We talk about the Scream meta-slasher film franchise, from the original Wes Craven /Kevin Williamson 1996 debut starring Neve Campbell, and Courtney Cox to the new one (#7), still with three out of four of those participants (Wes Craven being dead).

Is the self-reflection about the horror genre in these films actually elevating, or just a permission structure to enjoy the base pleasure of seeing people murdered? Are these actually films that people who normally hate slasher movies still might enjoy?

Get more at prettymuchpop.com. Get an ad-free experience, plus bonus talking for nearly every episode at patreon.com/prettymuchpop.

Sponsor: Visit squarespace.com/PRETTY (code PRETTY) for a free trial and 10% off your first website or domain.

Continuing on the "Spirit" chapter (more specifically. "Culture and its realm of actuality") in Hegel's Phenomenology, now covering sec. 490-510. How exactly does the process of acculturation work?

Sponsors: Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health. Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel.

Continuing on Hegel's Phenomenology, "Spirit" chapter, now up to sections 484-510, which is the first part of "Self-Alienated Spirit. Culture."

In Hegel's ongoing semi-mythical story about the development of the modern self and society, we're now at a point where people are "bare persons," legally recognized but not distinguished from each other. We thicken these thin selves using cultural contents: your profession, your group memberships, your style, etc. But this way of individuating is fundamentally self-alienating: these ways that we identify ourselves are foreign to our souls!

Kavus began in dual-guitar London math-rock bands in the '90s, joined The Cardiacs for their final lineup. His band Knifeworld released the first of its four albums in 2009, he released solo albums in 2020 and 2024, and since 2014 he has released six albums with legacy prog-rock band Gong. He has also released four studio albums with electronica band The Utopia Strong since 2019.

We discuss "Stars in Heaven" by Gong from Bright Spirit Haulix (2026), "Send Him Seaworthy" by Knifeworld from The Unraveling (2014), "You Broke My Fall" by Kavus Torabi from Hip to the Jag (2020), and "Wise Guy" by The Monsoon Bassoon, a 1998 single. Intro: "Ditzy Scene" by The Cardiacs, a 2007 single eventually released on LSD (2025).

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music at nakedlyexaminedmusic.com. Support us at patreon.com/nakedlyexaminedmusic.

Continuing on on sec. 469-483 of Hegel's Phenomenology, finishing the analysis of Antigone and bringing in Oedipus to say why the conflict between types of law is both criminal and destined. We then turn to the aftermath: a society alienated from law but with legally recognized self-conscious individuals.

Sponsors: Get three months free of online payroll and benefits software for small businesses at gusto.com/pel. Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel. Go to HelloFresh.com/pel10fm to Get 10 free meals + a free Zwilling Knife with your third box.

St. Lawrence philosophy prof Jennifer L. Hansen, one of the most frequent guest on Mark's podcasts and expert in feminist philosophy, here hits it off with our new host Mary. We act out vegan jerky time, snacktime at the all-girls clubhouse, and two gals getting pulled over by a cop.

Does the "come debate me" style of philosophy include unnecessarily masculine tropes? How does this Charlie Kirk model relate to what Socrates was doing? What are alternative, fun ways to get students to talk in philosophy classes?

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast and listen ad-free at philosophyimprov.com/support.

Sponsor: Visit squarespace.com/LINSENMAYER (code LINSENMAYER) for a free trial and 10% off your first website or domain.

Photography is a technology of contradictions. It is at once mechanical and mysterious, even magical. It furnishes evidence of presence while being a token of absence. It can show us proof but can’t, without accompanying narration or context, make us understand. And perhaps most perplexing of all, it is an imperialistic technology which, paradoxically, atomizes the world and democratizes all events and experiences, making each viewer of photographs the owner of a facsimile-world in his or her head. Wes & Erin discuss two essays from Susan Sontag’s collection, “On Photography,” “In Plato’s Cave” and “America, Seen Through Photographs, Darkly,” and ask what constitutes photography’s “ethics of seeing,” and whether Sontag suggests an alternative comportment towards the camera, the subject, and the photographic image.

In light of Judd Apatow's HBO documentary The 99-Year-Old Man, we discuss the films of Mel Brooks, which were to varying degrees formative on us (i.e. Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Al).

Get more at prettymuchpop.com. Get an ad-free experience, plus bonus talking for nearly every episode at patreon.com/prettymuchpop.

Sponsors: Get started with Claude AI at claude.ai/pmp. Visit squarespace.com/PRETTY (code PRETTY) for a free trial and 10% off your first website or domain.

Continuing on Hegel's Phenomenology, "Spirit" chapter, now up to sections 464-483, which are under the sub-headings "Ethical Action. Human and Divine Knowledge. Guilt and Destiny" and "Legal Status."

After anticipating it in last episode, we get  Hegel's allegorical analysis of Antigone as a clash between two types of law that cooperate in a harmonious society. With this clash, both fail, leaving us with modernity where law is alienated from individuals.

Sponsors: Go to NerdWallet.com/PEL for trustworthy small business loans. Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel.

Lande started in the 2010's in the British punk-pop group Muncie Girls, with six releases (mostly EPs), and began her solo career in 2019. We discuss "Coming Home" (and listen at the end to the title track) from her fourth solo album Lucky Now (2026), "80 Days of Rain" from Going to Hell (2011), and "Learn In School" by Muncie Girls from From Caplan to Belsize (2016). Intro: "Gay Space Cadets" from House Without a View (2022).

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music at nakedlyexaminedmusic.com. Support us at patreon.com/nakedlyexaminedmusic.

Sponsors: Get three months free of online payroll and benefits software for small businesses at gusto.com/nem. Download the Gametime app and use code NEM for $20 off your first purchase of concert tickets.

Continuing on the "Spirit" section of The Phenomenology of Spirit, giving a sort of social metaphysics, wherein the ethical life of a society is analyzed into two complementary types of law, human (explicit laws but also customs) and what Hegel calls "divine" (a subconscious ethical sense represented by the home and women).

Sponsors: Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health. Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel.

February at The Partially Examined Life continued several major threads while branching into new territory across the network. The month featured the conclusion of the Graham Harman series and an extended interview with Harman himself, alongside discussions of Hegel, Shakespearean drama, and musical improvisation. Below is a full roundup of everything published here at PEL in February, listed in order Continue Reading …

On an excerpt from Soren Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1846) that critiques Hegel's idea of logic (dialectic) and then argues for his own conception of "truth as subjectivity."

What is it worth raising an objection over, and how hard do you fight? We hear (and act out) Mary's roommate-searching trauma, plus Mary for President, curiosity about bellicose Twitter, respect vs. reverence, rationality and religion, dealing with QAnon believers, family Thanksgiving, giving someone else a name, vegetarianism, and the angel of philosophy.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast and listen ad-free at philosophyimprov.com/support.

Sponsor: Visit squarespace.com/LINSENMAYER (code LINSENMAYER) for a free trial and 10% off your first website or domain.

If an understanding of music implies a love of structure, perhaps the musician’s relationship to his art mirrors the one he has with authority, both human and divine. Salieri, whose father was a man of commerce, sees God as a kind of bank manager who records prayers and sacrifices as payments on a long-term loan of musical talent. Salieri’s economics work just fine until the arrival of Mozart, who seems to have put up no collateral—he’s ”a giggling, dirty creature” in the words of Salieri—but has received the equivalent of a billion-dollar loan. Are Mozart’s gifts a glitch in divine accounting? Or are his flaws attendant on or even the result of his genius? And how can we account for the glitch in Salieri’s design, which permits longing to go unanswered by talent? Wes & Erin discuss the 1984 film “Amadeus,” directed by Milos Forman.

In light of the now-completed black history month and the upcoming Oscars, we consider the "Oscars So White" issue that was a hot topic about a decade ago.

We all tried to watch some of the Oscar-nominated films by black creators, like Twelve Years a Slave, Moonlight, Judas and the Black Messiah, Boyz in Da Hood, et al. What makes for a critically lauded drama in this genre? Does a film have to have black creators (not just stars) to be an authentically black film? Are such films destined for a niche audience? Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn and Al discuss.

Get more at prettymuchpop.com. Get an ad-free experience, plus bonus talking for nearly every episode at patreon.com/prettymuchpop for only the tiniest per-month financial pledge, or you can sign up directly with Apple Podcasts for a subscription for ad-free and bonus material for three of Mark's podcasts together on the Mark Lintertainment Podcasts Channel.

Sponsors: Get started with Claude AI at claude.ai/pmp. Visit squarespace.com/PRETTY (code PRETTY) for a free trial and 10% off your first website or domain.

On. G.W.F. Hegel's The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), sec. 438-463. What constitutes society? 

We're beginning a multi-episode arc here on the "Spirit" chapter of the book, so we learn what Spirit actually is and how it relates to individuals. We also talk about the two layers of law that make up society and how these can be in or out of harmony.

Sponsors: Get three months free of online payroll and benefits software for small businesses at gusto.com/pel. Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel.

John has released at least fifteen albums, more than half of these under the name King Missile, but even this name covers three different bands, since John until recently didn't play any instruments, so his music is always collaborative with one or more music writers. Apart from his various musical projects, he's published around 50 books of poetry and publishes poems every day on his Facebook page.

We discuss "Her Cock is True" from the yet-to-be-released King Missile album Quest for Fire, "Eating People" from The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (2003), and "Sensitive Artist" from Fluting on the Hump (1987). End song: "Garden" by You, Me and This Fuckin’ Guy from Garden Variety Fuckers (2020). Intro: "Detachable Penis" from Happy Hour (1992).

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music at nakedlyexaminedmusic.com. Support us at patreon.com/nakedlyexaminedmusic.

Sponsor: Get three months free of online payroll and benefits software for small businesses at gusto.com/nem.

In this series, we’ve been looking at ideas that are dismissed too quickly. “Fallacy!” is the label applied, as if the accusation alone settles the matter. The word has power, and rightly so. A knowledge of fallacies is critical to blocking attempts at manipulation from others and avoiding argumentative mistakes ourselves. But sometimes the label is a substitute for real Continue Reading …

In our continuing Q&A with Graham, we engage him about Kantian Things-In-Themselves, complex things (that if divided, must be cut at the joints) vs. mere heaps, fact ontology, natural kinds, fictional objects, why philosophy is not knowledge, and philosophical style.

Sponsors: Go to NerdWallet.com/PEL for trustworthy small business loans. Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel. Go to HelloFresh.com/pel10fm to Get 10 free meals + a free Zwilling Knife with your third box.

Jerome is an LA composer/director/screenwriter who is involved in a lot of musical improv, so Mary and Mark interview him about that and about the function of art, plus songs for pets, a support group for people who sing all the time, and more.

Hear more PvI. Jerome sticks around for the post-game, shared with you non-supporters just this once. Support the podcast to get this for most episodes, plus an ad free experience.

Sponsor: Visit squarespace.com/LINSENMAYER (code LINSENMAYER) for a free trial and 10% off your first website or domain.

When we don't know much about some genius playwright's life, why not make up some things based on the contents of his plays? Maybe put Shakespearean dialogue right in character's mouths, so the audience will say, "hey, I remember that line!"

Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Al talk through the Chloe Zhao Oscar-bait historical drama, Hamnet, and its source, the 2020 novel by Maggie O'Farrell. Is the film great, or just "grief porn"? Plus, Shakespeare in Love and other biopics.

Get more at prettymuchpop.com. Get an ad-free experience, plus bonus talking for nearly every episode at patreon.com/prettymuchpop for only the tiniest per-month financial pledge, or you can sign up directly with Apple Podcasts for a subscription for ad-free and bonus material for three of Mark's podcasts together on the Mark Lintertainment Podcasts Channel.

Sponsors: Get started with Claude AI at claude.ai/pmp. Visit squarespace.com/PRETTY (code PRETTY) for a free trial and 10% off your first website or domain.

Folky singer/songwriter and psychotherapist Robert started in the '80s but considers 1994 his professional debut and has now released his seventh album since then, The Space Between Us.

We discuss "Attic of Desire" (and the intro is "The Forest From the Tree") from that album, plus "Uncertain" from Beloved (2017), the title track from Earthside Down (1998). End song: "Rock A Bye" feat. Victoria Williams from Days Like These (1994). More at robertdeeble.com.

Watch Robert's video for "The Forest From the Tree." The previous version of "Attic of Desire" was called "A Formal Apology" from Thirteen Stories (2003). Watch Robert and his band play "Earthside Down" live in 2002.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music at nakedlyexaminedmusic.com. Support us at patreon.com/nakedlyexaminedmusic.

Sponsor: Download the Gametime app and use code NEM for $20 off your first purchase of concert tickets.

An interview with Graham in light of his new book, Waves and Stones: On the Ultimate Nature of Reality, which elaborates and adds to issues that the gang previously studied in Object-Oriented Ontology.

Graham argues that in addition to objects (which have parts), there are continua, such as space and time, and these continua are the links that allow otherwise forever separated objects to touch each other.

Sponsors: Go to NerdWallet.com/PEL for trustworthy small business loans. Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel.

We consider chapter 2, "Aesthetics Is the Root of All Philosophy," where Harman describes how art can help us see behind the veil to things-in-themselves. Art is "theatrical" in that it's really the spectator who is standing in like an actor for the object encountered in art.

Sponsor: Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health.

We're discussing Trey Parker and Matt Stone's Comedy Central show that premiered in 1997 and has just finished its politically relevant 28th season, featuring the usual crew: Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Al.

How can a show be so juvenile yet so apparently well thought out?e get into the evolution of the show,, the equal-opportunity offensive humor, the use of child characters to deliver it, their ambiguous politics, the quick turnaround production, the excellent music, and more.

Get more at prettymuchpop.com. Get an ad-free experience, plus bonus talking for nearly every episode at patreon.com/prettymuchpop for only the tiniest per-month financial pledge, or you can sign up directly with Apple Podcasts for a subscription for ad-free and bonus material for three of Mark's podcasts together on the Mark Lintertainment Podcasts Channel.

Sponsor: Visit squarespace.com/PRETTY (code PRETTY) for a free trial and 10% off your first website or domain.

Vancouver philosophy prof Elijah was an evangelical Christian who turned liberal and then atheistic, and his latest book, "Unbelieving God: A Skeptics Guide," considers and debunks the various arguments for the existence of God.

Mark and Mary chat with him about his journey and about the degree to which we should care about others' beliefs in this area so as to engage them in debate. In the course of this, as you'd expect, God makes a personal appearance (with Mary), and there's an aborted sketch about a brainwashing service.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast and listen ad-free at philosophyimprov.com/support.

Sponsor: Visit squarespace.com/LINSENMAYER (code LINSENMAYER) for a free trial and 10% off your first website or domain.

January opened the year at PEL with a mix of social and political philosophy, close textual interpretation, cultural criticism, and more. The month featured engagements with figures such as Frantz Fanon, Bruno Latour, David Hume, and Graham Harman, and discussions spanning film, television, music, and Shakespeare. Below is a full roundup of everything published across the network in January, listed Continue Reading …

Continuing on Object-Oriented Ontology: A New Theory of Everything (2018), finishing up ch. 1 (discussing what's so bad about reductionism) and moving to ch. 4, "Indirect Relations," which is about causality.

Sponsor: Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel.

We're within the Self-Consciousness chapter of The Phenomenology of Spirit, specifically starting at sec. 206 on the Unhappy Consciousness. This comes after the famous Master-Slave section as well as sections about Stoicism and Skepticism, and it depicts a dividedness within the self stemming from a faulty view of the relation between self and world.

On Harman's Object-Oriented Ontology: A New Theory of Everything (2018). What counts as an entity in the world? Harman includes not just physical objects, but fictional objects, "sensual objects," and even events, which you might have thought were the alternative to objects.

With this promiscuous ontology comes a strange theory of causality whereby no real object touches another real object, and an epistemology that involves us having no knowledge of real objects at all, though Harman's theory art gives us a back-door to make up for this deficiency, and philosophy itself ends up sharing in these properties of art.

Sponsors: Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel. Go to HelloFresh.com/pel10fm to Get 10 free meals + a free Zwilling Knife with your third box.

To kick off 2026, Mark and Mary talk about memory: memory care for the elderly, the relation between things and memories, what professional activities are worth preserving (improv performances?), being the tchotchke, womb nostalgia, puppets and percussion, plus a visit from the future.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast and listen ad-free at philosophyimprov.com/support.

Sponsor: Visit squarespace.com/LINSENMAYER (code LINSENMAYER) for a free trial and 10% off your first website or domain.

Brutus is an honorable man, but Caesar is Caesar: at the beginning of Shakespeare’s play, his name is near the point of becoming synonymous with dictatorial power, and his every wish, as Mark Antony points out, has the substance of a command. For the rebels who oppose him, this identification of political authority with personal will is a perversion of republican institutions, and a form of corruption that justifies any means of putting an end to it, even if that means killing a friend. Yet Brutus’s conception of himself as unflaggingly virtuous is one he in fact shares with Caesar, and perhaps reflects the same authoritarian tendency, in grounding the legitimacy of political action in the character of a particular actor. Then again, it is not clear that democratic institutions will always forestall authoritarian tendencies, rather than enable the masses to sanction absolute power in a charismatic leader. Wes & Erin discuss Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” and its sustained reflection on how political power is constructed, located, and legitimated.

Mark and Wes read and discuss the short 2007 article, "Can We Get Our Materialism Back, Please?" Here Bruno Latour complains that materialism as modern common sense conceives of it is actually idealist: It is a social construction. Instead, a "thick" concept of material things acknowledges and details their historical (i.e. material in the Marxist sense) origins.

Ontario guitarist Darren has released six albums of concise instrumentals since 2019, often using metal guitar tones and tropes, but with a great range of tones and often catchy melodies.

We discuss "The Day Beneath Yesterday" (and listen at the end to "Dangerous Curves") from Perpetual Night (2025), "Broken Glass and Disappointment" from Thoughts and Scares (2022), and "The Earth is B Flat" from Lifting the Curse (2019). Intro: The title track from Wonders of the Invisible World (2020). More at darrenboyd.com.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music at nakedlyexaminedmusic.com. Support us at patreon.com/nakedlyexaminedmusic.

Finishing up Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, finally now turning to Freud's anthropological account of group membership.

Sponsor: Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel.

