The Living Philosophy

Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development has an important place in the system of Integral Philosopher Ken Wilber. Wilber’s theory of everything is based around the stages of human development that go from the four stages of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development and ascend into the spiritual realms of nondualism that we find in the works of Plotinus and other great spiritual masters. 
In this episode we explore Wilber’s argument that the higher levels of cognitive development are in fact postformal Piagetian stages of development. 
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Learning Resources:
• The Living Philosophy of Jung’s Psychology of Kundalini Yoga https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goZ084pOwuo&list=PL7vtNjtsHReo9K0eH_ii67l0Kp-CF1vEG 
• Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBmvlTVWjZg 
• Ken Wilber’s Sex Ecology Spirituality https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/177151.Sex_Ecology_Spirituality 
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🎶 Music Used:
1. Anguish — Kevin MacLeod
2. Mesmerize — Kevin MacLeod
3. End of the Era — Kevin MacLeod
4. Juniper — Kevin MacLeod
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⌛ Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
1:53 Piaget’s Conservation Experiments
6:27 Is Wilber Right? 
8:07 MHC & Cognitive Complexity
10:41 Conclusion
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#Integral #thelivingphilosophy #Wilber #Piaget #KenWilber

Jean Piaget was the second most referenced psychologist of the 20th century whose work was dedicated to mapping out the stages of human development that is now known as the Piaget Theory of Cognitive Development. Piaget differentiated four developmental stages that humans pass through: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational. 
These stages of Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development take place at different ages with Sensorimotor occurring between 0-2, Preoperation (or preop) between 3-7, Concrete Operational (or conop) between 7-11) and Formal Operational (formop) being found in children over 11. 
As well as the work of Jean Piaget we touch a little on Post-Piagetian stages such as Michael Commons’ Model of Hierarchical Development (MHC) as well as Ken Wilber who we will be looking at in more depth in the next episode. 
These are the stages of the Piaget cognitive development theory; we all pass through these stages on our way to adulthood and Piaget’s theories have been tested across cultures across the world. While it has faded from academic prominence it is one of the shaping theories of the field of psychology. 
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🎶 Music Used:
1. Lost Frontier — Kevin MacLeod
2. 1812 Overture • Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky https://youtu.be/LAUuXfSeoqY
3. Mozart's String Quartet No. 15 in D minor, MOVEMENT II, K. 421 https://youtu.be/-DFKPtvT1p8
4. End of the Era — Kevin MacLeod
5. Mesmerize — Kevin MacLeod
6. Juniper — Kevin MacLeod
Subscribe to Kevin MacLeod https://www.youtube.com/user/kmmusic
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⌛ Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
1:36 Sensorimotor
4:24 Preoperational
6:29 Concrete Operational
8:55 Formal Operational
10:50 Conclusion
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#Piaget #thelivingphilosophy #psychology #humandevelopment

In his masterpiece Sex Ecology and Spirituality, Ken Wilber applies the work of Ferdinand de Saussure in Semiotics to the question of spiritual experiences’ validity. By looking at the Signifier and Signified of Saussure’s linguistic Sign as well as the referent in the context of spiritual experience Integral philosopher Ken Wilber arrives at an interesting hypothesis in Sex Ecology and Spirituality: that spiritual experiences are at a higher level of development than the general public; the difficulties in studying spiritual experience are comparable to the difficulties of a blind community studying colour. This brings in Wilber’s pre/trans fallacy — the distinction between prerational development and postrational development. 
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🎶 Music Used:
1. Lost Frontier — Kevin MacLeod
2. 1812 Overture • Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky https://youtu.be/LAUuXfSeoqY
3. Mozart's String Quartet No. 15 in D minor, MOVEMENT II, K. 421 https://youtu.be/-DFKPtvT1p8
4. Juniper — Kevin MacLeod
Subscribe to Kevin MacLeod https://www.youtube.com/user/kmmusic
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⌛ Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
0:38 Summary of Semiotics
5:32 The Referent of Great Price
10:22 Spiritual Evolution
13:55 Conclusion
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#Semiotics #thelivingphilosophy #spirituality #kenwilber #integral

