History of Philosophy Audio Archive

Hiroshima rages while Nagasaki prays. FULL EPISODE DESCRIPTION ON PATREONI'm joined for a second time by friend of the show Franco Castro Escobar, a PhD researcher at Keele University in the UK. This time we discuss life in Nagasaki before, during, and after the nuclear attack, trauma and education, the developmental origins of youth antinuclear activists, hibaku Maria and the destruction of the Urakami Cathedral, Iwo Jima and the Pacific Theater, disaster storytelling and kataribe, militarism in San Diego, efforts to rewrite and suppress history in Japan, Iris Chang and Nanking, and American imperial activities vis a vis the dreaded "counterproliferation" - empowering allies to acquire nuclear weapons or attack adversary states with nuclear breakout potential as an alternative to diplomacy.We also talk about the beautiful camphor trees in Nagasaki, many of which are still alive today despite being charred and cracked by nuclear blast, the longstanding commitment to nonviolence and prayer as an alternative to hatred in Nagasaki, and some important poetry and theology connected to the hibakusha (atomic bomb survivor) movement that expresses the 'ultimate aspiration' of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to be the last cities attacked by atomic bombs as we transition to a more peaceful world, one that must be free of nuclear weapons and threats of their retention and use.This episode aims to answer a few questions that ought to be important to all of us, namely:How can children be taught the truth about the historical effects and current reality of nuclear weapons proliferation?Why did the United States really attack Hiroshima and Nagasaki?How do religious beliefs (and the lack thereof) influence how people interpret collective tragedies and respond?SHOW NOTESFranco's article Youth antinuclear socialisation in Japan: early encounters with the concept of nuclear weaponsUrakami Cathedral, largest Catholic cathedral in AsiaBook: The Bells of Nagasaki by Takashi NagaiResearch Center for Nuclear Weapons AbolitionKataribe StorytellingDisaster StorytellingMinamata Mercury Poisoning ScandalBarefoot Gen (Best Hiroshima teaching resource for kids, acc to Franco, genre: Anime and Manga)Book: Nagasaki by Susan SouthardBook: Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor CoerrBook: Flags of Our Fathers by James BradleyBook: When We Say Hiroshima: Selected Poems by Kurihara SadakoBook: Command and Control by Eric SchlosserBook: Nuclear War: A Scenario by Anne JacobsenBook: The Rape of Nanking by Iris ChangThe 1971 Blood Telegram (Bangladesh Genocide/US State Dept)Music Credit (Fair Use Asserted by Author): 福山雅治 - クスノキ-500年の風に吹かれて-（KUSUNOKI PROJECT ver.） https://youtu.be/JumRmUwmOgs

Happy Equinox. The Beginning, is at last: beginning.Music Credit: Beethoven / Piano Concerto No. 5 "Emperor" Gernot Schmalfuss / Music Director and Chief Conductor Gwhyneth Chen / Piano Evergreen Symphony Orchestra National Concert Hall, Taipei, Taiwan 13 Nov. 2020 (Creative Commons).Percy Bysshe ShelleyHymn to the Spirit of Nature (1820).from Prometheus Unbound (Act II, Scene V):Life of Life! Thy lips enkindleWith their love the breath between them;And thy smiles before they dwindleMake the cold air fire; then screen themIn those locks, where whoso gazesFaints, entangled in their mazes.Child of Light! Thy limbs are burningThrough the veil which seems to hide them,As the radiant lines of morningThrough thin clouds, ere they divide them;And this atmosphere divinestShrouds thee wheresoe'er thou shinest.Fair are others; none beholds Thee;But thy voice sounds low and tenderLike the fairest, for it folds theeFrom the sight, that liquid splendor;And all feel, yet see thee never,—As I feel now, lost for ever!Lamp of Earth! Wheree'er thou movestIts dim shapes are clad with brightness,And the souls of whom thou lovestWalk upon the winds with lightnessTill they fail, as I am failing,Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing!

You can find the full talk from March 2025, officially-titled "Normalizing Genocide and the New World Order" at the link below, via The Sanctuary for Independent Media, which Chris has lectured at for years. Chris also writes on Substack "The Chris Hedges Report" and has a podcast of the same name.Hedges also wrote something like 12 books, which I've read about 9 of, personally. Each was life-changing. I would start with "Our Class: Trauma and Transformation in an American Prison" (2014) by Chris Hedges.Rest of episode description available free on Patreon.

