Albert Camus - The Partially Examined Life

The best ideas for new podcasts to try, usually come from readers of the blog (keep them coming!) and so it went this time as well: a reader recommended I tried the philosophy podcast The Partially Examined Life. This podcast has very long (up to two hours) episodes in which a panel of philosophy students discuss an important philosopher or work of philosophy. They try to abide by two important rules that should make the podcast accessible for you and me: not to assume the listener has any prior knowledge or understanding of the matter; no name-dropping. (feed)

With already 36 episodes in the feed, there is a huge amount of content to choose from and by now I have listened to about three full issues, but I decided to kick off with me early life favorite: Albert Camus. The panel discussed the essay bundle that is usually known as The Myth of Sisyphus or as An Absurd Reasoning in which Camus explains his ideas about life being absurd and giving his reasoning against suicide. This was especially interesting to me, as I was never able to read this work until the end and not for lack of trying. Camus' novels have always been extremely accessible to me, but his essays, also other than The Myth of Sisyphus have not.

The guys on the podcast confirm my difficulty with the text - also they dread the way Camus drags on without getting to the point. The podcast allowed me to get more of a grip on how he did get to the point. The point being: Life is absurd, do not accept it, but do not commit suicide, because that is letting absurdity get the better of you. It shows his logical steps, it shows the philosophers he was influenced by and eventually also where his weak points lie. You have to bare the length of the podcast and the lack of structure in the discussion, but still this is a great entry into philosophy.

More Albert Camus:
Entitled Opinions,
In Our Time.

Samuel Beckett - Entitled Opinions

Entitled Opinions, Robert Harrison's weekly radio show at Stanford is a long standing, much revered, intellectual podcast which has seen long caesuras in the past. It is expected to have one of several months in the coming time as well. So, podcast listeners, be aware - many of you have let me know in the past they had thought the show was canceled. It was not and is not planned to be either. Harrison will be on a sabbatical and the show is planning to continue as soon as he is back. (feed)

As a parting gift, Harrison delivered a monologue about Samuel Beckett which I want to especially recommend to you. Harrison analyzes Beckett's work and philosophy and picks sections from Molloy and Malone Dies as illustrations - which he reads out most admirably.

Beckett is no great optimist about life and human nature. Harrison sees in this a kind of prophetic view that he ascribes to the poetic capacity of modern life and modern man. Again no pretty vista, but a very compelling listen.

More Samuel Beckett:
Waiting for Godot.

More Entitled Opinions:
Moby Dick,
Two issues of Entitled Opinions,
Heidegger,
Pink Floyd,
Alexander the Great.

Stranger than fiction

Since I am a persistent follower of the feeds from Forgotten Classics and SFF audio, I was also familiar with the new podcast A Good Story Is Hard To Find made by Julie Davies (Forgotten Classics) and Scott Danielson (SFF). The two come together as believing Catholics and discuss their favorite books and movies and express what they find in these stories that strikes them as Christian content or a Christian message. (feed)

So far, the titles they chose to discuss were not ones I had any affinity with, but recently they took up the movie Stranger Than Fiction and that made me game. This movie has the supra-realistic tale of a man named Harold who finds out he is in a novel and seeks the help of a literature professor (a great performance by Dustin Hoffman). He thinks the author of the novel intends for him to die and he wants to do something about it. In the end Harold meets the author and when she (a role by Emma Thompson) finds out her character is a real person, she finds her intention to kill him off in the story further complicated - aside from her writer's block.

It was great fun to have the film discussed and learn more of the details. It sure makes me want to see the movie again. I am not sure I will agree with Scott and Julie's take on the story. I can understand how they can see Christ when they meet a person sacrificing his life in a story, but that could be a stretch. When they discuss the peculiar role of Harold's watch and claim to see 'how God works in ones life' I do not even know what they mean. Is it that God is in the details? Or that God's Master Plan is carried out by seemingly trivial circumstances? That is when I find their perspective being forced upon the story and upon an otherwise very captivating and entertaining discussion.

