Meaningoflife.tv: Sophia (audio)

What does Dan K. mean by Philistinism? ... How philistines reduce the irreducible in all walks of life ... Philistinism’s creeping control in philosophy and the academy ... When we invest in arts and letters, what do we get in return? ... What good are refined senses, anyway? ... Dan T. explains how refinement can prevent us from being duped ...

Dan and Massimo’s dueling essays on the Greek concept of eudaimonia ... Who can claim to be truly satisfied with life? ... What Kant and the Stoics have in common ... Are humans more than their internal moral lives? ... Dan: Building moral character requires interaction with society ... Is philosophy going corporate? ...

Just how Euro-centric are American philosophy departments, anyway? ... Is racism baked into Western philosophy? ... A brief account of Western dalliances with Eastern thought ... Why new movements in philosophy must kill their ancestors ... Why do philosophy departments stay white? Subtle self-selection, Bryan says ... Is philistinism killing philosophy as a discipline? ...

How philosopher Arthur Danto attempted to define art ... Danto’s preoccupation with Warhol’s Brillo Boxes ... Is art just “aboutness”? ... Crispin: Danto’s historicity constrained his concept of art ... Dan questions Hegel on art’s inherent purpose ... Why common crafts may come to replace high art ...

What is the “morality everywhere” problem? ... Hume on “the cautious, jealous virtue” of justice ... The moral responsibility of comedians ... What moral universalists get wrong about everyday choices ... A critique of Daniel Tippens’ concept of moral production ... Daniel Tippens explains what it takes to be morally courageous ... Can moral activists win? ...

Dan and Bob debate the Buddhist idea that the "self" doesn’t exist ... Bob’s brush with a “not-self” experience ... Is it bad to transcend human nature? ... What is “the self”, anyway? ... Do our moral intuitions mislead? ...

What is knowledge? ... What are values made of? ... Free will and moral responsibility ... Imagining stateless, coercion-free politics ... What’s wrong with the left-right dichotomy ... The purpose of political philosophy ...

Crispin’s new book Entanglements: A System of Philosophy ... Individuals as knots on a thread ... Crispin’s materialism: The world is real, but it is "all the ways" ... A materialist’s way of understanding social reality ... Perception as being penetrated by the world ... How distinct from the rest of the world are we? ... Knowledge, power, and politics ...

David’s essay Medium, Message, and Effect ... What sitcoms owe to small TV screens ... HBO brings film techniques to television ... Theatrics in movies ... When cinematics on TV became too much ... The new model: Binge-watching ... Why streaming shows are anti-social ...

“Purpose” in science and morality ... What Aristotle thought about purpose in nature ... Why asking “what is it for?” makes sense in biology but not other sciences ... Does form dictate function? ... Is there a “law” of morality? ... The paths to human flourishing ... Why a “scientific” approach to ethics à la Sam Harris doesn’t work ...

Massimo’s new book How to Be a Stoic ... Why we all need a philosophy of life ... Why Stoicism can appeal to Christians, Buddhists, and atheists alike ... Stoic virtues, disciplines, and areas of study ... Cynics—the monks of Stoicism ... Things within and outside your control ... Massimo’s Stoic version of a Dear Abby column ...

Fundamentals of Stoicism… ... …and existentialism ... The roles we play ... Seasickness and other things we can’t control ... Contributions to psychotherapy from Stoics and existentialists ... Suicide, "the only serious philosophical problem" ... Stoicism as a philosophy of love ... When being virtuous is close to impossible ...

The underappreciated philosopher Wilfrid Sellars ... The “manifest image” vs. the “scientific image" ... Why scientism bothers Massimo ... Don’t blame me, my brain made me do it! ... What Daniel Dennett gets wrong in his new book ... The limits of science ...

Join the hordes clamoring for Massimo’s forthcoming book! ... The science of ethics ... Is morality baked into our biology? ... Can primates tell us where morality comes from? ... How Kant and moral psychology complement each other ... Nietzsche’s moral philosophy ... Warning: Chimps and bonobos are not hairy proto-humans! ... The trouble with studying morality in infants ...

John Stuart Mill on social shaming ... Was the U.S. envisioned as a classical liberal polity? ... Why the New Deal was not a break with liberalism ... Is there such a thing as personal autonomy? ... Why the social justice movement is illiberal ... Future prospects of liberalism ...

Dan’s definition of classical liberalism ... Locke’s Second Treatise of Government and Mill’s On Liberty ... Mill and Locke on the individual ... The social contract and political authority ... The group and the individual in the modern world ... How much of a liberal was Mill really? ... Social censorship and the PC debate ... Is Mill’s utilitarianism at odds with his liberalism? ... Classical liberalism in America ...

How do ancient and modern philosophy differ? ... Philosophy as a way of life ... How the scientific revolution changed philosophy ... Has modern ethics gone down the wrong path? ... Why did ethicists turn away from virtues and toward moral rules? ... Do universal ethical principles exist? ... What Sam Harris gets wrong about ethics ...

Hume: Reason is a slave of feelings ... Feelings and reason in evolutionary psychology ... Why Kant wanted ethics to be rational ... The evolution of moral intuitions ... Morality is subjective, but it's in our nature ... Why seeing purpose in evolution freaks scientists out ... Hume’s Buddhist view of the self ...

Berkley, Hume, and Elon Musk on whether the world is real ... Hume’s view of causality ... The metaphysics of Kant and Hume ... Does it matter if we live in a simulation? ...

David Hume’s life and work ... How Hume influenced Massimo’s thinking ... What Hume got right about causality, and what he got wrong ... What shapes our moral instincts? ... Why Dan regards Arthur Danto so highly… ... …and what he thinks Danto got wrong ... The end of art history? ...