David Hume’s influence is felt throughout Anglophone philosophy, most especially in epistemology. Typically, students and scholars of Hume’s epistemology focus on whether judgments and sentiments, among other considerations, can count as knowledge. For normative judgments, this focus leads to thorny questions about grounding, truthmaking, and non-cognitivism. This is rough terrain, and the approach foregrounds metaphysical matters that Hume took pains to avoid. Accordingly, this piece will Continue Reading …

December closed out the year at PEL with a mix of philosophy, psychoanalysis, music, film, and holiday-season reflection. The month featured discussions on Freud, law, music, television, and popular film, alongside seasonal episodes of Philosophy vs. Improv and Pretty Much Pop. Below is a full roundup of everything published across the network last month, listed in order of occurrence. Ep. Continue Reading …

The Netflix sci-fi/horror/teen series by the Duffer Brothers that started in 2016 has now finished with its sixth season, attempting to be both epic and sentimental. Who is this show actually aimed at? We talk about the initial appeal through various uneven seasons through the execution of the finale. Has the thing gone on so long that we can't make sense out of the continuity. Featuring, as usual, Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Al.

Get more at prettymuchpop.com. Get an ad-free experience, plus bonus talking for nearly every episode at patreon.com/prettymuchpop for only the tiniest per-month financial pledge, or you can sign up directly with Apple Podcasts for a subscription for ad-free and bonus material for three of Mark's podcasts together on the Mark Lintertainment Podcasts Channel.

Sponsor: Visit squarespace.com/PRETTY (code PRETTY) for a free trial and 10% off your first website or domain.

On the second half of Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. We talk about the dual origins of group membership for Freud in personal love and in the supposed primitive society where a horde was led by a tyrannical father.

Sponsor: Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health.

Sign up for Closereads at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy to get all previous and future installments of this podcast. On Franz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks, ch. 7, B. “The Negro and Hegel.” Hegel describes the abstract attainment of self-consciousness through recognition, but is this actually how it works in real slavery and its aftermath? ⁠Read along with us⁠, p. 216 (PDF p. Continue Reading …

Rich runs the Dare to Fail improv school and is author of Improv Made Easier. He joins Mark and Mary to discuss contexts of failure, failing to meet your goals vs. "objective failure," how to react in an improv scene to some topic that's too offensive for you, graveyard humor vs. reverence. Featuring Steaks You Deserve, Robo-Carson, cancer torture, interactive cemetery, Sounds of Failure, and open-sourced MST3K.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast and listen ad-free at philosophyimprov.com/support.

Sponsor: Visit squarespace.com/LINSENMAYER (code LINSENMAYER) for a free trial and 10% off your first website or domain.

It's time to sign up for the new online class on Hegel, Sartre, Arendt, Schopenhauer, and all your other favorite friends. You can learn all about it and get the link to enroll at partiallyexaminedlife.com/class.

The so-called “third man factor” is a phenomenon in which people in dire circumstances experience the presence of an extra person in their midst who gives comfort and aid when it’s most needed—a guardian angel, perhaps, or some figure of divine intervention. Harry Lime seems to have played just such a role in the lives of Holly Martins and Anna Schmidt. But is Lime from heaven or from hell? Perhaps a less-than-angelic third man might estrange rather than bring together, muddle rather than clarify, adulterate rather than help. And indeed, as a black market middle-man, Lime has the devilish power to intervene in people’s lives for the worse—like a narrator who edits out characters and manipulates the plot. Wes & Erin discuss the 1949 classic film “The Third Man,” about friendship and betrayal, and about the stories we tell ourselves in order to love, survive, kill, or even die.

Philosopher/writer/critic/podcaster Lawrence Ware returns to the show to meet Mary and talk about how Mark is his own personal Leroy Jesus. We act out and/or discuss orphan greeting cards, face-to-face instruction vs. writing books, imaginary friends, laugh trumpets, black ice, and is aesthetic judgment (especially of yourself) a mistake?

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast and listen ad-free at philosophyimprov.com/support.

Sponsor: Get the holiday deal (up to 50% off!) at MasterClass.com/IMPROV. Rula patients typically pay $15 per session when using insurance. Connect with quality therapists and mental health experts who specialize in you at rula.com/improv.

The Hallmark Channel became famous for producing low-budget, formulaic Christmas films, and this has spread to other outlets, sometimes with higher budgets and ambitions. Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Al each watched a smattering of these and share their reflections on the genre and their specific experiences.

Get an ad-free experience, plus bonus talking for nearly every episode at patreon.com/prettymuchpop for only the tiniest per-month financial pledge, or you can sign up directly with Apple Podcasts for a subscription for ad-free and bonus material for three of Mark's podcasts together on the Mark Lintertainment Podcasts Channel.

Sponsors: Get up to 50% an annual membership at MasterClass.com/PRETTY. Rula patients typically pay $15 per session when using insurance. Connect with quality therapists and mental health experts who specialize in you at rula.com/pmp.

Continuing on the first half of Sigmund Freud’s Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, now getting really into Freud's own type of explanation, whereby he explains how libidinal ties bind group members, typically via their shared love of a leader or leading idea.

Sponsor: Make a tax deductible donation at GiveWell.org; pick "podcast" and enter "The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast" at checkout.

Interested in Mark's spring Continental Philosophy class? Learn more and reserve your spot at partiallyexaminedlife.com/class.

On the first half of Sigmund Freud’s Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921). Why do members of a mob get dumber and less inhibited?

Freud considers Gustave Le Bon's famous book on crowds but then turns to more organized groups like armies and churches. For all groups, Freud thinks that the leader (or leading ideal) replaces our conscience to some degree.

Sponsors: Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health. Get an exclusive 5% discount on NordProtect plans. Go to nordprotect.com/partially and use the code partially at checkout.

Interested in Mark's spring Continental Philosophy class? Learn more and reserve your spot at partiallyexaminedlife.com/class.

Sign up for Closereads at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy to get parts 2 and 3 of this reading, as well as our previous and future installments of this new podcast. While we modern folks have a generally clear distinction between law as in descriptive laws of nature and law as in ethical or civil commandments, these Medieval philosophers saw these as very much Continue Reading …

In a special holiday episode, we get to meet musician and podcaster Roger Heathers, who edits this show. Together, Roger and I discuss how we make the show and share some highlights and challenges re. recent guests.

At the beginning and the end of the show, you get to hear two tracks from his soon to be released Upward Spiral: "Guard Dogs" and "Hopefully." They both feature a warm, holiday-like glow.

You can listen to him at rogerheathers.bandcamp.com, or check out The Weekly Song Podcast.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music at nakedlyexaminedmusic.com. Support us at patreon.com/nakedlyexaminedmusic.

Sponsor: Rula patients typically pay $15 per session when using insurance; connect with quality therapists and mental health experts who specialize in you at rula.com/nem.

Continuing to discuss the virtue and moral action from the Summa Theologica (1268). We discuss the definition of virtue and some subsequent questions about what parts of us the term virtue properly applies to.

Sponsors: Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health. Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel. Get an exclusive 5% discount on NordProtect plans. Go to nordprotect.com/partially and use the code partially at checkout.

Interested in Mark's spring Continental Philosophy class? Check partiallyexaminedlife.com/class for the latest.

On "The Problem of Christianity," vol. 2, lecture 12, ch. 9, "The Will to Interpret." The point is to help explain Royce's idea of a community of interpretation, and the idea is that in the very act of interpreting a single individual, I'm bringing in some kind of public lexicon, i.e. other people beyond us two.

Is argumentation essential to philosophy? Should you always be open to arguments challenging your beliefs? We act out a few symbiotic scenarios and reflect back on our last couple of episodes. Plus animal facts, complaining to your significant other about exes, astrology prejudice, sexual harassment videos, and on-stage self-pleasure.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast and listen ad-free at philosophyimprov.com/support.

Sponsor: Get the holiday deal (up to 50% off!) at MasterClass.com/IMPROV.

Erin just published her first book, “Avail,” which you can order here: https://www.pauldrybooks.com/products/avail

“Avail” features a long prose-poem which titles the book and winds through sections of lineated, often formal poems. The prose-poem comprises a series of lyric meditations on the image of the veil—from religious and cultural veils, to veils imbedded in idiom and metaphor, to veiled women in art and classic films, to veils drawn and parted by illness and death—which slowly divulge the harrowing details of the poet’s blood disorder.

Throughout, allusions to classic film, literature, and art serve as the “veils” with which the poet attempts to obscure the self-estrangement and vulnerability her illness has induced—insecurities which follow her long after her recovery. In a poem about a break-up set during her career as a jazz singer and against the backdrop of a 1930s screwball comedy, she longs “to shake life by the martini (but stay self- / possessed), to star in the movie of myself / instead of playing second lead.” During a visit to Naples, Mt. Vesuvius becomes “a Crawford eyebrow / arched over the bay.” And in California, after a trip to the Getty Villa, she recalls Sontag’s “missive on allusion, that no part / of any work is new, that all is reproduction.” By the end of the collection, O’Luanaigh has fashioned from the sum of these various allusions her own poetic identity, unveiled in the poems themselves.

We discuss the British spy show based on the novels of Mick Herron, which are in turn firmly in a tradition of anti-007 books by John le Carré. Featuring Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn and Al. The point is not to glamorize the spy service, but to use realism and black humor to stress the human cost and general boredom of this work along with the dysfunctional nature of the institutions involved.

Get an ad-free experience, plus bonus talking for nearly every episode at patreon.com/prettymuchpop for only the tiniest per-month financial pledge, or you can sign up directly with Apple Podcasts for a subscription for ad-free and bonus material for three of Mark's podcasts together on the Mark Lintertainment Podcasts Channel.

Sponsors: Get 15% off an annual membership at MasterClass.com/PRETTY. Go to surfshark.com/pmp or use code pmp at checkout to get 4 extra monthsof Surfshark VPN.

On selections about virtue and moral action from the Summa Theologica (1268). Aquinas defines virtue, tells us how it metaphysically fits us into the universe, and discusses how it actually works in us to make us perform moral acts.

Sponsors: Rula patients typically pay $15 per session when using insurance. Connect with quality therapists and mental health experts who specialize in you at rula.com/pel. Get $45 off Aura's best-selling Carver Mat electronic picture frame at auraframes.com and use promo code PEL at checkout. Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health.

Interested in Mark's spring Continental Philosophy class? Check partiallyexaminedlife.com/class for the latest.

Corey has released many of zydeco music since 2004, and mixes his dedication to tradition (even recording a recent album in Louisiana Creole) with his love of many types of music.

We discuss "J'ai Parti dans la Campagne" (and listen at the end to "Outro") from his new release, Live in Alaska; "That Girl Wanna Dance" from the Grammy nominated Nothin’ But the Best (2012); and "Way Back Home," a Jazz Crusaders cover recorded for 3 Years 2 Late (2003). Intro: "Boudin Man (Remix)" from Destiny (2013). More at coreyledet.com.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music at nakedlyexaminedmusic.com. Support us at patreon.com/nakedlyexaminedmusic.

Sponsor: Rula patients typically pay $15 per session when using insurance; connect with quality therapists and mental health experts who specialize in you at rula.com/nem.

Seth is an improviser and aspiring professional "muse," which is a type of life coach that hangs out with you to see where you could be more in touch with your humanity so that you can then work out a coherent plan for your adult life. He discusses with Mary and Mark the conflict between authentic individual humans and a social structure filled with oppressive systems.

Should we "deprogram" ourselves from our standardized upbringing? Is there actually an authentic core we would uncover if we do so, or just a void ready to be filled with the promises of self-help gurus? We act out the personality store, the physically safe space, vulnerability coaching, ankle removal consideration, and more.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast and listen ad-free at philosophyimprov.com/support.

Sponsor: Rula patients typically pay $15 per session when using insurance. Connect with quality therapists and mental health experts who specialize in you at rula.com/improv.

November brought an eclectic mix across PEL. We covered ancient Egyptian literature, perused musical craftsmanship, returned to American pragmatism via Josiah Royce, and did some deep dives into film. Below is a full roundup of everything published across the network last month, listed in order of occurrence. Ep. 378: Aquinas on God and Mind (Part Three) Nov 2, 2025How does Continue Reading …

More on The Problem of Christianity, discussing how communities relate to history, how individuals relate to communities, and what's unique about Royce's ideal Christian world community.

Get more at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to get ad-free episodes and tons of bonus discussion.

Sponsors: Get $45 off Aura's best-selling Carver Mat electronic picture frame at auraframes.com and use promo code PEL at checkout. Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health.

Interested in Mark's spring Continental Philosophy class? Check partiallyexaminedlife.com/class for the latest.

In light of One Battle After Another, Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Al walk through the range of his films from his 1996 crime film Hard Eight through his much lauded Magnolia, Boogie Nights, Punch-Drunk Love, and There Will Be Blood and his more controversial recent ones like Licorice Pizza, The Master, The Phantom Thread, and Inherent Vice.

Get an ad-free experience, plus bonus talking for nearly every episode at patreon.com/prettymuchpop for only the tiniest per-month financial pledge, or you can sign up directly with Apple Podcasts for a subscription for ad-free and bonus material for three of Mark's podcasts together on the Mark Lintertainment Podcasts Channel.

Sponsors: Go to surfshark.com/pmp or use code pmp at checkout to get 4 extra monthsof Surfshark VPN. If you like our show, check out the Moviestruck podcast.

On sections of The Problem of Christianity (1913) which establish Royce's concept of a community of interpretation: individuals working together with a sense of shared history and expectation. He claims that such a grouping can be counted as a literal mind and that it solves the problem of human meaning.

Get more at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to get ad-free episodes and tons of bonus discussion.

Sponsors: Have up to $100 matched when you donate to a well-researched charity at givewell.org; pick PODCAST and enter The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast at checkout.

Get $45 off Aura's best-selling Carver Mat electronic picture frame at auraframes.com and use promo code PEL at checkout.

Interested in Mark's spring Continental Philosophy class? Check partiallyexaminedlife.com/class for the latest.

Marshall began creating his catchy, harmonically thick rock tunes in the early '80s with six major label albums, but went indie in the '90s to record four more as well as several EPs and live collections.

We discuss "Stranger and Stranger," newly reworked for From the Hellhole (2025), "Right On Time" from Jaggedland (2009), "Fantastic Planet of Love" from Life’s Too Short (1991), and we conclude by listening to Our Town" from Field Day (1983). Intro: "Someday, Someway" from Marshall Crenshaw (1982). More at marshallcrenshaw.com.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music at nakedlyexaminedmusic.com. Support us at patreon.com/nakedlyexaminedmusic.

Sponsors: Go to surfshark.com/nakedly or use code nakedly at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN. Rula patients typically pay $15 per session when using insurance; connect with quality therapists and mental health experts who specialize in you at rula.com/nem.

Continuing on sources from ancient Egypt, finishing up the instructional literature: "The Instruction of Ptahhotep," and "The Instruction Addressed to King Merikare," and then we move to the dialogues, ""The Eloquent Peasant," and "The Dispute Between a Man and His Ba."

Sponsors: Rula patients typically pay $15 per session when using insurance. Connect with quality therapists and mental health experts who specialize in you at rula.com/pel. Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health. Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel.

Nurse Ratched likes a rigged game, according to R.P. McMurphy. And it’s true that the game he is playing—lawless and hedonistic, but also vital and free-spirited—is unwinnable on her sandlot. As their conflict develops, we seem to be asked to compare the therapeutic value of McMurphy’s introduction of the Dionysian, to Ratched’s attempt to enforce an ordered calm within the psychiatric ward over which she is absolute ruler. What happens when the Godzilla of superegos takes on a libidinal King Kong? Wes & Erin discuss the 1975 film “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

Scott, ex-professor at Oklahoma State University and author of "Thinking Ethically: A Handbook for Making Moral Choices," chats with Mark and Mary about ethical debate in our age of seemingly unbridgeable divides. We engage in some suspect philosophical counseling, have a staged mini-debate about affirmative action, and simulate a new class of discussion-intensive air travel. More at scottgelfand.com.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast and listen ad-free at philosophyimprov.com/support.

Sponsor: Get 15% off at MasterClass.com/IMPROV.

Someone, somewhere coined the powerful phrase “meaning is use,” but the expression as we know it is from Ludwig Wittgenstein. Among other things, it causes a great deal of headache, which includes figuring out what in the world it means. Regardless of whether it’s right or even what it means exactly, we can still say something about what it does Continue Reading …

In light of Noah Hawley TV show Alien Earth, Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn and Al revisit the franchise through its seven canon films beginning with Ridley Scott's 1979 classic.

While there's plenty of sheer repetition (alien loose, killing people one by one) throughout these properties, the various filmmakers attempt to avoid sure repetition by shifting genres. On the new show, we get a pronounced shift to focusing on the synthetic humans; is that a good thing?

Get an ad-free experience, plus bonus talking for nearly every episode at patreon.com/prettymuchpop for only the tiniest per-month financial pledge, or you can sign up directly with Apple Podcasts for a subscription for ad-free and bonus material for three of Mark's podcasts together on the Mark Lintertainment Podcasts Channel.

Sponsors: Get 50% off Claude AI Pro at Claude.ai/pmp. Get 15% off an annual membership at MasterClass.com/PRETTY.

On Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, Part C (AA) Reason, V. The Certainty and Truth of Reason. This section comes right after the self-consciousness sections, and so its big puzzle is why? Why is full recognition by another self-consciousness necessary for Reason, and consequently what is Hegel's conception of Reason?

Mark is joined by returning NEM guest Don Rauf (from Life In a Blender), singer/songwriter/cartoonist David Heatley), and writer/musician Dave "Diggy" Dawson aka Dave Philpott.

Is funny music necessarily less sincerely emotional, and so a failure at what music is supposed to do? We discuss rock star personas, ironic use of genre, humor in musical gesture, Zappa, Spinal Tap, and more.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music at nakedlyexaminedmusic.com. Support us at patreon.com/nakedlyexaminedmusic.

Sponsor: Go to surfshark.com/nakedly or use code nakedly at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN.

The co-author of the African run of the History of Philosophy Podcast (and new book) joins us to go over philosophical works from 2200-1400 BCE: "The Instruction of Ptahhotep," "The Instruction Addressed to King Merikare," "The Great Hymn to the Aten," "The Dispute Between a Man and His Ba," and "The Eloquent Peasant."

Sponsor: Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health.

In this famous, impossibly ancient (ca. 1900 BCE) Egyptian text, a man negotiations with the part of his soul that's supposed to help him in the afterlife. Can he kill himself now and still get all the benefits of an honorable death? His ba says no. Is this actually philosophy, or just a glimpse into the strangeness of a long-gone culture? You decide!

Sign up for Closereads at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy to get previous and future installments of this podcast. Why are there two audio players? Because PEL supporters get this ad-free! From Disputed Questions in De Anima (1269) as presented in Thomas Aquinas: Selected Philosophical Writings (Oxford 1993), “Passage 18: Soul in Human Beings.” The question is how Aquinas, as an Aristotelian who therefore Continue Reading …

Content at The Partially Examined Life (PEL) ran the gamut in October: from Emil Cioran’s dark aphorisms to Aquinas’s scholastic proofs, from dub producers to fake bands, and from improv’s joyful absurdity to Halloween’s macabre reflections. Below is a list of October content (in order of occurrence) you can revisit, or in case you missed it, enjoy for the first Continue Reading …

We're now moving on to the "mind" portion of our discussion, covering how reason motivates us, how free will is possible, and the degree to which the mind is passive or active.

