The School of Athens

Lesson 6: The Ontological Argument and Pascal's Wager

Sat, 25 Mar 2023 12:11:19 GMT

In today's lesson, we critically talk about Anselm's ontological argument and Pascal's Wager. We explore Gaunilo's 'Lost Island' as a refute to Anselm. Our verdict is that both Anselm and Pascal have not given convincing enough arguments. Listen to the episode to find out why!

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Lesson 5: Fatalism

Thu, 09 Mar 2023 21:15:30 GMT

Hi! Following our last episode about determinism, we are talking about fatalism in this one! And we mean logical fatalism, which is illustrated by Aristotle's sea battle argument. We explain what this argument is and its main counters. We also try to show the difference between determinism and fatalism. Hope you enjoy this lesson and we look forward to next time!

Resources mentioned:

Riddles of Existence by Earl Brink Conee

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Lesson 4: Determinism and Free Will

Sat, 18 Feb 2023 14:42:09 GMT

This week, we question the extent of our free will, looking at the views of hard determinists, libertarians, and compatibilists. We have some interesting examples and scenarios to illustrate these views, including My Little Pony... my little pony... aaahhh... Stay tuned to the end to hear about our own takes on whether we are just the sum of our causes - how we were brought up and our genes.

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Lesson 3: Mind and Body

Sat, 04 Feb 2023 13:21:30 GMT

Continuing from Plato's views on the mind and body from last episode, this week, we discuss dualism... and a bit of everything else. We expand on Plato a bit with his charioteer analogy and on Descartes' cogito ergo sum, sharing some of our own views on the eternity of the soul too. We also talk about Frank Jackson's thought experiment, Mary's Room, and its counter arguments, before we go off on how much we love (Estelle) or hate (Lea) thought experiments. Lea shares a thought experiment about a lobster, but NOTE: the actual thought experiment is Locke's prince and cobbler (NOT lobster), we're sorry for that confusion but we hope you enjoy our more entertaining version!

Resources mentioned:

Phaedrus by Plato

Meditations on First Philosophy by Descartes

Persons and Personal Identity by Amy Kind

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Lesson 2: The Socratic Philosophers

Fri, 20 Jan 2023 23:20:04 GMT

We are back! Having set ourselves the challenge to summarise the three famous Socratic philosophers in twenty minutes, we talk about the key ideas of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. We begin with 'The School of Athens' painting, explaining the origins of the name of our show. We touch on Socrates' love for questioning and how that impacted the abrupt end of his life, Plato's world of forms and his ideal state, as well as Aristotle's influence on Aquinas (e.g. the Prime Mover). We breezed past each topic so we will go into detail with some in the future!

The philosophy resources recommendations we mentioned:

'Think' by Simon Blackburn

Oxford: Very Short Introductions

BBC: 'In Our Time' podcast

'Philosophy Bites' podcast

Philosophy Now articles

Regarding Socrates' execution: https://philosophynow.org/issues/19/Socrates_Revisited_The_Jurors_Speak

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Lesson 1: Existentialism

Fri, 30 Dec 2022 14:22:40 GMT

In our first episode, we introduce existentialism. We argue who the 'it girl' of existentialism is: is it Sartre, his boo Beauvoir, Kierkegaard or Nietzsche? Lea argues for her guy Kierkegaard (with a very interesting gossip story about his boo Regine), while Estelle argues for her guy Nietzshe with a saddening story about him and a horse. We encompass Kierkegaard's ideas on faith and Nietzsche's beliefs about guilt. Enjoy!

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Welcome to The School of Athens!

Fri, 23 Dec 2022 14:50:43 GMT

Introducing the teachers Lea & Estelle and their fun and quirky philosophy podcast 'The School of Athens'!

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