71: The History of European Nihilism

In Marcus Tullius Cicero's Tusculan Disputations, he cites a story of Pythagoras, the man who created the term, "philosopher". His description of the philosopher is as one who comes into life not as a competitor, not in the pursuit of money or fame - but merely as a spectator, wh ...  Show more

There is nothing new under the sun: it was here, already, long ago. It was here before our time. This much must be said of the ancient skeptics, who put forward perspectival, relativistic, and moral anti-realist arguments during the Hellenistic age. The central figure is Pyrrho o ...  Show more

Doestoevsky vs Nietzsche - where do we find meaning in life?

Looking for a link we mentioned? Find it here: https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes

Dostoevsky and N ...

“Our Western heritage is reason—reason, analysis, action, progress!” –Settembrini the organ-grinder in Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. HIST 271/HUMS 339: European Intellectual History since Nietzsche is a survey course designed to introduce students to the dominant trends in mo ...  Show more

“Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself.”—Jean-Paul Sartre, “Existentialism is a Humanism.” HIST 271/HUMS 339: European Intellectual History since Nietzsche is a survey course designed to introduce students to the dominant trends in modern European intellectual hi ...  Show more

Deleuze's Nietzsche & Philosophy is an exciting and controversial interpretation of Nietzsche which stands at the forefront of 20th Century Nietzsche scholarship.  In this episode, we visit the text and the concept of ressentiment and the theory of forces, both of whi ...