Sponsor: Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health.

Mark and Mary are joined by improvisor-comedian-actress-filmmaker-host Vickie to talk about code switching and authenticity. Can you be authentic and still work a day job? Can Problem Solvers, Inc. solve the office restroom schedule? Are authentic hippies really beatniks? Also, displaying comic America on Korean talk shows, ethical pornography, commerce vs. art, granola in your hair, and more.

Vickie sticks around for a bit of post-game (usually restricted to supporters but shared with you this time), where we talk about the improv lessons and techniques from the episode and refresh what the point of this podcast is.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast and listen ad-free at philosophyimprov.com/support.

It's a special two-hander where Mark and Lawrence reflect on the appeal of horror and how the new Monster: Ed Gein Netflix show has to contribute, given that it is not merely a (very loose) presentation of real events, and itself a horror drama, but also a commentary on the Hollywood properties influenced by the Ed Gein murders, including Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Silence of the Lambs. We bring this up to date by including discussion of the Terrifier films as well as the work of Rob Zombie.

Get an ad-free experience, plus bonus talking for nearly every episode at patreon.com/prettymuchpop for only the tiniest per-month financial pledge, or you can sign up directly with Apple Podcasts for a subscription for ad-free and bonus material for three of Mark's podcasts together on the Mark Lintertainment Podcasts Channel.

Sponsors: Get 50% off Claude AI Pro at Claude.ai/pmp. Go to surfshark.com/pmp or use code pmp at checkout to get 4 extra monthsof Surfshark VPN.

Continuing on bits of Thomas Aquinas: Selected Philosophical Writings, completing our analysis of his arguments for the existence of God and then turning to eternity and the possibility of actually talking about God, given our finitude.

Sponsor: Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health.

Singer-songwriter-multi-instrumentalist Jonathan (currently based in Minneapolis) has been putting out indie rock solo albums since 1992, but has also ventured into traditional Finnish folk music and has multiple releases of tunes that I won't call Christian rock, but more rock that grapples with being someone who goes to church.

We discuss "Diner by the Train" (and listen at the end to "Evidence") from Waves (2025), "Home Unknown" from Look Up (2015), "Tape" from Recital (1997), and "Failing Rockstar Attempt" from Sound Theology (2000). Intro: "When I Get Bored" from 11 Years and 28 Days in the Yellow Room (1992) More at junathanrundman.com.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Support us on Patreon.

Sponsors: Visit square.com/go/nem to learn about how Square helps local businesses. Go to surfshark.com/nakedly or use code nakedly at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark
VPN.

On selections from Thomas Aquinas: Selected Philosophical Writings, mostly taken from the Summa Theologica (1268).

Given our flawed, finite human nature, how do we fit into the universe? In particular, how can we know and talk about things far beyond our experience such as God and eternity? In this part, we discuss arguments for the existence of God.

Sponsors: Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health. Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel.

On Leviathan (1651), ch. 21, "On the Liberty of Subjects." Thomas Hobbes is known for defending absolute monarchy, so as you'd predict, he's not going to say we have a lot of "natural" liberties.

How does your body talk to you? Your favorite hosts-of-a-philosophy-and-improv-comedy show Mark Linsenmayer and Merry Mary Hynes re-connect after both being sick to get a bit Halloweeny so as to talk about various food-related monsters, experiencing art by disgraced creators, inner homunculi a la "Inside Out," movie talk, Nietzsche's nose fetish, and more.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast and listen ad-free at philosophyimprov.com/support.

Sponsor: Get 15% off at MasterClass.com/IMPROV.

Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Al watched Spinal Tap and its new sequel, and we throw these into a mix with K-Pop Demon Hunters and other films and shows involving made-for-TV (and film) bands, including We Are Lady Parts, That Thing You Do, Fear of a Black Hat, CB4, Atlanta, The Blues Brothers, The Commitments, Almost Famous, The Rutles, and The Monkees.

Get an ad-free experience, plus bonus talking for this and nearly every episode at patreon.com/prettymuchpop for only the tiniest per-month financial pledge, or you can sign up directly with Apple Podcasts for a subscription for ad-free and bonus material for three of Mark's podcasts together on the Mark Lintertainment Podcasts Channel.

Sponsors: Get 50% off Claude AI Pro at Claude.ai/pmp. Get 15% off an annual membership at MasterClass.com/PRETTY.

Continuing on "Directions for Decomposition" from A Short History of Decay (1949). What is it that humans are inevitably trying to avoid that seems so bad to us? It's our existential separation from others, our essential, incommunicable solitude. Plus, ennui, sloth, and being a "traitor to existence."

Sponsor: Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health.

Adrian has applied his distinctive, spacey dub mixing techniques to numerous recordings since 1978 including Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Sinéad O'Connor, and Spoon and has released nine albums under his own name since 2003. He has effectively served as a key band member in several groups including Creation Rebel and African Head Charge. 

We discuss "Body Roll" from The Collapse of Everything (2025), "Starship Bahia" from Survival & Resistance (2012), and "Sharp as a Needle" by Barmy Army from The English Disease (1989). End song: "Make Up Your Mind" by Coldcut (Ninja Tunes), et al from Outside the Echo Chamber (2017). Intro: "Movement in Space" by Creation Rebel from Starship Africa (1980). More at adriansherwood.com.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Support us on Patreon.

Sponsor: Visit square.com/go/nem to learn about how Square helps local businesses.

The clash between Eli Sunday and Daniel Plainview, between religion and industry, steeple and oil derrick, might come down to something like the difference between a gift and a skill. Eli calls himself a son of the hills of Little Boston, an inheritor of land and legacy, a member of a family, and of a faith imagined as a family. Daniel calls himself an oil man, but only after reciting his resume as proof that he’s earned the title. He tends flocks of derricks, not people, and he leases both land and family to strategic, rather than communal, ends. Yet ultimately, each lacks what the other has. What is a gift without control or discipline, a skill without purpose or meaning? And is there a difference between a gift and luck? Wes & Erin discuss Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2007 film “There Will Be Blood.”

On Aristotle's Physics, book 2, ch. 8 on "final causation," i.e. purposiveness as a natural explanation. Modern science doesn't much like this kind of explanation, but Aristotle found it essential, and here's his argument for it.

Mark's Partially Examined Life co-host Seth joins us (i.e. Mark and Mary) to introduce Seth to improv and continue introducing philosophy to Mary.

We discuss Seth's attraction to depressing texts, act out couples' therapy and monster beauty parlor, and open up a few philosophical cans of worms: Is truth relative? (Hint: no!) Does outer beauty reflect inner beauty?

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast and listen ad-free at philosophyimprov.com/support.

On A Short History of Decay (1949), a pessimist/existentialist somewhat text from the most famous Romanian philosopher.

Cioran's short essays touch on art, humor, God, salvation, time, nostalgia, mourning, death, disease, suicide, revolt, freedom, Buddhism, Daoism, and the role of the philosopher.

Sponsor: Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health.

The Partially Examined Life was characteristically active in September, delving into many fascinating topics. In order of occurrence, here’s a list of September content you can revisit, or in case you missed it, enjoy for the first time. Ep. 374: Discussing Liberalism (Lincoln, et al) with Walter Sterling (Part Two)September 1, 2025The second half of a conversation on the roots and Continue Reading …

For our Emmys/back-to-school episode, we cover the pinnacle of the current network sitcom landscape: The six-time 2025 Emmy nominated Abbott Elementary, which is beginning its fifth season.

Mark, Lawrence, Al and West-Philly-resident Sarahlyn discuss the show's Philly-ness and how it integrates cringe humor with realistic depiction of how messed up it is for schools to be so underfunded. Is this a "black show"?

Get an ad-free experience, plus bonus talking for this and nearly every episode at patreon.com/prettymuchpop for only the tiniest per-month financial pledge, or you can sign up directly with Apple Podcasts for a subscription for ad-free and bonus material for three of Mark's podcasts together on the Mark Lintertainment Podcasts Channel.

Sponsors: Get 50% off Claude AI Pro at Claude.ai/pmp. Try the Stuck in the '80s podcast at sit80s.com.

Continuing on selections from this late Platonic dialogue. Starting in Book 4, Plato's characters are discussing how to create a new state ("Magnesia") from scratch. What sorts of laws should it have?

We talk about marriage laws, the nocturnal council, how the law is argued for that everyone has to believe in gods, and more.

Sponsor: Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health.

Eric was a major figure in the 1960s NYC folk scene, and his early tunes have been covered by Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, and many others. He's released 22 solo albums plus several live albums and two albums with The Band's Rick Danko as Danko/Fjeld/Andersen.

We discuss "Don't It Make You Wanna Sing the Blues" from Dance of Love and Death (2025), "Rain Falls Down in Amsterdam" from Memory of the Future (1998), and "Six Senses of Darkness" from Ghosts Upon the Road (1989). End song: "Time Run Like a Freight Train" from Stages: The Lost Album (recorded 1973). Intro: "Violets of Dawn" from 'Bout Changes and Things (1966). More at ericandersen.com.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Support us on Patreon.

Sponsor: Visit square.com/go/nem to learn about how Square helps local businesses.

On "The Concept of Enlightenment" (1944), the first essay in this Frankfurt School book of critical theory, The Dialectic of Enlightenment.

Our authors lay out what they take The Enlightenment to consist of, including some quotes from Francis Bacon, and some ultimately fatal tensions within it that make it no longer serve the humanistic purposes it was created for.

On this later dialogue presenting Plato's ideas about the character of laws in a just state. They should all be aimed at making people virtuous, and so should include education to this end. Each law should be equipped with a prelude presenting a rational argument for why people should obey it.

Sponsor: Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health.

It is a new era! Merry Mary Hynes is now Mark's co-host, and we do some improv related to that and feel our the degree to which Mary has not studied philosophy. Could it be that we ALL do philosophy whether we know it or not? Also: The Feminist Café, Luce Irigaray, Mark's voice training, an aging child pop star, non-binary preliminaries, gratis post-game chatter, and more.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast and listen ad-free at philosophyimprov.com/support.

Sponsor: Get 15% off at MasterClass.com/IMPROV.

What do we expect out of a superhero film? Does it need overqualified dramatic actors? Does it even need a real budget?

Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Al discuss the various films modeled after Marvel's Fantastic Four comics initiated by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1961. First Steps is clearly the best of them and surpassed our low expectations, with its delivery of a believable family dynamic and a fun retro-futurist production design.

Get an ad-free experience, plus bonus talking for this and nearly every episode at patreon.com/prettymuchpop for only the tiniest per-month financial pledge, or you can sign up directly with Apple Podcasts for a subscription for ad-free and bonus material for three of Mark's podcasts together on the Mark Lintertainment Podcasts Channel.

In Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People,” two conceptions of communal health do battle. Dr. Stockmann’s is progressive, focused as it is on the vitality of the young, their new ideas, and the possibility of growth into a better future, even if that means encroaching on the powers that be. His brother’s is conservative, focused on the use of authority and ascetic self-restraint to preserve existing achievements and ideas. But once in conflict, these conceptions seem to reveal themselves to be competing forms of elitism, and expressions of contempt respectively for both past and future. Wes & Erin discuss whether there is a more nuanced conception of the common good available to us, and how it might be related to the sudden turn at the end of the play to the the role of education.

Continuing on "Women on the Market" from The Sex Which Is Not One (1977) and other selections.

Irigaray gives a Marxist analysis of the commodification of women, addresses psychotherapists about their neglect of women's viewpoints, recommends wonder over objectification, and interprets Hegel's comments about Antigone.

Sponsors: Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health. Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel.

Sign up for Closereads at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy to get previous and future installments of this podcast. Discussing the section on Stoicism in Hegel’s “Phenomenology of Spirit,” which is under “Freedom of Self-Consciousness,” “Stoicism, Scepticism, and the Unhappy Consciousness.” This comes right after his famous lordship and bondage chapter, and explains how in reaction to being defined by the gaze of another Continue Reading …

On The Sex Which Is Not One (1977) and other Irigaray selections from the French Feminism Reader (2000), featuring guest Jenny Hansen (who wrote the introduction to the book chapter).

What role should sexual difference play in philosophy and society? Irigaray qua second-wave feminist claims that unleashing the feminine can and should transform philosophy, public policy, and relationships.

Check out the America Dissected podcast.

It's our season finale, and the end of Bill's regular participation on the show. You may wish to weep, but let your tears be of joy as well as reminiscence.

We are re-joined by two of our favorite improv guests for a Team Play episode to talk ship of Theseus, philosophy vs. mythology vs. video games, Renaissance contemporaries, long-lived turtles, "realist" morality, goodbyes, and our final boardroom scene.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast and listen ad-free at philosophyimprov.com/support.

Maia has released ten lush, Americana-influenced singer-songwriter albums since 1997 and has collaborated with artists like Art Garfunkel, Bonnie Raitt, and Trisha Yearwood, and been covered by Cher, Paul Carrack, etc.

We discuss "Counterintuition" (and listen to the title track) from Tomboy (2025), "Phoenix" from The Dash Between the Dates (2015), and "A Home" from Fine Upstanding Citizen (2005) (co-written with her father Randy Sharp and popularized in a cover version by The Chicks). Intro: "I Need This to Be Love" from Hardly Glamour (1997). More at maiasharp.com.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Support us on Patreon.

Sponsor: Visit functionhealth.com/NAKEDLY to take control of your health through testing and get $100 off your membership.

What is the state of the stream-of-gags formula that used to stand tall in the films of the Zucker Brothers (mainly Airplane) and Mel Brooks? A new generation attempts to revive that with a new Naked Gun film. How does this new effort relate to the classic films?

Are these kinds of films particularly timeless? Rewatchable? Do young people appreciate this kind of thing? Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and (for the third or so) Al speculate wildly as usual.

Get an ad-free experience, plus bonus talking for this and nearly every episode at patreon.com/prettymuchpop for only the tiniest per-month financial pledge, or you can sign up directly with Apple Podcasts for a subscription for ad-free and bonus material for three of Mark's podcasts together on the Mark Lintertainment Podcasts Channel.

Continuing our discussion of the dangers to and weak points of liberal democracy, including consideration of Patrick Deneen's Why Liberalism Failed (2018) Francis Fukuyama's "Liberalism and Its Discontents" (his 2020 essay), and Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now (2018).

What's the crisis of liberal democracy? Dylan, Wes and Seth are joined by St. John's College President J. Walter Sterling to discuss Abraham Lincoln's "On the Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions" (1838) plus the beginnings of Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now (2018), Patrick Deneen's Why Liberalism Failed (2018), and Francis Fukuyama's "Liberalism and Its Discontents" (the 2020 essay).

Sponsor: Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health. 

Enrollment is now open for Mark's online political philosophy course. See partiallyexaminedlife.com/class.

Nessa teaches philosophy at Lone Star Community College and writes on the philosophy of humor. We thought we should get this topic out before we wrap our season (and Bill's regular participation) and reach 100 episodes.

We go through the main theories (superiority, incongruity/surprise, unconscious triggering, i.e. funny because it's true on some level we don't necessarily want to admit). Then Nessa (fictionally) becomes our podcast format consultant. We wrap up by considering the appeal of various stand-up comedians.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast and listen ad-free at philosophyimprov.com/support.

We are concluding our treatment of Peter Railton's "Moral Realism" (1984), and given that you likely haven't listened to the seven preceding parts, or (like us) you've forgotten things from them, this discussion can serve as a standalone summary of not only Railton's view, but of our efforts to actually figure out what a plausible naturalistic, empirical account of ethics could amount to.

Read along with us, starting on PDF p. 42.

I bet you'd like to have an excuse to read some Aristotle, and Locke, Rousseau, Simone Weil, and other fun texts. Well, go read about this opportunity at partiallyexaminedlife.com/class, and then follow the link to enroll.

We’re never told exactly how Martin Brody ended up as sheriff of a small beach community, despite his fear of the water. But his ultimate confrontation with the water, and the shark that inhabits it, have a fateful character that seems to implicate his own internal conflicts. Oceanographer Matt Hooper tells Martin that sharks are attracted to the “exact kind of splashing” human beings produce when at play in the water, and Martin himself seems to be distinctively lacking in the capacity for relaxing and letting go. What is it about the activity of play that might be dangerous? How do we accommodate our impulses, relationships, and communal strivings, without being consumed by them? Wes & Erin discuss Stephen Spielberg’s 1975 classic “Jaws.”

In light of the new James Gunn film Superman, Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Al talk about the character, his stories, and past films and shows.

Did Zack Snyder (Man of Steel) miss the point? Are the Richard Donner films (chiefly 1978's Superman: The Movie) as good as nostalgia would have us recall them? How does one write a convincing plot centered around a flawless, basically all-powerful hero? How should the Lex Luthor character fit in?

Get an ad-free experience, plus bonus talking for this and nearly every episode at patreon.com/prettymuchpop for only the tiniest per-month financial pledge, or you can sign up directly with Apple Podcasts for a subscription for ad-free and bonus material for three of Mark's podcasts together on the Mark Lintertainment Podcasts Channel.

Continuing on on Just and Unjust Wars (1977), ch. 5-6. When might it be morally permissible to strike first? When is it permissible (or obligatory?) to intervene in another country's internal affairs militarily? We discuss Walzer's historical examples and apply his theories to current wars.

Sponsors: Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health. Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel.

...OK, maybe not his ending, but it's a late career boost into overdrive: This 66-year-old has been making music since the '80s, but you're only going to find two of his releases on the streaming services right now, and only this new album (released 20 years after the previous one) has the polish to count as a world-conquering, professional release.

We discuss two songs from this new album Diner of Doubt: "My Dead Friend," and "I Have a Lotta Dreams," plus "Build Another One" (and the intro, "Chinese Lights") from Might Could Have (2004). End song: "Oh Dee Oh Oh" (2023). More at teetempleton.com.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Support us on Patreon.

Sponsors: Visit functionhealth.com/NAKEDLY to take control of your health through testing and get $100 off your membership. Check out The 500 with Josh Adam Meyers for discussion of classic albums with cool guests.

Recorded back in June, posting now as we near the end of our season and Bill's tenure on the show, this episode now bleeds with dramatic irony. Mark and Bill discuss how to give a good speech, AI in academics, and we have a tear-stained visit to Empty Street.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast and listen ad-free at philosophyimprov.com/support.

On Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument With Illustrations (1977), ch. 4-6 on "jus ad bellum," which refers to moral justifications for going to war. Self-defense is permissible while aggression is not, but this leaves many questions unanswered, and Walzer gives us many historical examples to consider.

