Philosophize This!
Beginner friendly if listened to in order! For anyone interested in an educational podcast about philosophy where you don't need to be a graduate-level philosopher to understand it. In chronological order, the thinkers and ideas that forged the world we live in are broken down and explained.
Episodes
November 29, 2025 • 32 mins
Today we talk about the philosophy behind the play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. We talk about how ineffective violence and honor codes are as ways of maintaining the stability of a society. How catastrophe may be a deterrent to violence. The tension presented by Shakespeare between a Christian view of love, marriage and salvation and an alternative religion of love from his time. How in the kinds of love we most admire ...
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November 16, 2025 • 31 mins
Today we talk about the philosophical themes of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare. We talk about the hypocrisy and false nostalgia of political violence. The ironies of living by a moral ideal like honor. Rhetoric as a site of where political power is won and lost in a republic. And Brutus as a unique kind of tragic hero somewhere between Stoicism and Christianity. Hope you love it. :)
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November 8, 2025 • 30 mins
Today we talk more about the work of Charles Taylor and his book The Varieties of Religion Today. We look at different answers to a classic question around religious belief. The sociological and structural role that religion plays at any given point in history. Paleo, Neo and Post Durkheim versions of religious society. What religion becomes in the age of authenticity we live in. We paint a picture of the very unique spiritual pred...
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October 17, 2025 • 36 mins
Today we talk about the work of the philosopher Charles Taylor. First, we trace the historical origins of how he views the modern self. From the Greeks to the Reformation. From Descartes to Rousseau. The modern self to him is something "irreconcilably multileveled". Then we talk about our modern focus on authenticity as a moral ideal and why Taylor thinks many people misunderstand what it requires. Hope you love it! :)
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October 8, 2025 • 30 mins
Today we talk about the book Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. We talk about the mix of Romantic and Enlightenment attitudes and how it leads to problems without the proper oversight. We talk about technology and the responsibility that comes with creation. We talk about how ostracized people often learn to resent the world they live in. Hope you love it and have a great week! :)
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September 30, 2025 • 28 mins
Today we talk about two famous critiques of Stoicism. One by Friedrich Nietzsche who thought the Stoics weren’t life affirming enough and so rob themselves of some of the best parts of life. The other by Arthur Schopenhauer who thought the Stoics were too life-affirming of worldly things to ever reach a deep understanding of things. Hope you love it! :)
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September 12, 2025 • 34 mins
Today we talk about the collection of journals known as Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. We mark the differences between Stoicism, modern Stoic ethics, and the journals of Marcus Aurelius. We talk about the divine logos, indifferents, and how metaphysical assumptions ladder up into the virtue ethics of the ancient Stoics. We talk about some of the context that Marcus was writing each of these journals in. All of this while trying to...
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September 3, 2025 • 37 mins
Today we talk about one of Han's earlier books where he offers an alternative to classic western ideas about subjectivity. We talk about Zen as a religion without God. Substance and emptiness. Alternatives to the reified self. Dwelling nowhere. Original friendliness. And death as an event we desperately try to control. Hope you love it! :)
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August 13, 2025 • 35 mins
Today we try to produce a philosophical guide for the book The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. We talk about Parmenides, Nietzsche's eternal recurrence, kitsch as something more than just an aesthetic category, existential codes and his animal test of morality. Hope you love it! :)
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Thank you so much for listening! Could ne...
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August 4, 2025 • 30 mins
Today we talk about two different theories for why we ritualize self-destructive behavior. We check out a lesser-known work from Dostoevsky called The Gambler. We consider how much we can hold people morally accountable for this kind of stuff. Then we look at the work of Georges Bataille, his book The Accursed Share, and how a hidden underlying economics may be a way we can understand self-destructive behavior from a new angle. Hop...
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July 7, 2025 • 29 mins
Today we talk about the book The Crisis of Narration by the philosopher Byung Chul Han. We talk about the history of storytelling. Walter Benjamins distinction between a Paris fire and a revolution in Madrid. The effects of social media on memory. Story telling vs story selling. AI as pure Intelligenz lacking Geist. The ability for stories to give shape to suffering. The importance of boredom for self-discovery. Hope you love it! :...
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June 28, 2025 • 26 mins
Today we talk about the late work of Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations. We talk about the meaning of words. Augustine's theory. Forms of life. Rules and practices. Grammar. Geometry. Family resemblance. And the role of a philosopher on the other side of accepting this view of language. Hope you love it. :)
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June 14, 2025 • 28 mins
Today we talk about the early work of Ernst Bloch. Hope as anticipatory consciousness. The darkness of the lived moment. Educated hope vs false hope. Music as an experiential metaphysics and gateway to the Not-Yet. Hope you love it. :)
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Thank you so much for listening! Could never do this without your help.
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May 24, 2025 • 28 mins
Today we talk about Kafka's book The Castle and how the symbolism is interpreted by two powerhouse philosophers: Theodore Adorno and Hannah Arendt. Hope you love it! :)
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Thank you so much for listening! Could never do this without your help.
Website: https://www.philosophizethis.org/
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May 12, 2025 • 30 mins
Today we talk about Camus' book The Fall and what the main character represents in his larger project. We also talk about someone Camus deeply admired, Franz Kafka, and how to think of the images he created in his work. We talk about the experience of the modern individual in relation to politics. We also talk about what Camus and Kafka disagreed on. Hope you love it. :)
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April 18, 2025 • 34 mins
Today we talk about the concept of exile from the work of Camus. We focus on a couple stories from his book Exile and The Kingdom. We talk about why Camus insists that true lucidity can only arise from the jarring lived experience he calls “exile,” not from armchair reflection. We talk about Janine’s desert epiphany in “The Adulterous Woman.” We talk about school‑teacher Daru in “The Guest,” trapped between France and Algeria, whos...
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April 4, 2025 • 31 mins
Today we talk about Camus’ concept of rebellion and how it offers a powerful alternative to abstract ideologies. We talk about solidarity as the foundation for justice without systems. We talk about the death penalty as a symbol of premeditated murder disguised as virtue. We talk about rebellion as something closer to art than politics—an act rooted in experience, defined by limits, and carried out with sincerity. Hope you love it!...
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March 27, 2025 • 30 mins
We look at Albert Camus' The Plague. We talk about a common misreading from the Myth of Sisyphus. We talk about different cycles of his work from his earlier individual confrontation with the absurd to a more community focus. We talk about solidarity. Absurd heroes. Empathy and metaphysical rebellion. Hope you enjoy it, my friends. :)
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March 15, 2025 • 28 mins
Today we talk about the book The Stranger by Albert Camus. We talk about why Camus saw himself as an artist and not a philosopher. We talk about happiness. The absurd and it's full implications. The Mediterranean lifestyle. The sun as a symbol of immanence. Revolt against the absurd as a descriptive claim-- not a normative one.
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March 2, 2025 • 33 mins
Today we talk about the relationship between philosophy and religion. We talk about the duck-rabbit as a metaphor that may have something useful to teach us about the way we experience reality. We talk about the enormous difficulty of fully addressing the question: what is religion? We talk about Schelling's historical view of revelation and its connection to a possible new era of Christian religious practice. Hope you love it! :)
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