Continental Philosophy » Audio

Farhang Erfani — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 04:45:22 +0000

A podcast of the conference ‘From Structure to Rhizome: Transdisciplinarity in French thought, 1945 to the present‘ held at the French Institute, London, is now available at:
http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/2010/04/from-structure-to-rhizome/

From Structure to Rhizome
Transdisciplinarity in French thought, 1945 to the present: histories, concepts, constructions
CENTRE FOR RESEARCH IN MODERN EUROPEAN PHILOSOPHY
MIDDLESEX UNIVERSITY
16-17 April 2010

Ciné Lumière, The French Institute
London, SW7 2DT

In the final decades of the twentieth century, the “great books” of postwar French theory transformed study in the humanities in the Anglophone world. These books were all, in one way or another, transdisciplinary in character. Yet their reception has primarily taken place in an array of specific disciplinary contexts, isolated from a broader understanding of the intellectual dynamics, forms, significance and innovative potential of transdisciplinarity itself. This conference aims to redress this situation. Each speaker will reflect on the transdisciplinary functioning of a single concept in French thought since 1945, with respect to a founding text, a particular thinker or a school of thought.

Speakers:Éric Alliez, Étienne Balibar, Andrew Barry, Guillaume Collett, François Cusset, Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond, Alain de Libera, Peter Osborne, Michèle Riot-Sarcey and Stella Sandford.

Philosophy Talk: Live Session April 25

Farhang Erfani — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 04:42:06 +0000

Event details:

Satisfy your hunger for philosophy and food on Sunday, April 25th at the new Marsh Theater location in Berkeley. Join “Philosophy Talk” the radio show that questions everything, except your intelligence, for two LIVE recording sessions and a lunch break in between where you can break bread with Philosophy Talk co-hosts John Perry and Ken Taylor.

11am – “Democracy and the Press” – In a media landscape influenced by profit motivated conglomerates does the American press still live up to the lofty ideals of our founding fathers? Guest: Journalist Leslie Griffith

12:30pm – 2:00pm: Lunch Break with John, Ken, and the whole Philosophy Talk Crew

3pm – “Social Reality” – Without the societies that humans have created, there would be no states, no facts of citizenship, and no money. Are our lives built on ontological fluff? Guest: philosopher John Searle

Location:
The Marsh Berkeley
2120 Allston Way
Berkeley, CA 94704

Price: $20 per show. Luncheon at the Marsh is $10 extra or free if you buy tickers for both shows. Ticket information: http://www.themarsh.org or call 800-838-3006. Doors open at 10:30am for the 11am show and 2:30pm for the 3pm show. Each program runs approximately 75 minutes.

Audio: Philosophers Zone – 17 October 2009 – What would Karl Marx think?

Farhang Erfani — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 02:40:16 +0000

Philosophers Zone – 17 October 2009 – What would Karl Marx think?.

Commodities, capitalism and computers. At a time when the Berlin Wall has fallen but Wall Street is decidedly shaky, a self-described lapsed Marxist takes us through some of the key philosophical and practical ideas of Karl Marx and argues for what is still useful today. What is worth keeping in Marx? He had his limitations but later thinkers have built on his core concepts and used his methods to produce results that still speak to the changing nature of work in contemporary Australia.

Andrew Bowie PODCAST ‘Background Capabilities and Prereflexive Awareness’

Farhang Erfani — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 03:09:58 +0000

Accounts of human action in many parts of philosophy tend to depend on the idea that action is to be characterised in terms of following norms or rules. This gives considerable emphasis to the idea of self-consciously determining yourself to do something, according to a rule. This model has considerable consequences for how procedures are codified in many areas of social and professional life. However, there are serious reasons to think that this model is inadequate as an account of how we actually do many things. This is because, even though rules are essential, so much that we need to do these things cannot come immediately to consciousness when we do them. Examples of what is involved here range from the ways in which we carry out conversations, to the example used for the talk: jazz improvisation.
Presentation includes musical examples and is followed by a performance by the Andrew Bowie Jazz Trio, featuring John Turville (piano), and Tom Farmer (bass).
URL for podcast:

http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/2009/10/andrew-bowie-background-capabilities-and-prereflexive-awareness/

Recordings of Daniel Smith’s Lecture Series

Farhang Erfani — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 04:19:16 +0000

Here are the links for the audio recordings of Daniel Smith’s lectures that he gave as a part of the Collegium Phaenomenologicum 2009, which was directed by Peg Birmingham. Unfortunately we couldn’t record the second half of the second lecture, but all the rest is available in a pretty high-quality format.

Link

Deleuze, Leibniz: Ame et Damnation (lecture in French)

Farhang Erfani — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 18:28:57 +0000

Discover !

Audio: Philosophy – The great divide (Continental / Analytic)

Farhang Erfani — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 02:16:12 +0000

This week, we examine a division in the philosophical world, between what’s called analytic philosophy, as practised in the English-speaking world and the Nordic nations, and continental philosophy. If you’re an analytical philosopher, all that French and German stuff looks vague, verbose and romantic. If you’re sitting Paris, the analytical stuff is likely to seem abstract, dry and quite unconnected with human realities. Professor Paul Patton straddles the divide and this week he tells us whether he thinks it’s real.

Link to the audio file

Zizek, Notes towards a definition of communist culture

Farhang Erfani — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 03:39:23 +0000

The Slavoj Zizek Masterclass ‘Notes towards a definition of communist culture’ which took place at Birkbeck College last week (15 – 19 June) is now avaliable as a podcast to listen to (and download) at the following URL:
http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/category/academic-service/academic-service-archive/

Merleau-Ponty and the lived body

Farhang Erfani — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 03:56:23 +0000

2008 is the centenary of the birth of the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty. He was a friend of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre and a man who wanted to get philosophy back to its basics and the physical reality of the lived body. This week, we pay tribute to his work and his influence on modern cognitive science.

Audio file

Radio shows: Girard and Nietzsche’s letters

Farhang Erfani — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 02:02:58 +0000

Philosspher’s Zone:

Scapegoats and sacrifices – Rene Girard

Download Audio – 15112008

Have you ever found that you didn’t want something until you noticed that somebody else wanted it? Were you picked on at school, or were you one of the pickers on? Welcome to the world of the French thinker Rene Girard, who claims that desire needs to be learned and that, once learned, it leads to the finding of scapegoats. And what do we do with scapegoats? We sacrifice them.

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In French, on Nietzsche’s correspondence.