Jonathan Rée and James Wood challenge a hundred years of academic convention by reuniting the worlds of philosophy and literature, as they consider how style, narrative, and the expression of ideas play through philosophical writers including Kierkegaard, Mill, Nietzsche, Woolf, Beauvoir and Camus.
James Wood teaches literature at Harvard University and is a staff writer for The New Yorker as well as a contributor to the London Review of Books. His books include How Fiction Works, The Broken Estate and The Irresponsible Self.
Jonathan Rée is a frequent contributor to the London Review of Books and a freelance writer and philosopher. His most recent book on philosophy is Witcraft: The Invention of Philosophy in English.
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'Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions' by Jean-Paul Sartre
Episode 10
Sunday, August 17, 2025 • Duration 15:22
What is an emotion? In his 'Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions' (1939), Sartre picks up what William James, Martin Heidegger and others had written about this question to suggest what he believed to be a new thought on human emotion and its relation to consciousness. For Sartre, the emotions are not external forces acting upon consciousness but an action of consciousness as it tries to rearrange the world to suit itself, or as he puts it at the end of his book: a sudden fall of consciousness into magic. In this episode Jonathan and James discuss why Sartre’s rejection of the idea of the subconscious is not as much a departure from Freud’s theories as he thought they were, and the ways in which his attempt to establish a ‘phenomenological psychology’ manifested in other works, including Nausea, Being and Nothingness and The Words.
Note: Readers should use the translation by Philip Mairet. The earlier one by Bernard Frechtman, as Jonathan explains in the episode, contains numerous (often amusing) errors.
Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrcip
In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingscip
Further reading in the LRB:
Jonathan Rée on 'Being and Nothingness': https://lrb.me/cipsartre1
Sissela Bok on Sartre's life: https://lrb.me/cipsartre2
Edwards Said's encounter with Sartre: https://lrb.me/cipsartre3
Audiobooks from the LRB
Including Jonathan Rée's 'Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre': https://lrb.me/audiobookscip
'The Thing' by Martin Heidegger
Episode 9
Sunday, July 20, 2025 • Duration 15:31
What does it mean for a jug to be a jug? Or for any thing to be called a ‘thing’? In his 1950 lecture ‘Das Ding’, Heidegger attempts to cajole his audience away from their everyday way of seeing the world as consisting of objects that can be represented objectively, and into the kind of thinking that ‘responds and recalls’. For Heidegger, the world we experience is one of dynamic movement between revelation and concealment, where the essential nature of a thing lies in its ‘thinging’, and the ‘jug’s jug character consists in the poured gift of the jug’s pouring out’. In this episode Jonathan and James work through Heidegger’s ideas about both ‘things’ and time, and consider the purpose of his poetic style.
Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrcip
In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingscip
Further reading in the LRB:
Richard Rorty: Heidegger's Worlds
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v12/n03/richard-rorty/diary
J.P. Stern: Heil Heidegger
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v11/n08/j.p.-stern/heil-heidegger
James Miller: Arendt and Heidegger
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v17/n20/james-miller/thinking-without-a-banister
LRB AUDIOBOOKS
Discover audiobooks from the LRB, including Jonathan Rée's Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre:
https://lrb.me/audiobookscip
'The Will to Believe' by William James
Episode 8
Sunday, June 22, 2025 • Duration 17:29
Most of what we believe we believe on faith, even those beliefs we hold to be based on scientific fact. This assertion lies at the heart of William James’s essay ‘The Will to Believe’, originally delivered as a lecture and intended not so much as a defence of religion as an attack on anti-religion. James’s target was the ‘rugged and manly school of science’ and the kind of atheism ‘that goes around thumping its chest offering its biceps to be felt’. In this episode Jonathan Rée and James Wood look at the intellectual environment William James was working in, and against, in the second half of the 19th century, and its parallels in the ‘new atheism’ of today. They also discuss the extraordinary upbringing William (and his novelist brother Henry) received and the advice he offered to anyone contemplating suicide in his essay ‘Is life worth living?’
Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrcip
In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingscip
Read more in the LRB:
Helen Thaventhiran: William James's Prescriptions
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n20/helen-thaventhiran/no-dose-for-it-at-the-chemist
Michael Wood: William James and modernism
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v29/n18/michael-wood/understanding-forwards
Richard Poirier: Williams James's pragmatism
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v06/n19/richard-poirier/copying-the-coyote
LRB AUDIOBOOKS
Discover audiobooks from the LRB, including Jonathan Rée's Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre:
https://lrb.me/audiobookscip
'Schopenhauer as Educator' by Friedrich Nietzsche
Episode 7
Sunday, May 25, 2025 • Duration 29:41
For Nietzsche, Schopenhauer’s genius lay not in his ideas but in his heroic indifference, a thinker whose value to the world is as a liberator rather than a teacher, who shows us what philosophy is really for: to forget what we already know. ‘Schopenhauer as Educator’ was written in 1874, when Nietzsche was 30, and was published in a collection with three other essays – on Wagner, David Strauss and the use of history – that has come to be titled Untimely Meditations. In this episode Jonathan and James consider the essays together and their powerful attack on the ethos of the age, railing against the greed and power of the state, fake art, overweening science, the triviality of universities and, perhaps above all, the deification of success.
Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrcip
In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingscip
Read more in the LRB:
David Hoy on Nietzsche's life:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v09/n01/david-hoy/different-stories
J.P. Stern on 'Unmodern Observations' (or 'Untimely Meditations'):
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v12/n16/j.p.-stern/impatience
Jenny Diski on Elisabeth Nietzsche:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v25/n18/jenny-diski/it-wasn-t-him-it-was-her
LRB AUDIOBOOKS
Discover audiobooks from the LRB, including Jonathan Rée's Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre:
https://lrb.me/audiobookscip
'My Station and Its Duties' by F.H. Bradley
Episode 6
Sunday, April 27, 2025 • Duration 14:44
T.S. Eliot claimed that he learned his prose style from reading F.H. Bradley, and the poet wrote his PhD on the English philosopher at Harvard. Bradley’s life was remarkably unremarkable, as he spent his entire career as a fellow of Merton College, Oxford, where his only obligation was not to get married. Yet in over fifty years of slow, meticulous writing he articulated a series of unusual and arresting ideas that attacked Kantian and utilitarian notions of duty and morality. In this episode, Jonathan and James look at Bradley’s polemic against John Stuart Mill, ‘My Station and Its Duties’, and other essays in Ethical Studies, which challenge the idea of morality as a product of calm reasoning arrived at by mature, rational minds. For Bradley, morality is a characteristic of communities, determined by people’s differing needs at various stages in their lives, and the universal need for self-realisation can only be achieved through those communities.
Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrcip
In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingscip
Read more in the LRB:
Frank Kermode on Eliot and Bradley:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v10/n17/frank-kermode/feast-of-st-thomas
LRB AUDIOBOOKS
Discover audiobooks from the LRB, including Jonathan Rée's Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre:
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'Autobiography' by John Stuart Mill
Episode 5
Sunday, March 30, 2025 • Duration 14:13
Mill’s 'Autobiography' was considered too shocking to publish while he was alive. Behind his musings on many of the philosophical and political preoccupations of his time lie the confessions of a deeply repressed man who knows that he’s deeply repressed, coming to terms with the uncompromising educational experiment his father subjected him to as a child – described by Isaiah Berlin as ‘an appalling success’. In this episode Jonathan and James discuss Mill’s startlingly honest account of this experience and the breakdown that ensued in his 20s, and the boldness of his life and thought from his views on socialism and the rights of women to his unwavering devotion to his wife, Harriet Taylor, the co-author of 'On Liberty' and other works.
Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrcip
In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingscip
Further reading in the LRB:
Sissela Bok on Mill's 'Autobiography':
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v06/n06/sissela-bok/his-father-s-children
Alasdair MacIntyre: Mill's Forgotten Victory
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v02/n20/alasdair-macintyre/john-stuart-mill-s-forgotten-victory
Panbkaj Mishra: Bland Fanatics
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v37/n23/pankaj-mishra/bland-fanatics
Next Episode
F.H. Bradley's 'My Station and Its Duties' can be found online here:
https://archive.org/details/ethicalstudies0000brad/page/160/mode/2up
LRB AUDIOBOOKS
Discover audiobooks from the LRB, including Jonathan Rée's Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre:
https://lrb.me/audiobookscip
'Circles' and other essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Episode 4
Monday, March 3, 2025 • Duration 15:10
Circular reasoning is normally condemned by philosophers, but in his 1841 essay ‘Circles’, Emerson proposes that not getting anywhere is precisely what we need to do to find out where we already are. In this episode, Jonathan and James consider Emerson’s use of the circle to demonstrate an idealistic philosophy rooted in the natural world, in which individuals are bounded by self-created horizons, and the extent to which this fits with Transcendentalist notions of progress and independence. They also discuss what his other essays, including ‘Self-Reliance’, ‘Art’ and ‘Nature’, have to say about the importance of thinking one’s own thoughts, and why Emerson had such a powerful influence on writers as varied as Nietzsche, Saul Bellow and Louisa May Alcott.
Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrcip
In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingscip
Read 'Circles' here:
https://emersoncentral.com/texts/essays-first-series/circles/
Read more in the LRB:
Tony Tanner on the life of Emerson:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v17/n10/tony-tanner/arctic-habits
Colin Burrow on the American canon:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/n22/colin-burrow/the-magic-bloomschtick
LRB AUDIOBOOKS
Discover audiobooks from the LRB, including Jonathan Rée's Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre:
https://lrb.me/audiobookscip
'The Essence of Christianity' by Ludwig Feuerbach
Episode 3
Monday, February 3, 2025 • Duration 10:29
In The Essence of Christianity (1841) Feuerbach works through the theological crisis of his age to articulate the central, radical idea of 19th-century atheism: that the religion of God is really the religion of humanity. In this episode, Jonathan and James discuss the ways in which the book applies this thought to various aspects of Christian doctrine, from sexual relations to the Trinity, and consider why Feuerbach would never have described himself as an atheist. They also look at George Eliot’s remarkable translation of the work, published only thirteen years after the original, which not only ensured Feuerbach’s influence in the Anglophone world but invented a new philosophical vocabulary in English for German thought.
Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrcip
In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingscip
Further reading in the LRB:
James Wood: What next?
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v33/n08/james-wood/what-s-next
Terry Eagleton: George Eliot
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v17/n18/terry-eagleton/biogspeak
LRB AUDIOBOOKS
Discover audiobooks from the LRB, including Jonathan Rée's Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre:
https://lrb.me/audiobookscip
'Fear and Trembling' by Søren Kierkegaard
Episode 2
Monday, January 6, 2025 • Duration 12:24
The series begins with Søren Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling (1843), an exploration of faith through the story of Abraham and Isaac. Like most of Kierkegaard’s published work, Fear and Trembling appeared under a pseudonym, Johannes de Silentio, and its playful relationship to the reader doesn’t stop there. Described as a ‘dialectical lyric’ on the title page, the book works through a variety of formats in its attempt to understand the nature of faith and the apparently unsolvable paradox that the father of the Abrahamic religions was prepared to murder his own son. James and Jonathan consider whether Kierkegaard thinks we can understand anything, and what Fear and Trembling has in common with the works of Dostoevsky and Kafka.
Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrcip
In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingscip
Further reading in the LRB:
Jonathan Rée: Dancing in the Service of Thought https://lrb.me/cipkierkegaard1
James Butler: Reading Genesis https://lrb.me/cipkierkegaard2
Roger Poole: A Walk with Kierkegaard https://lrb.me/cipkierkegaard3
Terry Eagleton: A Long Way from Galilee https://lrb.me/cipkierkegaard4
James Wood teaches literature at Harvard University and is a staff writer for The New Yorker as well as a contributor to the London Review of Books. His books include How Fiction Works, The Broken Estate and The Irresponsible Self.
Jonathan Rée is a frequent contributor to the London Review of Books and a freelance writer and philosopher. His most recent book on philosophy is Witcraft: The Invention of Philosophy in English.
LRB AUDIOBOOKS
Discover audiobooks from the LRB, including Jonathan Rée's Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre:
https://lrb.me/audiobookscip
Introducing 'Conversations in Philosophy'
Episode 1
Wednesday, January 1, 2025 • Duration 08:35
James Wood and Jonathan Rée introduce their new Close Readings series, Conversations in Philosophy, running throughout 2025. They explain the title of the series and why they'll be challenging a hundred years of academic convention by reuniting the worlds of literature and philosophy.
James Wood teaches literature at Harvard University and is a staff writer for The New Yorker as well as a contributor to the London Review of Books. His books include How Fiction Works, The Broken Estate and The Irresponsible Self.
Jonathan Rée is a frequent contributor to the London Review of Books and a freelance writer and philosopher. His most recent book on philosophy is Witcraft: The Invention of Philosophy in English.
The full list of texts for the series:
Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling
Ludwig Feuerbach, Essence of Christianity, translated by George Eliot
Ralph Waldo Emerson, ‘Circles’ and other essays
John Stuart Mill, An Autobiography
F.H. Bradley, ‘My station and its duties’
Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘Schopenhauer as Educator’
William James ‘The Will to Believe’
Martin Heidegger, ‘The Thing’
Jean-Paul Sartre, Theory of the Emotions
Simone de Beauvoir, Ethics of Ambiguity
Albert Camus, The Fall
Iris Murdoch, Sovereignty of Good
Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
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