Sponsors: Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health. Check out Richard Dawkins' The Poetry Of Reality Podcast at thepoetryofreality.com.

Enrollment is now open for Mark's online political philosophy course. See partiallyexaminedlife.com/class.

Purported the first summer blockbuster, Jaws has now hit 50 years, and so we discuss this wonderful early Spielberg film, its ill-conceived sequels, some of the making-of docs, and the legacy of shark/big carnivore films that it spawned. Is the film as flawless as it’s made out to be? Are the sequels as awful as typically described? Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, Continue Reading …

Continuing on the 1785 course lecture notes by Georg Ludwig Collins. We cover duties to oneself, which are actually the most important ones. There are some interesting subtleties even though Kant is clearly a creature of his time and place, e.g. in his views of sexuality.

Sponsors: Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health. Visit IDOU.com/PEL for 15% off online courses on using AI in creative, human-centered ways.

Learn about Mark's online political philosophy class at partiallyexaminedlife.com/class.

Nora Helmer begins Act I as a devoted wife to her respectable husband, Torvald, and a devoted mother to her young children. She ends Act III by walking out on all of them and closing the door behind her. The emotional distance covered in these three acts (representing a span of just a few days in the lives of the Helmers) makes Nora one of the greatest and most coveted acting challenges in the theater. How might we mark out a route between the Nora of Act I, the charming toy of the men in her life who seems to desire nothing more than the comfort and ease her husband’s recent promotion is set to provide, and the Nora of Act III, an independent woman willing to sacrifice everything in pursuit of her own self-determination? Wes & Erin discuss Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House.”

Loads of material was covered in the month of July here at The Partially Examined Life (PEL). With the month’s end, a summary look-back is in order. Here’s a list of July content you can revisit or, in case you missed it, enjoy for the first time. Closereads: H.A. Prichard on Ethics (Part One)July 2This episode covers H.A. Prichard’s 1912 Continue Reading …

New York singer-songwriter Willie has released sixteen albums since 1980. He has opened for The Who and Bruce Springsteen, among others, but rejected the major label life after his first two albums.

We discuss "An Irish Goodbye" (feat. Paul Brady) from The Great Yellow Light (2025) (and listen at the end to "Wake Up, America" feat. Steve Earle from that album), "Cell Phones Ringing (In the Pockets of the Dead)" from Streets of New York (2006), and the title track from Places I Have Never Been (1991). Intro: "Vagabond Moon" from Willie Nile (1980).

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Support us on Patreon.

Sponsor: Visit functionhealth.com/NAKEDLY to take control of your health through testing and get $100 off your membership.

We're jumping back into a 1984 paper that we began a couple of years ago in light of our recent PEL activity on contemporary ethics. How does he jump from individual objective interests to ethical normativity?

We discuss lecture notes from Kant's 1785 ethics course, which provide more examples and an emphasis on the practical than his more famous works.

For instance, we get more information on ethical motivation: How can the rational recognition of ethical principles lead to moral feelings?

Sponsor: Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health.

Learn about Mark's online political philosophy class at partiallyexaminedlife.com/class.

LA Second City improv instructor Mary joins us to act out a pet sitting job interview, talk about sharing our public spaces with animals, and finally return to Empty Street to see if we can get some animal action going in the mart.

In the post-game, we talk about Bill's new academic studies and Mark's upcoming Gen Con trip.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast and listen ad-free at philosophyimprov.com/support.

Sponsors: Don't wait until the next bite -- protect your home with Bzigo. Go to bzigo.com/discountBUZZ10 to save 10% off. Go to surfshark.com/improv or use code IMPROV at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN!

In light of the new film Ballerina, we discuss the John Wick franchise that kicked off in 2014 with four films plus a (bad) Peacock TV show. We also watched the recent documentary Wick Is Pain.

Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn and Al are joined by Brian Casey to mostly talk about the main four films in the series: They have a formula, but is that bad?

Get an ad-free experience, plus bonus talking for this and nearly every episode at patreon.com/prettymuchpop for only the tiniest per-month financial pledge, or you can sign up directly with Apple Podcasts for a subscription for ad-free and bonus material for three of Mark's podcasts together on the Mark Lintertainment Podcasts Channel.

Concluding our treatment of The Sources of Normativity. We give Korsgaard's tweaks to Kant, including her distinction between the categorical imperative and the moral law. We then explain her reference to Wittgenstein's private language argument in her argument that reason-giving, and hence morality, can't be merely self-referential.

Sponsors: Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health. Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel.

Learn about Mark's online political philosophy class at partiallyexaminedlife.com/class.

Not only is John a multi-instrumentalist who's played with Violent Femmes, Allen Ginsberg, Hal Willner, John Prine, et al, but he's released around 24 albums as a solo artist or with groups including the NYC world music outfit TriBeCaStan.

We discuss "(Be Careful What You Say to) An Armed Lady" by Folklorkestra from A Strange Day in June (2023), the title track from Forever Ago (with La Societe; del Musici) (2018), "Bed Bugs" by TriBeCaStan from New Deli (2012), and listen to "Back Country" by The Electric Chairmen from Toast (1995). Intro: "Grim Reaper’s Song" from Midnight Snack (1986). More at kruthworks.com.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Support us on Patreon.

Sponsor: Visit functionhealth.com/NAKEDLY to take control of your health through testing and get $100 off your membership.

On lectures 3 and 4 of The Sources of Normativity (1996), where we get Korsgaard's positive view on how morality becomes obligatory for an individual, which has to do with identity, reason-giving, and our fundamentally social nature. And yet, her view is an interpretation of Kant!

Sponsors: Don't wait until the next bite—protect your home with Bzigo. Go to bzigo.com/discount/BUZZ10 to save 10%. Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health.

Learn about Mark's online political philosophy class at partiallyexaminedlife.com/class.

Mark Schiff is a legendary stand-up who currently podcasts with friend-of-PEL and philosophy enthusiast, Daniel Lobell as We Think It's Funny.

These gents join Mark and Bill to talk about stand-up vs. improv, comedy LPs, waterless urinals, bad press, the path to enlightenment, and how to get rid of syphilis. We run a scene on hiring entertainment for the company party, and engage in some riffs that can only be called improv.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast and listen ad-free at philosophyimprov.com/support.

Sponsor: Go to surfshark.com/improv or use code IMPROV at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN!

In immediate reaction to the Apple TV+ Seth Rogan show The Studio, we talk about Hollywood's obsession with itself and how studio dynamics interfere with what exactly we all get to see. Also, what's with the fascination with old Hollywood? What's the appeal of Hollywood gossip?

Erica our first-season co-host returns to join Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Al.

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear this ad-free with bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

If you enjoy our show, check out the All the Right Movies podcast.

It’s Valentine’s Day in the state of Victoria, Australia in the year 1900. A group from a local girls’ school goes on an excursion to the foot of an eerie, vast geological formation called Hanging Rock. Three girls and one schoolteacher climb up to explore it. All but one are never seen again. This summary constitutes the essential plot but only the first act of Peter Weir’s 1975 film, based on the novel by Joan Lindsay. The remaining two acts concern the surviving characters’ struggle to make sense of what happened on the rock. Yet, sense is not what the film intends to deliver. Rather, it’s an anti-mystery that dismantles the nature of the mystery story itself—its love of solutions, its neat settling of the uncertainties that crime or menace introduce. What happens, this film asks, when an event resists the imposition of order, stands beyond the reach of logic or even language? Wes & Erin discuss “Picnic at Hanging Rock.”

We dive further into the text of lectures 1 and 2 of The Sources of Normativity (1996).

We give Korsgaard's account of the idea of reflective endorsement through Hume and Bernard Williams to get to her own view. When you come to know the origins of your moral sentiments, do you still stand behind them?

Learn more about Mark's fall online political philosophy class at partiallyexaminedlife.com/class.

Sponsor: Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health.

This famed finger-style guitarist broke through with Jefferson Airplane's seven albums from 1966-1972, recorded eight with Hot Tuna 1970-1976 (with subsequent reunions by both bands), recorded his first solo album in 1974 and then 10 more from 1981-2025, and has collaborated with John Hurlburt, members of the Grateful Dead, and Janice Joplin.

We discuss "In My Dreams" from Ain't in No Hurry (2015), "Been So Long" from River of Time (2009), "Sleep Song" by Hot Tuna from America's Choice (1975). End song: "Hesitation Blues" from Reno Road: Unreleased Tracks from the 60s (1960). Intro: "Embryonic Journey" from Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow (1967). More at jormakaukonen.com.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Support us on Patreon.

If you enjoy our show, check out the All the Right Movies podcast.

On "Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?" (1912). Prichard claims that we feel certain actions to be obligatory, and that we have no justification for globally doubting those raw intuitions. We can only re-check by looking more carefully, but the promise of moral philosophy to find a more robust confirmation is incoherent and illusory.

On The Sources of Normativity (1996), lectures 1 and 2.

How are facts related to obligations? We don't want to merely explain our moral impulses, but justify them. Korsgaard walks us through the views of Hobbes, Hume, Bernard Williams and others to arrive at her own breed of Kantianism, which we'll lay out in ep. 371.

Sponsor: Don't wait until the next bite—protect your home with Bzigo. Go to bzigo.com/discount/BUZZ10 to save 10%.

Khafiz Kerimov and Nicholas Bellinson teach at St. John's College, and they channeled the educational style of that school into a new podcast called Invasive Thoughts.

They join Mark and Bill to talk (and act) about various educational technologies, teacher-student relations, circle-drawing competitions, the passivity of thinking, bad quotation use, and more.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast and listen ad-free at philosophyimprov.com/support.

Sponsors: Go to surfshark.com/improv or use code IMPROV at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN! Rid your home of mosquitos with the Bzigo Iris; visit bzigo.com/discount/BUZZ10 for 10% off.

On the eight-film action series that launched in 1996 (based on the 1966 TV series) in light of its apparently final film. Featuring Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn and Al.

Is this a coherent narrative as the last film would have you believe, or just an excuse for a series of Tom Cruise physically challenges? Maybe the latter is enough for us!

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear this ad-free with bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

Continuing on Natural Goodness, getting more into concrete cases of moral reasoning. How and why do we decide to keep promises, even in cases where violating them would produce more utility? How do we take into account different kinds of grounds in moral reasoning?

Sponsor: Visit IDOU.com/PEL for 15% off online courses on using AI in creative, human-centered ways.

On Derek Parfit's "Prudence, Morality, and the Prisoner's Dilemma" (1978). What is a "prisoner's dilemma" and what is its relevance to ethics?

Kolby runs After Dinner Conversations, which curates short stories about philosophy. He's also been a "producer" of improv shows.

We talk about what makes a story philosophical, Kolby tells some stories, and we run some scenes about teleporter shenanigans and guidance counseling.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast and listen ad-free at philosophyimprov.com/support.

Sponsor: Go to surfshark.com/improv or use code IMPROV at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN!

Chris has around 20 releases since 1991, mostly under his own name, while moonlighting as a metal guy and otherwise collaborating.

We discuss "She Looks Good in Black" from Obsolete Path (2025), "Intransitive Proverb" from Limitations of the Source Tape (2017), and "Angel Be Mine" from Your Own Chosen Speed (2001). End song: "Sisiphus" by Däng from Tartarus: The Darkest Realm (2014). Intro: "Every Time" by Flat Earth from Prefacipice (1991). More at chrischurch1.bandcamp.com

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Support us on Patreon.

Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Al discuss Tony Gilroy's Star Wars Disney+ two-season TV show. Should this actually be a Star Wars show given how different in tone it was? The show adds meat (and banality!) to the evil of the Empire and the rough life of a rebel. We talk characters, themes, settings, and all that other literary stuff.

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear this ad-free with bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

On Natural Goodness (2001). Can we base ethics on the model of biology? Foot argues that just as we understand what a healthy specimen of a plant or animal is, so there is a natural way for humans to work properly, which will include the ability to will according to reflective reasoning.

Sponsor: Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel.

Yeats’s poem “Sailing to Byzantium” begins and ends with the concept of reproduction. In the first stanza, this reproduction is natural and sexual, and in the final stanza is entirely a matter of artifice. The living songbird is transformed into both product and producer, with a form of singing that is gilded by a consciousness of its departure from nature. Where natural reproduction replenishes entities that are neverthless always in the process of dying, art—the speaker seems to hope—is potentially eternal. And yet the poem’s final stanza also reminds us that art is ultimately for the living, and only as alive as its audience. Wes & Erin discuss Yeats’s meditation on whether creativity can help us transcend mortality, and how artists should conceive of their relationships to nature and posterity.

We conclude our discussion of A Treatise of Human Nature (1739): Book III, "Of Morals," plus a bit more discussion of An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751). 

How do moral sentiments fit into Hume's overall philosophy of mind? Is Hume a relativist? We talk about sociopaths, animals, incest, consent, ethics vs. beauty, moral luck, and more.

Sign up for Closereads at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy to get previous and future installments of this podcast. On Spinoza’s Ethics, Third Part, “Concerning the Origin and Nature of the Emotions.” We want to see how emotions ground ethics, but first, we have to explain what emotions are, which means explaining how mind and body (and causality) work together on Spinoza’s account. A Continue Reading …

Shannon the philosopher and Audrey the poet are Seattle improv buddies that form a duo called Closer to Clarity that uses improv to answer audience members' big life questions (BLQs).

Hear philosophy and poetry face off and mind meld and do-si-do as we play through two wacky corporate office scenes and return once again to Empty Street™ for an attempted gas station poetry open mic.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast and listen ad-free at philosophyimprov.com/support.

We talk a bit more about David Hume's An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751), and add some parts of A Treatise of Human Nature (1739): sec. 3 "Of the Influencing Motives of the Will" within the third part of Book II, "Of the Passions," and the first two sections of Book III, "Of Morals."

Can reason by itself motivate moral action? Hume says no: All ethical reasons must point ultimately to sentiments, which we can generalize about, but which are epistemically basic.

The tu quoque fallacy is a sneaky one. It can come and go before you know it. Strictly speaking, tu quoque means “you too.” It’s a lot like accusing someone of hypocrisy. The fallacious part comes a step a down the line when, through an accusation of hypocrisy, doubt is cast on the content of the claim. We ought to Continue Reading …

Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Al discuss The Pitt and other medical dramas like ER, Gray's Anatomy, ad nauseam. 

Doctors and patients grappling with life and death stakes seems a strong premise for drama, but how many of these shows do we need? We talk about the gore, the pacing, the characters, the politics, and the other considerations that make The Pitt a great show (at this point).

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear this ad-free with bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

Bill released 8 albums from 1969-1977 with Sons of Champlin then moved to LA to become a solo artist and session musician, co-writing two Grammy-winning tunes. He was the designated soul singer in Chicago from 1981-2009 and released several solo albums starting in 1990 while continuing to collaborate widely.

We discuss "Alone" from Livin' for Love (2021), the title track from He Started to Sing (1995), and "Right On" by Sons of Champlin from Welcome to the Dance (1973). End song: "Plaid" by Chicago from Stone of Sisyphus (1992). Intro: "Please Hold On" from Chicago 17 (1984). Learn more at billchamplin.com.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Support us on Patreon.

On the surface, “Rosemary’s Baby” is a horror film about a woman who gets taken advantage of by a satanic cult and impregnated by the Devil. In the end, it seems to be a satire on the competing entrapments of domesticity and ambition, and the boring conventionality of people who hope that opposition to convention will allow them to retrieve their lost youth. Wes & Erin discuss Roman Polanski’s 1968 classic, and why it is that Satanic evil, when confronted with life’s very frightening realities—including pregnancy itself—turns out to be so banal.

Continuing on An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751), talking about justice (i.e. property laws), why utility is pleasing and what all it includes, sympathy, utility vs. beauty, and more.

On David Hume's An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751). What is morality, and how can we know it?

Hume claims that we simply find ourselves with sentiments morally approving and disapproving of various things. Characterizing these post hoc, we can say that in general we approve of what brings utility, and this explains the existence of most laws and mores. These may vary by culture because conditions change the utility calculation in different environments.

Sponsor: Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel.

Luvell Anderson (Philosophy prof. at U of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign) joins Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Al to discuss Ryan Coogler's new vampire siege/black studies film starring Michael B. Jordan. We talk about the film's comments on black freedom, black music, the church, why the film needed twins, whether the vampires were even necessary, the film's humor and structure, and more.

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear this ad-free with bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

Greg teaches philosophy (and is Interim Provost at Ashland, loves Xenophon, and runs a podcast. We reflect on the dangers of radon and other "natural" things. How might one of our government agencies become more natural, and would we want that? Are fart jokes the most naturally funny kind? Then, Greg the trucker visits Empty Street and embezzles dead mules.

Bill was thrust from the final portion of the call, so Mark and Greg engage in some philosophy podcast shop talk. He returns for the Post-Game after Greg's departure to reflect on the episode and specifically identify the naturalistic fallacy.

Continuing on The Problem of Empathy. What does it mean to say that we know other people's mental states "non-primordially"? We talk about Stein's project of explaining how empathy is possible, what it gets us, and how her answers differ from Scheler's.

Sponsor: Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel.

We discuss the HBO dramedy about rich people having existential crises at a luxury resort in light of its third season. What exactly made this latest season less satisfying than the others? Does the show have a sustainable formula? What is the show saying about enlightenment? Travel? Sexuality?

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear this ad-free with bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

On The Problem of Empathy (1917). What is empathy, and what is its significance?

Stein pictures empathy as a dynamic process that involves what Scheler called sympathy but goes beyond this. Your don't just take the other person's feeling as our object of contemplation, but in doing so, your enter into it (while still not confusing it with YOUR feeling), this relating to it "non-primordially." So how does this work, exactly?

Get more at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to get ad-free episodes and tons of bonus discussion.

We conclude our treatment of Max Scheler's The Nature of Sympathy (1922), getting further into the Part II of the book about love and hatred and grappling with the puzzles about what exactly it is we love about someone (the "personality").

If you enjoy our podcast, check out Working Class History at workingclasshistory.com.

On Ch. 6 "Formalism and Person," in Max Scheler's most famous work, Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values (1916).

Dean has released about 20 albums, starting with three '88-'90 with Galaxie 500, then he started fresh in New York as Luna, releasing seven albums and some EPs through 2005 (plus a later reunion), then continued with his Luna bassist and now spouse Britta Phillips as Dean and Britta for five albums, interspersed with now four albums under his own name and other miscellaneous projects.

We discuss "We're Not Finished Yet" (and listen at the end to "The Cloud Is Coming" from That's the Price of Loving Me (2025), "Love Is Colder Than Death" from Emancipated Hearts (2013), and "23 Minutes in Brussels" by Luna from Penthouse (1995). Intro: "Strange" by Galaxie 500 from On Fire (1989). More at deanwareham.com.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Support us on Patreon.

