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The Wes Cecil Podcast

Wes Cecil
The Wes Cecil Podcast
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  • Narrativium - Ep. 21
    We continually tell ourselves stories about every aspect of our lives. Taking a little time to reflect on the stories we tell ourselves is often quite revelatory about how our thinking is directed and limited. Likely it is impossible for humans to live without a rich life filled with stories, but the stories are often under our control to a remarkable degree.Image attribution: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, peer discussions, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  • The History of Philosophy in 16 Questions - Q14: What is this science thing?
    The History of Philosophy in 16 Questions - Q14: What is this science thing?Now my method, though hard to practice, is easy to explain; and it is this. I propose to establish progressive stages of certainty. The evidence of the sense, helped and guarded by a certain process of correction, I retain. But the mental operation which follows the act of sense I for the most part reject; and instead of it I open and lay out a new and certain path for the mind to proceed in, starting directly from the simple sensuous perception. Novum Organum 1620Empiricism and idealism alike are faced with a problem to which, so far, philosophy has found no satisfactory solution. This is the problem of showing how we have knowledge of other things than ourself and the operations of our own mind. Bertrand Russell (1945)James Watt creates a really good steam engine around 1790Maxwell and Boltzmann establish a kinetic theory of gas 1860s. Having invented the dye [1856], Perkin was still faced with the problems of raising the capital for producing it, manufacturing it cheaply, adapting it for use in dyeing cotton, gaining acceptance for it among commercial dyers, and creating public demand for it. He was active in all of these areas: he persuaded his father to put up the capital, and his brothers to partner with him to build a factory; he invented a mordant for cotton; he gave technical advice to the dyeing industry; and he publicised his invention of the dye. William PerkinBetween 1405 and 1433 Ming China sent out huge "Treasure Fleets" to the Indian Ocean and beyond. Then Stopped. 1877 Thomas Edison establishes one of the first pure research and development labs in Menlo Park. Currently, world research and development spending is in excess of one TRILLION dollars. Next Week: "Truth?"Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, peer discussions, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  • Primates In Space: Primates Go Wild - Ep. 11
    While the industrial revolution is widely recognized as a turning point in human history, less well appreciated is why it has been so influential. Each of the developments were undoubtedly important, however I argue it has been the rate of change that has had a greater impact than any particular change. As primates we are simply incapable of adapting as quickly as we have been presented with change and the stress is definitely showing. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, peer discussions, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  • Andre Gide and Marcel Proust
    Two famous works that critiqued the Moral structure of turn of the century French society did so in entirely different ways. While Gide is more known for his critique, I argue Proust’s critique is far, far more important and powerful. Both authors are worth reading, however, it is Proust who forces us to join him in his reconsideration of whether we are aware of the fact or not.Image attributions: See page for author, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia CommonsSign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, peer discussions, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  • The History of Philosophy in 16 Questions - Q13: Enlightened?
    The History of Philosophy in 16 Questions - Q13: Enlightened?We can see from this that the sovereign power, absolute, sacred and inviolable as it is, does not and cannot exceed the limits of general conventions, and that every man may dispose at will of such goods and liberty as these conventions leave him; so that the Sovereign never has a right to lay more charges on one subject than on another, because, in that case, the question becomes particular, and ceases to be within its competency. Rousseau Social ContractWhen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.Once your faith, sir, persuades you to believe what your intelligence declares to be absurd, beware lest you likewise sacrifice your reason in the conduct of your life. In days gone by, there were people who said to us: "You believe in incomprehensible, contradictory and impossible things because we have commanded you to; now then, commit unjust acts because we likewise order you to do so." Nothing could be more convincing. Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices. If you do not use the intelligence with which God endowed your mind to resist believing impossibilities, you will not be able to use the sense of injustice which God planted in your heart to resist a command to do evil. Once a single faculty of your soul has been tyrannized, all the other faculties will submit to the same fate. This has been the cause of all the religious crimes that have flooded the earth. Voltaire Question of Miraclesadmit no more causes of natural things than are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances,to the same natural effect, assign the same causes,qualities of bodies, which are found to belong to all bodies within experiments, are to be esteemed universal, andpropositions collected from observation of phenomena should be viewed as accurate or very nearly true until contradicted by other phenomena. Newton Principia (third edition?)Next Week: "What is this Science Thing?"Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, peer discussions, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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About The Wes Cecil Podcast

My lectures are dedicated to making Philosophy in particular and the world of ideas in general available to everyone. My exploration of topics and thinkers is designed to provide a foundation for listeners to engage in further reading and thought and develop their own conceptions of the topics I introduce. I have PhD in Literature and Philosophy and was a college professor for over 20 years. I am working to remove the barriers that prevent many from experiencing and understanding the lives and thoughts of some of the world's greatest thinkers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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