PODCAST · education
Adventures Among Ideas
by David Dennen
This podcast by David Dennen, PhD explores ideas in philosophy, cultural history, and literary theory. The point is view is generally Romanticist, pragmatist, and behaviorist, but other traditions are explored as well. Episodes are usually monologues, occasionally dialogues.
Episodes
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Film Criticism in Theory and Practice with CJ Sheu
I talk with film reviewer and literary critic CJ Sheu (許景順) about how he got into film reviewing, his favorite critics, the differences between academic and journalistic criticism, the relation between literature and film, and more.
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The Gamer's Dilemma: The Ethics of Sex and Violence in Videogames
Is it immoral to depict or commit violence in video games? What about sexual violence? Daniel Tarpy and I discuss the gamer's dilemma and the nature of games.
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Video Games Are Not Art. But They Are Important.
Why video games are not art but are still culturally valuable. Compares the aesthetic attitude to the ludic attitude.
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Conversation with Johannes Jaeger on Agency, Algorithms, Art, and Bullshit
Daniel Tarpy and I talk with Johannes "Yogi" Jaeger about a wide range of topics, including: why philosophy should be important to biology, how our ideas affect the world we live in, the differences between living systems and algorithm-based systems, Michael Levin's "Technological Approach to…
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Emergence & Consciousness Reconsidered
Further thoughts on emergence and consciousness. Written version: https://daviddennen.medium.com/emergence-and-consciousness-reconsidered-7a5c19d5759b
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Is Consciousness Emergent?
I and Daniel Tarpy try to figure out what emergence means. Is it novelty? Is it the unpredictable? Is it rare? Is it everywhere? What sorts of things are emergent? How do we know when something is emergent? In part 2 we try to explain in what sense we think consciousness is emergent. Along the…
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Qualitative Binding: How Art Is Made Whole
On the concept of "qualitative binding" in art with reference to John Dewey, John Middleton Murry, Susanne Langer, Vincent van Gogh, and Richard Wright.
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Exploring Fundamental Reality with Daniel Tarpy and Tyler Piteo-Tarpy
In this conversation I, Daniel Tarpy, and Tyler Piteo-Tarpy discuss several ways of thinking about fundamental reality, including idealism, materialism/physicalism, pantheism and panentheism, pragmatism/relationalism, and triunalism. The conversation is exploratory; hopefully we’ll revisit…
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Discussing Free Will & Determinism: On Sapolsky, Harris, Dennett, and Others
Do we have free will? Does it matter? Daniel Tarpy joins me to discuss the free will debate. We discuss some classic and recent ideas about free will and determinism, including those of Robert Sapolsky, Kevin Mitchell, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, John Dewey, C. A. Campbell, and Roderick Chisolm.
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Is Frank Jackson's Knowledge Argument about Knowledge?
I argue that the problem with Frank Jackson's Knowledge Argument (or Mary's Room Argument) against physicalism is that it's not about knowledge.
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What Is Aesthetic Experience? Part 1: Dewey
What does John Dewey have to say about aesthetic experience?
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Are Chatbots Conscious?
Is it possible for an artificial intelligence to become really conscious? Are some AIs already conscious, as at least a few people think? And in particular, are large-language-model-based chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Bard—which after all seem to express thoughts and...
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Jay Ogilvy in 4 Essays: Paradigms, Power, and Possible Futures
In this episode I look at four essays by the philosopher Jay Ogilvy on paradigm shifts, the nature of power, and possible futures. -- Ogilvy, James. “Understanding Power.” Philosophy & Social Criticism, vol. 5, no. 2 (1978): 128–144. https://doi.org/10.1177/019145377800500202 Ogilvy, James. “From...
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Literature and Knowledge (Walsh)
A discussion of experiential knowledge and virtual experience based on Dorothy Walsh's Literature and Knowledge (1969).
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Literature and Knowledge (Vivas)
More on the relation between literature and knowledge, this time through the work of Eliseo Vivas.
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Literature and Knowledge (Peckham)
Does literature give us knowledge? If so, what kind of knowledge? And knowledge about what? In this episode I explore literature as propositional knowledge, behavioral knowledge, and reorientational knowledge. Based on Morse Peckham's essay "Literature and Knowledge" (1972).
