On De Anima or On the Soul (350 BCE), books 1 and 2, after some listener mail. What can this ancient text tell us about biological life? What counts as a scientific explanation? A. describes life as "the first actuality of a natural body which has organs," so bodies express their nature only when they're growing and reproducing and all that stuff that bodies do. The body is potential, and life is its actuality. So what the heck kind of explanation is that, and how does it tie into Aristotle's convoluted metaphysics?

End song: "Intermission Song" by Mark Lint from Spanish Armada: Songs of Love and Related Neuroses (1993).

Mark is joined by numerous previous guests to catch up and engage the musical part of PEL's past episodes by introducing and playing the entirety of Mark Lint's "Songs from the Partially Examined Life," which you can own, along with the 2016 PEL wall calendar.

Nathan Gilmour (Christian Humanist podcast) and Pastor Rob Dyer join Mark and Wes for to discuss the reasonableness of religious belief reading Antony Flew's "The Presumption of Atheism," Norwood Russell Hanson's “The Agnostic’s Dilemma," Steven Cahn's "The Irrelevance of Proof to Religion," Alvin Plantinga's “Is Belief in God Properly Basic?" Merold Westphal's "Sin and Reason," Basil Mitchell's “Faith and Criticism," Peter van Inwagen's "Clifford's Principle," William Alston's "Experience in Religious Belief," Richard Swinburne's "The Voluntariness of Faith" and “The World and Its Order," and Paul Helm's "Faith and Merit."

Read synopses of all these at partiallyexaminedlife.com.

End song: "Let Us Meet" by Mark Lint, setting an old poem by Kim Casey Linsenmayer.

On "The Meaning of Meaning" (1975). If meaning is not a matter of having a description in your head, then what is it? Hilary Putnam reformulates Kripke's insight (from #126) in terms of Twin Earths: Earthers with H20 and Twin Earthers with a substance that seems like water but is different have the same mental contents but are referring to different stuff with "water," so that word is speaker-relative in a certain way. With guest Matt Teichman.

End song: "In the Boatyard" by Mark Lint & the Madison Lint Ensemble (2004, finished now).

On Experience and Nature (1925), through ch. 4. What's the relationship between our experience and the world that science investigates? Dewey thinks that these are one and the same, and philosophies that call some part of it (like atoms or Platonic forms) the real part while the experienced world is a distortion are unjustified.

End song: "Uncontrollable Fear" by The MayTricks So Chewy! (1993).

On Naming and Necessity (1980). What's the relationship between language and the world? Specifically, what makes a name or a class term pick out the person or things that it does? Saul Kripke wanted to correct the dominant view of his time (which involved a description in the speaker's mind), and used talk of "possible worlds" to do it! With guest Matt Teichman.

End song: "Reason Enough" by Mark Lint.

On Isaac Asimov's "The Last Question," Albert Camus's "The Fall," Karl Jaspers's "Truth and Symbol," C.S. Peirce's "The Fixation of Belief," Bertold Brecht's "Theatre for Pleasure or Theatre for Instruction," and Thomas Sheehan's Stanford lectures on the Historical Jesus.

These are snippets covering topics we haven't had time to cover on the podcast proper. Brief yourself via these 10–15 minute bursts, or become a PEL Citizen to listen to the full discussions.

On The Human Condition (1958), Prologue and Sections 1 and 2. How has our distinction between the private and public evolved over time? Arendt uses this history, and chiefly the differences between our time and ancient Athens, to launch a critique of modern society. The fab four conducted this podcast live at the Pittsburgh Continental Philosophy Conference.

End song: "Space" by Mark Lint. Read about it.

What is it like to do philosophy in public? As prelude to our ep. 125 appearance at the Pittsburgh Continental Philosophy Network Conference on theory and public space, Mark, Seth, Wes, and Dylan sat down for questions by moderator Erica Freeman, conference host Justin Pearl, and numerous attendees.

On the Manual of Epictetus, aka The Enchiridion (135 CE). What's a wise strategy for life? Stoicism says that the secret is mastering yourself. Nothing external can break your spirit unless you let it. So, how weird and misguided is that advice? With guest Alex Fossella.

End song: "But I Won't" by Mark Lint from Spanish Armada: Songs of Love and Related Neuroses (1993).