Peter interviews the philosopher Erin Plunkett about the 20th-century Czech thinker Jan Patočka, exploring how his thought can help guide us through the problems of truth and beauty in the 21st century. Erin is currently Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Hertfordshire. She is a co-editor of The Selected Writings of Jan Patočka: Care for the Soul, published in 2022 by Bloomsbury. 

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Timestamps:

(00:00) Introduction

(00:42) Who is Erin Plunkett?

(04:04) Who was Jan Patočka?

(08:40) Patočka as a philosophical hero

(12:03) The best way to think about Patočka’s thought

(17:20) Meaning as disclosure

(18:03) Patočka’s phenomenology

(21:30) Aletheia

(31:25) The Solidarity of the Shaken

(35:14) The relationship between philosophy and art

(48:48) The essence of art before it has been institutionalised

(52:21) Truth, Beauty and Goodness

(1:00:46) Beauty and the Limits of Truth

(1:07:40) How to Identify the Truth in 2024

Peter speaks to the author and researcher Kat Hill about bothies and what they can teach us about histories of dwelling and place. Kat is the author of Bothy: In Search of Simple Shelter, published in 2024 by William Collins.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thelandbehind

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Timestamps:

(00:00) Introduction

(00:58) Who is Kat Hill?

(04:03) What is a bothy?

(05:08) How did your interest in bothies begin?

(09:18) What happens to old bothy guestbooks?

(11:16) When did you decide to write a book about bothies?

(14:08) What was the development of the book like? 

(16:21) Why did you choose the title?

(18:42) How did bothies open a space for you to better understand yourself?

(23:58) What is it that defines a bothy?

(26:22) When we emphasise a bothy as a place of retreat what kind of meaning is being lost?

(28:59) What can the military history of Cape Wrath tell us about the meaning of wilderness?

(34:00) How can bothies help guide us through the environmental questions of our age?

(38:49) What can bothies tell us about what it means to dwell?

(44:06) How can bothies help inform new architectural models?

(53:20)  Sandy, the Cape Wrath Hermit of Strathchailleach Bothy

(57:18) How can bothies open up the skies for us?

Peter speaks to the philosopher Ted Toadvine about a wide range of environmental themes and issues. Toadvine specialises in environmental ethics and contemporary European philosophy. His new book titled The Memory of the World: Deep Time, Animality, and Eschatology explores the ethical and ecological implications of deep time from a phenomenological perspective and is available now via University of Minnesota Press.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thelandbehind

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Timestamps:

(00:00) Introduction

(02:44) Episode begins

(09:57) Why Toadvine wrote The Memory of the World

(16:56) Toadvine’s earliest experiences of deep time

(23:27) Reconciling humanity and the natural environment

(40:57) Technology and nature

(46:00) The problem with the Anthropocene

(58:10) The problem with biodiversity

(01:05:52) The relationship between nature and language

(01:10:12) What is eco-phenomenology?

(01:15:10) Nature as the horizon of all things

(01:20:07) “Nature loves to hide”

(01:26:08) Edmund Husserl’s description of the natural world as a “correlate of consciousness”

(01:31:48) “The sun did not exist before human beings”

(01:42:45) The ethical problems of global sustainability

(01:52:23) The relationship between deep time and embodiment

(02:03:43) The animals that haunt our humanity from within

(02:20:38) Derrida at the end of the world

(02:29:06) The cultural obsession with doomsday

(02:36:39) The phenomenological perspective of the end of the world

(02:47:20) A phenomenology of the elements

(02:52:04) Art and the elements

Peter speaks to the philosopher Al Lingis about what we can learn by looking and the ethics of seeing. Described as one of the most original voices alive today in American philosophy, Al is a keen photographer, and many of his essays are accompanied by his own images. During the episode Al describes the significance of photography to the development of his own philosophical thinking.

(32.00)

Peter joins the Helsinki-based photographer and researcher Harri Pälviranta at his studio to discuss the various themes behind his artistic practice, much of which has been dedicated to making visible structures of violence and issues of masculinity. His recent photobook titled Wall Tourist, published by Kult Books in 2022, contains a series of self-critical portraits exposed against the international boundaries of state power that question the role of the travelling photographer in the creation of the documentary image.

https://harripalviranta.com/

https://www.instagram.com/harri_palviranta/

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Peter speaks to the American photographer and writer Tim Carpenter about the "existential conundrum" of being a photographer, as explored in Tim's new book-length essay titled ‘To Photograph is to Learn How to Die’, published in 2023 by The Ice Plant. Their conversation is a discussion about the photographic life and how acknowledging our own mortality as human beings helps us draw deeper meanings from a life lived in the midst of the visible. 

https://www.timcarpenterphotography.com/

https://www.instagram.com/timcarpenter

Peter speaks to the Japanese philosopher Takeshi Morisato about the 20th-century Kyoto School intellectual named Tanabe Hajime, whose philosophical method assimilated traditional elements of Japanese Buddhism with the perspectives of Western existentialism and Judeo-Christian theology during a period of enormous social upheaval in the history of modern Japan. Takeshi Morisato is a lecturer in Non-Western Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. He is also the current editor of the European Journal of Japanese Philosophy and the assistant editor of the Journal of East Asian Philosophy. In 2021 he published a short introduction to the thought of Tanabe Hajime titled Tanabe Hajime and the Kyoto School: Self, World and Knowledge via Bloomsbury. 

Peter joins Juuso Noronkoski at his studio in Helsinki to discuss the Finnish artist's photographic-based sculptural practice. Recognised for his ability to challenge and transform our expectations of the photographic image, Juuso's work has been exhibited worldwide in countries such as Japan and Germany. Drawing its inspiration from the phenomenon of different natural cycles, Juuso’s work is a spatiotemporal performative response to ideas of geological and cosmological time. Whilst noted for his small-scale and mixed media gallery-specific installations, what is perhaps remarkable about Juuso's work is the way it invites the spectator to think beyond the walls of the white cube to reflect on art’s relationship to the natural world at large. 

http://www.juusonoronkoski.com/

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Peter speaks to the Brighton-based British photographer Simon Roberts about his experience photographing England’s social landscape in the decade preceding Brexit. Whilst Simon’s unique large format perspectives draw their significance from a long and rich tradition of British landscape representation, they demonstrate a challenge to traditional stereotypes and idealised cliches of Britain’s visual geography. Simon’s photographic depictions of Britain's high streets, beach resorts, national parks and leisure piers reveals an England which Turner or Constable would not recognise. Rather, Simon's work exists as a critical social commentary on the conflicting perspectives of Britishness from the midst of Britain’s post-industrial, post-imperial landscape of the early 21st century.

https://www.simoncroberts.com/

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Peter speaks to the Danish photographer Joakim Eskildsen about his three-decade long career and the deep connections he has forged along the way. They touch on many topics, including Joakim’s current show at the Fotografisk Center in Copenhagen as well as his experience making a book with Steidl. They also discuss the meaning of home and consider what the 19th century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard can teach us about the nature of beauty. Joakim also discusses his formative years as a student in Finland and shares the experience of his encounter with Finnish photographers including Ritva Kovalainen, Pekka Turunen, Pentti Sammalahti and Jorma Puranen, as he considers the impact these mentors have had on his approach to image-making.

https://www.joakimeskildsen.com

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