Listening ideas for 23 April 2011

Philosophy Bites
Pascal Bruckner on the Pursuit of Happiness
Is the attempt to find happiness self-defeating? Have people always been so obsessed with the pursuit of happiness? Pascal Bruckner dis cusses these questions with Nigel Warburton in this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast. Philosophy Bites is made in association with the Institute of Philosophy.
(review, feed)

New Books in Public Policy
Stewart A. Baker, “Skating on Stilts: Why We Aren’t Stopping Tomorrow’s Terrorism”
How do government officials decide key homeland security questions? How do those decisions affect our day to day lives? In Skating on Stilts: Why We Aren’t Stopping Tomorrow’s Terrorism (Hoover Institution, 2010), Stewart Baker, a former senior official from the Department of Homeland Security, takes us behind the scenes of government homeland security decision making. Baker, who was the DHS’s first Assistant Secretary for Policy, examines some of the key security threats the US faces, and some of our greatest challenges in meeting them. While Baker has a healthy respect for the abilities of outside forces would do us harm, he also recognizes that some of our greatest challenges to providing security come from our allies, and from ourselves. In addition, while many people tune out when they hear acronyms like CFIUS of VWP, Baker shows what those acronyms mean, and their implications for our safety and security. Read all about it, and more, in Baker’s informative new book.
(review, feed)

Rebecca Goldstein - Thoughtcast

Jenny Attiyeh does in podcast what I believe podcast is fitted for most well: interviews and she does it very professionally on her podcast Thoughtcast, which, if I understand it correctly, is also being broadcast on a variety of radio stations in America. Attiyeh interviews authors from various backgrounds and speak with them about their work, their theories and thoughts and about their life. (feed)

Some of her work has recently been republished on New Books in History (feed), but for this review I got my inspiration from an interview that I picked from the long standing feed of Thoughtcast, with Rebecca Goldstein which was published in January 2010.

They speak around Goldstein's last novel 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: a work of fiction in which she describes the life of Azariyah a young brilliant man who is born into a community of orthodox Jews. Azariyah loses his faith in God and therefore, personally cannot stay within the community, however, he feels responsible as the rabbi and the leader of the second generation of Holocaust survivors. Admitting to his personal philosophy and thus abandoning the community, he feels, will kill it and so he stays, concealing his true insights.

As Attiyeh suggests and Goldstein acknowledges, this tragic set up has strong resemblance in Goldstein biography. She was born into a orthodox family, found out she had no faith, but broke away only after her parents had died out of s sense of responsibility. And now, she sees herself as an atheist, but one, as she points out right away with great respect and love for the religious. Further down the interview, I sense this reverence goes even further. She actually places herself below them. She feels, like Azariyah, that as an atheist, she is not proceeding with Jewishness down the generations. She still feels connected and identifies, but expresses a pessimism about her own capacity to pass this cultural identity on to her children - as opposed to those who still believe. For the record, I disagree, as Jewishness is a cultural identity, it can also be passed on by those who do not have the faith, I think, but the paradox is well taken.

What a cleaning day can bring

Today we were cleaning the house all day (as if cleaning it before Passover was not enough) and I put in several hours of consecutive podcast listening which gave a lot of interesting material to write about, when I finish the to-do list I gave you a couple of days ago.


Apart from a review of one of the SALT seminars which featured Ian Morris, I will certainly review some of the stuff I heard today:

Partially Examinied Life about Kierkegaard

Kol Hadash, a second lecture on the Synagogue

Mahabharata Podcast, the temptation of Karna (with some unexpected takes on Dharma)

Partially Examinied Life about Montaigne

The introductory lectures to three new lecture series on Yale:
Epidemics in western society since 1600
Early Modern England
Moral foundation of politics

In Our Time: The Pelagian Controversy

Myoclonic Jerk: Episode about _why_ does Dan Kaufman play World of Witchcraft

The two episodes of a new Hebrew podcast פרורי מידע

The house is very clean now....