Today we talk about the play Hamlet written by William Shakespeare. We compare more traditional takes on the themes of the play to a more modern, philosophical analysis of the play done by Simon Cr...
Today we talk about the philosophy behind the play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. We talk about how ineffective violence and honor codes are as ways of maintaining the stability of a soci...
Today we talk about the philosophical themes of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare. We talk about the hypocrisy and false nostalgia of political violence. The ironies of living by ...
Today we talk more about the work of Charles Taylor and his book The Varieties of Religion Today. We look at different answers to a classic question around religious belief. The sociological and st...
Today we talk about the work of the philosopher Charles Taylor. First, we trace the historical origins of how he views the modern self. From the Greeks to the Reformation. From Descartes to Roussea...
Today we talk about the book Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. We talk about the mix of Romantic and Enlightenment attitudes and how it leads to problems without the proper oversight. We talk about tec...
Today we talk about two famous critiques of Stoicism. One by Friedrich Nietzsche who thought the Stoics weren’t life affirming enough and so rob themselves of some of the best parts of life. The ot...
Today we talk about the collection of journals known as Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. We mark the differences between Stoicism, modern Stoic ethics, and the journals of Marcus Aurelius. We talk a...
Today we talk about one of Han's earlier books where he offers an alternative to classic western ideas about subjectivity. We talk about Zen as a religion without God. Substance and emptiness. Alte...
Today we try to produce a philosophical guide for the book The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. We talk about Parmenides, Nietzsche's eternal recurrence, kitsch as something more tha...
Today we talk about two different theories for why we ritualize self-destructive behavior. We check out a lesser-known work from Dostoevsky called The Gambler. We consider how much we can hold peop...
Today we talk about the book The Crisis of Narration by the philosopher Byung Chul Han. We talk about the history of storytelling. Walter Benjamins distinction between a Paris fire and a revolution...
Today we talk about the late work of Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations. We talk about the meaning of words. Augustine's theory. Forms of life. Rules and practices. Grammar. Geometry. Fam...
Today we talk about the early work of Ernst Bloch. Hope as anticipatory consciousness. The darkness of the lived moment. Educated hope vs false hope. Music as an experiential metaphysics and gatewa...
Today we talk about Kafka's book The Castle and how the symbolism is interpreted by two powerhouse philosophers: Theodore Adorno and Hannah Arendt. Hope you love it! :) Sponsors: Incogni: ht...
Today we talk about Camus' book The Fall and what the main character represents in his larger project. We also talk about someone Camus deeply admired, Franz Kafka, and how to think of the images h...
Today we talk about the concept of exile from the work of Camus. We focus on a couple stories from his book Exile and The Kingdom. We talk about why Camus insists that true lucidity can only arise ...
Today we talk about Camus’ concept of rebellion and how it offers a powerful alternative to abstract ideologies. We talk about solidarity as the foundation for justice without systems. We talk abou...
We look at Albert Camus' The Plague. We talk about a common misreading from the Myth of Sisyphus. We talk about different cycles of his work from his earlier individual confrontation with the absur...
Today we talk about the book The Stranger by Albert Camus. We talk about why Camus saw himself as an artist and not a philosopher. We talk about happiness. The absurd and it's full implications. Th...