Understanding logical fallacies is crucial to bringing order and discipline to our arguments. But fallacies are also the stock-in-trade of any keyboard warrior fighting it out in the online trenches. It can get tedious. “Fallacy bro” is a term used to pick out this annoying quality. The accusation of a fallacy often comes too quickly, or comes while missing a Continue Reading …

We watched the 4-part British crime series that's become #1 in 80 countries, breaking Netflix's records for an original series. And man, was it a bummer. But important!

We reflect on the purpose of the show, its one-take-per-episode format, the choice of whose perspectives to show, the crazy good acting by such a young person, and we get a little education about incel culture. How have things changed since we were kids?

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear this ad-free with bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

On The Nature of Sympathy (1922), Part II: "Love and Hatred." What is love, and how does it relate to ethics and to sympathy?

For Scheler, love is a primitive, spontaneous movement from lower to higher values: We see the best in the love one and thereby help enable them to attain that excellence. So is love foundational for value, or is value foundational for love? The two seem to arise together.

Sponsor: Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel.

Mark, Wes, and Dylan reconvened for one more hour on Part I, "Fellow Feeling" (ch. 3-4) in The Nature of Sympathy (1913/1922).

We continue to try to figure out the razor's edge of "fellow feeling proper" that does not rely on the sympathizer identifying in any way and look into psychological and metaphysical ways that people can identify with others.

Sponsor: Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel.

Mark and Bill are joined by the actor/improviser who directs Camp Improv Utopia and is involved in managing improv spaces such as Denver's Rise Comedy. We talk about the notion of community, with a scene about the neighborhood watch and a return to Empty Street to deal seriously in a public-service-announcement/after-school special sort of way with the issue of buying liquor underage.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast and listen ad-free at philosophyimprov.com/support. Check out other Evergreen Podcast offerings.

Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn and Al here discuss the sci-fi/office dramedy in light of its second season. We might normally wait until the end of the show, but given that season 1 was 2022, and it took three years to get us season 2, who knows it it'll actually finish? And who knows if it will not be massively disappointing at that point? We strike while the show is culturally relevant!

But did even this season measure up to its phenomenal premise and first season? There are so many juicy plot and character elements on this show that we can't possibly fit them all in.

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear this ad-free with bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

Continuing on The Nature of Sympathy (1913/1922), Part I: "Fellow Feeling," Ch. 1-4. We look more closely at the text, getting further into how fellow feeling relates to ethics, and why the moral sentimentalists (like Hume) were wrong about this.

Get more at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to get ad-free episodes and tons of bonus discussion.

Peter recorded with Chris Stamey as early as 1972, and they reconvened as The dB's in the '80s. Peter has released six albums as the dB's, three more as a duo with Chris, four co-fronting the Continental Drifters, and three solo albums. He has also been a supporting/touring member in several bands including REM, Hootie and the Blowfish, and currently The Paranoid Style.

We discuss "Larger Than Life" from his new solo album The Face of 68), "Don’t Mention the War" from Game Day (2018), and "She Won’t Drive in the Rain" by The Db’s from their reunion album Falling off the Sky (2012). We conclude by listening to "Where Does the Time Go" by Continental Drivers from Better Day (2001). Intro: "Amplifier" by The Db’s from Repercussion (1981). More info at halfpearblog.blogspot.com.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Support us on Patreon.

If only because of its seeming incongruity with a brain “wider than the sky,” the central fact of Emily Dickinson’s life has become her seclusion. As she wrote to Thomas Wentworth Higginson in 1869, “I do not cross my Father’s ground to any House or town.” Like the relatively modest dimensions of her poems, this self-imposed constraint—of the property line within Amherst, Massachusetts, then the Dickinson home itself, then her bedroom—proved no barrier to a cosmic poetic imagination which “went out upon circumference,” and to which no subject, tone, or emotion was foreign. Erin & Wes discuss four of Dickinson’s best-loved poems, whose little rooms contain some of the definitive poetic statements on grief, pain, violence, death, reason, identity, and encounters with the divine: numbers 340, 372, 320, and 477.

On The Nature of Sympathy (1913, expanded 1922), Part I: "Fellow Feeling," Ch. 1-4. 

What is it to feel sympathy (aka "fellow feeling") for another person? It is NOT to "identify" with that person; ethics requires that the person be irreducibly Other, not part of my (extended) ego.

Sponsor: Check out the History of the Germans podcast at historyofthegermans.com.

Mark and Bill introduce a new potential setting and some characters for ongoing use in future improvisations. We talk about techniques for doing that and wrap up by getting an update from Bill on his substitute teaching and talking about what makes for a good teacher.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast and listen ad-free at philosophyimprov.com/support. Check out other Evergreen Podcast offerings.

Continuing on "The Origin of the Knowledge of Right and Wrong" (1889), getting into how we measure the comparative value of things. While Brentano does observe actual practices in these areas, his phenomenology detects moral facts that can be used to cast judgments of people's actual practices, saving him from relativism.

Sponsor: Learn about St. John's College at sjc.edu/pel.

We acknowledge this hugely popular form of "entertainment" recently embodied by The Baldwins, but popularized by shows like The Osbournes and The Kardashians, wherein some celebrity and/or family just shows off their life, Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn and Al are joined by returning guest Kayla Dryesse to talk about why this kind of show exists, its variations, and its redeeming value (if any). Is The Baldwins basically just a lengthy Instagram post?

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear this ad-free with bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

Alfred Hitchcock’s first American film—part love story, part ghost story, part courtroom melodrama—centers on a poor, timid young woman who falls in love with wealthy aristocrat Maxim de Winter, a widower tortured over the death of his first wife. When the young woman becomes the second Mrs. De Winter and moves into Maxim’s estate, she finds her predecessor’s initials stamped all over the house, and its staff in thrall to her beautiful, vibrant memory. But at the heart of the first Mrs. De Winter’s legacy lies a rot, and just what that rot represents in the film—be it the oppressions of vitality and ambition, the wages of class mobility, the unruly desires of sexuality, or the latent evidence of civilizational decline—is our subject today. Wes & Erin discuss the 1940 Best Picture winner “Rebecca,” starring Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier.

On "The Origin of the Knowledge of Right and Wrong" (1889). What justifies basic moral facts? Brentano claims that right there in our experience, we can rationally sense with complete certainty that certain kinds of preferences are good ones, and others are not. This take on intuitionism is a response to Kant that (like Kant) cuts between the traditional epistemic categories of rationalism and empiricism, and Brentano's descriptive psychology kicked off the whole project of phenomenology.

Sponsors: Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel. Learn about African history at historyofafricapodcast.podbean.com.

In his poem “You Who Never Arrived,” Rainer Maria Rilke suggests that we can mourn love as an unrealized possibility, and see this loss signified everywhere in the ordinary objects of the external world. In “Be Ahead of All Parting” (II.13 from his “Sonnets to Orpheus”), he seems to claim that poetry has the capacity to redeem such losses—and retrieve them, so to speak, from their underworld. Wes & Erin discuss these two classics, and whether—as Rilke suggests—death can be put in service of life, and suffering sourced as the principal wellspring of a joyful existence.

Continuing on Ecclesiastes with guest Jesse Peterson, getting into some more close reading of particular sections. We make some connection from the author's observations to ancient Greek Skepticism, Epicureanism, and Stoicism. How is the world "absurd" according to this book?

Sponsors: Learn about St. John's College at sjc.edu/pel. Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel.

Are we taking for granted this unique, talent-filled weekly nationally televised live comedy event that’s been around for 50 years? (as in “What do we think this show is? Chopped liver?”) Does its format even make sense at this time given YouTube and streaming? What will its legacy be? Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Al discuss the casts, highlights, and the Continue Reading …

JR has drummed on over 200 US Billboard Hot 100 songs and 50 Grammy winning tunes. He was in Rufus w/ Chaka Khan in the late 70s/early 80s, has released two solo albums, written for soundtracks, produced other artists, and has led various combos over the years. He is currently promoting his auto-biography King of the Groove.

We discuss "Gonna Be Alright" from The Bronx, USA soundtrack (2020), "Flight 81" from his first solo album, Funkshui (2004), and "You're Really Out of Line" by Rufus from Seal in Red (1983). End song: "Tal Shia" by SRT from Vanguards of Groove (2023). Intro: "Higher Love" by Steve Winwood (1986). More at johnjrrobinson.com.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Support us on Patreon.

Ecclesiastes is often cited as one of the most philosophical books of the Bible, so we approached it in that spirit with the help of Jesse M. Peterson, whose soon-to-be-published book is called Qoheleth and the Philosophy of Value.

Sponsor: Check out the History of the Germans podcast at historyofthegermans.com.

Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn and Al discuss the Coralie Fargeat/Demi Moore film The Substance in light of its Oscar nominations, along with related reflections on lost youth, e.g. Sunset Boulevard (1950), Death Becomes Her (1992), and Neon Demon (2016). We also touch on other cloning scenarios.

Is this film a serious meditation on aging in Hollywood, or just a particularly vivid but logically confused Twilight Zone episode? Is the message of this film already itself past its prime?

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear this ad-free with bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

Sponsor: Get 10% off your first month of online therapy at BetterHelp.com/pretty.

Mark and Bill are joined by two north-of-the-border podcasters, Shawn Vulliez and Aaron Moritz, who incorporate both improv and philosophy in their dirty leftist podcast.

We simulate conversation as competing knowers-of-the-good-life and talk about using improv for political purposes. Note that this was recorded back in December when we were in the thick of Luigi Mangione fever and not yet consumed with daily Presidential antics.

You can choose to watch this on unedited video, if you choose.

On "Fragment on Machines" (1858). Shouldn't automating work free workers? Not according to Marx, until capitalism is overthrown. Until then, automation actually just makes labor conditions worse and certainly doesn't give people more free time, since the capitalist keeps all the surplus gained by greater productivity.

Sponsor: Learn about St. John's College at sjc.edu/pel.

Mark and Wes read through and discuss the beginning of Felix Guattari's "Everybody Wants to Be a Fascist" (1973). Guattari was a Lacanian psychotherapist, and he argues for explaining fascist tendencies via a "micropolitics of desire," i.e. looking at the individual psychology of fascism instead of merely focusing on sociological, material causes of the rise of fascism.

We finish our treatment of Capital, Ch. 1, covering the little bit that Marx says about actual communism (he was wary of utopianism, contra his reputation), and think through a number of related practical problems. We introduce "Fragment on Machines" (1858).

Sponsor: Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel.

Django is a singer/songwriter/guitarist who released his first solo album in 1996 and has released seven albums with The Old Ceremony since 2004 plus several more solo releases.

We discuss The Old Ceremony songs "Too Big to Fail" (and listen to "Hangman's Party at the end) from Earthbound (2024), "The Disappear" from Walk On Thin Air (2009), and "Reservations" from Our One Mistake (2006). Intro: "Beautiful" from Folding Stars (1996). More at theoldceremony.com.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Support us on Patreon.

In light of the recent release of the James Mangold film A Complete Unknown, Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Dylan superfan Al discuss the man, the myth, and the music.

The film clearly aimed to make the music, environment, and political activity of the '60s come alive today, but does the simplification required to make a coherent film undermine that goal? We also touch on his Chronicles, plus I'm Not There and other Dylan-related films.

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear this ad-free with bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

It begins with the “stupidest song ever written,” as Robert Altman called it, and ends with a self-referential jab at the very idea of finding comic relief in the tragedy of war. But it is equally unserious, the film “M.A.S.H” seem to suggest, to take seriously the authority of war-making institutions, and their pretense to putting violence in service of an ideal. And so morality succumbs to mockery, love to hedonism, and military rank to the form of authority immanent in the power to save lives. Yet suicide is not in fact painless, if it means robbing others of our presence, or ridding ourselves of the capacities for grief and earnestness. Wes & Erin discuss the 1970 classic “M.A.S.H,” and whether irony ought always to be our anesthetic, when confronted with traumas that are otherwise unspeakable.

Continuing on Capital, Ch. 1 on commodities. We go into detail on his account of how money gets derived from the continued comparison of various commodities, how use value comes back into play when we compare the economic value of one commodity as compared to another, and finally, the details of commodity fetishism.

Sponsors: Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel. Learn about St. John's College at sjc.edu/pel.

On Capital (1867), Ch. 1, "The Commodity."

What makes something we buy or sell valuable? Marx says it's ultimately the labor that goes into it, though there are some wrinkles in formulating this accurately, and the commodities and surrounding marketplace activity blind us to labor's role and its ethical import.

Sponsor: You may also the Fallacious Trump podcast at fallacioustrump.com.

Mark and Wes read through and discuss Karl Marx's The German Ideology (1846), delving deep into the middle of his critique of Max Stirner's The Ego and Its Own. Marx articulates and criticizes Stirner's attempt to distinguish the mere common egoism of an unthinking person from the enlightened egoism that Stirner is recommending.

Randy is a literature guy who has written a couple of books about improv and here joins Mark and Bill to talk about WINGING IT: Improv's Power and Peril in the Age of Trump, wherein he basically blames improv for giving us the orange man. Our scenes are about Trumpers hustling a fast food joint and improv for dogs.

Mark and Bill stick around for some post-game bringing in yet another metaphor: music and its stylistic development.

Watch this as unedited video, if you so choose.

In light of Robert Eggers' film Nosferatu and the end of What We Do in Shadows, Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Al discuss the many vampire shows and films all the way back to Bram Stoker's 1897 novel.

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear this ad-free with bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

Sponsors: Get 10% off your first month of online therapy at BetterHelp.com/pretty. Learn about LGBT stereotypes at gayishpodcast.com.

We continue on the introduction to Marx's Grundrisse, going through his criticisms of prior economists who were too ahistorical and didn't understand how production, consumption, distribution and exchange hang together as a single system.

Sponsor: Learn about St. John's College at sjc.edu/pel.

On the intro to Marx's Grundrisse (1857) and "Theses on Feuerbach" (1845). Why economics, and why do it the way Marx does? We see Marx argues that Feuerbach's materialism was not materialistic enough, start looking at production, consumption, distribution, and exchange as moments within a single process, and talk about why anyone would want to read a historical economic text.

Sponsor: Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel.

Continuing on The Ego and Its Own, focusing now on the sections "The Owner" and "My Power." Stirner lets us know that his egoism ("ownness") is not compatible with liberal egalitarianism, which he sees as just a continuation of the Christian project of perfecting humanity.

Sponsor: Learn about St. John's College at sjc.edu/pel.

Of all the great American Modernists, the poetry of Marianne Moore is perhaps the most idiosyncratic, even the most radical, of them all—no small feat in a group of friends and admirers that included Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, e. e. cummings, and HD. Moore’s preferred form was a syllabic stanza bespoke to each poetic occasion, like the unique shell of each individual snail or paper nautilus, and often containing rhyme. In these stanzas, Moore hid behind her virtuosic performance of deflection and difficulty and, of course, revealed herself in it, much as one of her pet-subjects, the exotic animal-portrait, contained a self-portrait at its heart. In her poem on the jerboa, Moore contrasts the desert mouse’s decorousness with the decadence of empire, and in so doing, distinguishes her ideal of true artistry—a vigorous, humble, and ultimately liberated response to one’s natural and formal limitations—with a false art which oppresses the natural in service of the powerful. Wes & Erin discuss Marianne Moore’s poem, “The Jerboa,” first published in 1932, and whether power and wealth might paradoxically prove less abundant than the strictures of form and necessity.

Iain started in Britain's Fairport Convention in the late '60s, but quickly left that band to start a couple more and then move to the US for a lengthy solo career. He has in total released close to 50 albums, including many collaborations.

We discus the title track from How Much Is Enough (2024), the title track from God Looked Down (1996), and "Road to Ronderlin" by Matthews Southern Comfort from Later That Same Year (1970). End song: "St. Theresa's Ghost" by Ian Matthews and the Searing Quartet, from Joy Mining (2008). Intro: "Book Song" by Fairport Convention from What We Did on Our Holidays (1969). Learn more at iainmatthews.nl.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Support us on Patreon.

On The Ego and its Own (1844), another big influence on Karl Marx and a precursor of Nietzsche, or perhaps an early Ayn Rand.

Sponsor: Have up to a $100 donation to effective charities matched at GiveWell.org.

When the film starts, its two leads are already dead, more or less. Silent Screen legend Norma Desmond’s career is dead, and because she’s nothing more than her career, the best she can do is linger in the tomb of her former glory, hoping for a resurrection. And failed screenwriter Joe Gillis quite literally enters the film as a corpse, so, as the film’s narrator, he has no choice but to tell his story in flashback. Thus, it’s safe to say that both Norma and Joe are, well, fatally disadvantaged in the realization of their respective dreams. And yet, both achieve a kind of post-mortem success—Norma as the star of one last film, and Joe as the writer of one last, great, highly-personal tale. (In an expression of what might be the screenwriter’s secret fantasy, he even gets to star in it, to boot.) How is such life after death possible? Arguably only through the magic of celluloid, a medium ghoulishly capable of preserving humans precisely as they are—which all too soon becomes as they were. What can the contrast between silent and talking pictures teach us about the nature of film itself? And how might it reflect the age-old rivalries between word and image, movement and stasis, the living and the dead? Wes & Erin discuss Billy Wilder’s 1950 masterpiece, “Sunset Boulevard.”

Read more about Mark's online class that starts later this month at partiallyexaminedlife.com/class, and sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/enroll.

Mark, Wes, Seth, and Dylan reflect on our past year of PEL recording, catch you up on our habits and interests, and talk about what might come next.

Learn about Mark's spring Core Texts in philosophy class at partiallyexaminedlife.com/class.

Sign up for Closereads at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy to get future parts on this reading, as well as our previous and future installments of this podcast. Mark and Wes read through and discuss Edmund Husserl’s Ideas (1913), ch. 1, “Matter of Fact and Essence” in First Book, “General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology,” Part One, “Essence and Eidetic Cognition.” This is the book Continue Reading …

For our annual holiday episode, Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn and Al talk about Santa qua mythical and cultural figure, getting into the history of the character, his film appearances, and how the emphasis on kids' belief compares to religious belief. Plus, grading Xmas movies on a curve and Black Santa!

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear this ad-free with bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

Learn about Mark's Core Texts in Philosophy class at partiallyexaminedlife.com/class.

Simon is a professor at New York's New School for Social Research and moderates the New York Times' philosophy offering, The Stone. He joins Mark and Bill to discuss his new book, On Mysticism: The Experience of Ecstasy, and we used the occasion to explore how art and mysticism might be connected, including engaging in improv rituals.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the and hear this ad-free at podcast at philosophyimprov.com/support. Check out other Evergreen Podcast offerings.

