Episodes
Tuesday Oct 17, 2017
"CULTURE IS NOT YOUR FRIEND"
Tuesday Oct 17, 2017
Tuesday Oct 17, 2017
In this podcast, I reflect on Terence Mckenna's assertion that "culture is not your friend." I find that, indeed, culture as we know it today, frequently has ideological components, i.e. it plays a role in preserving and promoting social dominance hierarchies. However, it does have pragmatic possibilities, preserving ideas, crafts and technologies that have survival value. And, when not paralysed by conservatism, these possibilites can even develop beyond what can be achieved in a single generation, enhancing life. I argue also that culture has vital roles in entertainment and edification which can be usurped by ideology and which it is worth the effort to restitute. [Free. 25 minutes.]
Sunday Mar 12, 2017
THE BLUE PILL OR THE RED PILL? PART FIVE: DISSOLUTION OF THE BINARIES
Sunday Mar 12, 2017
Sunday Mar 12, 2017
In this podcast the epilogue to our series on The Matrix, we consider attempts to dissolve the binaries which have structured much thought for millenia. These binaries are real-apparent, subject-object and inside-outside [of the human psyche.] The attempts at dissolution invoked are Wittgenstein's private language argument which is found in Philosophical Investigations, and Nietzsche's account of the fate of the 'real world' as a concept over time as elucidated in Twilgth of the Idols. We argue that this doesn't sideline the political issues raised in the previous podcast in this series, as might first seem to be the case. [Free. 41 minutes.]
Wednesday Feb 22, 2017
THE BLUE PILL OR THE RED PILL? PART THREE: METAPHYSICS
Wednesday Feb 22, 2017
Wednesday Feb 22, 2017
In this podcast, we outline some of the resonances of The Matrix with metaphysics which we take to be the philosophical effort to characterise the being of beings as a whole. We particularly focus on Plato's myth of the cave and Descartes' radical doubt, regarding both of these as utilising the metaphor of human being as camera obscura and the real-apparent and subject-object distinctions. This is not as obscure as it sounds! [Free. 35 minutes.]
Monday Feb 13, 2017
Monday Feb 13, 2017
Part Two of our series on The Matrix attempts to characterise Neo's choice of the red pill in terms of the kind of human freedom posited by the existentialist philosophers. We draw particularly of Kierkegaard and Sartre. See the blue pill - red pill choice in this four minute clip: https://youtu.be/zQ1_IbFFbzA. [Free. 32 minutes.]
Friday Jan 27, 2017
"EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED" - DIRK GENTLY
Friday Jan 27, 2017
Friday Jan 27, 2017
Inspired by Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, I consider things, connections, processes, language, metaphoricity, information and detective work [amongst other things]. Dramatis personae: Heraclitus, Parmenides, Buddha, Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein. [Free. 23 minutes.]
Sunday Jan 15, 2017
SYNCHRONICITY
Sunday Jan 15, 2017
Sunday Jan 15, 2017
Synchronicity is the phenomenon in which we encounter meaningful coincidences. It tends to occur if we are in dialogue with our unconscious mind, whether through meditation or psychoanalytic types of engagement. In this podcast we consider the nature of this phenomenon and its possible use for self-enquiry. The book Synchonicity [1952] by C G Jung and Wolfgang Pauli is drawn upon as is Jung's approach to the I Ching. [Free. 25 minutes.]
Sunday Dec 11, 2016
CONSIDERING CULTS
Sunday Dec 11, 2016
Sunday Dec 11, 2016
In this podast we attempt to characterise 'cults' and identify psychological processes that sustain them. This broadens out a little into considerations of dominance and power dynamics in general. [Free. 30 minutes.]
Thursday Sep 22, 2016
UTOPIA - HOW & WHY DOES IT HAUNT THOUGHT?
Thursday Sep 22, 2016
Thursday Sep 22, 2016
In this podcast, we run with the the observation that 'thought is haunted by utopia'. In passing we discuss literary utopias and dystopias, revolutions, and the effect of intimations of vulnerability and mortality on human future thinking. [Free. 53 minutes.]
Friday Aug 05, 2016
IMAGINATION, SKEPTICISM & WONDER
Friday Aug 05, 2016
Friday Aug 05, 2016
This is an account of the philosophical imagination and how it is both freed and rendered circumspect by skepticism. [Free. 42 minutes.]