice's "Logic and Conversation" (Part One)

    Grice's "Logic and Conversation" (Part One)
    Jun 18 2024
    We read through Paul Grice's 1975 ordinary language philosophy paper. What are the assumptions behind everyday conversation? When someone violates a conversational norm by, e.g., giving too much information or stating something literally untrue, what are the strategies by which we try to make sense of what they're saying as still a sensible contribution to the conversation? Follow along with us in the text. This also serves as part three to The Partially Examined Life's episode #325. However, this should be understandable without listening to any of that. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 h et 5 min