A deep and thoughtful life is a life well lived. Explore philosophy, and think in the company of others.
Our podcast is simple. Each episode, we 'zoom in' to two paragraphs from a philosophical work. It could be anything: From Plato, to Freud, to Homer, to Proust! Our goal is to give you the tools to think about the paragraph and ideas yourself, to de-ivory-tower-ify it, rather than provide a simple summary. Think of it like a morning mental workout. New episodes every Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.
Today’s excerpt comes from Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Kant distinguishes acting from duty (from respect for the moral law) from acting merely in accordance with duty out of inclination or in pursuit of specific outcomes.
Join the conversation and share your reflections at community.alifeofthought.com (https://anchor.fm/s/104a59e34/podcast/community.alifeofthought.com), or dive deeper into the annotations at alifeofthought.com/d15 (https://anchor.fm/s/104a59e34/podcast/alifeofthought.com/d15).
13 Aug 2025
Stocker on Ethical Schizophrenia
Today's excerpt comes from a paper titled ‘The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories’ by Michael Stocker.
One quick correction: though Socrates famously denies one can do what he knows to be worse, many philosophers think otherwise!
Join the conversation and share your reflections at community.alifeofthought.com (community.alifeofthought.com), or dive deeper into the annotations at alifeofthought.com/d15 (alifeofthought.com/d15).
8 Aug 2025
Cora Diamond on the Ethics of Vegetarianism
Today's excerpt comes from a paper in which Cora Diamond explores an argument often heard in conversations about vegetarianism: the charge of speciesism. She pushes back on its success as an argument and offers an alternative.
Join the conversation and share your reflections at community.alifeofthought.com (community.alifeofthought.com), or dive deeper into the annotations at alifeofthought.com/d15 (alifeofthought.com/d15).
6 Aug 2025
Williams on One Thought Too Many
Today's excerpt is a follow up from Williams’ Persons, Character, and Morality. Here, he discusses how moral thinking – thinking about moral theories and ideas – is supposed to figure into our decision making.
Join the conversation and share your reflections at community.alifeofthought.com, or dive deeper into the annotations at alifeofthought.com/d15
2 Aug 2025
Williams on Categorical Desires
Today's excerpt comes from Bernard Williams' paper, Persons, Character, and Morality. Williams discusses why, if at all, we ought to fear death and what this means for our conception of ourselves.
Join the conversation and share your insights at community.alifeofthought.com (http://community.alifeofthought.com/), or explore the annotations at alifeofthought.com/d15 (http://alifeofthought.com/d15).
1 Aug 2025
Wittgenstein on Experience and Forms of Life
Today's excerpt comes from the very beginning of Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Psychology -- A Fragment. Wittgenstein explores the complexities in our application of terms like 'hope' or 'grief' -- and what they require from us in terms of our form of life.
Join the conversation and share your reflections at community.alifeofthought.com (http://community.alifeofthought.com/), or dive deeper into the annotations at alifeofthought.com/d15 (http://alifeofthought.com/d15).
30 Jul 2025
Strawson on Resentment
Today's excerpt comes from an essay called Freedom and Resentment. Philosopher P.F. Strawson explores a chestnut of a philosophical question – the debate over free will. But he comes at it from a different and unique angle, asking what our emotions like resentment, anger, or love, can tell us.
Join the conversation and share your thoughts at community.alifeofthought.com (http://community.alifeofthought.com/), or explore the annotations at alifeofthought.com/d15 (http://alifeofthought.com/d15).
26 Jul 2025
Williams on Self-Indulgence
Today's excerpt comes from a paper by Bernard Williams, in which he explores the charge that we sometime levy upon people who refuse to do something because they find it “morally distasteful." Are such people self-indulgent.
Join the discussion at community.alifeofthought.com (http://community.alifeofthought.com/), or read the annotations at alifeofthought.com/d15 (http://alifeofthought.com/d15).
25 Jul 2025
Freud on Transience and Beauty
In this episode, "Freud on Transience," we look at a thoughtful piece Freud wrote just after World War I. He's wrestling with something we've all felt - why does knowing something beautiful won't last forever make it harder to enjoy?
Freud makes an interesting point: beauty doesn't become less beautiful just because it's temporary. The real problem is how we handle knowing it will end. Instead of letting that knowledge ruin our experience, he suggests we might actually appreciate beautiful things more because they're fleeting.
It's one of those ideas that makes you think about bigger questions - like how we deal with the fact that nothing lasts forever, including life itself. Freud's take might change how you see those moments when you're enjoying something but can't stop thinking about how it won't be around forever.
You can read the annotations at alifeofthought.com/d15 (http://alifeofthought.com/d15), or jump into the discussion at community.alifeofthought.com (http://community.alifeofthought.com).
23 Jul 2025
Socrates on the Nature of Love and Desire
In todays excerpt, we turn to one of Plato's most famous dialogues: the Symposium. Specifically, we look at an exchange between Socrates and Agathon. Socrates discusses the nature of desire with Agathon, and attempts to show him that to desire something, we must lack it or forsee our lacking it (i.e., one cannot desire what he already has). But this is a problem: because it means that if love is for beautiful and lovely things, then love itself must lack beautiful and lovely things. So does this mean love is ugly! Woah! What a conclusion that would be! Let's think through it together.
