Phi Fic

Continuing (without Stephen Phillips) on God and the World’s Arrangement: Readings from Vedanta and Nyaya Philosophy of Religion. What does this treatment give us that's fundamentally different than the Western version of the design argument? We talk about these readings in the context of liberation and reflect on reason vs. revelation in this milieu.

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On God and the World's Arrangement: Readings from Vedanta and Nyaya Philosophy of Religion with one of its translators, Stephen Phillips. Does nature require an intelligent designer? Śaṅkara (710 CE) and Vācaspati Miśra (960 CE), commenting on the Brahma-sūtra (ca. 200 CE) and Nyāya-sūtra (ca. 200 BCE), argue that it does against atheistic Buddhists, Sāṃkhya believers in a primordial matter that acts on its own, and the Mīmāṃsā conservatives who so venerated scripture that they ruled out a God who created it. But if we're all Brahman (God), just trying to discover that we are and so escape the cycle of rebirth, then where is there room for a particular deity who created us?

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Continuing on two of Hannah Arendt's 1953 essays on totalitarianism. We further discuss its logic and in the full episode get into its relevance for contemporary political movements.

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On "On the Nature of Totalitarianism" and On the Origins of Totalitarianism ch. 13 (both from 1953).

Is totalitarianism just an especially virulent form of tyranny, or something unique to the modern age? Arendt says that unlike other forms of government, totalitarianism is not animated by an active psychological principle that motivates its participants. Instead terror is designed to make citizens incapable of agency altogether.

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Sponsors: Get a free trial and save 20% on an annual membership of at TheGreatCoursesPlus.com/PEL. Learn about St. John's College summer programs at SJC.edu/summer2021. Get a loan to lower your monthly payments at Upstart.com/PEL. Get $75 off your starter teeth-straightening kit via CandidCO.com/pel (code PEL). Get up to a $1000 donation matched at GiveWell.org/PEL (pick PODCAST and Partially Examined Life at checkout). Hear Wes' "Stoic Guide to Happiness" at Himalaya.com/stoic (promo code stoic).

Continuing on Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business with guest Brian Hirt. Is the written word really so much more suited for providing context than television?

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On Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985) with guest Brian Hirt.

How does the form in which we receive media affect how we think? Education theorist Postman (building on Marshall McLuhan) claimed that television has eroded our capacity to reason and given us the expectation that everything in the world must entertain. Is this a viable piece of social construction theory? How does the critique apply to the Internet age?

Part two of this episode is only going to be available to you if you sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support. Get it now or listen to a preview.

Sponsors: Save 20% on an annual membership of at TheGreatCoursesPlus.com/PEL. See headspace.com/PEL for a free month's access to a library of guided meditations. Learn about St. John's College summer programs at SJC.edu/summer2021. Get a loan to lower your monthly payments at Upstart.com/PEL.

Continuing on Avicenna's arguments for the existence of God and on the soul's immateriality. What metaphysical and epistemological picture grounds these views?

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On selections and commentary about Avicenna's argument from around 1020 C.E. for the existence of God as a necessary being, plus arguments to prove that God has the person-like properties that Islam imputes to him, and his "flying man" argument for the soul's essential independence from matter. Featuring Mark, Dylan, and our guest Peter Adamson from the History of Philosophy podcast.

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Continuing on Lear's Open Minded: Working Out the Logic of the Soul (1988). Our highlight is about the relation between the three parts of the soul: which (if any) is basic?

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