Phi Fic

The U. of Michigan prof joins us to discuss Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don't Talk about It) (2017) and “What Is the Point of Equality?” (1999).

What is a government? Liz argues that this includes companies, and that we should thus apply political science concepts in evaluating their power. Her egalitarianism involves everyone retaining a minimum level of inalienable autonomy, and we should resist encroachments on this not just by the state but from employers as well.

Continue on parts two and three, or get them together via the ad-free Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!

Mark and Seth continue our conversation from ep. 198 by going through the arguments in the second half of the dialogue.

This puzzling section is largely a monologue by the character Parmenides, with the stated aim of showing the implications from first, the assumption that the One exists, and then that the One does not exist. But is this really Parmenides’s One or the Platonic Form of Oneness? Can these be the same thing?

We get down to the specific questions considered this perplexing Platonic dialogue: Are there forms for all adjectives? Does the form of a property itself have that property? How do Forms connect with particulars? How can we mortals have any connection to heavenly Forms anyway?

Listen to part one first or get the full, ad-free Citizen Edition along with the follow-up episode. Please support PEL!

End song: "Young and Lovely" by Jherek Bischoff. Hear him on Nakedly Examined Music #65.

On the most peculiar Platonic dialogue, from ca. 350 BCE. Are properties real things in the world, or just in the mind?

Plato is known for claiming that these "Forms" are real, though otherworldly. Here, though, using Parmenides as a character talking to a young Socrates, Plato seems to provide objections here to his own theory. What's the deal?

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Sponsor: Check out Sam Yang's Must Triumph podcast at musttriumph.com.

Wes discusses the film by Steven Spielberg with philosophy professor David Kyle Johnson. What is there to fear in artificial intelligence? How does this shed light on what it means to be fully human?

Note: Part two will NOT be appearing on this feed. Become a PEL Citizen to get the full discussion. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to learn how.

Continuing with guest Peter Adamson with "On Nature" (475 BCE).

We finally get to fragment 8, which describes why Being must be singular and eternal, given that the notion of Non-Being is nonsense. But how could we as individuals be asking these questions then? Does his "Way of Seeming" work to explain the appearances, as opposed to reality?

Listen to part one first, or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!

End song: "Circle" by Gareth Mitchell, as discussed on Nakedly Examined Music #4.

Sponsors: Explore Peter Singer's The Life You Can Save at partiallyexaminedlife.com/savealife.

It was a house full of unrelated passions.

–To The Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf

In the incredible novel To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf takes us to Hebrides on the Isle of Skye off the coast of Scotland, where the Ramsey family retreats during the summer. The novel is not driven by plot but rather through the consciousnesses of many of the characters. Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey and their eight children are at the house where we hear much from their son James, who is anxious to visit the lighthouse, but is curtly denied by his father due to the weather. A number of guests arrive to spend the summer with them, including Lily Briscoe, who is planning to paint a portrait of Mr. Ramsey and James.

There he sat with his hand on the tiller in the sun, staring at the Lighthouse, powerless to move, powerless to flick off these grains of misery which settled on his mind one after another. A rope seemed to bind him there, and his father had knotted it and he could only escape by taking a knife and plunging it…

The novel is in three sections—The Windows, Time Passes, and The Lighthouse. The story covers ten years, through the death of Mrs. Ramsey and two of the children, finally ending with the long-awaited trip to the lighthouse. Meanwhile, Lily Briscoe, one of the few guests who have returned to the summer house, remains there while the rest of them sail off, finally finishing her long-labored painting.

Considered one of the top 100 English-language novels, To the Lighthouse is seen as an autobiographical exploration by Virginia Woolf of her summers with her family, in St. Ives in Cornwall, until the death of her mother. Her sister Vanessa said she was “Transfixed by the portrait of their mother, [that] ‘It is almost painful to have her so raised from the dead.’”

This discussion first appeared in our Not School Group and the readers at the time were Nathan, Laura, Daniel, and Dan Johnson. As an early recording, please bear with the sound quality—many thanks!

A film based on the novel was released in 1983, and is described as a faithful rendition of the novel. It stars  Rosemary Harris, Michael Gough, Suzanne Bertish, and Kenneth Branagh.

If you have thoughts, recommendations, or questions that you want to send our way, please do via [email protected].

Hear more Phi Fic..

Thanks to Chrisopher Nolen for our music.

On the fragments referred to as "On Nature" from ca. 475 BCE, featuring guest Peter Adamson from the History of Philosophy without Any Gaps podcast.

Parmenides gives "the Way of Truth," which is that there is only Being, and talking of Non-Being is nonsense. So everything you experience is wrong!

Continue on part two or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!

Episode 2 of Wes's new podcasting endeavor, featuring Mary from the Phi Fic podcast, who's also the managing editor of the PEL blog.

Note: Part two will NOT be appearing on this feed. Become a PEL Citizen to get the full discussion. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to learn how.