On The Very Idea - A Philosophy Podcast

Empiricists believe that our senses are the primary source of our knowledge. Rationalists counter that reason and rationality play an elementary, ineliminable role in attaining knowledge. This debate defines the era of modern philosophy (roughly from the 17th century to the early 20th century).  Out of these debates and the effort to create a philosophy compatible with the increasingly powerful sciences, emerges one of the giants of philosophy - Immanuel Kant. In this first episode of a two part series, we will be looking at the work of David Hume, setting up the framework for Kant to come on the scene. Skip ahead to 3:55 if you want politely bypass the opening ramble.

In the final episode of this three-part series on the political theory of communitarianism, I examine the political idea of the good life. What is it to live a good life? Should the state define a notion of the good life and promote it amongst its citizens? Communitarians argue that the liberal state fails to define and push an ideal of what a healthy, happy life consists in and this does a disservice to its citizens. Could we be happier with a bit more state guidance or is that a recipe for authoritarianism? Is communitarianism the political theory to lift us from our neoliberal morass?

In episode two of this three-part series on the political theory of communitarianism, I will look at the communitarian critique of the liberal notion of the self.  Things are about to get metaphysical. Communitarians argue that liberalism is based on a flawed metaphysical conception of the self -  what they term the unencumbered self. Communitarians argue a flawed politics flows out of this flawed metaphysics that fails to account for the socially embodied nature of citizens as individuals. I also look at communitarian notions of justice with a brief comparison between the justice systems of Japan and America.

In this first episode of a three part instalment, I look at the political theory of communitarianism. In this episode, I focus on on an examination  of the social conditions at the end of the Cold War that gave rise to a communitarian critique of liberalism in particular and modernity in general by such thinkers as Robert Putnam, Michael Sandel and Will Kymlicka. Communitarianism is interesting as a theory in and of itself, but is also interesting in its role as the chief rival to the dominant political theory of liberalism in an era defined by the near monopoly in political theory of the liberal perspective.

In this first episode of a two part instalment, I look at Peter Singer’s small guidebook on George Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel and explore the meaning behind Hegel's claim that the history of consciousness drives history in general. According to Hegel, we can measure real historical process and I look at what this idea entails. Hegel is difficult but Singer makes him easier.

In this second part of a two episode instalment, I look at how the development of a specific type of technique - reading silently as opposed to reading aloud - carved out a greater interior space in the human mind to give acreage for a richer concept of the self to develop. How did we get from the ancient Greek who had very little concept of interiority to the arguably narcissistic modern self who is wrapped up in the tangles of their own head? Here I will be borrowing from the work of Charles Taylor and Robert Darnton to explore these ideas.

In this second part of a two episode instalment, I look at how the development of a specific type of technique - reading silently as opposed to reading aloud - carved out a greater interior space in the human mind to give acreage for a richer concept of the self to develop. How did we get from the ancient Greek who had very little concept of interiority to the arguably narcissistic modern self who is wrapped up in the tangles of their own head? Here I will be borrowing from the work of Charles Taylor and Robert Darnton to explore these ideas.

Canadian Charles Taylor is one of the most important philosophers of our times. Taylor specializes in tracing the development  and enrichment of the notion of the self throughout history. Our age has the richest (and sometimes the most narcissistic) concept of the self. I look at this development through the lens of Taylor’s work and also the example of how our learning to read silently to ourselves in the middle ages contributed to giving the modern individual a rich interior life that he or she didn’t have in ancient times.

The final episode of a three part series looking at how the American philosophical tradition of Pragmatism has caused American political theory to stagnate and actual politics to be stuck in a centrist rut. Bernie Sanders breaks out of this tradition on the left and offers a more ideological alternative to the typical centrism by focusing on morality first rather than practical, pragmatic arguments. I look at how America’s effort to avoid the ideological extremism of the 20th century has forced on it unimaginative political thinking. The work of pragmatist Richard Rorty seems to embody the best and the worst of this cautious, technocratic thinking.