Why Theory

On this episode, Ryan and Todd discuss Jean-Paul Sartre's 1945 lecture titled "Existentialism is a Humanism." In it, Sartre answers criticism that existentialism has received from lay people, concerned Christians, and Marxists, and clarifies what existentialism means and (more importantly) what it hopes to do and inspire in action. The existential method that Sartre advocates is universal and optimistic, advocating for political change by encouraging everyone to see that their individual actions include every other person in them. Ryan and Todd discuss the main thrust of the lecture, Sartre's eventual shift to Marxism (covered in the Critique of Dialectical Reason episodes), how psychoanalytic theory intersects with and pushes back on Sartre's ideas, and why Total Recall is the perfect Sartrean film.

On this episode, Ryan and Todd discuss Freud's idea of the "impossible professions." First articulated in 1925, Freud is drawn to the idea that psychoanalysis is like government and education in that it proposes a necessary function without end. The intrinsic endlessness to the impossible professions often leaves them ripe for tendentious scrutiny. As we've seen over the last decade, those with roles in education, government, and medicine have had their expertise routinely ridiculed and undermined. The hosts each add an idea to Freud's initial proposition with Ryan offering that each of the impossible professions has a necessary tie to the public trust that, in our era, must be won back while Todd offers that transference holds the impossible professions together and excludes others that might be included.

Following up some of the discussion points introduced in the previous episode on Ambition, this episode takes a stab at the deadly sin of Avarice. Beginning first with a historical and etymological look into Avarice and Greed, looking at when Greed overtook Avarice in common parlance and when the word moved from referring to a wider programming of miserly hoarding to a specific rapaciousness toward financial accumulation. Unsurprisingly, with the global adoption of capitalism, Avarice dropped out of common parlance and Greed saw a rebranding, with accumulation and self-interest becoming virtues rather than vices. Ultimately, Ryan and Todd try to move discussion of Avarice as a deadly sin away from strictly moral terrain and move it toward the political. (Episode may be triggering for former lifeguards at municipal pools.)

On this episode, Ryan and Todd tackle the fading specter of ambition as a tragic or negative quality. Far from being a minor rhetorical or social phenomenon, the two trace the embrace of ambition to the broader injunction to sell oneself as a brand. This episode will lay some theoretical groundwork down for the following episode which will be on Avarice (a return to long fallow Seven Deadly Sins series).

On this episode, Ryan and Todd return to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason to discuss the Transcendental Analytic section of the text. Topics include: form and content, Kantian causality, whether example(s) can work for exploring Kant's philosophy, the subject vs. subjectivism, simultaneity, and Super Metroid. Plus Ryan makes an Announcement. (Bonus points go to any listener who currently lives in a house boat.)