“The European philosophical tradition consists of a series of footnotes to Plato” — A.N. Whitehead. Plato is the greatest philosopher that ever lived and yet the life of Plato is shrouded in myth and mystery. The challenge with Plato’s biography is knowing where the legend ends and history begins. In this episode we explore the various accounts of Plato’s life and try to reassemble the arc of his historical life. 
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▶ Patreon: https://patreon.com/thelivingphilosophy 
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🎶 Music Used:
1. Lost Frontier — Kevin MacLeod
2. 1812 Overture • Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky https://youtu.be/LAUuXfSeoqY
3. Mozart's String Quartet No. 15 in D minor, MOVEMENT II, K. 421 https://youtu.be/-DFKPtvT1p8
4. Juniper — Kevin MacLeod
5. End of the Era — Kevin MacLeod
6. Mesmerise — Kevin MacLeod
Subscribe to Kevin MacLeod https://www.youtube.com/user/kmmusic
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⌛ Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
1:25 The Backdrop
4:37 The Family of Plato
8:13 Socrates and the Travels of Plato
12:37 The Sicily Debacle
15:12 The Death of Plato
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#Plato #thelivingphilosophy #philosophy #history #biography #Socrates #Athens #ancientgreekhistory #ancientgreece #greece

Semiotics came into being with the publishing of Ferdinand de Saussure’s Course on General Linguistics in 1916. It contained distinctions such as langue vs parole as well as the signifier and signified that make up the Sign — Saussure’s fundamental unit of language. 
The Semiotics school of thought would go on to be a major influence on the Existentialists such as Sartre, the Structuralists such as Jacques Lacan, Levi-Strauss and Roland Barthes and the Poststructuralists Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault. 
In this episode we examine what the Semiotics theory is through Ferdinand de Saussure’s distinction between synchronic and diachronic linguistics, his distinction between langue and parole. With this foundation in place we will explore his contributions to this new science of language and what these explained — his definition of a Sign as being a signifier and a signified, the arbitrary nature of these and also the fact that language is a matter of difference and relations between signs in the system rather than naming. All of this will serve to have the basics of Semiotics explained. 
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⌛ Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
1:45 Diachronic vs Synchronic
3:01 Langue vs Parole
6:06 Sign: Signifiers and Signifieds
8:40 Arbitrary Language
12:04 Language: Differences & Relations
13:37 Summary

The Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein told his lover David Pinsent that Russell’s words of encouragement at the start of his dabbling with philosophy had been his salvation and put an end to nine years of loneliness and suffering in the constant shadow of suicide. 
Russell described him as “perhaps the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived, passionate, profound, intense, and dominating” and said that “he has more passion about philosophy than I have; his avalanches make mine seem mere snowballs”
But before all this became clear, Wittgenstein was tortured by the fear that he was destined for failure. He feared he was a dilettante and was a waste of space. Russell’s validation of him allowed him to set aside ‘a hint that he was de trop in this world’. 
Had he arrived years earlier or later, he may have found a Russell that was less sentimental and more protective of his role in technical philosophy. But due to a number of events in Russell’s life he arrived at the perfect time for Russell to embrace him with open arms (eventually)
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🎶 Music Used:
1. Magnetic — CO.AG Music
2. Mesmerise — Kevin MacLeod
3. Juniper — Kevin MacLeod
4. Evening Fall Harp — Kevin MacLeod
5. End of the Era — Kevin MacLeod
Subscribe to Kevin MacLeod https://www.youtube.com/user/kmmusic
Subscribe to CO.AG Music https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcav... 
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⌛ Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
1:40 The Preparation of Russell
5:38 The Austrian Aristocrat
8:35 When Bertrand met Ludwig
12:37 The Student Becomes Master
15:26 The Fragile Genius
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#Wittgenstein #thelivingphilosophy #Russell #analyticphilosophy

The Analytic Philosophy vs Continental Philosophy divide is a faultline running through modern philosophy. In this episode we explore the origins of this divide and why these two paths diverged when their founders were in close contact. Edmund Husserl and Gottlob Frege were the two men that gave rise to Continental Philosophy and Analytic Philosophy respectively and surprisingly they were in close contact — critiquing each other’s work. 
But despite this closeness, there is a historical backdrop to their concerns that invites us to reconsider this difference. Much like the Empiricism/Rationalist divide of the two centuries before Frege and Husserl, the Continental/Analytic divide ran along the line of the English Channel and seems to have been as much a divide of temperament as of philosophy. The British empiricists and the Anglo-American Analytic tradition are concerned more with a non-human standpoint — what reality is out there and how we can gain purest access to it. On the other the Rationalists and Continentals are more concerned with the human element — what it’s structure is like and what that tells us about the structure and nature of reality. This difference in focus on the human and non-human element widened into an irreparable chasm by the time of Martin Heidegger and Bertrand Russell. 
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⌛ Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
1:14 A Tale of Two Schools
3:28 The Continental Arising
7:18 The Analytic Tradition
9:12 A Metaphilosophical Problem?

