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Conversations in Philosophy

London Review of Books
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  • PHILOSOPHY
  • MONTHLY

Jonathan Rée and James Wood challenge a hundred years of academic convention by reuniting the worlds of philosophy and literature, as they consider how style, narrative, and the expression of ideas play through philosophical writers including Kierkegaard, Mill, Nietzsche, Woolf, Beauvoir and Camus. James Wood teaches literature at Harvard University and is a staff writer for The New Yorker as well as a contributor to the London Review of Books. His books include How Fiction Works, The Broken Estate and The Irresponsible Self. Jonathan Rée is a frequent contributor to the London Review of Books and a freelance writer and philosopher. His most recent book on philosophy is Witcraft: The Invention of Philosophy in English. Non-subscribers will only hear extracts from these episodes. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/applecrcip⁠⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/closereadingscip⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk

Episodes

  1. 1 DAY AGO

    'The Ethics of Ambiguity' by Simone de Beauvoir

    At the heart of human existence is a tragic ambiguity: the fact that we experience ourselves both as subject and object, internal and external, at the same time, and can never fully inhabit either state. In her 1947 book, Simone de Beauvoir addresses the ethical implications of this uncertainty and the ‘agonising evidence of freedom’ it presents, along with the opportunity it creates for continual self-definition. In this episode Jonathan and James discuss these arguments and Beauvoir’s warnings against trying to evade the responsibilities imposed upon us by this ambiguity. They also look at the ways in which Beauvoir developed these ideas in The Second Sex and her novels, and her remarkable readings of George Eliot, Virginia Woolf and E.M. Forster. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/applecrcip⁠⁠⁠⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/closereadingscip⁠ Read more in the LRB: Joanna Biggs: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/cipbeauvoir1⁠⁠ Toril Moi: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/cipbeauvoir2⁠⁠ Elaine Showalter: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/cipbeauvoir3⁠⁠ Audiobooks from the LRB Including Jonathan Rée's 'Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre': ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookscip⁠

    15 min

  2. 17 AUG

    'Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions' by Jean-Paul Sartre

    What is an emotion? In his 'Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions' (1939), Sartre picks up what William James, Martin Heidegger and others had written about this question to suggest what he believed to be a new thought on human emotion and its relation to consciousness. For Sartre, the emotions are not external forces acting upon consciousness but an action of consciousness as it tries to rearrange the world to suit itself, or as he puts it at the end of his book: a sudden fall of consciousness into magic. In this episode Jonathan and James discuss why Sartre’s rejection of the idea of the subconscious is not as much a departure from Freud’s theories as he thought they were, and the ways in which his attempt to establish a ‘phenomenological psychology’ manifested in other works, including Nausea, Being and Nothingness and The Words. Note: Readers should use the translation by Philip Mairet. The earlier one by Bernard Frechtman, as Jonathan explains in the episode, contains numerous (often amusing) errors. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/applecrcip⁠⁠⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/closereadingscip⁠ Further reading in the LRB: Jonathan Rée on 'Being and Nothingness': ⁠https://lrb.me/cipsartre1⁠ Sissela Bok on Sartre's life: ⁠https://lrb.me/cipsartre2⁠ Edwards Said's encounter with Sartre: ⁠https://lrb.me/cipsartre3⁠ Audiobooks from the LRB Including Jonathan Rée's 'Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre': https://lrb.me/audiobookscip

    15 min

  3. 20 JUL

    'The Thing' by Martin Heidegger

    What does it mean for a jug to be a jug? Or for any thing to be called a ‘thing’? In his 1950 lecture ‘Das Ding’, Heidegger attempts to cajole his audience away from their everyday way of seeing the world as consisting of objects that can be represented objectively, and into the kind of thinking that ‘responds and recalls’. For Heidegger, the world we experience is one of dynamic movement between revelation and concealment, where the essential nature of a thing lies in its ‘thinging’, and the ‘jug’s jug character consists in the poured gift of the jug’s pouring out’. In this episode Jonathan and James work through Heidegger’s ideas about both ‘things’ and time, and consider the purpose of his poetic style. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/applecrcip⁠⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/closereadingscip⁠ Further reading in the LRB: Richard Rorty: Heidegger's Worlds ⁠⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v12/n03/richard-rorty/diary⁠⁠ J.P. Stern: Heil Heidegger ⁠⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v11/n08/j.p.-stern/heil-heidegger⁠⁠ James Miller: Arendt and Heidegger ⁠⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v17/n20/james-miller/thinking-without-a-banister LRB AUDIOBOOKS Discover audiobooks from the LRB, including Jonathan Rée's Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookscip⁠⁠

