#306 - Bertrand Russell

Five years after abruptly ending their beloved podcast, Connor and Dan resuscitate the corpse and take her around town for one final spin. Not a ton of hard-hitting philosophy in this one! Just a good old fashioned hang sesh, and a much-needed opportunity for Connor and Dan to catch everyone up on what's been happening, where their heads are at in the year 2025, and which fantasy book they read most recently. Finally, some closure! 

A very special episode of Drunken Philosophy. 

In addition to being the patron saint of cynicism, the ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes is basically the patron saint of Drunken Philosophy. He was famous for living in an overturned wine barrel on the streets of Athens and generally thumbing his nose at the educated citizens of that old world metropolis. This week, Connor and Dan investigate Diogenes' whole deal and see if he had anything worth while to say. 

This week, Connor and Dan break quarantine in order to venture into the land of make believe. It's thought experiment time! Should people be free to do harmless actions? What if they're really gross? What if I'm just trying to get to work and they're being really gross? These are the pressing questions answered on this week's episode (sort of). 

Are we approaching end times or just a monumentally shift in the way we understand the world? If you were to ask European poet, philosopher, and student of culture Jean Gebser he would emphatically say it was the latter. This week, Connor and Dan discuss Gebser's various structures of consciousness to see where we've been, where we are, and where we're going.

This episode is going to require some imagination, some creativity, and some intuition on the part of the listener. Connor and Dan aren't quite sure they understand what Henri Bergson is talking about, but they like the cut of his jib and they like the way he makes them feel. Sometimes that's good enough.

The time has come to finally get analytical on this podcast and, in order to do so, Connor and Dan head straight to the source: The father of analytic philosophy, Bertrand Russell. We're talking logic, we're talking math, and we're talking paradoxes. But we're also talking about an anti-war atheist who managed to hang around on this Earth for a century. Pretty neat guy!

Where my science-heads at? This week, Connor and Dan do their best to wade through the murky waters of quantum theory and modern physics to see what kind of philosophical conundrums they can kick up. What will they find? An excuse to talk about the '90s TV show 'Sliders' of course!

All things must come to an end, including the brief saga of Leon Trotsky. The once central figure of a global revolution finds himself far from home and with very few friends. But Connor and Dan learn that, much like the other socialists of his ilk, Trotsky wasn't going down without a fight.

Continuing their series on Mr. Trotsky, the boys get into the nitty gritty of his particular brand of revolutionary socialism, i.e. Trotskyism. They also discuss Trotsky's military career and the first grumblings of discontent between him and a certain Joseph Stalin.