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Closereads: Philosophy with Mark and Wes

Closereads: Philosophy with Mark and Wes

By: Evergreen Podcasts
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 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
  • Hobbes on Liberty

    Hobbes on Liberty
    Oct 16 2025
    On Leviathan (1651), ch. 21, "On the Liberty of Subjects." Thomas Hobbes is known for defending absolute monarchy, so as you'd predict, he's not going to say we have a lot of "natural" liberties. We do always have the right to self-defense, but that doesn't mean that the sovereign can't with complete justice command you executed (even if you're innocent). Yet Hobbes wants to say that even under a repressive regime we all have lots of liberty, in the sense of no one physically stopping us from doing what we will. And he wants to dismiss as unintelligible any other sense of liberty tied to non-physical obstacles, so this entirely rules out any debate about free will. Read along with us, starting on p. 161 (PDF p. 197). You can choose to watch this on video. Get the ad-free version of this and all of our episodes, including many supporter-exclusive ones, at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 2 mins
  • Aristotle on Final Causes

    Aristotle on Final Causes
    Oct 9 2025
    On Aristotle's Physics, book 2, ch. 8 on "final causation," i.e. purposiveness as a natural explanation. Modern science doesn't much like this kind of explanation, but Aristotle found it essential, and here's his argument for it. Read along with us. You can choose to watch this on video. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 9 mins
  • Horkheimer and Adorno on Enlightenment (Part One)

    Horkheimer and Adorno on Enlightenment (Part One)
    Sep 18 2025
    On "The Concept of Enlightenment" (1944), the first essay in this Frankfurt School book of critical theory, The Dialectic of Enlightenment. Our authors lay out what they take The Enlightenment to consist of, including some quotes from Francis Bacon, and some ultimately fatal tensions within it that make it no longer serve the humanistic purposes it was created for. Read along with us on PDF p. 22. You can choose to watch this on video. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 4 mins
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