Philosophize This!

Today we talk about the book Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry by Alasdair Macintyre. We talk about each of the different sets of assumptions people bring to moral debates that often contain the true location of the disagreement. Hope you love it.

Today we talk about the book After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre. We talk about his genealogy of moral discourse. The teleologies of Aristotle. The failure of the Enlightenment moral project. Our modern culture of Emotivism and the sorts of characters that thrive in it.

Today we talk about the play Hamlet written by William Shakespeare. We compare more traditional takes on the themes of the play to a more modern, philosophical analysis of the play done by Simon Critchley and Jamieson Webster. We talk about Hamlet and his inability to take action.

Today we talk about the philosophy behind the play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. We talk about how ineffective violence and honor codes are as ways of maintaining the stability of a society. How catastrophe may be a deterrent to violence.

Today we talk about the philosophical themes of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare. We talk about the hypocrisy and false nostalgia of political violence. The ironies of living by a moral ideal like honor. Rhetoric as a site of where political power is won and lost in a republic.

Today we talk more about the work of Charles Taylor and his book The Varieties of Religion Today. We look at different answers to a classic question around religious belief. The sociological and structural role that religion plays at any given point in history.

Today we talk about the work of the philosopher Charles Taylor. First, we trace the historical origins of how he views the modern self. From the Greeks to the Reformation. From Descartes to Rousseau. The modern self to him is something "irreconcilably multileveled".

Today we talk about the book Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. We talk about the mix of Romantic and Enlightenment attitudes and how it leads to problems without the proper oversight. We talk about technology and the responsibility that comes with creation.

Byung-Chul Han's philosophical interpretation of Zen Buddhism. Han argues that Zen offers a genuine alternative to the Western obsession with productivity, self-optimization, and 'achievement society.' Not-doing is a radical act in a world of compulsive activity.

Today we talk about two famous critiques of Stoicism. One by Friedrich Nietzsche who thought the Stoics weren’t life affirming enough and so rob themselves of some of the best parts of life.

Today we talk about the collection of journals known as Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. We mark the differences between Stoicism, modern Stoic ethics, and the journals of Marcus Aurelius.

Today we talk about one of Han's earlier books where he offers an alternative to classic western ideas about subjectivity. We talk about Zen as a religion without God. Substance and emptiness. Alternatives to the reified self. Dwelling nowhere. Original friendliness.

Today we try to produce a philosophical guide for the book The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. We talk about Parmenides, Nietzsche's eternal recurrence, kitsch as something more than just an aesthetic category, existential codes and his animal test of morality. Hope you love it!

Today we talk about two different theories for why we ritualize self-destructive behavior. We check out a lesser-known work from Dostoevsky called The Gambler. We consider how much we can hold people morally accountable for this kind of stuff.

Today we talk about the book The Crisis of Narration by the philosopher Byung Chul Han. We talk about the history of storytelling. Walter Benjamins distinction between a Paris fire and a revolution in Madrid. The effects of social media on memory. Story telling vs story selling.

Today we talk about the late work of Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations. We talk about the meaning of words. Augustine's theory. Forms of life. Rules and practices. Grammar. Geometry. Family resemblance. And the role of a philosopher on the other side of accepting this view of language.

Today we talk about the early work of Ernst Bloch. Hope as anticipatory consciousness. The darkness of the lived moment. Educated hope vs false hope. Music as an experiential metaphysics and gateway to the Not-Yet. Hope you love it.

Today we talk about Kafka's book The Castle and how the symbolism is interpreted by two powerhouse philosophers: Theodore Adorno and Hannah Arendt. Hope you love it! :) Sponsors: Incogni: Quince: ZocDoc: Thank you so much for listening! Could never do this without your help.

Camus on exile as the fundamental human condition. We're all strangers — to the universe, to society, and to ourselves. But this exile isn't tragedy; it's the starting point for genuine connection with fellow exiles.

Today we talk about Camus' book The Fall and what the main character represents in his larger project. We also talk about someone Camus deeply admired, Franz Kafka, and how to think of the images he created in his work. We talk about the experience of the modern individual in relation to politics.

Camus's The Plague as moral philosophy. Dr. Rieux fights the plague not because he believes he'll win but because fighting is the only honest response to suffering. Meaning comes from solidarity with the suffering, not from hope of victory.

Today we talk about the concept of exile from the work of Camus. We focus on a couple stories from his book Exile and The Kingdom. We talk about why Camus insists that true lucidity can only arise from the jarring lived experience he calls “exile,” not from armchair reflection.

Camus's The Stranger and the philosophy of the absurd. Meursault refuses to lie about his emotions — and this honesty is more threatening to society than his crime. The novel asks: what if someone simply stopped performing the social self?

Today we talk about Camus’ concept of rebellion and how it offers a powerful alternative to abstract ideologies. We talk about solidarity as the foundation for justice without systems. We talk about the death penalty as a symbol of premeditated murder disguised as virtue.

We look at Albert Camus' The Plague. We talk about a common misreading from the Myth of Sisyphus. We talk about different cycles of his work from his earlier individual confrontation with the absurd to a more community focus. We talk about solidarity. Absurd heroes.

