Episodes
Sunday Feb 11, 2018
POSTMODERNISM: A FEW REMARKS
Sunday Feb 11, 2018
Sunday Feb 11, 2018
In this podcast, I draw attention to the way in which the term 'postmodernism' has become a derogatory term. I attempt to clarify and rehabilitate it by unpacking J. F. Lyotard's addage that 'postmodernism is suspicion towards grand narratives'. [Free. 27 minutes.]
Monday Dec 11, 2017
ON BOUNDARIES
Monday Dec 11, 2017
Monday Dec 11, 2017
In this podcast I discuss the boundaries that demark the concepts we use and the 'things' that we perceive. I draw on the chapter entitled 'The Will to Power as Knowledge' from Nietzsche's Will to Power. I suggest that a certain moveability of boudaries provides us with analytic and hermeneutical tools. Other philosophers I draw on are Smullyan and Kolakowski. I also suggest that this discussion underscores the significance of the Dionysian. This podcast provides some of the background for Lao Tzu: Part Nine which is to be released shortly. [Free. 28 minutes.]
Friday Jul 21, 2017
NIETZSCHE 101
Friday Jul 21, 2017
Friday Jul 21, 2017
An introduction to Nietzsche's thought in which I discuss Nietzsche's "great task" and his ludic, artistic method of persuing it. I touch on Nietzsche's anti-Platonism, anti-systematic approach to philosophy, notions of life-affirmation and life-negation amongst other things. The shifting concept of the will to power is elucidated, showing its various guises. [Free. 32 minutes.]
Monday May 29, 2017
TALK ON PATANJALI'S YOGA SUTRA AT CHORELY
Monday May 29, 2017
Monday May 29, 2017
A talk I gave at Chorley on the first few aphorisms of the Yoga Sutra. [Patrons only. 2 hours 11 minutes.]
Monday Apr 10, 2017
CONSCIOUSNESS [THOUGHT LABORATORY PREAMBLE]
Monday Apr 10, 2017
Monday Apr 10, 2017
This podcast is an entirely extempore survey of 'the hard problem of consciousness' which was undertaken as a preliminary to a proposed series on this matter. It is by no means exhaustive and rather rough but I offer it to patrons in the hope of wetting their appetite. [Patrons only. 46 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 08, 2017
THE BLUE PILL OR THE RED PILL? PART ONE: INTRODUCTION
Wednesday Feb 08, 2017
Wednesday Feb 08, 2017
This is the first of a series devoted to the philosophical resonances of the film The Matrix [1999]. We take it that many of the philosophical issues brought up in The Matrix boil down to the consequences of presupposing the binary 'real-apparent'. We outline how this is so in this introduction in preparation for forthcoming podcasts on the real-apparanet binary's entanglement with existentialism, metaphysics and politics. If you can't see the film, at least watch this brilliant four minute clip in which the hero Neo is given the choice between the red pill which will open him up to the reality of his situation and the blue pill which will keep him in a state of delusion: https://youtu.be/zQ1_IbFFbzA. [Free. 22 minutes.]
Monday Jan 23, 2017
Monday Jan 23, 2017
This is my contribution to a public meeting put on by the Independent Yoga Network [IYN] to clarify the attempt being made by BWY and Skillsactive to institute a National Occupational Standard for a Yoga Teacher in the face of concerted and reasoned opposition from key players in the UK Yoga Community. The meeting was held on the 14th January 2017. I am introduce by Ellen Lee, Chair of the IYN. Other presenters were Swami Ambikananda Saraswati [Traditional Yoga Association], Jim Gough [IYN Treasurer], Nick Elwell [BGi Insurance], and Satish K Sharma [General Secretary, National Council of Hindu Temple (UK)]. The complete proceedings, which run to over 3 hours, will be available from the IYN online magazine, namaskaram, shortly. [Free. 22 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.]