Closereads: Philosophy with Mark and Wes cover art

Closereads: Philosophy with Mark and Wes

Closereads: Philosophy with Mark and Wes

By: Evergreen Podcasts
Listen for free

Reading through difficult philosophy texts line-by-line to try to figure out what’s really being said.Mark Linsenmayer and Wes Alwan 2024 Philosophy Social Sciences
Episodes
  • Horkheimer & Adorno on The Odyssey (Part One)

    Horkheimer & Adorno on The Odyssey (Part One)
    May 20 2026
    We read part of The Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944), specifically the parts about Homer's epic as an allegory for the merely apparent triumph of modernism (capitalism, instrumental reason) over myth (savagery, magical thinking). Homer is odd for H&A because even stylistically, the epics present a mixture of cultures: They glorify violence, but their form is very ordered, and their very popularity makes them the first mass-culture products of the West. Throughout The Odyssey, Odysseus is in effect saying goodbye to the mythical world as he turns each challenge into a tool in his quest to get home. H&A use the episode with the Sirens as an allegory for how the workers are deafened to the call of anti-social myth (they have their work to do!), while the upper class can hear it but is helpless to actually act on it; like Odysseus tied to the mast, they too are strapped into the capitalist machine. Read along with us; Ch. 2, "Odysseus or Myth and Enlightenment," starts on PDF p56 (p35), but we quickly backtrack to the first mention of Odysseus in Ch. 1 (the same essay we began previously) on PDF p46 (p25). Note: This feed is likely going away soon. To keep getting your Closereads, entirely free and now ad-free, go sign up and get your private URL from patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy. You can choose to watch this on unedited video. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 1 min
  • Lionel Trilling on Sincerity (Part One)

    Lionel Trilling on Sincerity (Part One)
    May 1 2026
    On Ch. 2 "The Honest Soul and the Disintegrated Consciousness" in Sincerity and Authenticity (1972). This chapter focuses on a reading of Diderot's Rameau's Nephew and what Hegel made of it in the Phenomenology, so it's essentially for us a second opinion re. what we've been talking about on The Partially Examined Life. Read along with us. Watch this as unedited video. To get future parts, subscribe at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr
  • Galen Strawson Against Narrativity (Part One)

    Galen Strawson Against Narrativity (Part One)
    Apr 9 2026
    On "Against Narrativity" (2004), where Galen (son of P.F.) argues that the prevalent philosophical and cultural camp is wrong. This objectionable camp (the Narratives) says that we understand our lives by telling ourselves a story about ourselves. Moreover, this is how we make meaning out of our lives, and how we thus behave ethically, taking responsibility for our past and future: how we have integrity. Galen rejects both the descriptive claim here (that this is how we all, or at least those of us functioning as designed, process our experience) and the moral claim (that ethical comportment requires that we experience our lives narratively. Read along with us. You can choose to watch this on video. To get future parts, subscribe at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 1 min
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
No reviews yet