Today we talk about the book The Stranger by Albert Camus. We talk about why Camus saw himself as an artist and not a philosopher. We talk about happiness. The absurd and it's full implications. The Mediterranean lifestyle. The sun as a symbol of immanence.

Stephen West explores Camus The Rebel: why revolution that begins as liberation inevitably produces tyranny, and why the true rebel says no to injustice while saying yes to life.

Today we talk about the relationship between philosophy and religion. We talk about the duck-rabbit as a metaphor that may have something useful to teach us about the way we experience reality. We talk about the enormous difficulty of fully addressing the question: what is religion?

Stephen West explores Dostoevskys Demons (The Possessed): a prophetic novel about how nihilism, ideology, and charismatic manipulation produce political violence — written 50 years before the Russian Revolution.

Today we talk about the philosophical themes around love in The Brothers Karamazov. We talk about Dostoevsky's existential, tragic form of Christianity. Family as a microcosm of society. Active love as an experiential framing. The Grand Inquisitor. Hope you love it!

Today we talk about the book The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky. We talk about the curse of sainthood. The connection between beauty and morality via his moral-aesthetic spectrum. Realism vs. Idealism. And how beauty can save the world. Hope you love it!

Raskolnikov's theory that extraordinary people are exempt from moral law — and Dostoevsky's devastating refutation. The novel as a philosophical argument that meaning comes from submission to moral reality, not from transcending it.

Dostoevsky's underground man — the first anti-hero. A consciousness so acute it becomes paralyzing. The underground man sees through every social convention but can't act, trapped in infinite self-analysis.

Keiji Nishitani and the Kyoto School's synthesis of Western philosophy and Zen Buddhism. Nishitani argues that nihilism isn't a dead end — it's a doorway. You have to go through meaninglessness to reach a deeper meaning on the other side.

Nishitani's Religion and Nothingness — his masterwork. The limits of dualistic thinking. Science and religion are not opposites; they're both incomplete. True understanding requires transcending the subject-object divide entirely.

What we've lost in banishing mysticism from modern life. Critchley and Heidegger both argue that the disenchantment of the world — stripping nature of sacred meaning — has left modern people spiritually homeless.

Heidegger's question of Being. We've forgotten the most fundamental question: what does it mean that anything exists at all? Technology and modern life distract us from this question — which Heidegger considers the only question that matters.

Nietzsche's Twilight of the Idols and the method of philosophizing with a hammer. Nietzsche doesn't destroy idols — he taps them to see if they ring hollow. Most cultural values, examined closely, turn out to be empty.

Simon Critchley's reading of Nietzsche on tragedy. The tragic perspective isn't pessimism — it's the recognition that suffering and joy are inseparable. Great art and great lives come from holding both without flinching.

Gilles Deleuze's reading of Nietzsche. Deleuze sees Nietzsche as the philosopher of affirmation and joy — not the nihilist he's often caricatured as. The will to power is not domination; it's the creative force of life affirming itself.

Paulo Freire's revolutionary pedagogy. Education is never neutral — it either domesticates or liberates. The 'banking model' of education (teacher deposits knowledge into passive students) reproduces oppressive power structures.

Peter Singer's applied ethics and how his thinking evolved over 50 years. The drowning child argument, animal liberation, and effective altruism. Singer's career as a case study in following philosophical arguments wherever they lead.

Martha Nussbaum's capabilities approach and why fear-driven politics erodes democracy. Nussbaum argues that emotions are cognitive judgments, not irrational impulses — and fear specifically narrows the scope of what we're willing to consider.

Stephen West explores Varoufakis thesis that capitalism has been replaced by technofeudalism: a system where tech platforms have become digital fiefs extracting rent from every economic transaction.

Michael Sandel's civic republicanism. Justice isn't just about maximizing utility or protecting rights — it requires citizens who deliberate about the common good. Democracy demands more than voting; it demands moral reasoning together.

Mark Fisher's Capitalist Realism. The idea that capitalism is the only viable economic system has become so deeply internalized that imagining alternatives feels impossible. Even anti-capitalist movements are absorbed and commodified.

Fisher's concept of 'the slow cancellation of the future.' Culture no longer produces genuinely new forms — just recombinations of the past. The 21st century sounds, looks, and feels like a remix of the 20th.

Stephen West explores Martha Nussbaums argument in The Monarchy of Fear: how fear becomes the dominant political emotion and why it corrodes democratic institutions, empathy, and rational deliberation.

Stephen West explores Michael Sandels critique of meritocracy: why the belief that success is earned and failure is deserved corrodes solidarity, humility, and the common good.

Slavoj Zizek and Byung-Chul Han on love, resistance, and why failure is philosophically important. Love requires vulnerability — the willingness to be changed by the other. In a culture that optimizes for success, failure becomes subversive.

Zizek on ideology and dialectics. We're always already embedded in ideology — the question isn't 'can we escape ideology?' but 'can we become aware of the ideology we're embedded in?' Truth emerges through the process of confrontation, not from a neutral vantage point.