Hotel Bar Sessions

 The HBS hosts wrestle with Fukuyama's "Why National Identity Is Matters." In this episode, we will focus on questions of national identity. In the U.S., the contemporary political moment is riven with competing ideas of what the United States is or are. These ideas are based in various ways of knowing including ideological, political, racial, and generational. Using Francis Fukuyama’s essay “Why National Identity Matters” we will explore fundamental questions regarding the origins of national identity, its definition, its mechanisms, and how these elements track through a contemporary lens.Full episode notes at this link:http://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-54-national-identitySupport Hotel Bar Sessions on Patreon here:patreon.com/hotelbarsessions ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

The HBS hosts discuss the pervasiveness and perversity of algorithms in our lives.Algorithms measure, and increasingly influence/determine, our behaviors. Yet, most people don’t know or understand what an algorithm is! Algorithms are essential to the logic of late capitalism and people need to understand them in order to work toward more ethical AI.Full episode notes at this link:http://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-54-algorithms/Support Hotel Bar Sessions on Patreon here:patreon.com/hotelbarsessions ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

The HBS hosts get to the bottom of what is real, what exists, and what is virtual.In this episode, we take head on the question of whether an analysis, understanding, and assumption of reality, in other words, metaphysics, is a crucial task for philosophy. We argue about whether metaphysics should come before social and political theory, political engagement, and ethics. We come clean about our own positions on what is real. In short, we get real with reality.Full episode notes at this link:http://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-53-metaphysicsSupport HOTEL BAR SESSIONS podcast on Patreon at this link:patron.com/hotelbarsessions ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

The HBS hosts talk about the striving to live forever in physical, psychical, and social dimensions.Immortality seems to be a spoken and unspoken obsession within contemporary culture, whether through the obsession with maintaining youthful looks through diet, exercise or, medical procedure or the hope for a future where people can live on as memories or even as digital intelligences. We talk about the underlying motivations for this hope, what it may say about the underlying dynamics of our culture in regard to existential/metaphysical concerns or the ways we struggle with certainty/uncertainty. How are these ideas examined in both popular and philosophical contexts?Full episode notes at this link:http://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-52-immortalitySupport HOTEL BAR SESSIONS podcast on Patreon at this link:patron.com/hotelbarsessions ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

The HBS hosts unpack Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals, Section 13, to uncover how we arrived at morality and moral subjectivity. There are conditions that seem to be necessary in order for our whole moral outlook and values, conditions that are not found in nature. What must be the case in order for one to be said to be morally responsible? In this episode, we take Section 13 of Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals as our guide to uncover the conditions of moral subjectivity.Full episode notes available here:http://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-51-moral-subjectivitySupport HOTEL BAR SESSIONS podcast on Patreon at this link:patron.com/hotelbarsessions ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

The HBS hosts look under the hood, inspect the engine, and try to figure out what drives us. Perhaps more than any other affect, desire is put to work in so many areas of philosophy. For Plato, it is the beginning of knowledge (or the soul’s search for truth), for Augustine, it is what marks post-lapsarian humanity–“Our hears are restless until they rest in you.” For Hobbes, it is one of the root affects and, perhaps, the root of the war of all against all. More recently, desire has become a focus in feminist philosophy, Foucauldian “geneaology,” philosophies of race, and queer theory, just to name a few central directions. In this episode, the HBS hosts talk about desire.Full episode notes at this link:http://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-50-desirePlease support HOTEL BAR SESSIONS podcast on Patreon here:patron.com/hotelbarsessions ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

The HBS hosts discuss the role of memory in the constitution of human intelligence, subjectivity and culture/civilization.As we age, we often lose the ability to retain our past experiences. In doing so, we seem to lose a part (or even all) of our selves. What is the role of memory in the constitution of human intelligence, subjectivity and culture/civilization? In this episode, the HBS hosts discuss memory and its relation to personal identity and social identity. This means that we also confront forgetting.Full episode notes at this link: http://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-49-memorySupport HOTEL BAR SESSIONS podcast on Patreon here:patron.com/hotelbarsessions ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

The HBS hosts take the red pill.Are we "living" in a computer simulation? What difference would that make? Why would it ever occur to anyone that we are in a simulation? In this episode, the HBS hosts discuss the hypothesis that we are just playing out another being's computer simulation.Full episode notes at this link:http://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-48-the-simulation-hypothesisSupport HOTEL BAR SESSIONS podcast at Patreon here:patron.com/hotelbarsessions ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

 The HBS hosts talk about style. Style can simply mean a way of doing something, like dressing, decorating, writing, singing, painting. Often, it seems as if style is an “add on,” something not essential, and often seems closely akin to fakery (we can say someone is “all style, no substance”). But is there something more significant about style? Full episode notes at this link:http://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-47-styleSupport HOTEL BAR SESSIONS podcast at Patreon. As we often say, we do this for free but it does have costs! ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

The HBS hosts go where people know troubles are all the same.In this episode, the HBS hosts discuss Bars—as a social, cultural and communal space, bars as a space removed from the regular function of society, yet at the center of  essential social discussions. Why are we “Hotel bar sessions?” Let’s talk about the role the bar plays at conferences and why we say “this is where the real philosophy happens?” What does that say about the bar.Full episode notes at this link:http://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-46-barsPlease consider supporting our costs at Patreon. As we often say, we do this for free but it does have costs. It would help us out tremendously if you could help us with those costs. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★