Sound Philosophy

Eric Taxier and I discuss Aristotle on the emotion of anger.

Eric Taxier and I discuss Book 4, Chapter 2 in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, his treatment of the virtue of magnificence (grand spending).

This episode briefly examines two tracks produced by J Dilla: "Runnin'" by the Pharcyde and "Show Me What You Got" by Busta Rhymes. I discuss the stratification in Dilla's beats, their stuttering quality, their use and avoidance of quantization, and the response of the rappers to those beats.

This episode looks at "Sober" and "Vicarious" by Tool and discusses the release and impact of Fear Inoculum.

A look at the shift from funky R&B to Funk as a standalone genre. I discuss the various elements of Funk, particularly what I'm calling "Funk Counterpoint" by examining The Meters' "Cissy Strut," and James Brown's "Cold Sweat."

Eric Taxier and I finish our discussion of Book 3 of the Nicomachean Ethics by examining Aristotle's analysis of temperance.

This episode discusses claims that Minimalism (and minimal music more widely understood) boils down to advertising and propaganda (riffing on interviews by Elliott Carter and Philip Glass). I look at some pop songs that were clearly influenced by Minimalism, some that are parallel to it, and some that are simply minimalist in some manner.

This episode briefly introduces flamenco music and then touches on the compas--the approach to meter within this music--by specifically looking at the genre of the siguiriyas.

Eric Taxier and I discuss Chapters 5-6 of Book I of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. We discuss various candidates for happiness and what they are lacking and then examine Aristotle's critique of Plato's Form of the Good.

This is the third in a series where I'm joined by Eric Taxier to discuss Kant's First Critique, the Critique of Pure Reason. In this episode we discuss the Introduction to the Critique. The first segment discusses Kant's conception of the collaboration between the object and our faculties for comprehending that object as well as the distinction between the a priori and the a posteriori. The second segment turn to the Kantian distinction between the analytic and the synthetic and examines the notion of the analytic as involving containment. The third segment zeroes in on the synthetic and the manner in which we are a necessary component of the act of synthesis. We also examine the troubling (for many) notion that math exemplifies the synthetic rather than the analytic. 

This is the first in a series of episodes in which Chad Jenkins and Eric Taxier discuss the Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant. This episode covers some background information including the conflict between Rationalism and Empiricism, Kant's pre-critical writings, and the authors that led him to the critical impasse: Leibniz, Hume, and Rousseau. 

This episode discusses the musical culture of the North American colonies and the early United States culminating in the Copyright Act of 1790. We will suggest that this law was an important step on the way toward establishing mass art as the primary form of cultural expression in the United States. We will also see that this law is not nearly as straightforward philosophically and legally as it might, at first, seem.