Closereads: Philosophy with Mark and Wes

By: Evergreen Podcasts
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  • Summary

  • Reading through difficult philosophy texts line-by-line to try to figure out what’s really being said.
    Mark Linsenmayer and Wes Alwan 2024
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Philosophy Social Sciences
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Episodes
  • Scheler on Personhood (Part One)

    Scheler on Personhood (Part One)
    Apr 16 2025
    On Ch. 6 "Formalism and Person," in Max Scheler's most famous work, Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values (1916). Ethical Formalism is Kant: What makes something ethically correct is just something about the type of act and willing involved. Non-formalism pays attention to the content, e.g. our sentiments (a la Hume). As we've been studying on The Partially Examined Life, phenomenologists starting with Brentano sought to merge the two: Things in our experience just present themselves as intuitively praiseworthy, and this is sufficient to establish ethical obligations. We have been reading about how Scheler relies in his ethical theorizing on our experiences of sympathy and love, but we wanted to learn more about what it is about particular people that we love and respect: What is it to be a "person" in the moral sense? This book moves very slowly, so in this part he's still just distinguishing himself from Kant when it comes to saying some basic things about your relation to your own selfhood. Read along with us, starting on p. 370 (PDF p. 403). You can choose to watch this on video. To get future parts, subscribe at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 2 mins
  • Schopenhauer on Ethics (Part One)

    Schopenhauer on Ethics (Part One)
    Apr 2 2025
    On The Basis of Morality (1840), Part III: "The Founding of Ethics," Ch. 5: "Statement and Proof of the Only True Moral Incentive." Everything up to this point in the book has been negative: Morality can't be founded on pure reason as Kant thinks, or on the idea of the good life (eudaimonia) per Aristotle. Schopenhauer tells us that all actions are motivated by someone's "weal" or "woe." We are naturally self-interested (motivated by own own weal and woe), but such actions will not be moral. So Schopenhauer's puzzle is: How can I be effectively motivated by someone else's weal and woe? I must somehow identify with that person so that the Other's suffering induces my compassion. This is the only source of moral value. Read along with us, starting on p. 165 (PDF p. 193). You can choose to watch this on video. To get future parts, subscribe at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 8 mins
  • Husserl on Perceiving Minds

    Husserl on Perceiving Minds
    Mar 24 2025
    On Edmund Husserl’s Ideas, Vol. 2 (1928), Section 3, “The Constitution of the Spiritual World,” Ch. 1, “Opposition Between the Naturalistic and Personalistic Worlds." Given Husserl’s method of “reduction” whereby he sets aside the metaphysical status of objects in the natural world (are they mind-independent or merely ideas?), we wanted to see how he accounts for our ability to directly perceive other people’s minds. We don’t just perceive their bodies and our own bodies and deduce that others must be like us, but we perceive both our minds and those of others as strata (aspects) of physical bodies. Read along with us, starting on p. 183 (PDF p. 101). You can choose to watch this unedited on video. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 11 mins
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