Do you have thoughts? Agree -- or disagree, let's think through them together. Join the conversation at community.alifeofthought.com
Or, you can read or engage with the annotations yourself at alifeofthought.com/d15
19 Jul 2025
Vida Yao on Eros and Anxiety
Today's excerpt comes from a recently published paper, titled Eros and Anxiety, by Professor Vida Yao. The paper explores ideals of rationality, authenticity, and how they interact with transformative experiences – specifically, the experience of falling in love. Yao is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at UCLA, and is interested in Ethics and Moral Psychology, specifically the philosophy of emotions and the self.
Read it yourself at alifeofthought.com/d15 (https://www.alifeofthought.com/d15) -- Or join the conversation at community.alifeofthought.com (https://community.alifeofthought.com).
Yao, Vida. “Eros and Anxiety.” Synthese 202, no. 6 (December 6, 2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-023-04391-0 (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-023-04391-0).
18 Jul 2025
Wittgenstein on Knowing and Doubting
Today’s excerpt comes from §92-94 of Wittgenstein’s ‘On Certainty.’ In it, Wittgenstein explores the difference between normal, every-day, beliefs – like “the bus is going to get here at 2:30pm” – and beliefs that serve, in one way or another, as backdrops for us, and seem quite obvious: ‘The world has existed for a long time.
Read it yourself at alifeofthought.com/d15 (https://www.alifeofthought.com/d15) -- Or join the conversation at community.alifeofthought.com (https://community.alifeofthought.com).
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Major Works: Selected Philosophical Writings. 1. ed. HarperPerennial ModernThought. New York: HarperPerennial, 2009, sec. 92-94
16 Jul 2025
Thoreau on Walking
Today's excerpt comes from a lecture written by Henry David Thoreau, titled walking. The lecture itself is a sort of walk, meandering and sauntering around.
Read it yourself at alifeofthought.com/d15 (https://www.alifeofthought.com/d15) -- Or join the conversation at community.alifeofthought.com (https://community.alifeofthought.com).
Citation: Thoreau, Henry David. “Walking.” In Thackeray Newman Ruskin Huxley Thoreau and Others, Deluxe Edition., 393–425. Harvard Classics. P. F. Collier & Son Corporation, 1938.
12 Jul 2025
Freud on Slips of the Tongue
Today's Daily 15 is an excursion into one of Freud's first introductory lectures on psychoanalysis. In the lecture, Freud asks whether slips of the tongue, misplacements, or seemingly random forgettings, in fact, have a sense or a meaning or an interpretation.
Read it yourself at alifeofthought.com/d15 (https://www.alifeofthought.com/d15) -- Or join the conversation at community.alifeofthought.com (https://community.alifeofthought.com).
Citation: Freud, Sigmund, and James Strachey. “II Parapraxes.” In Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. New York: Norton, 1977.
11 Jul 2025
Sartre On the Nature of Reflective Consciousness
Today's excerpt comes from the introduction of Jean-Paul Sartre's seminal work, Being and Nothingness. In this episode, we delve into Sartre's exploration of reflective consciousness and its intricate relationship with self-awareness. He challenges the notion of knowing what we are doing, emphasizing that consciousness is not merely a passive state but an active engagement with our experiences. Sartre's assertion that "to know is to know that one knows" serves as a pivotal point in understanding his philosophy.
We unpack Sartre's ideas through the lens of everyday activities, such as counting, and examine how our awareness of these actions shapes our consciousness. This leads to a fascinating discussion about the implications of non-thetic consciousness and how it underlies our ability to label and understand our actions. Join us as we navigate the complexities of Sartre's thought and consider its relevance to our daily lives.
Read it yourself at alifeofthought.com/d15 (https://www.alifeofthought.com/d15) -- Or join the conversation at community.alifeofthought.com (https://community.alifeofthought.com/).
Citation: Excerpt from Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness: An Essay in Phenomenological Ontology. Translated by Sarah Richmond. First Washington Square Press/Atria paperback edition. New York London Toronto Sydney New Delhi: Washington Square Press/Atria, 2021, pp. 11 - 12.
9 Jul 2025
Proust on Habit and Memory
Today’s episode delves into the intricate relationship between habit, memory, and love as explored by Marcel Proust in his monumental work, In Search of Lost Time. Lucas guides us through a profound excerpt where Proust posits that what truly reminds us of someone is often what we have forgotten, challenging our conventional understanding of memory. As Lucas highlights key phrases and concepts, he encourages us to reflect on how our perceptions of love and loss evolve over time, and how the act of forgetting can paradoxically preserve the essence of our past relationships.
Join the conversation at community.alifeofthought.com (https://community.alifeofthought.com/) and share your thoughts on Proust's insights. For those wishing to annotate the second paragraph discussed, visit alifeofthought.com/d15 (https://www.alifeofthought.com/d15) for more resources.
Excerpt from: Proust, Marcel. Swann’s Way. Translated by C. K. Scott-Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin. Modern Library pbk. ed. The Modern Library Classics, v. 1. New York: Modern Library, 2003, pp. 300-301.
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