When asking ourselves what is empiricism in philosophy we cannot help but speak of the  Empiricism vs. Rationalism debate that began with Descartes’s cogito ergo sum of and ended with Immanuel Kant. The Empiricism of John Locke, George Berkeley and David Hume — known as the British Empiricists — developed in the 17th and 18th centuries and was a very influential movement. In contrast to the Rationalists (who believed that knowledge was only possible through reason and the mind), the Empiricists maintained that experience was the only origin of knowledge. Their challenge was to show why it was not unreliable in light of Descartes’s investigations in Discourse on the Method.  So in this episode, we explore all this ground as we seek to answer the question: what is empiricism?
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📚 Sources:
Berkeley, G., 1881. A treatise concerning the principles of human knowledge. JB Lippincott & Company.
Berkeley, G., 2012. Three dialogues between Hylas and Philonous. Broadview Press.
Hume, D., 2016. An enquiry concerning human understanding (pp. 191-284). Routledge.
Locke, J., 1847. An essay concerning human understanding. Kay & Troutman. 

Secondary:
Downing, Lisa, "George Berkeley", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2020/entries/berkeley/
Markie, Peter, "Rationalism vs. Empiricism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2017/entries/rationalism-empiricism/
Morris, William Edward and Charlotte R. Brown, "David Hume", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2021 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2021/entries/hume/
Turbayne, C.M., 1985. Hume's Influence on Berkeley. Revue Internationale de Philosophie, pp.259-269.
Uzgalis, William, "John Locke", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2020/entries/locke/
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⌛ Timestamps:

0:00 Empiricism vs. Rationalism
2:17 John Locke’s Empiricism
5:34 George Berkeley’s Subjective Idealism 
8:42 Hume’s Sceptical Empiricism

Albert Camus called the philosopher Simone Weil “the only great spirit of our times.” T.S. Eliot said she was the greatest saint of the 20th century. Charles de Gaulle said she was insane. But who is she and what is the Simone Weil philosophy?
Despite dying at the age of 34, Simone Weil lived a life that rivalled any philosopher. And it was the authentic life of a philosopher following her inner compass. She did not fall in with the intellectual milieu of her time by becoming a public intellectual (which was far from a matter of intelligence — she finished 1st in her class for philosophy at France’s elite university the École Normale Supérieure beating out Simone de Beauvoir in second place). 
She was born into a Jewish family and raised agnostic and yet found herself drawn towards religion; she fought in the Spanish Civil War and worked in factories for a year to understand the working class. 
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🎶 Music Used: 
1.  Magnetic — CO.AG Music 
2. Juniper — Kevin MacLeod 
3. Mesmerise — Kevin MacLeod 
4. End of the Era — Kevin MacLeod 
5. Americana Aspiring — Kevin MacLeod 
6. Memory Lane — Kevin MacLeod 
Subscribe to Kevin MacLeod https://www.youtube.com/user/kmmusic Subscribe to CO.AG Music https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcav... 
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⌛ Timestamps: 
0:00 Introduction
1:08 Intellectual Development and Factory Work
4:51 The Spanish Civil War and Christian Awakening
8:54 The Resistant and Her Death
12:05 Conclusion
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#simoneweil #thelivingphilosophy #philosophy #existentialism #christianity

The Phenomenology philosophy is a school of philosophy that originated in the 20th century. With Edmund Husserl Phenomenology was born but it was the phenomenology Heidegger innovated that reoriented the course of European philosophy. 
The Phenomenology of Husserl and Heidegger (whose respective philosophies are called Transcendental Phenomenology and Existential Phenomenology) does not seek after external objective truth—as philosophy and science generally do—phenomenology strives for subjective truth—in Husserl’s case it is an attempt to make a subjective science of consciousness. Husserl developed a method for attaining this truth which involves reducing away the noise so as to isolate the essence of a phenomenon. Heidegger parted from Husserl saying that phenomenology could not be a science with knowledge because the meaning of a phenomenon is context-dependent. Heidegger moves from Husserl’s epistemological project to an ontological program. 
There is a growing scholarship looking at the connection between phenomenology and eastern philosophy. It is even said that Heidgger was influenced in his conception of Dasein as being-in-the-world through a German commentator on Taoist philosopher Chuang-tzu.
 
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📚 Sources:
Heidegger, M., 2010. Being and time. Suny Press.
Husserl, E., 1999. The essential Husserl: Basic writings in transcendental phenomenology. Indiana University Press.
Smith, David Woodruff, 2018. "Phenomenology", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/phenomenology/.
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⌛ Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:42 History of Phenomenology
1:46 What is Phenomenology
5:59 Husserl’s Phenomenological Method
7:52 Heidegger’s Ontological Twist
9:17 Phenomenology and Eastern Philosophy