Philosophize This!

Episode #252 ... Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut

Today we talk about Kurt Vonnegut’s book Slaughterhouse-Five. How war stories can distort the reality of war, how trauma can fracture our experience of time and identity,

Episode #251 ... You Must Change Your Life, Pt. 2 - The Worlds That Make Us

Today we talk more about Peter Sloterdijk’s book You Must Change Your Life. We talk about Heidegger, the subject-object view of the world, how environments form us, symbo

Episode #250 ... You Must Change Your Life. - Peter Sloterdijk

Today we talk about half of the book You Must Change Your Life by Peter Sloterdijk. From criticism towards views of change that he thinks are far too centered on belief a

Episode #249 ... The Trap of Modern Cynicism - Peter Sloterdijk

Today we talk about the book Critique of Cynical Reason by Peter Sloterdijk. Cynicism as a defense mechanism. Why the cynic isn't crazy. The way it ladders up into instit

Episode #248 ... What philosophers say about lying.

Today we talk about some of the best arguments for and against lying in the history of philosophy. Hope you love it. :) Sponsor: Nord VPN: https://nordvpn.com/philothis 

Episode #247 ... The Failure of the Modern University - Alasdair MacIntyre

Today we talk about some of Macintyre's later work. How he thinks philosophy isn’t optional. It’s already hiding inside everything we do. How he thinks modern universitie

Episode #246 ... The Myth of the Self-Made Person - Alasdair Macintyre

Today we talk about Macintyre's book Dependent Rational Animals. Hope you love it. :) Sponsors: Nord VPN: https://nordvpn.com/philothis  Saily: https://www.saily.com/phil

Episode #245 ... The Rival Moral Approaches of the Modern World - Alasdair Macintyre

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 de

Episode #244 ... After Virtue - Alasdair MacIntyre (why moral conversations feel unsatisfying)

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 Enlighte

Episode #243 ... Hamlet - William Shakespeare

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 o

Episode #242 ... Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare

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 maintain

Episode #241 ... The Tragedy of Julius Caesar - William Shakespeare

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

Episode #240 ... Varieties of Religion Today (Charles Taylor)

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 beli

Episode #239 ... Authenticity and the history of the self. (Charles Taylor)

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

Episode #238 ... Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

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 o

Episode #237 ... The Stoics Are Wrong - Nietzsche, Schopenhauer

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

Episode #236 ... Meditations - Marcus Aurelius

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

Episode #235 ... The Philosophy of Zen Buddhism - Byung Chul Han

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. Su

Episode #234 ... The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera

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, k

Episode #233 ... A philosophy of self-destruction. (Dostoevsky, Bataille)

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 conside