Phi Fic

"There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness." So said dear Nietzsche, and seemingly on his heels, the sentiment was reiterated by Henry James. Our discussion of the short story The Beast in the Jungle pushes the question of madness and love to the limit. Mary and Laura exclaim over the remarkable narcissism of the character John Marcher, and his demands on May Bartram's attention. Daniel proposes that Marcher's demand reflects his need for her love in order to define his sense of self. Nathan and Cezary follow our two characters and their struggle to understand whether it's love that's shared between them, or if it is, in fact, the beast in the jungle.

Recommending, The World Beyond Your Head by Matthew B. Crawford, Logicomix on Bertrand Russell, The Inferno by Dante, and David Mamet's Master Class Memo to the Writers of The Unit.

Thanks to Christopher Nolen for our music.

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

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On the Nichomachean Ethics (ca. 350 BCE), books 6–7. Is intelligence just one thing? Aristotle picks out a number of distinct faculties, some of which are relevant to ethics, and he uses these to explain Plato's puzzle of how someone can clearly see what the good for him is, and yet fail to pursue it due to weakness of the will. This episode continues our discussion from way back in ep. 5.

End song: "I Die Desire" from The MayTricks (1992).

More Levinas, working this time through Time and the Other (1948). What is it for a person to exist? What individuates one person from another, making us into selves instead of just part of the causal net of events? Why would someone possibly think that these are real, non-obvious questions that need to be addressed?

End song: "Call on You" by Mark Lint from from the 1993 Mark Lint album Spanish Armada: Songs of Love and Related Neuroses.

So, you think Lolita was Nabokov’s best? We humbly submit a solid contender. Cezary, in his wisdom, suggested the book for this episode: Pale Fire. Structured as a 999-line poem followed by an extensive afterword and index, Pale Fire has been described by the critic Harold Bloom as “the surest demonstration of [Nabokov’s] genius…”

Join us as Cezary kicks it off with an excellent overview, and Nathan connects the mystery of the main character Charles Kinbote with the disorder of Batman’s Joker and how the anarchy of each of them belies their world order. The rest of us—Mary, Daniel and Laura—just sort of "ooh" and "ahh" about the beauty and sheer poetry of what has been called not just one of the top 100 English-language novels of all time but, according to the critic Larry MaCaffery, perhaps the number one.

Buy the book.

Thanks to Christopher Nolen for our music.

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

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On "Ethics as First Philosophy" (1984). More existentialist ethics, with a Jewish twist this time! Seth returns to join Mark and Wes in figuring out how to best leave off all this aggressive "knowing" and other forms of individual self-assertion to grasp the more primordial appearance of the Other in all his or her vulnerability, which Levinas thinks makes us wholly responsible for others right off the bat.

End song: "To Valerie" from The MayTricks' So Chewy (1993).

On Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice (2016). What role should we allow anger to play in our public life? Should systems of punishment be utilitarian, or should they be retributive? Nussbaum thinks that anger necessarily involves the desire for payback, which is unhelpful. We should instead use anger to prevent future harm. Mark, Wes, and Dylan interview Martha and then discuss issues raised in the interview and the book.

End song: "Forgive the Disco," a Nussbaum-inspired Mark vocal on an instrumental by Sean Beeson, interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #23.

What’s with these self-aware monsters anyway? Both Frankenstein and Grendel bemoan their fates as the necessary evils in this world—so that goodness may exist, perhaps? Listen as we join their struggle, and Mary calms Laura’s frantic worry about Gardner’s use of the “other” to make his philosophical point while the guys argue about who is the real monster here: Grendel or man?

"All order, I've come to understand, is theoretical, unreal—a harmless, sensible, smiling mask men slide between the two great, dark realities, the self and the world—two snake-pits."

Grendel by John Gardner. Join Nathan Hanks with Cezary Baraniecki, Daniel St. Pierre, Laura Davis, and Mary Claire.

Thanks to Christopher Nolen for our music.

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

Hear more Phi Fic.