Marginalia

Steven Nadler guides readers through Spinoza’s Ethics and its geometric style of argument.

He explains the work’s claims about God, nature, human beings, and knowledge.

The discussion follows Spinoza’s account of emotions, virtue, freedom, and happiness.

Historical context connects these arguments to Descartes, ancient philosophy, and Jewish rationalism.

Nadler shows why the Ethics challenged its first readers and still raises philosophical questions.

Series: Philosophy & Critical Theory

Spinoza's Ethics: An Introduction — Steven Nadler

Publication source

Explore: Philosophy & Critical Theory · History & Judaism

Related episodes: Eichmann vs. Arendt - Against the Banality of Evil · Rembrandt's Jews (Steven Nadler)

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Steven Nadler investigates Rembrandt’s relationship with the Jewish communities of seventeenth-century Amsterdam.

He examines portraits, neighbors, daily encounters, and the setting in which the artist worked.

Sephardic and Ashkenazic histories help explain the diversity of Jewish life in the city.

The book tests romantic stories about Rembrandt against the available historical evidence.

Art and urban history together provide a more specific picture of his Jewish surroundings.

Series: Art & Music

Rembrandt's Jews — Steven Nadler

Publication source

Explore: Art & Music · History & Judaism

Related episodes: Chaim Soutine: Genius, Obsession, and a Dramatic Life in Art (Celeste Marcus) · Rembrandt's Eyes (Simon Schama)

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

James Gleick traces the development of information as a scientific and cultural idea.

The history moves from older systems of communication to modern information theory.

It examines how messages can be represented, transmitted, measured, and distorted.

Technological changes reshape the ways people preserve knowledge and communicate across distance.

The book connects these developments to the growing abundance of information in everyday life.

Series: Mathematics & Science · AI Books · Book deep dive

The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood — James Gleick

Publication source

Explore: Mathematics & Science · AI & Computer Science

Related episodes: Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (Harold Abelson & Gerald Jay Sussman) · Introduction to the Theory of Computation (Michael Sipser)

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Notes

Explore: Mind & Psychology · Mathematics & Science

Related episodes: Human Nature (D. W. Winnicott) · Thought and Language (Lev Vygotsky)

Series: Mind & Psychology

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Winnicott brings together his account of emotional development and psychoanalytic theory.

The book examines relationships between the body, the psyche, and the mind.

It follows the development of integration, a sense of self, and contact with external reality.

Early relationships and the environment form part of this account of health and disturbance.

The unfinished work offers an overview of ideas otherwise spread across his clinical writings.

Series: Mind & Psychology

Human Nature — D. W. Winnicott

Publication source

Explore: Mind & Psychology

Related episodes: Evolutionary Psychology and Development (Palacios et al.) · Thought and Language (Lev Vygotsky)

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Lake and colleagues ask what artificial intelligence can learn from human learning and thought.

They argue that strong pattern recognition alone does not reproduce human intelligence.

Causal models and intuitive accounts of physics and psychology can support richer understanding.

Compositional representations and learning-to-learn help explain rapid adaptation from limited experience.

The paper proposes research directions that combine neural networks with structured cognitive models.

Series: AI Papers

Building Machines That Learn and Think Like People — Brenden M. Lake, Tomer D. Ullman, Joshua B. Tenenbaum, and Samuel J. Gershman

Publication source

Explore: AI & Computer Science · Mind & Psychology · AI Papers

Related episodes: Bayesian Models of Cognition: Reverse Engineering the Mind (Thomas Griffiths, Nick Chater & Joshua Tenenbaum) · V-JEPA: Learning Visual Representations from Video (Adrien Bardes, Yann LeCun et al.)

Authors: Brenden M. Lake, Tomer D. Ullman, Joshua B. Tenenbaum, and Samuel J. Gershman

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Thomas Nagel examines the tension between personal experience and an objective view of the world.

He asks how a person’s particular standpoint can fit within an account that includes everyone.

This problem appears in questions about consciousness, knowledge, freedom, and ethics.

Greater detachment can reveal some features of reality while obscuring others.

The book investigates how subjective and objective perspectives might be reconciled without erasing either.

Series: Philosophy & Critical Theory

The View from Nowhere — Thomas Nagel

Publication source

Explore: Philosophy & Critical Theory · Mind & Psychology

Related episodes: Eichmann vs. Arendt - Against the Banality of Evil · Memory, History, Forgetting (Paul Ricoeur): Memory and Historical Truth

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Adorno examines modern society through aphorisms and reflections on everyday life.

Written in exile, the work connects private experience with capitalism and historical catastrophe.

Its subjects include morality, relationships, culture, intellectual work, and damaged autonomy.

Small observations reveal how social pressures reach into seemingly personal choices.

The book uses critical reflection to test the possibility of a less damaged life.

Series: Philosophy & Critical Theory

Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life — Theodor W. Adorno

Publication source

Explore: Philosophy & Critical Theory · Art & Music

Related episodes: Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life (Theodor Adorno) · A Precarious Happiness: Adorno and the Sources of Normativity (Peter E. Gordon)

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

In this 1962 lecture, Adorno examines the persistence of antisemitism after the Holocaust.

He connects anti-Jewish prejudice with authoritarian attitudes, conformity, and right-wing extremism.

The lecture considers how prejudice can survive through denial and claims of victimhood.

Adorno distinguishes sustained educational work from the immediate need to confront established hostility.

He argues for truthful engagement with history and attention to the social mechanisms of prejudice.

Series: Philosophy & Critical Theory

Fighting Antisemitism Today: A Lecture — Theodor W. Adorno

Publication source

Explore: Philosophy & Critical Theory · History & Judaism

Related episodes: Migrants in the Profane: Critical Theory and the Question of Secularization (Peter E. Gordon) · Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life (Theodor Adorno) — Full Discussion

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Peter Gordon places Rosenzweig and Heidegger within a shared German philosophical setting.

He rereads The Star of Redemption alongside the questions that shaped Heidegger’s work.

Temporality, finitude, and existence connect their responses to inherited philosophical systems.

The comparison also considers Rosenzweig’s relationships to Hegel and neo-Kantian thought.

Gordon examines intellectual affinities while keeping their profound political and religious differences in view.

Series: Philosophy & Critical Theory

Rosenzweig and Heidegger: Between Judaism and German Philosophy — Peter E. Gordon

Publication source

Explore: Philosophy & Critical Theory · History & Judaism

Related episodes: Migrants in the Profane: Critical Theory and the Question of Secularization (Peter E. Gordon) · Adorno and Existence (Peter E. Gordon)

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!