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Jacques Derrida's Two Kinds of Reading
Discusses Derrida's deconstruction as a kind of double reading. Useful Readings: *Abrams, M. H. “Construing and Deconstructing” (1986). Collected with Abrams’ other essay on deconstruction in Doing Things with Texts (1989). https://archive.org/details/doingthingswitht00abra *Kakoliris, Gerasimos....
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Wayne Booth on Vitality, Justice, Understanding, and Overstanding
In this episode I discuss Wayne C. Booth's four values for good critical (and perhaps social and political) life. Based on Booth's Critical Understanding (1979).
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Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, Behaviorist
Is Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle a behaviorist? Listen and find out!
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Toward an Ethics of Reading
In this episode I discuss a few ideas of the literary critic J. Hillis Miller on the ethics of reading.
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Classic Theories of the Mind: Monisms
More theories of the mind: panpsychism, mind-brain identity theory, and behaviorism!
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Classic Theories of the Mind: Dualisms
Introducing three classic theories of the mind from a dualistic perspective: interactionism, parallelism, and epiphenomenalism.
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Behaviorism's Resolution of Psychology's Incoherence
On the incoherences in traditional psychology and how behaviorism tried to resolve them.
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B. F. Skinner on the Development of Subjectivity
How do we come to know about our own subjective states? B. F. Skinner has given a pretty clear analysis of how this happens in his article “The Operational Analysis of Psychological Terms” (1945) and his book Verbal Behavior (1957). I discuss.
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Conversation with Will Kitchen on Romanticism and Film
Dr. Will Kitchen joins me for a conversation about his book Romanticism and Film: Franz Liszt and Audio-Visual Explanation (Bloomsbury, 2021). Dr. Kitchen is currently a teaching fellow in film studies at the University of Southampton. We discuss how Romanticism influenced the development of film...
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John Dewey on States of Mind
In this episode I focus on a 1912 paper by John Dewey called "What Are States of Mind?" The paper is significant for recasting Dewey's theory of emotion (based on the James-Lange theory) with a more social emphasis.
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James Michener on Lifestyle and Language (Understanding the 1960s-70s)
A view of 1960s-70s culture from James A. Michener's Kent State (1971).
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Morse Peckham on the Intentional? Fallacy?
What is the intentional fallacy? Is it intentional? Is it a fallacy? A bit about Peckham's critique of the famous Wimsatt and Beardsley essay and his own theory of intention. Based on Peckham's "The Intentional? Fallacy?" (1968). Recorded 17 December 2021
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The Nature of Language and Speech (A Gardinerian View)
What is language? What is speech? What are words and sentences? In this episode I present answers to these questions by Alan H. Gardiner (1879–1963).
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B. F. Skinner's Theory of Literature
I give an overview of B. F. Skinner's theory of literature—a theory you never knew existed but can't possibly live without! Recorded 10 December 2021
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What is Language? A Saussurean View
What is the best way to think about language? Where does it come from? How do we use it? One important resource in answering these kinds of questions has been Ferdinand de Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics (1916). In this episode I explore Saussure’s view of language and speech and his...
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Morse Peckham's Theory of Value and "Joker"
I discuss Morse Peckham's theory of value (or self-esteem) and apply it to the movie Joker (2019). Recorded 3 December 2021
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John Dewey's Theory of Valuation
I talk about some key parts of John Dewey's "Theory of Valuation" (1939). This work is important as a major naturalistic and behavioristic theory of value. Recorded 26 November 2021
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What Are Cell Assemblies and Why Do They Matter?
Cell assemblies, as proposed by Donald Hebb, are groups of neurons that have something to do with concepts; they bridge the gap between the psychological and the biological. In this episode I introduce and explore Hebb’s cell assembly theory using Christian R. Huyck and Peter J. Passmore’s…
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Mind as Self-Conversation (on Thomas Szasz)
On Thomas Szasz's theory of mind, based mostly on his paper "Mind, Brain, and the Problem of Responsibility" (2000).
