The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
The Partially Examined Life is a podcast by some guys who were at one point set on doing philosophy for a living but then thought better of it. Each episode, we pick a short text and chat about it with some balance between insight and flippancy. You don't have to know any philosophy, or even to have read the text we're talking about to (mostly) follow and (hopefully) enjoy the discussion. For links to the texts we discuss and other info, check out www.partiallyexaminedlife.com. We also feature episodes from other podcasts by our hosts to round out your partially examined life, including Pretty Much Pop (prettymuchpop.com, covering all media), Nakedly Examined Music (nakedlyexaminedmusic.com, deconstructing songs), Philosophy vs. Improv (philosophyimprov.com, fun with performance skills and philosophical ideas), and (sub)Text (subtextpodcast.com, looking deeply at lit and film). Learn about more network podcasts at partiallyexaminedlife.com.

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).

Direct download: PEL_ep_130_12-6-15.mp3
Category:Podcast Episodes -- posted at: 6:00am CDT

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.
Direct download: PEL_Xmas_Special_2015.mp3
Category:Nakedly Self-Examined Music -- posted at: 12:44am CDT

Continuing on the the reasonableness of religious belief with many short readings and guests Nathan Gilmour and Rob Dyer.
Direct download: PEL_ep_129pt2_11-22-15.mp3
Category:Podcast Episodes -- posted at: 6:00am CDT

Nathan Gilmour (Christian Humanist podcast) and Rob Dyer (God Complex Radio) 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.

Direct download: PEL_ep_129_11-22-15.mp3
Category:Podcast Episodes -- posted at: 6:00am CDT

Continuing on "The Meaning of Meaning" (1975). We finish giving Putnam's positive theory for "meaning" something, talk about stereotypes and indexicals, and try to find connections to pragmatism.
Direct download: PEL_ep_128pt2_11-8-15.mp3
Category:Podcast Episodes -- posted at: 6:00am CDT

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).

Direct download: PEL_ep_128_11-8-15.mp3
Category:Podcast Episodes -- posted at: 6:00am CDT

Continuing on Experience and Nature (1925), through ch. 4. We focus here on how philosophy supposedly gets warped by fear and desire in human nature, how we pretend that abstractions we've created are metaphysically real and basic. So how do the objects of our experience, then, relate to those of science? And can we talk about "ends" (teleology) when doing science? Learn more. Listen to part one first, or get the ad-free Citizen edition.
Direct download: PEL_ep_127pt2_10-25-15.mp3
Category:Podcast Episodes -- posted at: 6:00am CDT

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 from So Chewy! (1993).

Direct download: PEL_ep_127_10-25-15.mp3
Category:Podcast Episodes -- posted at: 6:00am CDT

Continuing on Naming and Necessity (1980). What's the relationship between language and the world? We try on Kripke's ideas and see what this makes us think about natural kind terms (like "tiger"), about physical objects, about substances identified by science, about heat vs. the feeling of heat, and about pain. Listen to part one first or get the Citizen Edition. Read more about the topic and get the book. End song: "Reason Enough" by Mark Lint. Read about it.
Direct download: PEL_ep_126pt2_10-11-15.mp3
Category:Podcast Episodes -- posted at: 6:00am CDT

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.

Direct download: PEL_ep_126_10-11-15.mp3
Category:Podcast Episodes -- posted at: 6:00am CDT