    16 min

  4. 22 JUN

    'The Will to Believe' by William James

    Most of what we believe we believe on faith, even those beliefs we hold to be based on scientific fact. This assertion lies at the heart of William James’s essay ‘The Will to Believe’, originally delivered as a lecture and intended not so much as a defence of religion as an attack on anti-religion. James’s target was the ‘rugged and manly school of science’ and the kind of atheism ‘that goes around thumping its chest offering its biceps to be felt’. In this episode Jonathan Rée and James Wood look at the intellectual environment William James was working in, and against, in the second half of the 19th century, and its parallels in the ‘new atheism’ of today. They also discuss the extraordinary upbringing William (and his novelist brother Henry) received and the advice he offered to anyone contemplating suicide in his essay ‘Is life worth living?’ Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠https://lrb.me/applecrcip⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠https://lrb.me/closereadingscip⁠ Read more in the LRB: Helen Thaventhiran: William James's Prescriptions https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n20/helen-thaventhiran/no-dose-for-it-at-the-chemist Michael Wood: William James and modernism https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v29/n18/michael-wood/understanding-forwards Richard Poirier: Williams James's pragmatism https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v06/n19/richard-poirier/copying-the-coyote LRB AUDIOBOOKS Discover audiobooks from the LRB, including Jonathan Rée's Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookscip⁠⁠⁠

    17 min

  5. 25 MAY

    'Schopenhauer as Educator' by Friedrich Nietzsche

    For Nietzsche, Schopenhauer’s genius lay not in his ideas but in his heroic indifference, a thinker whose value to the world is as a liberator rather than a teacher, who shows us what philosophy is really for: to forget what we already know. ‘Schopenhauer as Educator’ was written in 1874, when Nietzsche was 30, and was published in a collection with three other essays – on Wagner, David Strauss and the use of history – that has come to be titled Untimely Meditations. In this episode Jonathan and James consider the essays together and their powerful attack on the ethos of the age, railing against the greed and power of the state, fake art, overweening science, the triviality of universities and, perhaps above all, the deification of success. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠https://lrb.me/applecrcip⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠https://lrb.me/closereadingscip⁠ Read more in the LRB: David Hoy on Nietzsche's life: ⁠⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v09/n01/david-hoy/different-stories⁠⁠ J.P. Stern on 'Unmodern Observations' (or 'Untimely Meditations'): ⁠⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v12/n16/j.p.-stern/impatience⁠⁠ Jenny Diski on Elisabeth Nietzsche: ⁠⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v25/n18/jenny-diski/it-wasn-t-him-it-was-her⁠⁠ LRB AUDIOBOOKS Discover audiobooks from the LRB, including Jonathan Rée's Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookscip⁠⁠

    30 min

  6. 27 APR

    'My Station and Its Duties' by F.H. Bradley

    T.S. Eliot claimed that he learned his prose style from reading F.H. Bradley, and the poet wrote his PhD on the English philosopher at Harvard. Bradley’s life was remarkably unremarkable, as he spent his entire career as a fellow of Merton College, Oxford, where his only obligation was not to get married. Yet in over fifty years of slow, meticulous writing he articulated a series of unusual and arresting ideas that attacked Kantian and utilitarian notions of duty and morality. In this episode, Jonathan and James look at Bradley’s polemic against John Stuart Mill, ‘My Station and Its Duties’, and other essays in Ethical Studies, which challenge the idea of morality as a product of calm reasoning arrived at by mature, rational minds. For Bradley, morality is a characteristic of communities, determined by people’s differing needs at various stages in their lives, and the universal need for self-realisation can only be achieved through those communities. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠https://lrb.me/applecrcip⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠https://lrb.me/closereadingscip⁠ Read more in the LRB: Frank Kermode on Eliot and Bradley: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v10/n17/frank-kermode/feast-of-st-thomas LRB AUDIOBOOKS Discover audiobooks from the LRB, including Jonathan Rée's Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookscip⁠⁠

