Discussing G.F.W. Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), Part B (aka Ch. 4), "Self-Consciousness," plus recapping the three chapters before that (Part A. "Consciousness").

We discuss Hegel's weird dialectical method and what it says about his metaphysics, in particular about ourselves: not static, pre-formed balls of self-interest, but something that needs to be actively formed through reflection, which in turn is only possible because of our interactions with other people. Featuring guest podcaster Tom McDonald.

Looking for the full Citizen version?

On Gottlob Frege's "Sense and Reference," "Concept and Object" (both from 1892) and "The Thought" (1918). With guest Matt Teichman.

What is it about sentences that make them true or false? Frege, the father of analytic philosophy who invented modern symbolic logic, attempted to codify language in a way that would make this obvious, which would ground mathematics and science. Applying his symbolic system to natural language forced him to invent strange entities like "thoughts" and "senses" that are neither physical nor psychological, and we pretty much spend this episode kvetching about the metaphysical implications of this and the fact that Frege didn't care about them.

Looking for the full Citizen version?

Discussing Michel de Montaigne's Essays: "That to Philosophize is to Learn to Die," "Of Experience," "Of Cannibals," "Of the Education of Children," and "Of Solitude" (all from around 1580) with some discussion of "Apology for Raymond Sebond."

Renaissance man Montaigne tells us all how to live, how to die, how to raise our kids, that we don't know anything, and a million Latin quotations. Montaigne put the skeptical fire under Descartes and both draws upon and mocks a great deal of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy. Plus, he's actually fun to read.

Looking for the full Citizen version?

Discussing Martin Heidegger's Being and Time (1927), mostly the intro and ch. 1 and 2 of Part 1.

When philosophers try to figure out what really exists (God? matter? numbers?), Heidegger thinks they've forgotten a question that really should come first: what is it to exist? He thinks that instead of asking "What is Being?" we ask, as in a scientific context, "what is this thing?" This approach then poisons our ability to understand ourselves or the world that we as human beings actually inhabit, as opposed to the abstraction that science makes out of this.

Looking for the full Citizen version?

Discussing Edmund Husserl's Cartesian Meditations (1931).

How can we analyze our experience? Husserl thinks that Descartes was right about the need to ground science from the standpoint of our own experience, but wrong about everything else. Husserl recommends we "bracket" the question of whether the external world exists and just focus on the contents of our consciousness (the "cogito"). He thinks that with good, theory-free observations (meaning very difficult, unnatural language), we can give an account of the essential structures of experience, which will include truth, certainty, and objectivity (intersubjective verifiability): all that science needs. We'll find that we don't need to ground the existence of objects in space and other minds, because our entire experience presupposes them; they're already indubitable.

Looking for the full Citizen version?

Discussing Arthur Schopenhauer's On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, published in 1847 (as an expansion of his doctoral thesis from 1813). What kinds of explanations are legitimate? S. thought that causal and logical explanations are often confused, resulting in philosophical errors. In laying out the four types of explanation -- the four versions of the principle of sufficient reason -- he clearly elaborates his modernized Kantian epistemology.

Looking for the full Citizen version?

Discussing Soren Kierkegaard's "The Sickness Unto Death" (1849). What is the self? or K. we are a tension between opposites: necessity and possibility, the finite and the infinite, soul and body. With guest Daniel Horne.

Looking for the full Citizen version?

On Goodman's Ways of Worldmaking (1978). With guest painter Jay Bailey. What's the relationship between art and science? Does understanding works of art constitute "knowledge," and if so, how does this relate to other kinds of knowledge?

Looking for the full Citizen version?

Primarily discussing "Reasoning: The Sixty Stanzas" and "Emptiness: The Seventy Stanzas," by the 2nd century Indian Buddhist Nagarjuna. Is the world of our experience ultimately real? If not, does it have something metaphysically basic underlying it? For Nagarjuna, the answers are "no" and "no... well... not that we can talk about." With guest Erik Douglas.

Looking for the full Citizen version?

Discussing Civilization and its Discontents (1930). How can we live happily in society when happiness as a matter of fulfillment of pent-up desires?

Looking for the full Citizen version?