Philosophy vs. Improv – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Our long lost episode. Consider it a mystery box.

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Important announcement for Chicago-area listeners: On Wed. 8/21, Mark and Bill will record a live episode of PvI at iO Theater (1501 N Kingsbury St.). Our show runs from 6-7 pm followed by a Bill-hosted regular improv event called The Green Room. Admission is free, parking is plentiful, no reservations required. Come meet us!

Internationally best-selling author David wrote a book (and made a film) called How We Got Here, which traces the gradual path in the history of ideas from the ancients through various forms of perspectivism, relativism, and post-modernism to the post-truth discourse that authoritarians and wanna-be authoritarians engage in.

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David’s book is in a very terse style, in line with his overall career emphasis on brevity, so we talk about this choice and how it means in most cases not actually explaining any of the ideas involved much less arguing for his interpretation of them. Instead, a series of quotations and short explanations prompt readers to see the lines of influence themselves. This is not a dismissal of post-modernism due to its deleterious consequences, as he sees the current liberal absolutist reaction (there IS objective truth and morality and Trump and his ilk are ignoring) as foolishly antiquated.

We read some passages and discuss some of the many figures that come up, including Allan Bloom, Levi-Strauss, Vladislav Surkov, plus the various philosophers like Nietzsche that inspired David’s aphoristic style.

We don’t actually get into evaluating the idea that truth is relative (or subjective, or unknowable such that for practical purposes we can treat it as relative), though this has been covered a number of times in past Partially Examined Life episodes, and we’re currently recording a two-episode run on Richard Rorty, who gives among the more comprehensible defenses of this counter-intuitive thesis.

Through some brief improv scenes that David was possibly unaware were happening, Mark and Bill explore whether the denial of the objectivity of truth would be a good campaign strategy, and also what life David’s concise book might leave now that it has separated from his mind and source materials and become autonomous.

The image is from Pinterest. It’s a shield. You’ll have to trace yourself the historical evolution between our guest David Shields and actual shields and images of shields drawn by children.

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! You’ll get all of our post-game discussions and other exclusive bonus content.

You can choose to watch this on YouTube.

If people would be uniquely healed by your blood, how much would you charge for it? Would it make a difference if they were wealthy vampires? Bill entices Mark to join a cult.

You can watch video for this episode, including all our post-game chatting, all ad-free, just by visiting our Patreon page; you need not subscribe.

The episode image was snatched from here.

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Jonny taught philosophy at Oxford, wrote the international bestseller Mini Philosophy, and now writes for Big Think.

We talk Kierkegaard and act out some scenes about scouting and military recruitment. Do we have to live within labels? Does one have to leap to a label, without justification?

For much more Kierkegaard, see our series on The Partially Examined Life.

Watch Jonny do mini philosophy on YouTube. Follow him @philosophyminis and @philosophyminis. His 2023 book is called Mini Big Ideas: A Little Book of Big Innovations.

Sponsor: If you enjoy our podcast, check out Historical Blindness.

You may choose to watch the unedited video of this episode and WAIT while Mark loses audio for a minute near the end.

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! You’ll get all of our post-game discussions and other exclusive bonus content.

The image is by a girl scout, showing apparently the overcoming of existential isolation via doughnut transfer, was snatched from this page.

Audio editing by Daniel Thabet of podcastdoctors.com.

Katie is the co-artistic director of Chicago’s IO theater and used to do Comedy Sports improv with Bill. She also took a lot of classes in philosophy and religion, so we talk some about cults, Kierkegaard, tolerance, and more. In our scenes, a family contemplates celebrating Christmas differently this year, and people debate the appropriate gift for a newborn king.

Follow @KatieCaussin and @katiecaussin.

Sponsors: Get a meal for $1.49 plus $1 steaks at EveryPlate.com/podcast, code 49improv. Get a weekly dose of Internet comedy at CanYouDontPodcast.com.

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! You’ll get all of our post-game discussions and other exclusive bonus content.

Audio editing by Daniel Thabet of podcastdoctors.com.

The image was delivered by by Google from a St. Mary’s Church, but its context of reference seems to have been removed from the Internet. Suspicious!

It’s our office holiday party, where we engage in chit-chat then enter into a few holiday scenes. Is there any philosophy content in this one at all? We do talk a bit about status and authority. Was there any particular improv lesson? We forgot to actually lay out our lessons at the end, and (SPOILER) declined to name a winner.

