HoP 475 Ariane Schneck on Elisabeth and ...

The “Quietists” Jeanne Guyon and François Fénelon argue that self-love can be overcome by cultivating a “pure love” for God. Their reward: to be accused of heresy. 

How the “neo-classical” tragedies of Racine explore the battle between passion and reason. 

Molière’s famous comedies scandalize Paris and dramatize themes from French moralism, especially the danger of hypocrisy. 

Philosophy can sometimes be an exercise in abstract, "pure" reason, unsullied by the demands of the body or the contingencies of history. But this week we're placing history and corporeality front and centre, with a look at the intimate lives of four eminent philosophers, and ask ... Show More

This week, Miranda France contemplates the final novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez; and Nicola Shulman on what women write in their diaries.'Until August', by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, translated by Anne McLean'Secret Voices: A Year of Women's Diaries', by Sarah GristwoodProduced by ... Show More

We complete our treatment of On the Aesthetic Education of Man by considering its final letters in more detail. Does Reason really make us more moral? And does the embrace of Beauty really point us to Reason, or does self-consciousness rule out immersion in art? If you're not hea ... Show More

The conclusion of our two-parter on Erich Heller, and the conclusion to season five! We discuss Nietzsche's friendship with Jacob Burckhardt, and how Burckhardt's view of history can inform our understanding of Nietzsche's divergence from him. We also consider Goethe's four ages ... Show More

Concluding our discussion of On Certainty, with guest Chris Heath. We try one last time to get a handle on Wittgenstein's philosophy of science. How do people actually change their minds about fundamental beliefs? Get more at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Visit partiallyexaminedlife ... Show More

Concluding our discussion of Aristophanes's play with Lucy Lawless and Emily Perkins. We focus on trying to connect its lessons to the here and now: Is Lysistrata's victory properly described as the ascension of some kind of "feminine spirit" over warlike values, and how does tha ... Show More

Berlin artist-duo Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock talk with Samantha Rose Hill about the work of memory, Holocaust memorials in Berlin, and Walter Benjamin. “Hannah Arendt: Between Worlds” is a coproduction of the Goethe-Institut and the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. Th ... Show More

UNLOCKED: Today we're talking Žižek's chapter in his book Absolute Recoil called "The Violence of the Beginning". The reading begins with the notion that there is "nothing prior to the loss" of the sense of lost origins. Žižek then sets into play the idea of the self-alienation o ... Show More

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the mind/body problem in philosophy. At the start of René Descartes' Sixth Meditation he writes: "there is a great difference between mind and body, inasmuch as body is by nature always divisible, and mind is entirely indivisible. For when I consid ... Show More

David and Tamler tackle the topic chosen by our beloved Patreon supporters in the first VBW madness tournament – Schopenhauer. We discuss his essays "On the Sufferings of the World" and "The Vanity of Existence," their strikingly modern perspectives on human life and behavior and ... Show More