We finally discuss Feuerbach's proposed post-Hegelian, materialist approach to philosophy in his "Principles of the Philosophy of the Future" (1843). How can a materialist framework support phenomena central to F's account like our immediate, indubitable recognition of our selves, each other, and love itself?

Where the repetitions of ordinary life threaten to overwhelm any sense of the sublime, the poet Conrad Aiken seems to suggest that they can be transformed into a way of being connected to it. The mundane order is, after all, just a part of the cosmic. When we get ready to go to work, it is on a “swiftly tilting planet” that “bathes in a flame of space.” The sun is “far off in a shell of silence,” but its light decorates the walls of our homes. We might wonder, in light of modernity’s crisis of faith, if the sublime is meant to replace the divine, and if so whether what Aiken calls “humble offerings” to a “cloud of silence” are enough. Wes & Erin discuss Aiken’s “Morning Song of Senlin,” and whether humanity’s religious impulses can be fully compensated with an aesthetic or ironic relation to nature and cosmic scale.

Mark, Wes, and Dylan continue to look at Ludwig Feuerbach's "Principles of the Philosophy of the Future" (1843), recounting his story about how increasingly mature notions of God should lead philosophy eventually to a materialism where the sensual is the real.

Sponsors: Have up to a $100 donation to effective charities matched at GiveWell.org. Check out the Constant Wonder podcast

Learn about Mark's spring Core Texts in philosophy class at partiallyexaminedlife.com/class. Buy the PEL book for someone cool at partiallyexaminedlife.com/book.

Loudon has released 30 albums since 1970. He's the quintessential singer-songwriter, relying on crafty, personal lyrics delivered dynamically and typically solo, though his studio work has varied in production style and orchestration level over the years.

We discuss "How Old is 75" from Lifetime Achievement (2022), "Road Ode (Live)" from Career Moves (1993), and "Be Careful There’s a Baby in the House" from Album II (1971). We wrap up by listening to "Missing You" from Last Man on Earth (2001). Intro: "The Swimming Song" from Attempted Mustache (1973). Learn more at lw3.com.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Support us on Patreon.

We're coming up on the 125th anniversary of L. Frank Baum's children's book, The Wizard of Oz, and the film version of (the first half of) the musical Wicked has been released. Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn and Al talk about the landmark 1939 film musical, the 1978 film The Wiz, Gregory Maguire's 1995 novel Wicked, the stage musical, the other Oz books by Baum, Maguire, et al, and other films like 1985's Return to Oz and 2013's Oz the Great and Powerful.

How does this film stack up to other recent Broadway-to-film adaptations? Will there ever be a faithful film or TV adaptation of the books?

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear this ad-free with bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

We dig in and start our detailed treatment of Ludwig Feuerbach's essay "Principles of the Philosophy of the Future" (1843).

Feuerbach claims that people don't realize that the entity they worship is really just whatever it is about humanity and the world that we value, wrongly posited as an independent entity. So God is a mirror for any given society.

Sponsors: Have up to a $100 donation to effective charities matched at GiveWell.org. Learn about St. John's College at sjc.edu/pel.

Learn about Mark's spring Core Texts in philosophy class at partiallyexaminedlife.com/class. Buy the PEL book for someone cool at partiallyexaminedlife.com/book.

It's a TEAM PLAY episode just in time for the holiday season! Returning guests improviser and podcaster Sarah and recovering Philosophy Bro Tommy join Mark and Bill to talk AND EXPERIENCE friendship, with our longest single improv scene to date. What is friendship? Do you know your friends enough to imitate them? Does one friendship or fast-casual restaurant have to die so that another may emerge? 

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the and hear this ad-free at podcast at philosophyimprov.com/support. Check out other Evergreen Podcast offerings.

We're discussing John Stuart Mill's A System of Logic (1843), specifically from Book III, "Of Induction," ch. 8, "Of the Four Methods of Experimental Inquiry."

I am prepared once again to teach my Core Texts in Philosophy class to a new crop of students (returning students are of course also welcome!). But I need to know when you all are available, so please go read about it and email me your availability per the instructions.

On Ludwig Feuerbach's "Principles of the Philosophy of the Future" (1843) and the introduction to The Essence of Christianity (1841).

What was the original point of religion? Can we retain what was emotionally good about it yet direct our efforts to purely practical matters? Feuerbach says yes, and this was a key influence on Marx.

Sponsors: Have up to a $100 donation to effective charities matched at GiveWell.org. Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel. Learn about Mark's spring Core Texts in philosophy class at partiallyexaminedlife.com/class.

Adam and Barbara Maitland are dead, but their troubles have just begun. The farmhouse decor of their home is under threat from the pretentious modernism of Delia Deetze, and her plan to remake it in her own image could turn their post-life purgatory into earthbound hell. Solving this problem leaves them with an impossible choice between figuring out how to navigate an intractable netherworld bureacracy, or seeking the help of a renegade demon whose perverse remedies are worse than what they’re supposed to cure. Their way out of this impasse involves teaming up with Delia’s step-daughter Lydia, whose goth style seems to lend itself to communicating with the dead. Wes and Erin discuss “Beetlejuice,” and what its battle royale between conflicting aesthetic sensibilities—rustic, gothic, and avante-garde—has to say about the connections between love, mortality, and the many pitfalls of growing up.

Steve Martin was the biggest comic celebrity in the late '70s, became a huge movie star, and now delivers gentle comedy and fast banjo licks according to his desired rich guy schedule. In light of the popularity of Only Murders in the Building, we consider his many talents. Our 50ish hosts Mark and Sarahlyn are all in on this guy, but our 40ish hosts Lawrence and Al are not necessarily tickled.

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear this ad-free with bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

Continuing on "Estranged Labor," "Private Property and Communism," and "The Power of Money on Bourgeois Society" with guest Lawrence Dallman.

Does capitalism give rise to alienation, or is it alienation that is responsible for capitalism? Does a person (capitalist) have to be responsible for someone's alienation? What would we be like unalienated?

Sponsors: Have up to a $100 donation to effective charities matched at GiveWell.org. Check out the Constant Wonder podcast.

Mike hosts the Hitchhikers and Appetizers podcast, and we recorded this episode a bit before Halloween, before the election and the consequent mass exodus, as a sort of memo to the future, i.e. you. We blister our way through many topics including discovery, hospital dramas, time travel sex, self-experimentation, ancient aliens, sharkNATO, Flintstone furniture, the first Wisconsin Thanksgiving, Subway nation-states, and more.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the and hear this ad-free at podcast at philosophyimprov.com/support. Check out other Evergreen Podcast offerings.

As an advisor to Henry VIII and ambassador to France and Italy, poet Thomas Wyatt was something of a professional court-surfer, practiced in riding the peaks and troughs of royal favor. Such were his verbal and diplomatic gifts that, though twice accused of and imprisoned for treason, he was twice released. His poetry reflects all the intrigue, paranoia, airlessness, and downright cruelty of the Tudor Court, where a misplaced word or an ill-timed look might see you not just out of favor, but a head shorter. In two of his most celebrated poems—which might draw upon the affair he might have had with Anne Boleyn—certainty is suspect, irony thick, allegiance changeable, and hunters apt to find they’ve become the hunted. Wes & Erin discuss Thomas Wyatt’s “Whoso List to Hunt” and “They Flee from Me.”

On three of Karl Marx's Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, "Estranged Labor," "Private Property and Communism," and "The Power of Money on Bourgeois Society." Featuring guest Lawrence Dallman.

What is the plight of the working poor? It's that they are in an unnatural situation with regard to their work, which is supposed to gain them a sense of self but doesn't do so when it's a result of selling one's time.

If you enjoy our podcast, check out Ghost Town at ghosttownpod.com.

We continue talking with Tim about Overfitting and Heuristics in Philosophy (2024), considering Tim's overall project and view of what philosophy should be doing and with what tools. We get into modeling, ethics, public philosophy, and more.

Sponsor: Apply for convenient term life insurance from Fabric by Gerber Life at meetfabric.com/PEL.

Many people use shows like Last Week Tonight or The Daily Show to not just satirize the news but to provide us with our news. Late night shows, SNL, and many other shows get in on this, and conservative media is catching up via Gutfield! How does the comedy news format relate to panel shows, podcasts, and other light-hearted political talk?

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear this ad-free with bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

We skip the introduction of Being and Nothingness (1943) and start with Part One, "The Problem of Nothingness," Ch. 1, "The Origin of Negation."

Lorraine teaches at Middlebury college and has recently written The Art of the Interesting: What We Miss in Our Pursuit of the Good Life and How to Cultivate It. How does "the interesting" fit into human flourishing? How do we know when some attractive stimulation is really in our interest and really good?

Can we find something interesting even the most tedious, repetitive tasks? Is it interesting to start an improv scene by declaring that your scene-mates are dealing with alcoholism and divorce? Certainly it is rude. Also, Happiness 12 Step Programs.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast at philosophyimprov.com/support. Check out other Evergreen Podcast offerings.

You can choose to watch this on unedited video.

Oxford philosophy professor Timothy Williamson talks to us about his new book, Overfitting and Heuristics in Philosophy.

How can we best apply the insights of philosophy of science to philosophy itself? Maybe some alleged philosophical counter-examples are just the result of psychological heuristics gone wrong.

Get more at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to get ad-free episodes and tons of bonus discussion.

Sponsor: Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel.

Steve fronted Chicago's Dolly Varden for six albums from the '90s through 2013. He also started releasing albums under his own name 2003 and has just released his seventh.

We discuss "A Mile South of Town" (and listen at the end to "Oh, California") from Ghosts (2024), the title track from The Dumbest Magnets by Dolly Varden (2000), and "Bronko Nagurski," a 1989 recording by the early iteration of Varden, Stump the Host. Intro: "Saskatchewan to Chicago" by Dolly Varden from For a While (2013). More at stevedawsonmusic.com.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Support us on Patreon.

Concluding our treatment of "Of Seeing" in Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense.

We continue to hammer at this idea of "resemblance" between mental contents and physical objects, consider more carefully Reid's level of support for the primary/secondary quality distinction, how he treats non-signifying feelings like pain and warmth, and his comparison of sense experience to testimony.

Get more at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to get ad-free episodes and bonus content.

Sponsor: Check out the Constant Wonder podcast.

Have you subscribed to the other podcasts by PEL hosts? Check out Closereads, Philosophy vs. Improv, SUBTEXT, Nakedly Examined Music, and Pretty Much Pop. Buy the PEL book.

Henry Graham belongs to the most exclusive clubs, dines regularly at the most lavish restaurants, drives a Ferrari, employs a butler, and owns something called a Montrazini—in short, he capitalizes fully on his inheritance, despite having little understanding of what “capital” actually is. The very ignorance of practicality that his wealth affords turns out to be his undoing, as soon finds that he’s run out of money and must bid goodbye to the high life—unless, that is, he can find a single, wealthy, isolated woman to marry and, for the sake of preserving his refined, hermetically-sealed existence, murder. Enter Henrietta Lowell. Similarly stunted by her own inheritance, she’s friendless, awkward, and utterly helpless: the perfect mark… But Henry soon discovers that protecting his own interests also means protecting hers, that competence can grow out of the exigency incompetence creates, and that practicing love for someone turns out to be just as good as actually loving them. Wes & Erin discuss the 1971 film “A New Leaf,” written and directed by Elaine May.

It's our Halloween episode! Brooker Nourse from the Autopsy of a Horror Movie podcast joins the gang about a wave of 1930's films including Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Invisible Man. Are these actually enjoyable to modern audiences?

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

We're continuing our treatment of Thomas Reid's Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense (1764), now discussing ch. 6: "Of Seeing."

Does vision provide the exception to Reid's point that our sensations do not resemble objects in the world? Images surely seem to do so! What does this mean for Reid's epistemology?

Sponsor: Apply for convenient term life insurance from Fabric by Gerber Life at meetfabric.com/PEL.

Welcome to the beginning of a new round of shenanigans on Philosophy vs. Improv. Let the senior slump begin!

Your hosts Mark Linsenmayer and Bill Arnett here talk a blazin' stream of consciousness and then have a pretty long improv scene. Are we already always philosophizing?

Watch the proceedings unedited on YouTube.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast at philosophyimprov.com/support. Check out other Evergreen Podcast offerings.

In light of the new Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, we discuss the films of director (and occasional writer) Tim Burton since his career was firmly established by his early work in the '80s including the original 1988 Beetlejuice. 

Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Al have very mixed reactions to the new film, but we agree that the animation style that characterizes his vision is very rich and has had a massive cultural impact. We discuss his stop-motion work, his Batman films, his Disney commissions, and more.

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

Continuing on Inquiry into the Human Mind, getting further into the chapter on smelling as well as the conclusion and Reid's exchange with Hume.

What exactly is our relation with objects in the world according to Reid?

On Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense (1764): the introduction, conclusion, ch. 2 "Of Smelling" ch. 4 "Of Hearing," and some correspondence between Reid and Hume.

According to Reid, the big mistake of "modern" philosophy is thinking that objects in the world need to resemble the sensations we have of them. Smelling is supposed to give us an obvious counter-example: the scent of a rose in no way resembles a physical rose.

Sponsors: Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel. Check out the Constant Wonder podcast.

Mark, Seth, and Dylan interview this British philosophy prof about her new book, Trans Figured, and philosophy's role in discussing the phenomena of transgender (which, yes, can be used as a noun, according to Sophie).

Sponsors: Apply for convenient term life insurance from Fabric by Gerber Life at meetfabric.com/PEL. Try the Chutzpod podcast at chutzpod.com.

Though Dale is known as the long-time drummer for Washington sludge-metal band Melvins ('88-present), he's also a guitarist and singer who led the band Altamont though four alternative rock albums ('97-'05) and has now released his third full-length, stylistically varied solo album.

We discuss "I Quit" from Glossolalia (2024), "Bad Move" from The Fickle Finger of Fate (2017), and "The Bit" by Melvins from Stag (1996). End song: "El Stupido" by Altamont from The Monkees' Uncle (2005). Intro: "Spread Eagle Beagle" by Melvins from Houdini (1993). More at dalecrover.com.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Support us on Patreon.

If you like our podcast, check out Heavy Metal 101.

Concluding on "Universality and Truth" from Richard Rorty's Pragmatism As Anti-Authoritarianism. It it coherent to simply not have a theory of truth? Rorty claims that he's not a relativist; he's just avoiding some useless parts of philosophy that just cause problems, including inculcating the respect for a non-human absolute, and this attitude undermines democracy.

Sponsor: Check out the Constant Wonder podcast.

Chicago's iO Theater was graced on August 21 by Mark, Bill, and special guest theater educator James Whittington, who spoke about embodiment (see Maurice Merleau-Ponty), the possible disconnect between meaning and tone, and being in the physical presence of greatness. They acted out scenes (while still sitting!) about an unsuccessful party and Experiences-R-Us. 

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast at philosophyimprov.com/support.

Sponsor: Get 10% off your first month of online therapy at betterhelp.com/improv.

In light of the new film Trap, we look at this writer/director's oeuvre. Was he a bright light (The Sixth Sense) that at one point went out (certainly by The Happening), and has that light gone back on as he's regained full control in his most recent films (Knock at the Cabin, The Visit, et al.)? Is he a genius, overrated, or somehow both? 

Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn and Al disagree both about Trap and about the overall Shyamalan experience. 

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

Sponsors: Get 10% off your first month of online therapy at betterhelp.com/pretty. Try a new podcast: Today In History With the Retrospectors at podfollow.com/retrospectors.

On "Universality and Truth" and "Pan-Relationalism," which are lectures 3-5 in Richard Rorty's Pragmatism As Anti-Authoritarianism.

How do we justify democracy? Rorty says we don't have to refer to transcendent Truth or Good to do this. He also denies the disinction between essential and accidental properties, and in fact between substance and property: Everything is just described in terms of its relations to other things, and which relations are important are not intrinsic to the thing, but a matter of a speaker's purposes.

If you like our podcast, try the Saga Thing podcast.

Known for casting mythical heroes in human proportions, Eurpides has his hands full with Medea—homocidal sorcerous, granddaughter of the sun, and a woman who does not take betrayal lightly. Nevertheless, the poet is able to capture the agony of someone who has given up everything for love—family, home, and homeland—only to find her passion disregarded, and her sacrifices unappreciated, by a man who robotically puts practicality above all else. But can we sympathize with a woman who would kill her own children, just for spite? Wes & Erin discuss Ancient Greece’s most notorious battle of the sexes, and Euripides’ rumination on the question of whether the Athenian ideals of rationality and moderation sufficiently honor the instinctual side of human nature.

Amy started out as an NYC punk fan, was in the "cow punk" band Last Roundup with her brother, and then in a vocal trio called The Shams that released an album and an EP around 1993. She finally emerged as a full front-person as a solo artist in 1997; she's since released nine solo albums plus three more with her husband Wreckless Eric, who now serves as her producer.

We discuss "Bricks" from Hang In There With Me (2024), "Genovese Bag" by Amy Rigby and Wreckless Eric from A Working Museum (2012), and "Beer and Kisses" from Diary of a Mod Housewife (1997). End song: "Dancing with Joey Ramone" from Little Fugitive (2005). Intro: "Dark Angel" by The Shams from Quilt (1993). More at amyrigby.com.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Support us on Patreon.

Sponsors: Get 10% off your first month of online therapy at betterhelp.com/nakedly.

Continuing on Richard Rorty's Pragmatism As Anti-Authoritarianism, ch. 1, "Pragmatism and Religion" and 2, "Pragmatism as Romantic Polytheism."

Rorty evaluates past pragmatists' approaches to religion, arguing contra James that it can't be "privatized," that democratic social goals involve shared rationality, which means that all of our beliefs are open to the judgment of our peers.

Sponsors: Apply for convenient term life insurance from Fabric by Gerber Life at meetfabric.com/PEL. Give online therapy a try at BetterHelp.com/partially and get 10% off your first month.

Our long lost episode. Consider it a mystery box.

Mark philosophizes at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Bill improvises (and teaches) at chicagoimprovstudio.com. 

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast to get all our post-game discussions, a video version of the podcast, and other bonus stuff.

As Pretty Much Pop ends its 5th year of podcasting, Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn and Al break from our usual format to talk in a more free-form way about the thin line between the "new" media we talk about on the show and the classics of yesteryear.

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

Wes & Erin continue their discussion of two of Marie de France’s most famous lais—”Laustic” and “Guigemar”—and how their narratives marry the “flesh” of text, art, and symbology, to the “spirit” of the spoken word (via dialogue, oaths and covenants, and authorial commentary), in order, perhaps, to communicate something of the mysterious and dangerous union that is romantic love.

On Richard Rorty's Pragmatism As Anti-Authoritarianism (1997), ch. 1-2 about religion. Should democracy be defended on absolutist grounds, e.g. by reference to God-given or natural rights, the nature of Man, or the dictates of Reason?