    15 min

  7. 30 MAR

    'Autobiography' by John Stuart Mill

    Mill’s 'Autobiography' was considered too shocking to publish while he was alive. Behind his musings on many of the philosophical and political preoccupations of his time lie the confessions of a deeply repressed man who knows that he’s deeply repressed, coming to terms with the uncompromising educational experiment his father subjected him to as a child – described by Isaiah Berlin as ‘an appalling success’. In this episode Jonathan and James discuss Mill’s startlingly honest account of this experience and the breakdown that ensued in his 20s, and the boldness of his life and thought from his views on socialism and the rights of women to his unwavering devotion to his wife, Harriet Taylor, the co-author of 'On Liberty' and other works. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠https://lrb.me/applecrcip⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠https://lrb.me/closereadingscip⁠ Further reading in the LRB: Sissela Bok on Mill's 'Autobiography': ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v06/n06/sissela-bok/his-father-s-children⁠ Alasdair MacIntyre: Mill's Forgotten Victory ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v02/n20/alasdair-macintyre/john-stuart-mill-s-forgotten-victory⁠ Panbkaj Mishra: Bland Fanatics ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v37/n23/pankaj-mishra/bland-fanatics⁠ Next Episode F.H. Bradley's 'My Station and Its Duties' can be found online here: ⁠https://archive.org/details/ethicalstudies0000brad/page/160/mode/2up⁠ LRB AUDIOBOOKS Discover audiobooks from the LRB, including Jonathan Rée's Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookscip⁠⁠

    14 min

  8. 3 MAR

    'Circles' and other essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson

    Circular reasoning is normally condemned by philosophers, but in his 1841 essay ‘Circles’, Emerson proposes that not getting anywhere is precisely what we need to do to find out where we already are. In this episode, Jonathan and James consider Emerson’s use of the circle to demonstrate an idealistic philosophy rooted in the natural world, in which individuals are bounded by self-created horizons, and the extent to which this fits with Transcendentalist notions of progress and independence. They also discuss what his other essays, including ‘Self-Reliance’, ‘Art’ and ‘Nature’, have to say about the importance of thinking one’s own thoughts, and why Emerson had such a powerful influence on writers as varied as Nietzsche, Saul Bellow and Louisa May Alcott. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠https://lrb.me/applecrcip⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠https://lrb.me/closereadingscip⁠ Read 'Circles' here: ⁠https://emersoncentral.com/texts/essays-first-series/circles/⁠ Read more in the LRB: Tony Tanner on the life of Emerson: ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v17/n10/tony-tanner/arctic-habits⁠ Colin Burrow on the American canon: ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/n22/colin-burrow/the-magic-bloomschtick⁠ LRB AUDIOBOOKS Discover audiobooks from the LRB, including Jonathan Rée's Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookscip⁠⁠

    15 min

  9. 3 FEB

    'The Essence of Christianity' by Ludwig Feuerbach

    In The Essence of Christianity (1841) Feuerbach works through the theological crisis of his age to articulate the central, radical idea of 19th-century atheism: that the religion of God is really the religion of humanity. In this episode, Jonathan and James discuss the ways in which the book applies this thought to various aspects of Christian doctrine, from sexual relations to the Trinity, and consider why Feuerbach would never have described himself as an atheist. They also look at George Eliot’s remarkable translation of the work, published only thirteen years after the original, which not only ensured Feuerbach’s influence in the Anglophone world but invented a new philosophical vocabulary in English for German thought. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠https://lrb.me/applecrcip⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠https://lrb.me/closereadingscip⁠ Further reading in the LRB: James Wood: What next? ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v33/n08/james-wood/what-s-next⁠ Terry Eagleton: George Eliot ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v17/n18/terry-eagleton/biogspeak⁠ LRB AUDIOBOOKS Discover audiobooks from the LRB, including Jonathan Rée's Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre: ⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookscip⁠

