logo
episode-header-image
Sep 2025
48m 50s

Ep. 374: Discussing Liberalism (Lincoln,...

Mark Linsenmayer, Wes Alwan, Seth Paskin, Dylan Casey
About this episode

Continuing our discussion of the dangers to and weak points of liberal democracy, including consideration of Patrick Deneen's Why Liberalism Failed (2018) Francis Fukuyama's "Liberalism and Its Discontents" (his 2020 essay), and Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now (2018).

Get more at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to get ad-free episodes and tons of bonus discussion.

Up next
Yesterday
PEL Presents PMP#230: Gettin' Furious
To begin our new season, we're up to the moment covering the first season of Elizabeth Meriwether's Hulu crime drama Furious, about an abused detective pursuing, and ultimately relating to, an abused revenge killer. The first half is spoiler free! How does this relate to other re ... Show More
49m 4s
Sep 14
Ep. 400: Dennett Rejects Qualia (Part One)
We focus on the final chapters of Dan Dennett's Consciousness Explained, where he confronts various views, figures, and thought experiments that contend that he's failed to explain the essence of consciousness: the "what it's like" element of any conscious experience that is dist ... Show More
52m 17s
Sep 12
PEL Presents NEM#260: Jacqui Hunt (Single Gun Theory) Now Master of Her Synth Domain
Jacqui rose to fame with the Australian electronic dance band Single Gun Theory (three albums '87-'94), did some one-off collaborations, and released her first solo album in 2008. After an album as CiiVE and some solo singles, she's now released her second solo album, Desiderium. ... Show More
1h 4m
Recommended Episodes
Nov 2024
John Gray on the US Election and a World After Liberalism, Part Two
This is the second instalment of a three-part episode. We once thought liberalism could and should be universal. But recent decades have shown that this presumption could be flawed. Now, with the re-election of Donad Trump in the US, liberalism has fallen out of favour at the bal ... Show More
39m 41s
Apr 2025
110 | What is Liberalism? Part VI. Possessive Individualism and the Collapsing Order
<p>In this episode, the boys talk about C.B. Macpherson’s insightful text <em>The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism</em>. Macpherson holds that liberal political theory from Hobbes to Locke is correct in its premises, since like it or not we basically all are defined b ... Show More
54m 47s
Jan 2025
What Went Wrong with Liberalism and How We Can Save it, with Samuel Moyn
In this episode Samuel Moyn, Chancellor Kent Professor of Law and History at Yale University, explores what he sees as the profound crisis facing liberalism and why many in the West have become disillusioned with it. Drawing from his latest book 'Liberalism against Itself: Cold W ... Show More
47m 37s
Jun 2019
#160 — The Revenge of History
<p>Sam Harris speaks with Michael Weiss and Yascha Mounk about the state of global politics. They discuss the rise of right-wing populism in Europe, the prospect that democracy could fail in the US, Trump's political instincts, the political liability of "wokeness," the Left's fa ... Show More
58m 7s
Aug 2017
#92 — The Limits of Persuasion
Sam Harris speaks with David Pizarro and Tamler Sommers about free speech on campus, the Scott Adams podcast, the failings of the mainstream media, moral persuasion, moral certainty, the ethics of abortion, Buddhism, the illusion of the self, and other topics. If the Making Sense ... Show More
1 h
Sep 2023
Democracy’s existential crisis
Why is democracy worth saving? Sean Illing is joined by Astra Taylor, the author of the new book The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart. They discuss the history and reality of insecurity and how we can fight for more sustainable and meaningful democratic pol ... Show More
51m 17s
Sep 2023
#334 — The Low-Trust Society
<p>Sam Harris speaks with David Brooks about the state of American democracy and the liberal world order. They discuss the weakness of moral individualism, the loss of social trust, the dangers of identity politics, what happened to the Republican Party, the hatred of elites, the ... Show More
49m 32s
May 2023
66 | What's Left of Equality? Between Opportunity and Flourishing
<p>In this episode, we unpack tensions between theories of equality that emphasize opportunity and outcomes in a discussion based upon Christine Sypnowich’s recent <em>Boston Review </em>article, “Is Equal Opportunity Enough?” We also discuss our very own William Paris’s response ... Show More
1 h
Aug 2023
Episode #187 ... How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
On today's episode we talk about the upsides of a surveillance state. The ongoing social dilemma of freedom vs security. The value of privacy. States of exception. And Deleuze's Postscript on Societies of Control. Get more: Website: https://www.philosophizethis.org/ Patreon: http ... Show More
37m 14s
Listen to millions of songs and podcasts on Anghami