Rorty says no! Democracy, ethics, and even truth itself are a matter for societies to decide for themselves. Monotheistic religion provides a negative model for ceding authority on these matters no something non-human.

Sponsor: Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel.

Continuing on "Knowledge First Epistemology" (2011), "Justifications, Excuses, and Sceptical Scenarios" (2015), and "Morally Loaded Cases in Philosophy" (2019).

How does knowledge-first epistemology relate to reliabilism? What are its moral implications? Does W. have a good argument against relativism and skepticism?

On "Knowledge First Epistemology" (2011), "Justifications, Excuses, and Sceptical Scenarios" (2015), and "Morally Loaded Cases in Philosophy" (2019).

Is knowledge basic, or is it dissolvable into more basic ingredients such as justification, truth, and belief? Williamson argues that these latter things should instead be defined in terms of knowledge.

Sponsor: Apply for convenient term life insurance from Fabric by Gerber Life at meetfabric.com/PEL.

Internationally best-selling author David wrote a book (and made a film) called How We Got Here, which traces the gradual path in the history of ideas from the ancients through various forms of perspectivism, relativism, and post-modernism to the post-truth discourse that authoritarians and wanna-be authoritarians engage in. Some improv scenes are inserted awkwardly into the discussion.

Mark philosophizes at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Bill improvises (and teaches) at chicagoimprovstudio.com. See us live Wed. 8/21, 6pm at iO Theater, Chicago.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast to get all our post-game discussions, a video version of the podcast, and other bonus stuff.

Sponsor: Try online therapy at betterhelp.com/improv.

The New York-based singer/keyboardist/guitarist had several releases with Nova Social from '98-'14 while also serving as music director for Wesley Stace's Cabinet of Wonders variety show. After four solo releases, he's formed a new project setting his droll lyrics in a '60s Brazilian setting called As For the Future.

We discuss "Koan for the Music Business" (and listen at the end to "Encyclopedia of Songs") from this project's 2024 self-titled album, "See the Devil" from Songs of Advice and Adversity (2020 EP), and "Drunk at the Prom" by Nova Social from For Any Inconvenience (2011). Intro: "Theme in Yellow" (feat. Jeff Tweedy) from Carl Sandburg's Chicago Poems (2016). More at davidnagler.com.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Support us on Patreon.

Sponsors: Get 10% off your first month of online therapy at betterhelp.com/nakedly. Check out the Let Me Ask My Dad podcast w/ Bon Jovi co-founder David Bryan.

The lai, a short narrative poem from the Middle Ages that treats themes of courtly love, was originally accompanied by music and sung by minstrels. But in the 1170s, poet Marie de France translated a series of Breton lais into French and, in so doing, converted an oral tradition into text. It’s no wonder, then, that her lais’ narratives are so often preoccupied with methods of communication: both the spoken word, with its spiritual, incantatory, or even magical qualities, and the written word—physical, embodied, and analogous to the art object (particularly and, appropriately, the textile, a medium associated since antiquity with female artistry). Wes & Erin discuss two of the poet’s most famous lais—”Laustic” and “Guigemar”—and how their narratives marry the “flesh” of text, art, and symbology, to the “spirit” of the spoken word (via dialogue, oaths and covenants, and authorial commentary), in order, perhaps, to communicate something of the mysterious and dangerous union that is romantic love.

Mark, Seth, and Dylan now turn to ch. 4 of Dasti/Phillips' Nyaya Sutra: Selections with Early Commentaries about the self. Buddhism famously claims that there is no self, and the Nyaya philosophers respond with both common-sensical arguments (e.g. psychological properties must be possessed by something) and religious (without a soul, what persists through reincarnation?).

Get more at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to get ad-free episodes and bonus content including a supporter-exclusive part three to this discussion. Listen to a preview.

Sponsor: Give online therapy a try at BetterHelp.com/partially and get 10% off your first month.

We're continuing to explore Nyaya epistemology, in this part focusing on ch. 3, "In Defense of the Real," in Nyaya Sutra: Selections with Early Commentaries (2017).

Sponsors: Apply for convenient term life insurance from Fabric by Gerber Life at meetfabric.com/PEL. Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel.

Time is short for your enrollment in Mark's Big Books in Continental Philosophy fall class; see partiallyexaminedlife.com/class. Learn about the PEL book at partiallyexaminedlife.com/book.

John Wardle (named Jah Wobble by Sid Vicious) started playing bass in John Lydon's post Sex Pistols band Public Image Ltd. in 1978, left after two albums, and has since recorded 50+ solo and collaborative albums, largely led by the bass, but spanning many genres including some particularly famous work in the world-music area.

We discuss "Last Exit" from A Brief History of Now (2023), "21 Towards Lewisham Shopping Centre" from The Bus Routes of South London (2023), "Fly Away" from Jah Wobble & Invaders of the Heart from Ocean Blue Waves (2019), and "Blowout" (a 1985 single). End song: "Visions of You" by Jah Wobble’s Invaders of the Heart (feat Sinéad O'Connor) from Rising Above Bedlam (1991). Intro: "Public Image" by PiL from First Issue (1978).

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Support us on Patreon.

We discuss Christopher Storer's culinary dramedy in light of the release of its strange third season. What made this a uniquely wonderful show in its first season? Is the unsatisfying character of this season just a matter of its being only the first half of what was originally planned? We talk about the flashbacks, the cameos, the comedy, "food porn," and more.

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

If you enjoy our show, check out the Pop Pantheon podcast.

Danny was in a sketch troupe called Maximum Party Zone with your improv host Bill, and they've now revived that trio to create the MPZ Listening Party podcast, which workshops sketch ideas in real time as a fun form of conversation. So we try out their shtick, combining two properties (The Apprentice and Argyle) and brainstorming about serial killer branding.

Mark philosophizes at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Bill improvises (and teaches) at chicagoimprovstudio.com.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast to get all our post-game discussions, a video version of the podcast, and other bonus stuff.

Sponsor: Try online therapy at betterhelp.com/improv.

Continuing on ch. 1, "Knowledge Sources," of the Matthew Dasti/Stephen Phillips presentation of the Nyaya-Sutra: Selections with Early Commentaries.

We finish up perception and then talk about inference and testimony. Are these all independent sources, or do they, e.g. all reduce ultimately to perception as Western empiricists claim?

Enrollment is now open for Mark's Big Books in Continental Philosophy fall class at partiallyexaminedlife.com/class. Learn about the PEL book at partiallyexaminedlife.com/book.

Jef Costello is a hit-man with airtight alibis, impeccable style, and a strict code of honor. Add to this a masterful ability to evade his pursuers, mobsters and authorities alike, and a simple but effective home alarm system in the form of a bird. But what he cannot orchestrate, control, or evade is the improvisational nature of a genuine encounter with another person, which he unexpectedly finds with the jazz musician who witnesses him leaving the scene of one of his crimes. Wes & Erin discuss Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1967 noir thriller “Le Samouraï,” and the surprising power of love to capture its fugitives, even if it means finding them in the most shadowy of underworlds.

On The Nyaya Sutra: Selections with Early Commentaries, originally by Gautama (ca. 150 CE), plus explanations by Vatsyayana (450 CE), Uddyotakara (550), and Vācaspatimiśra (900), and the editors Matthew Dasti and Stephen Phillips (2017).

We discuss "knowledge sources," mostly the various kinds of perception, which is supposed to be inerrant and non-linguistic. Illusions aren't bad perceptions; they aren't perceptions at all.

Check out Mark's Big Books in Continental Philosophy fall class at partiallyexaminedlife.com/class. Learn about the PEL book at partiallyexaminedlife.com/book.

Oliver, son of Rick, has played on around 50 albums, including maybe 10 solo albums plus collaborations with Clive Nolan, Steve Howe, Gordon Giltrap, Yes, Starcastle, Light Freedom Revival, and more.

We discuss "Golden Sun in Grey" from Anam Cara (2024), "Is This the Last Song I Write?" from Ravens and Lullabies (2013), and "Mind Over Matter" from The 3 Ages of Magick (2001). End song: "To the Moment" by Yes from From a Page (recorded 2010, released 2019). Intro: "Diving" from Heaven’s Isle (1997). More at oliverwakeman.co.uk.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Support us on Patreon.

Sponsor: Give online therapy a try at BetterHelp.com/nakedly.

We discuss the 2015 and 2024 Pixar films by writer/director Pete Docter , featuring the usual crew of Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Al.

These films show kids that it's OK to be sad and how to cope with anxiety. Is the films' emotional impact objectionably manipulative? Does the "mental landscape" depicted helpfully represent the various elements we juggle, or is it just a fun pile of metaphors?

Sponsors: Give online therapy a try at BetterHelp.com/pretty. Immerse in GoT/House of the Dragon at historyofwesteros.com.

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

What is the cause of human self-destructiveness? According to Dostoyevkys’s underground man, this “most advantageous advantage” is designed to save freedom from the constraints of rationality, and vitality from the quiescence that follows success. Yet he himself finds freedom only in spite and fantasy, while in real life he oscillates between failed and humiliating attempts to dominate or ingratiate himself with other people. Wes & Erin discuss “Notes from the Underground” and its agonized rumination on whether freedom can be reconciled with love, individuality with virtue, and action with reflection.

Tamler teaches philosophy at The University of Houston and hosts the Very Bad Wizards podcast. He joins Mark and Bill to talk about personal identity and whether the "self" is necessarily co-extensive with a particular body. Plus: meditation, Daniel Day Improv's method acting, All of Me vs. Regarding Henry, what does "metaphysics" mean to YOU, dreams as improv, unstuck-in-time Grandma the last slaveholder, and more.

Mark philosophizes at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Bill improvises (and teaches) at chicagoimprovstudio.com.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast to get all our post-game discussions, a video version of the podcast, and other bonus stuff.

Continuing on The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). Does James' claim that science and culture shouldn't ignore the subjective point of view really mean that the religious objects that motivate people are metaphysically real? Is the "unseen realm" part of our common world?

Sponsors :Give online therapy a try at BetterHelp.com/partially. Check out The Overwhelmed Brain podcast at theoverwhelmedbraincom.

Check out Mark's Big Books in Continental Philosophy fall class at partiallyexaminedlife.com/class. Learn about our new book at partiallyexaminedlife.com/book.

Do you want to wrestle yourself with some of the weirdest and most engaging texts in philosophical history? Do you want to do this in a beginner-friendly environment with a familiar voice guiding you and sharp fellow learners? Consider signing up for Mark's Fall class, and experience Hegel, Sartre, Arendt, and more first hand in a supportive, low-risk environment.

See partiallyexaminedlife.com/class for details.

It’s considered the definitive film on greed, a demonstration of just what the lust for gold can do to a man’s heart. Fred C. Dobbs starts out as a down-on-his-luck panhandler in a poor Mexican town and comes into a fortune of over $100,000 before the film’s end. Yet, in more ways than one, Dobbs never stops panhandling, never stops being subject to the vagaries of fate, to forces that might just as soon give as take away his fortune, and to the darkness within himself that he can neither understand nor control. Perhaps the film doesn’t chart his moral corruption and gradual descent into greed-fueled madness so much as it critiques the system that turned Dobbs into a beggar in the first place—a system which, the film might argue, teaches all of us to stick out our hands (and our necks) in the pursuit of profit. Wes & Erin discuss John Huston’s 1948 classic, “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.”

On The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), focusing on lectures 1-3 and 20. What is religion and how should philosophers study it?

James describes it as a sincere, full-life reaction to the world, more emotional than intellectual, and conveys the experiences of the extreme "religious geniuses" that are merely received second or third hand by the believing masses.

Check out Mark's Big Books in Continental Philosophy fall class at partiallyexaminedlife.com/class. Learn about our new book at partiallyexaminedlife.com/book.

Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Al discuss the five films in George Miller's Mad Max/Road Warrior franchise. What was the original appeal of the series, and has this changed? Are we still afraid of an "Apunkalypse," or is this just an aesthetic to be ripped off by Fallout and other properties? How can films 80% occupied by car chases be actually good? Is Mad Max an icon a la Indiana Jones, and is there actual world building in this series?

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

Pat has been a session drummer since the mid '70s, was a founding member of Mr. Mister in the '80s, and played in all line-ups of King Crimson since '94. He's also a producer and no stranger to electronics.

We discuss "31" by Tu-Ner from T-1 Contact Information  (2023), "Flinch" by TUNER from Totem (2005), "Life Goes On" by Mr. Mister from I Wear the Face (1984), and we conclude by listening to "Prog Noir" by Stick Men (2016). Intro: "Vroom Vroom" by King Crimson from Thrak (1995).

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Support us on Patreon.

On "What Is Justified Belief?" (1979) by Alvin Goldman, where he tries to come up with a "function" for justification: If a belief has such-and-such non-epistemic properties, then it counts as justified.

Get more at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to get ad-free episodes and tons of bonus discussion.

Sponsor: Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel.

Learn about Mark's Big Books in Continental Philosophy Fall online class at partiallyexaminedlife.com/class. Learn about the PEL book at partiallyexaminedlife.com/book.

On "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?" (1963) by Edmund Gettier, "What Is Justified Belief?" (1979) by Alvin Goldman, and "The Inescapability of Gettier Problems" (1994) by Linda Zagzebski.

What is knowledge? Even if a belief is true and justified, does that make it knowledge? Gettier came up with exceptions, and other philosophers tried to figure out how to revise "justification" to rule these out.

Learn about our new book at partiallyexaminedlife.com/book.

The actor/writer/comedian joins us to talk about the philosophy of fashion, from the ancients to the present: Is clothing a mode of self-expression or something more (or less)? What does retro fashion say about the current state of culture? Are philosophers anti-fashion, and is that sexist? What color wedding dress is best for an arranged marriage? Are improv scenes like tissues?

Mark philosophizes at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Bill improvises (and teaches) at chicagoimprovstudio.com.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast to get all our post-game discussions, a video version of the podcast, and other bonus stuff.

We discuss the ten films that all started with the 1968 Charlton Heston vehicle (based on Pierre Boulle's 1963 novel) through the latest offering, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. What psychologically are these films about? Which parts of this sprawling franchise are worth your time?

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

Richard started as guitarist in the folk-rock staple Fairport Convention in 1967 but left in 1970 after five albums. He then recorded his debut solo album, six as Richard and Linda Thompson, and has since recorded 20 more solo albums of lyrically inventive, stylistically varied tunes that nearly always feature very skilled guitar work.

We discuss "Freeze," the first single from his new album Ship to Shore, "The Ghost of You Walks" from You? Me? Us? (1996), and "Don't Take It Lying Down" from Still/Variations EP (2015). End song: "When I Get to the Border" by Richard and Linda Thompson from I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight (1974). Intro: "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" from Rumor and Sigh (1991). More at richardthompson-music.com.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Support us on Patreon.

Continuing with guest Chris Sunami, mostly discussing "The Good or The One," though we start off by completing "The Descent of the Soul" about why there is something rather than nothing, given that materiality is so undesirable compared to The One.

Learn about our new book at partiallyexaminedlife.com/book.

On selections from the Enneads (270 C.E.), as presented by Elmer O'Brien as the first four essays in The Essential Plotinus: "Beauty," "The Intelligence, Ideas and Being," "The Descent of the Soul," and "The Good or The One." Featuring Mark, Wes, Dylan, Seth, and guest Chris Sunami.

Get more at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to get ad-free episodes and tons of bonus discussion.

Learn about our new book at partiallyexaminedlife.com/book (whch Chris edited).

The philosopher and entertainment journalist direct from Mark's Pretty Much Pop podcast joins PvI for an hour of merriment. We talk parenthood, philosophy of race, the RULES of improv (or the singular answer to a philosophy question), old 9th graders, one black Peggy, using racy improv in a classroom setting, and more.

Mark philosophizes at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Bill improvises (and teaches) at chicagoimprovstudio.com.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast to get all our post-game discussions, a video version of the podcast, and other bonus stuff.

We're concluding our treatment of the Daoist sage, focusing on the relation between metaphysics and ethics. Is a "wu wei" (non-action) philosophy compatible with fighting for justice? Does it even necessitate kindness?

Information on our book is available at partiallyexaminedlife.com/book.

Listen to Mark's new band, including the ending song to this episode, "I Insist," at marklint.bandcamp.com.

Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn and Al discuss the new Amazon TV show based on on the video game series that launched in 1997. How does one best adapt a sandbox game? How dark is too dark for comedy? We talk world-building and exposition dumps, narrative structure and character revelation, and morality in a ruined world.

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

Kim has recorded about ten meticulously recorded country-evolving-to Americana albums out of Nashville since 1995. We discuss "Joy Rider" (and listen at the end to "Floating on the Surface") from Every New Beginning (2024), "A Place Called Home" from Rise (2002), and "I’m Alright" from Bitter Sweet (1997), which is also the home of the intro, "Every River." More at kimrichey.com.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Support us on Patreon.

More on the Zhuangzi, books 1-6 and 17-19 with guest Theo Brooks.

We discuss epistemology (Can we know the mind of someone else? How can virtue make truth more accessible?), metaphysics (Is the world constantly changing such that we can't actually refer to anything? Does each thing somehow contain its opposite in virtue of being defined by its contrast with all that it is not?), and ethics (What constitutes the Utmost Person, i.e. the sage?).

Get more at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to get ad-free episodes and tons of bonus discussion.

Learn about our new book at partiallyexaminedlife.com/book.

The ancient Mariner kills his Albatross with a carelessness that stands in stark contrast to his impulse for confession. For several days he and his shipmates feed the albatross, play with it, and treat it as if it were inhabited by a “Christian soul.” The mariner never tells the wedding guest why it is that he kills the bird, but the casual and seemingly unmotivated act is followed by a psychedelic nightmare that gives us some clues. Why do we rebel against our position within the natural world, even to the point of self-destruction? What is required to restore us? Wes & Erin discuss Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s classic poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”

Terry Malloy and his fellow longshoremen on the New York docks are witnesses to union corruption under labor boss Johnny Friendly, but won’t testify against him because of his violent intimidation tactics, which ensure that union members remain “D and D”—that is, deaf and dumb—to any illegal activity. When Terry’s collaboration with Friendly results in the death of his friend Joey Doyle, and when Terry subsequently falls in love with Joey’s sister, Edie, he’s forced to reckon with this D and D policy, as well as his own passivity, guilt, and naivete. Wes & Erin discuss Elia Kazan’s 1954 film On the Waterfront, which might be said to dramatize the so-called “sin of omission” while asserting that its opposite, truth-telling, can be a radical and perhaps even a strangely physical form of heroism.

Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Al look at pop music and the idea of genre. Beyoncé is beloved enough that she can do whatever she wants to musically, but the response to her Cowboy Carter album among country music listeners has been pretty critical. Is it real country, and what is it to even ask that question? Is gate-keeping about your favorite genre always stupid?

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

Sponsor: Get 50% off your first box of ready-to-eat meals and 20% off your next box at FactorMeals.com/pretty50 (use code pretty50).

Sign up for the new Closereads public feed at evergreen.com/closereadsphilosophy. For an ad-free experience with many extra episodes, sign up to support Closereads at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy, or combine your support for PEL and Closereads at patreon.com/partiallyexaminedlife.

Mark and Wes read through and discuss the first couple of pages of ch. 19, "Fathoming Life," following up on ep. 341

How does Daoism compare to Stoicism, Aristotelianism, and Existentialism? How can being a Daoist sage keep one from harm? How is a really effective cicada catcher such a sage?

Learn about our new book at partiallyexaminedlife.com/book.

The Hitchhikers and Appetizers co-host joins Mark and Bill to talk about cultural relativism. We talk about foreign-ness, what parts of ethics seem to apply to all cultures, the Museum of Soup, pushing back tactfully in a scene, and more. In my culture, listening to this episode while in a work meeting is polite.

Mark philosophizes at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Bill improvises (and teaches) at chicagoimprovstudio.com.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast to get all our post-game discussions, a video version of the podcast, and other bonus stuff.

Mark, Dylan, Seth, and Theo Brooks discuss the Zhuangzi (ca. 325 BCE) UNSW Sydney prof. Karyn, co-author of the History of Philosophy Podcast Chinese series.

We talk through Daoist advice about virtue, political action, perspectivism, and more.

Learn about our new book at partiallyexaminedlife.com/book.

Concluding on The Philosophy of Nature: A Guide to the New Essentialism (2002) with guest Chris Heath.

Are we OK with the metaphysical necessity of natural laws? How do Ellis' mind-independent fundamental objects in the world relate to higher level things, whether biological species or human nature or even things like colors?

Get the new PEL book at partiallyexaminedlife.com/book.

Singer-songwriter Lynn has released 10 albums since 2001. We discuss the title track (and listen at the end to "I Waited Too Long") from High Tide (2024), "11:11" from Rise of the Fall (2017), and "Drugstore" from Crossing Frequencies (2001). Intro: "City Life" from Sugar on the Floor (2011). Hear more at lynndrury.com.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Support us on Patreon.

The incredible post-Seinfeld improvised sit-com Curb Your Enthusiasm has had its finale, and so Mark, Lawrence, Sarah and Al reflect on its format, its characters, its way of exploring puzzles of modern manners, its treatment of race and gender, and more. Was it too repetitive? Did it get too contrived?

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

Sponsor: Get 50% off your first box of ready-to-eat meals at FactorMeals.com/pretty50 (use code pretty50).

Continuing on The Philosophy of Nature: A Guide to the New Essentialism.

Ellis' essentialism about physics and chemistry says that, for example, atoms of various elements are truly and unambiguously different and behave in ways that make them what they are. What does this entail?

Learn about our new book at partiallyexaminedlife.com/book.

Your four hosts plus book editor Chris Sunami reflect on doing the podcast for 15 years and making the new book, which you should order on April 25.

Plus, the three rules, future ambitions, and more.

Get more at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to get ad-free episodes and tons of bonus discussion.

Learn more about the book at partiallyexaminedlife.com/book.

David is co-host of the excellent Overthink podcast, popular among the young people today, and so we have him monologue to children as an anti (?) drug speaker. How can drugs change us, our sense of self, and the ways we see the world? Can some drugs be considered "natural"? Also, legally defensible drug use at work, and Nancy Reagan the Heel.

Mark philosophizes at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Bill improvises (and teaches) at chicagoimprovstudio.com.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast to get all our post-game discussions, a video version of the podcast, and other bonus stuff.

It's a new, discussion-only format, just for this episode (and perhaps some rare ones in the future)! When we write, how much is planned vs. improvised? How much is inspirational vs. double-or-triple checked? How does this factor weigh into how much music we release, how eclectic our sound is, and how well we improvise with others?

This discussion features three returning guests:

• Roger Joseph Manning Jr. was the keyboardist/singer for Jellyfish and Imperial Drag, and more recently as a solo artist and with the Likerish Quartet. Hear his solo episode. The end song on this episode "I'm Startin' a Band" from his Radio Daze EP (2023).
• David Christian is the singer/guitarist for Britain's Comet Gain. Hear his solo episode. The intro music to this discussion is "Love and Hate on the Radio" from Radio Sessions 1996-2011.
• Portland-based Rachel Taylor Brown has released 10 solo albums. Hear her solo episode. Her song choice relevant to this discussion was "Stagg Field."

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Like our Facebook page. Support us on Patreon.

Continuing on The Philosophy of Nature: A Guide to the New Essentialism (2002) with guest Chris Heath.

We get further into the text about metaphysical realism, criteria for a natural kind, properties vs. predicates, and much more.

Learn about the new PEL book at partiallyexaminedlife.com/book. Make a note on your calendar to purchase it on Thursday, April 25.

Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Al discuss the American version, and to a lesser extent the British and Australian versions, of this reality game show that originated in 2021 in the Netherlands, based on the party game Mafia (aka Werewolf), plus Survivor-like challenges and a gothic tone.

How does such a simple (stupid?) concept end up creating compelling TV? Are we cruel for liking this show? Is it better suited to hardened reality game show players, or with normal people? What's the role of the host, and is Alan Cumming the best possible one?

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

On The Philosophy of Nature: A Guide to the New Essentialism (2002). What kind of metaphysics underlies chemistry and physics? Ellis argues that items such as chemical elements and physical particles have essences, and that these essential properties determine their behavior, which is characterized by scientific laws. Thus, these laws are necessary; they apply in all possible worlds.

The co-host of the Those Who Aunt podcast joins Mark and Bill to joke about the family as the fundamental political unit and its special place in ethics. On the flip side, what questions should you ask yourself about your character at the start of a scene? Plus, Jan. 6, Platonic eugenics, transcending physical desire, a story that doesn't quite get started, a military upbringing, and the real Cheff. Papa will give you all the same name and make you listen to every episode of this podcast, because he loves you.

Mark philosophizes at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Bill improvises (and teaches) at chicagoimprovstudio.com.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast to get all our post-game discussions, a video version of the podcast, and other bonus stuff. 

Illinois singer/bassist Paul had his first release in 1985 and joined with drummer Ric Menck to form a band eventually called Velvet Crush, which released six albums from 1991-2004. He has since played in Matthew Sweet's band and has released two albums under the name The Small Square.

We discuss "Can't Let Go (Oh, Tommy)" by The Small Square from Ours & Others (2023), "California Incline" by Velvet Crush from Stereo Blues (2004), and "Flower Field" by Choo Choo Train from Briar Rose EP (1988). Intro: "Hold Me Up" by Velvet Crush from Teenage Symphonies to God (1994). End song: "SML" from The Small Square (2015, remastered 2023). More at smallsquaremusic.com and actionmusik.bandcamp.com.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Like our Facebook page. Support us on Patreon.

To conclude our discussion of Aristotle's Metaphysics, we finish discussing potency by talking about the potential to learn (the Meno problem), the metaphysical priority of the actual over the merely potential, and how the Unmoved Mover motivates all primary beings to strive toward their full actualization.

We read portions of books 9 (Theta) and 12 (Lambda) of Aristotle's Metaphysics, first on "being-at-work" (actuality) vs. mere potency, then on Aristotle's famous argument for the existence of God.

We discuss the 4-Oscar-winning film Poor Things as well as the other creations of writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos, including most notably The Lobster, Dogtooth, and The Killing of a Sacred Deer. These films mix high concepts, purposively stilted line-readings, and increasingly rich cinematography with horror and gross sex.

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

Sponsor: Get 50% off your first box of ready-to-eat meals at FactorMeals.com/pretty50 (use code pretty50).

We are proud to announce the upcoming release of the long-anticipated PEL book, April 25th, in celebration of the 15th anniversary of our first podcast. It will be available on Kindle and in print on Amazon, or by request from libraries and bookstores worldwide.  We’ll share the Amazon link here on April 25. If you want to help us out, Continue Reading …

Continuing on Aristotle's Metaphysics, Book 7 (Zeta), on essences and what sorts of things have them.

Contrasting with Plato, Aristotle believes that some changing, visible things have forms. How do they get them? Well, they're received from some previous thing that has a comparable form, e.g. a child from its parents, or perhaps a form could come from a creator's mind.

Learn about our new book at partiallyexaminedlife.com/book.

It's another TEAM PLAY episode, with our returning champions, star of improv stages and podcasts Chris and College of Southern Nevada philosophy prof Cole receiving NOT THE INFORMATION THEY EXPECT and gettin' all rational and such when consoling a friend and wrangling about a math quiz. Luxuriate in the rich characters and philosophy tools!

Mark philosophizes at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Bill improvises (and teaches) at chicagoimprovstudio.com.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast to get all our post-game discussions, and other bonus stuff.

The PEL team has a limited number of advance review copies of our new book, “The Partially Examined Life: 15 Years with Your Favorite Philosophy Podcasters.” If you would like to be considered for one (no guarantees!), please sign up at the following link: https://forms.gle/H4KTCAp6ghFFF7Gk7 We are especially looking for fans who have a good social media presence, or a Continue Reading …

Do you Who? Did you Who back in the day, or just from the point of the 2005 revival? Did you Who through Tennant, Smith, Capaldi... Were you still on board for Whittaker, and now as Disney+ and revival creator Russell T. Davies attempt to make this more readily accessible in all ways with the transition to Ncuti Gatwa?

Mark, Al, and Lawrence are joined by our special guest, improv comedian Chris Rathjen to talk about the appeal and evolution of this very long-running British sci-fi show.

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

Sponsor: Visit GoodChop.com/pretty120 and use code pretty120 to get $120 off four boxes of organic, sustainable meat and/or seafood.

Graham has released 25+ studio albums of soul-infused British singer-songwriter goodness since 1976, first with the Rumour, but often in the second half of his career playing live entirely solo.

We discuss "Lost Track of Time" by Graham Parker and the Goldtops from Last Chance to Do the Twist (2023), "Going There" by Graham Parker & The Rumour from Mystery Glue (2015), "She Wants So Many Things" from Struck By Lightning (1991), and "Between You and Me" by Graham Parker & The Rumour from Howlin' Wind (1976). Intro: "Local Girls" from Squeezing Out Sparks (1980). Hear more at GrahamParker.net

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Like our Facebook page. Support us on Patreon.

Continuing for our third session on Aristotle's Metaphysics, now covering Book 7 (Zeta).

What exactly is the type of being that is the chief reason why we call anything being? Aristotle says its the substantial form present in an individual animal or plant.

Continuing on Book 4 (Gamma) of the Metaphysics. We discuss further the relations between the logical and metaphysical versions of the principle of non-contradiction and how Aristotle characterizes relativists like Protagoras who he claims violate non-contradiction.

The cover design has been finalized! Please let us know what you think. Note: Yes, the title is a bit different than in the last blog post. This looked better on the cover. Also, it’s a proven winner 🙂 As before, if you are interested in being considered for an advance review copy, or just want more info about the Continue Reading …

On Aristotle's Metaphysics, book 4 (aka Gamma) (ca. 340 BCE). What does studying "being" entail? It involves claiming that all beings are distinct individuals, as opposed to, for instance, an undifferentiated flux. They're thus subject to the law of non-contradiction, which Aristotle defends against objectors.

Sponsor: Get 50% off delicious, ready-to-eat meals at FactorMeals.com/pel50 (code pel50).

Coming from a family who played traditional cajun music in Louisiana, violinist Louis and his accordion-playing brother Andre have released nine albums (plus some live releases and EPs since 2001), winning two Grammy awards, plus Louis has had a couple of releases under the name Michot's Melody Makers, and he just released his first solo album.

We discuss the title track (and listen at the end to "Ti Coeur Bleu" from Rêve du Troubadour, that 2023 solo album, plus "Marée Noire" from Mammoth Waltz (2012) and "Mexico One Step" from Bayou Perdu (2005). Intro: "Grand Marais" by Michot’s Melody Makers from Blood Moon (2018). Learn more at louismichot.com and lostbayouramblers.com.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Like our Facebook page. Support us on Patreon.

To celebrate the publication of the latest novel by one of our hosts, Sarahlyn Bruck, we bring back acclaimed actor/author Kathryn Leigh Scott to join Mark and Al. We discuss women's fiction as a marketing category, its relation to genres like romance and literary fiction, and the writing process.

The books that we read for this are Sarahlyn's Light of the Fire and Kathryn's September Girl (2019).

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

Sponsor: Visit GoodChop.com/pretty120 and use code pretty120 to get $120 off four boxes of organic, sustainable meat and/or seafood.

Hello PEL fans, it’s time for the Title Reveal for our upcoming book. We went back and forth on the title for a while, but I wanted something that paid tribute to the special relationship between you, the fans, and the podcast. After all, if it wasn’t for you guys asking for it, we would never have put this project Continue Reading …

If people would be uniquely healed by your blood, how much would you charge for it? Would it make a difference if they were wealthy vampires? Bill entices Mark to join a cult.

Mark philosophizes at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Bill improvises (and teaches) at chicagoimprovstudio.com.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast to get all our post-game discussions, a video version of the podcast, and other bonus stuff. You can watch video for this episode and hear the post-game talking gratis just by visiting our Patreon page.

Continuing on Aristotle's Metaphysics, book 1. We get seriously into Aristotle's four types of causation and how previous philosophers in leaving out one or most of these made a mistake. This includes a critique of Platonic forms, which as eternal, unchanging patterns can't actually explain why change occurs in the world.

On Aristotle's Metaphysics, book 1 (aka Alpha) (ca. 340 BCE). What constitutes a basic explanation of the universe?

We talk about how mere practical knowledge of how things in fact work is not enough; there's greater wisdom in knowing the theoretical underpinnings. Various philosophers before Aristotle had given different kinds of explanations of what the universe is at bottom, but for a complete explanation, Aristotle says we'll need to include all four types of causation: material, formal, efficient, and final.

When we've already heard about someone's personal scandal in the news, do we need to also see it dramatized with A-list actors? We discuss Todd Haynes' 2023 film fictionalizing the long-aftermath of the Mary Kay Letourneau story.

We also touch on Joe vs. Carole, Inventing Anna, Dirty John, The Act, The Shrink Next Door, and The Thing About Pam, etc.

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

Jonny taught philosophy at Oxford, wrote the international bestseller Mini Philosophy, and now writes for Big Think.

We talk Kierkegaard and act out some scenes about scouting and military recruitment. Do we have to live within labels? Does one have to leap to a label, without justification?/p>

Mark philosophizes at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Bill improvises (and teaches) at chicagoimprovstudio.com.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. You'll see there the link to the video version of this. Support the podcast to get all our post-game discussions, a video version of the podcast, and other bonus stuff.

Sponsor: If you enjoy our podcast, check out Historical Blindness.

After Matt's "paisley underground" band Rain Parade recorded two albums and an EP from '83-'85, he was a member of Crazy Horse (taking the Neil Young guitar role in Neil's absence), and released a few albums intermittently as he worked in law enforcement. Now that he has retired, he's back devoting all his time to music, and Rain Parade has been touring and released its first album of the millennium.

We discuss the title track from this 2023 release, Last Rays of the Dying Sun, then the title track by the Hellenes' I Love You All the Animals (2018), and "Blue" from Rain Parade's Glass Palace EP (1984). Finally, we listen to "Reason for Living" from the self-titled album by Boatclub (2008). Intro: "What She's Done to Your Mind" (a 1982 single). More at rainparade.bandcamp.com.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Like our Facebook page. Support us on Patreon.

Sponsor: Get the ultimate gift: A custom-written song from Songfinch. Use songfinch.com/NEM to get free Spotify streaming for your song. Listen to the song Mark commissioned.

Katie is the co-artistic director of Chicago's IO theater and used to do Comedy Sports improv with Bill. She also took a lot of classes in philosophy and religion, so we talk some about cults, Kierkegaard, tolerance, and more. In our scenes, a family contemplates celebrating Christmas differently this year, and people debate the appropriate gift for a newborn king. 

Mark philosophizes at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Bill improvises (and teaches) at chicagoimprovstudio.com.

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. You'll see there the link to the video version of this. Support the podcast to get all our post-game discussions and other bonus stuff.

Sponsors: Get a meal for $1.49 plus $1 steaks at EveryPlate.com/podcast, code 49improv. Get a weekly dose of Internet comedy at CanYouDontPodcast.com.

In light of the new, acclaimed film, The Boy and the Heron, Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn, and Al reflect on the Studio Ghibli films that Hayao Miyazaki has directed since the '80s.

Does the visionary design make up for the languorous pacing? We talk about the anime style, subtitles vs. dubbed, using this style for children's vs. adult entertainment, the relation of these films to fairy tales, and more.

For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear bonus content at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by subscribing via Apple Podcasts to the Mark Lintertainment Channel.

Sponsor: Check out the Historical Blindness podcast.

Continuing on "On the Ontological Mystery" (1933), we talk more about problems vs. mysteries: The latter implicate OURSELVES; we are not merely witnesses, but our involvement complicates things. Also, what makes Marcel an existentialist?

Discussing "On the Ontological Mystery" (1933) about our need for meaning. Marcel asserts that our need for "mystery" is much more primal than the scientific, technical point of view that breaks down problems into component parts for easy analysis. In fact, this more modern-seeming way of looking at the world presupposes and relies on the more originary position.

Bruce is best known for his first album The Way It Is (1986), but has come light years since then through 18+ albums, experimenting with different styles, playing over 100 shows with the Grateful Dead, and scoring numerous projects for Spike Lee. He's won three Grammys and recorded with music royalty including Elton John, Ornette Coleman, Branford Marsalis, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, etc.

We discuss "Sidelines" (feat. Ezra Koenig from Vampire Weekend) from 'Flicted (2022), "My Resolve" (feat. James Mercer of The Shins) from Non-Secure Connection (2020), and a new live version of "Shadow Hand" from the 25th Anniversary Edition of Spirit Trail. End song: "Cast-Off" (feat. Justin Vernon of Bon Iver) from Absolute Zero (2019). Intro: "The Way It Is" (Live from Köln, 2019). More at brucehornsby.com

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Like our Facebook page. Support us on Patreon.

Sponsors: Visit GreenChef.com/60Nakedly (use code 60Nakedly) to get 60% off your first box from America's #1 Meal Kit for eating clean (plus 20% off for the next two months) Get the ultimate gift: A custom-written song from Songfinch. Use songfinch.com/NEM to get free Spotify streaming for your song. Listen to the song Mark commissioned.