Night School

It is written of 17th Century philosopher Rene Descartes that he had four rules for himself in his thinking: Never accept anything except clear and distinct ideas; Divide each problem into as many parts are needed to solve it; Order your thoughts from the simple to the complex; Always check thoroughly for oversights. His “methodological doubt” lead him to the famous formulation “I think, therefore I am”. And in doing so inaugurated a break in Western thought with the thinking subject – the “I” of cogito ergo sum – at its center.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas,” wrote Karl Marx in the German Ideology published in 1845.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The day may come when the rest of animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. … What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or perhaps the faculty of discourse? … The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?” wrote Jeremy Bentham in The Principles of Morals and Legislation. This week we look at the implications of the philosophy of naturalism.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“I don't write to give joy to readers but to give them a conscience,” wrote Indonesia’s most serious contender for a Nobel prize winner for literature, Pramoedya Ananta Toer. His body of work has survived the New Order regime which sent him into internal exile without trial for close to two decades. Today we look at his work, “The Chinese in Indonesia”, and the underlying re-interpretation of the notion of nation and nationalism.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many,” wrote Baruch Spinoza aka Benedict de Spinoza. This 17th century philosopher’s radical interpretation of the notion of God changed the very terms of the debate in the Western tradition. A len’s maker by profession, his embrace of science as a way to understand God, suggests the profound connection between philosophy and the world it inhabits.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This part of the world was embroiled in a pantheist controversy in the 17th century. Tune in to find out more about the context, figures, discourses and philosophies that formed the circumstances behind this fascinating chapter of our intellectual history. Our regular guest, Syed Muhiyiddin Al-Attas paves the way.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“One swallow does not make a summer, neither does one fine day; similarly one day or a brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy,” wrote Aristotle in The Nicomachean Ethics. This rather commonsensical view of happiness is part of a larger, and deeper analysis of the meaning of happiness. This week, we explore one of the great minds of classical European philosophy.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"The Platonic idealist is the man by nature so wedded to perfection that he sees in everything not the reality but the faultless ideal which the reality misses and suggests," wrote George Santayana. In this episode Fuad leads us in a discussion of how Plato’s theory of forms redefined how philosophers think about the world they are contemplating.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.” That’s Immanuel Kant, 18th century German philosopher who tried to establish a rational foundation for ethical thinking. This week Fuad outlines the Kantian project, gives a sense of why Kant’s intervention was a turning point in Western thinking about ethics.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What makes a citizen? Pang Khee Teik joins the Night School pair to reflect on that question from a critical perspective, explaining how citizens are regulated to serve the dominant structures of power, under false pretensions of "freedom" and "individuality".

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.