Our Post-Game discussion is a mere 2.5 minutes long, so we’ve thrown it into your listening bargain. It’s oozing with holiday good will that you probably need given that the holidays are now weeks behind us.

The holiday image is by someone named Ava who was a child in 2005 when this was posted.

If you’d prefer to watch this as video, do so.

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast to get all of those post-game segments, typically much longer than this one.

Sukaina teaches philosophy at U. of Pennsylvania, combining work from ancient Greek, contemporary moral, and feminist philosophy. She lets Mark and Bill know about critiques by feminist philosophers of the idea of consent. We talk a bit about moral agency, teaching dynamics given these kids today, Aristotelian virtue, and testing personality types by turning them up to 11. Also, did our last episode involve improv against the someone’s will?

Follow Sukaina on Twitter and Instagram. Check out her work at sukaina-hirji.com.

The paper Sukaina refers to at the beginning is “That’s What She Said: The Language of Sexual Negotiation” by Quill Kukla.

The image, of course, by Raphael, but is the version created by Mark’s character in our first scene. Have we earned an ‘A’ yet?

Watch the interrogation unedited.

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! You’ll get all of our post-game discussions and other exclusive bonus content. Just for visiting patreon.com/philosophyimprov you can see a special full-length holiday episode.

Audio editing by Tyler Hislop.

Kevin is the creator and host of the storytelling podcast RISK! and is the alphabetically foremost member of the MTV-televised, newly reformed, celebrity-infested sketch comedy troupe The State. He tells us he was also the creative director of an improv troupe for a year, but it’s not his primary jam, so we talk about that before launching into a scene about a suspicious hotel.

How does one engineer one’s legacy? Can you, or will history inevitably either reduce your greatest contributions to mere noise or reinterpret them in light of, for instance, your final, embarrassing moments? Perhaps the legendary comedy team of Ricky and Lester can serve as a scenic example; let’s let them say a little about who they are and how their career reached its current nadir.

Keep up with The State at the-state.com. Listen to Mark interview Kevin about RISK! on Pretty Much Pop. Follow Kevin @TheKevinAllison and @thekevinallison.

The image here is the first actually commissioned for this podcast, by the child of listener Heath Adams. It’s supposed to be a dinosaur, must like us legacy podcasters (RISK! started one year before PEL). And yet what could be more ephemeral than whiteboard art? Thank you, Heath and child, for the profound sentiment, sure to impregnate each viewer with their own profound artworks, creating a chain reaction that will undoubtedly last through eternity. And thus is the legacy of this show secured.

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! You’ll get all of our post-game discussions and other exclusive bonus content.

Audio editing by Tyler Hislop.

Recorded on 9/11 (a date not known primarily for its improv activities), only now making its way to you, this discussion between Mark and Bill talk child deification, pop philosophy vs. pop improv, foreign accents, and guns in schools in the hands of improvisers.

The image is from this Reddit article asking for ideas on how to “spice up” a potential tattoo drawing of mice by the poster’s daughter. The comments on the page are not flattering.

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! You’ll get all of our post-game discussions and other exclusive bonus content, including the paywalled David Chalmers 2012 PEL interview.

Audio editing by Tyler Hislop.

Returning freedom fighters Andrew and Linda and join Bill and Mark to talk about philosophical liberalism: Its rationales and varieties. Plus, preschool orientation, and Greek gods creating a new world.

Follow Linda @IrisCutter. Her weekly improv show is with the troupe Dumb John. Listen to Andrew’s philosophy podcast, Reductio, which has dwelt further on Rawlsian liberalism, as has Mark on PEL.

The episode image is from the U.S. Department of Defense, which apparently either commissions child art or more likely collects art from the children of military personnel. We honor their service and the service of their fathers by joking about historic military generals, and so do the Washington Generals, who likewise slack not in their struggle against the imperialistic Globetrotters.

Watch the live video on YouTube:

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! You’ll get all of our post-game discussions and other exclusive bonus content.

However, as a sample, THIS episode includes a short post-game: We talk a bit more about criticisms of liberalism (e.g. by Charles Mills), plug our guests’ shows, and Bill points us at Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace.

Audio editing by Tyler Hislop.

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