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Conversation with Tomi Gomory on Thomas Szasz
I chat with Tomi Gomory about the well-known psychiatrist Thomas Szasz. Tomi is an associate professor of social work at Florida State University. He was a friend of Szasz during the end of Szasz’s life and is working on a biography about him. Here we discuss some of Szasz’s basic ideas, his…
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Personal Reflections on “Jordan Peterson: Critical Responses”
In this episode I reflect on the recent essay collection Jordan Peterson: Critical Responses (edited by Sandra Woien, Open Universe). I contributed a chapter to this book on Peterson’s theory of human behavior. However, here I mainly focus on what other authors have written about Peterson’s...
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John B. Watson on Mental Disease (1916)
A discussion of John B. Watson's paper "Behavior and the Concept of Mental Disease" from 1916. Recorded 12 November 2021
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Anita Avramides on John Locke on Other Minds
On the very first episode of Adventures Among Ideas, I discuss Anita Avramides' discussion (in her book Other Minds, 2001) of John Locke's view of the existence of other minds. Recorded 5 November 2021
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Morse Peckham on the Two Kinds of Interpretation (The Limits of Pluralism 5)
In this episode I discuss the differences between situational and emergent interpretation based on Morse Peckham's "The Infinitude of Pluralism" (1977). I also conclude the discussion of the “Limits of Pluralism” debate.
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John Dewey's Critique of the Reflex Arc Concept
Are we just "a series of jerks"? In this episode I explore John Dewey's famous critical paper "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology" (1896). Recorded 24 December 2021
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James Kincaid on Coherent Readers and Incoherent Texts (The Limits of Pluralism 4)
I discuss James Kincaid's view, in "Coherent Readers, Incoherent Texts" (1977), that the text is an incoherent set of patterns that the reader tries (and fails) to unify through the activity of reading.
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What Are Literary Minds? (Joshua Gang)
Joshua Gang’s book Behaviorism, Consciousness, and the Literary Mind (Johns Hopkins, 2021) is an intriguing look at the history of behavioristic psychology and its relevance to twentieth-century literature (especially Beckett, Pinter, and Coetzee). In this video I take on Gang's concept of...
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Do You Know Yourself? How? (on Abduction)
How are we able to know ourselves? In this episode I explore abduction, induction, and deduction via “Abductive Inference, Self-Knowledge, and the Myth of Introspection” (2021) by Eric P. Charles and Nicholas S. Thompson. Read their chapter here:...
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Audre Lorde vs. James Feibleman on Mothers and Male Violence
A dialogue of sorts between philosopher James Feibleman and poet-activist Audre Lorde. On the age-old question: What is the appropriate parental response to bullying? Recorded 14 January 2022.
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J. Hillis Miller on Deconstruction and Nihilism (The Limits of Pluralism 3)
What is the relation between a critical text and a literary text? Is it like the relation between a parasite and its host? What about the relation between metaphysics and nihilism? In the third part of the “Limits of Pluralism” debate, we follow J. Hillis Miller in exploring these issues.
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M. H. Abrams on the Deconstructive Echo-Chamber (The Limits of Pluralism 2)
On this episode I explore M. H. Abrams' critique, in "The Deconstructive Angel" (1977), of Jacques Derrida and J. Hillis Miller, from the Limits of Pluralism debate.
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Wayne Booth and the Ethics of Criticism (The Limits of Pluralism 1)
Part 1 of a series on the "Limits of Pluralism" debate of 1977. Do texts have meanings? How many meanings do they have? How can we know about these meanings? On this episode, Wayne Booth opens the debate.
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
This podcast by David Dennen, PhD explores ideas in philosophy, cultural history, and literary theory. The point is view is generally Romanticist, pragmatist, and behaviorist, but other traditions are explored as well. Episodes are usually monologues, occasionally dialogues.
HOSTED BY
David Dennen
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Adventures Among Ideas have?
Adventures Among Ideas currently has 48 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Adventures Among Ideas about?
This podcast by David Dennen, PhD explores ideas in philosophy, cultural history, and literary theory. The point is view is generally Romanticist, pragmatist, and behaviorist, but other traditions are explored as well. Episodes are usually monologues, occasionally dialogues.
How often does Adventures Among Ideas release new episodes?
Adventures Among Ideas has 48 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Adventures Among Ideas?
You can listen to Adventures Among Ideas on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Adventures Among Ideas?
Adventures Among Ideas is created and hosted by David Dennen.
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