Full episode description on PatreonI am joined (just in time for the all-important Vernal Equinox on March 21st) - with the brilliant and timely Dr. Maya Kornberg https://www.mayakornberg.com/.Her new book STUCK: How Money, Media, and Violence Prevent Change in Congress was released March 10th and can be purchased now. (Non-affiliate link). Personal Disclaimer: I was given a hardcover of this book to review by Page One Media. I have never paid anyone, nor has anyone ever paid me, nor will anyone ever pay, to come on my show.Dr. Kornberg is a senior research fellow at NYU Law's Brennan Center for Justice and the author of Inside Congressional: Committees: Function and Dysfunction in the Legislative Process.SOUND AND IMAGE CREDITS:Intro: Schubert, Impromptu No. 3 in G-flat Major by Max John. Link's to Max's work in other episode descriptions or by searching YouTube.Please watch as much Frank Capra as possible, including Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) from which I derive the cover image as well, apparently, as the absolutely bizarre trailer at the end, which you can watch here, courtesy Sony Pictures Entertainment (don't DMCA me, you swine! - it is artistic commentary and I assert Fair Use!):https://youtu.be/bXoF7w6IWAc

RIP Habermas. Rick Roderick and Michael Sugrue (both also gone, Sugrue earlier this year) remember the life and theory of Jürgen Habermas and the Frankfurt School."Don't think that this is some fancy-Dan academic exercise. A lot of people have died because they read a book the wrong way. "-Rick Roderick on Habermas and the importance of the humanities.

If you enjoy this work, please support the show on Patreon!Will (the host) writes a Substack page about various and sundry topics. Plotinus (204-270 CE) was a mystical philosopher who transformed Plato's metaphysical ideas about the Forms and the divine intellect or nous into a spiritual path. In this lecture, Pierre Grimes (1924-2024 CE) introduces Plotinus and his work as recorded by his student Porphyry in The Enneads - a six-part treatise on the mystical ascent of the soul."That which gives pre-eminence to the members of any class...is the word 'Greatness... No one would have an interest in that experience, if it was not also Beautiful"-this 03/24/1998 lecture, catalogue number NSPRS 092You can find the original video, with chalkboard explanations here.https://youtu.be/Cvs52cBjpgU?list=PLp6rnhCy8XkqKXmCtLRqC4hOFnEaVVWZxThe Internet home for the Noetic Society is available here, on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@NoeticSocietyPierre Grimes had a remarkable life. He was an American boy who volunteered to fight Fascism at the age of 17, and earned a Bronze Star with an Oak Leaf Cluster, a Purple Heart, and a Bronze Arrowhead (for the amphibious landing at Dramont "Red Beach" in the south of France, part of Operation Dragoon). For WW2-heads he served in the 1st Battalion, 142nd Infantry Regiment (part of the 36th Infantry Division). He saw heavy combat in the European theater, and participated in the grotesque and shocking liberation of 'satellite' concentration camps outside of Dachau.After the war, Grimes used philosophy to work with alcoholics on substance abuse. He thought the Socratic method of maieutics or 'midwifery' was a broadly-applicable dialectical procedure that could show false and disempowering beliefs for what they were, thus eliminating the root cause of a patient's substance-seeking and self-defeating behaviors. He wrote a pair of modern Socratic-style dialogues titled the Vinodorus and the Alcibiades in an attempt to promote philosophy as psychotherapy, and philosophy as a way of life.In this way, he resembles another philosophical psychotherapist whose work was transformed by his experience of the Nazi Holocaust, Jewish survivor Viktor Frankl. Frankl, like Grimes, was horrified at how casually otherwise decent people could commit acts of total moral worthlessness. He saw their easily parallelized nature, a normalized schizophrenia: at once decent family men who put others first and strove for wisdom and faith, and at the other extreme: disciplined killers and torturers who accomplished their task with vigor, clarity, enthusiasm, and yes, even Joy (As in Joy Division). The shock of Grimes' experience liberating these camps, combined with the heavy fighting he saw near the Monte Artemisio ridge and elsewhere left a deep mark, and triggered a search for wisdom in Greek and Hellenistic philosophy as well as the classics of Indian, Hindu, and Buddhist spirituality.In 1967 he started the Noetic Society to study Socrates, Plato, and the Neoplatonists along with Indian religion, tantra, and Zen. One of his most intriguing experiments was the software program "To Artemis: The Challenge to Know Thyself" which used "400 structured questions" to model a process users could follow to solve their own problems and explore their beliefs. This is no longer extant anywhere on the Internet - I have posted in various places trying to resurrect it, but to no avail. If you are willing to waste some time, contact whoever is left at this place, and see if we can revive Artemis, or at least read the questions.https://www.noeticsociety.org/members--//--Music by Max John, Schubert Impromptu No.3 in G-flat Majorhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icowasnkEqw

ADVISORY - Contains explicit description of warfare, killing, torture, and mutilation.FULL EPISODE DESCRIPTION ON PATREONMusic by Anapse.