    10 min

  10. 6 JAN

    'Fear and Trembling' by Søren Kierkegaard

    The series begins with Søren Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling (1843), an exploration of faith through the story of Abraham and Isaac. Like most of Kierkegaard’s published work, Fear and Trembling appeared under a pseudonym, Johannes de Silentio, and its playful relationship to the reader doesn’t stop there. Described as a ‘dialectical lyric’ on the title page, the book works through a variety of formats in its attempt to understand the nature of faith and the apparently unsolvable paradox that the father of the Abrahamic religions was prepared to murder his own son. James and Jonathan consider whether Kierkegaard thinks we can understand anything, and what Fear and Trembling has in common with the works of Dostoevsky and Kafka. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠https://lrb.me/applecrcip⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠https://lrb.me/closereadingscip⁠ Further reading in the LRB: Jonathan Rée: Dancing in the Service of Thought ⁠https://lrb.me/cipkierkegaard1⁠ James Butler: Reading Genesis ⁠https://lrb.me/cipkierkegaard2⁠ Roger Poole: A Walk with Kierkegaard ⁠https://lrb.me/cipkierkegaard3⁠ Terry Eagleton: A Long Way from Galilee ⁠https://lrb.me/cipkierkegaard4⁠ James Wood teaches literature at Harvard University and is a staff writer for The New Yorker as well as a contributor to the London Review of Books. His books include How Fiction Works, The Broken Estate and The Irresponsible Self. Jonathan Rée is a frequent contributor to the London Review of Books and a freelance writer and philosopher. His most recent book on philosophy is Witcraft: The Invention of Philosophy in English. LRB AUDIOBOOKS Discover audiobooks from the LRB, including Jonathan Rée's Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre: ⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookscip⁠

    12 min

  11. 1 JAN

    Introducing 'Conversations in Philosophy'

    James Wood and Jonathan Rée introduce their new Close Readings series, Conversations in Philosophy, running throughout 2025. They explain the title of the series and why they'll be challenging a hundred years of academic convention by reuniting the worlds of literature and philosophy. James Wood teaches literature at Harvard University and is a staff writer for The New Yorker as well as a contributor to the London Review of Books. His books include How Fiction Works, The Broken Estate and The Irresponsible Self. Jonathan Rée is a frequent contributor to the London Review of Books and a freelance writer and philosopher. His most recent book on philosophy is Witcraft: The Invention of Philosophy in English. The full list of texts for the series: Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling Ludwig Feuerbach, Essence of Christianity, translated by George Eliot Ralph Waldo Emerson, ‘Circles’ and other essays John Stuart Mill, An Autobiography F.H. Bradley, ‘My station and its duties’ Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘Schopenhauer as Educator’ William James ‘The Will to Believe’ Martin Heidegger, ‘The Thing’ Jean-Paul Sartre, Theory of the Emotions Simone de Beauvoir, Ethics of Ambiguity Albert Camus, The Fall Iris Murdoch, Sovereignty of Good  Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

    9 min
  • 11 Episodes

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Jonathan Rée and James Wood challenge a hundred years of academic convention by reuniting the worlds of philosophy and literature, as they consider how style, narrative, and the expression of ideas play through philosophical writers including Kierkegaard, Mill, Nietzsche, Woolf, Beauvoir and Camus. James Wood teaches literature at Harvard University and is a staff writer for The New Yorker as well as a contributor to the London Review of Books. His books include How Fiction Works, The Broken Estate and The Irresponsible Self. Jonathan Rée is a frequent contributor to the London Review of Books and a freelance writer and philosopher. His most recent book on philosophy is Witcraft: The Invention of Philosophy in English. Non-subscribers will only hear extracts from these episodes. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/applecrcip⁠⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/closereadingscip⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk

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