FULL EPISODE DESCRIPTION ON PATREONI, William Engels, write articles on Substack.Books Mentioned:Arendt: Origins of TotalitarianismArendt: The Human ConditionArendt: Between Past and FutureProgressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness by Ven. Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche"Natality" as a conceptThe Heart Sutra2666 by Roberto Bolaño (review so far, on page 250 of 1000 - no exaggeration - depressing and smart, but still a bit boring.The VALIS Trilogy by Philip K. Dick

I read Epictetus Discourses and Enchiridion with Professor Gregory Sadler https://gregorybsadler.substack.com/ - although we both started off by dunking a bit on Bertrand Russell.Full show notes with books/links for free on Patreon

RIP Bruno Latour (1947-2022)Follow Will’s writing on his Substack page, Hemlock:https://williamengels.substack.comSupport the entire show on Patreon and get early access:https://patreon.com/c/hemlockpatreonIn 2013, philosopher Bruno Latour delivered his lecture series “Facing Gaia: Six Lectures on the Political Theology of Nature” at the St. Cecilia Hall inside the University of Edinburgh. These are the six lectures:Lecture 1: Once Out of NatureLecture 2: The New Climatic RegimeLecture 3: The Puzzling Face of a Secular GaiaLecture 4: Anthropocene and the Destruction of the GlobeLecture 5: War of the WorldsLecture 6: Inside the "Parliaments of Nature"For further context, you can read the full discussion guide (144 pages) here. Here's a quick intro taken from the discussion guide (which was dedicated to Continental philosopher Peter Sloterdijk):Summary of the lectures: Those six lectures in ‘natural religion’ explore what it could mean to live at the epoch of the Anthropocene when what was until now a mere décor for human history is becoming the principal actor. They confront head on the controversial figure of Gaia, that is, the Earth understood not as system but as what has a history, what mobilizes everything in the same geostory. Gaia is not Nature, nor is it a deity. In order to face a secular Gaia, we need to extract ourselves from the amalgam of Religion and Nature. It is a new form of political power that has to be explored through a renewed attempt at political theology composed of those three concepts: demos, theos and nomos. It is only once the multiplicity of people in conflicts for the new geopolitics of the Anthropocene is recognized, that the ‘planetary boundaries’ might be recognized as political delineations and the question of peace addressed. Neither Nature nor Gods bring unity and peace. ‘The people of Gaia’, the Earthbound might be the ‘artisans of peace’.The lectures are organized by groups of two, the two first ones deal with the question of Natural Religion per se and show that the notion is confusing because on the one hand 'nature' and 'religion' share too many attributes and, on the other, the two notions fail to register the originality of scientific practice and the specificity of the religious regime of enunciation.Once the pleonasm of Natural Religion is pushed aside, it becomes possible to take up, in the next two lectures, the question,first of Gaia as it has been conceived by James Lovelock and of the Anthropocene, as it has been explored by geologists and climate scientists. It is thus possible to differentiate the figure of the Earth and of the agencies that populate it from the notion of nature and of the globe thus bringing to the fore the geostory to which they all belong.In the last two lectures, after the notion of Natural Religion has been put aside, and after the complete originality of Gaia and geostory have been foregrounded, it becomes possible to reopen the political question at the heart of what will be life at the Anthropocene. Once the key question of war has been introduced, the search for a peace along the delineations allowed by politically relevant 'planetary boundaries' to which Earthbound (the new word for Humans) accept to be bound become again possible.Credits:Art Credit: Egyptian Fragment of Queen's Face, Amarna Period, Ancient Egypt, Metropolitan Museum of New York. Carved in yellow jasper. Creative Commons.Source Material, University of Edinburgh, 2013. Fair Use.Ending Song: Anastasia Huppmann performs Beethoven, Piano Sonata No.30 in E major. Creative Commons.Interlude Song: Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 4 in E-flat major, performed by Burhan Erdemir. Creative Commons.Intro Song: Schubert, Impromptu No.3 in G-flat major, performed by Max John. Creative Commons.