Our long lost episode. Consider it a mystery box.

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.

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.

Sponsor: Try online therapy at betterhelp.com/improv and get 10% off your first month.

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.

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast!

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.

Sponsor: Visit FactorMeals.com/improv50 (code improv50) to get 50% off America’s #1 Ready-To-Eat Meal Kit.

The New York University Prof and author of many influential books including the new Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy joins Mark and Bill to simulate debates about AI, cybersex, actor vs. character, and keeping children safe from reality.

We refer to Nick Bostrom’s argument that we’re most likely now in a simulation. In a past episode, we discussed Robert Nozick’s “experience machine.” If you somehow didn’t know what we were talking about re. Rudy Giuliani in Borat 2, watch it. Check out Mark’s previous interview with David.

The art is by Socrates Gates at age 5 (called “Journey to Enlightenment”). 

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! You’ll get all of our post-game discussions and other exclusive bonus content. (I’ll even put the old Chalmers episode up there within the next week.)

Audio editing by Tyler Hislop.

Sponsor: Visit FactorMeals.com/improv50 (code improv50) to get 50% off America’s #1 Ready-To-Eat Meal Kit.

Watch the episode on video:

The author of The Accomplished Creative, a sort of anti-self-help book based around Jeremy’s improv experience and what he learned as a philosophy major, joins Mark and Bill to talk impostor syndrome and benign violations, get real meta about Die Hard scenarios, and have a cheese intervention. 

Follow @JeremyRichards. Listen to Jeremy’s podcast Think Like An Improviser. His Seattle improv venue is Unexpected Productions. Jeremy also wrote a musical about Nietzsche.

The image is by Blair G.

If you’d like, you can watch this episode as unedited video:

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.

Sponsor: Visit FactorMeals.com/improv50 (code improv50) to get 50% off America’s #1 Ready-To-Eat Meal Kit.

Danny was in a sketch troupe called Maximum Party Zone back in the day with your improv host Bill, and they’ve now revived that trio to create the MPZ Listening Party podcast, which workshops sketch ideas in real time as a fun form of conversation. So we try out some of their tricks, such as combining two properties (in this case nominally The Apprentice and Argyle to create a pretentious reality show) and brainstorming about serial killer branding and palliative quantum leaping.

Plus, intent vs. impact, your legacy, auditioning for a mystery reality show, fake Roman names, you would be just as bad as Biden at debating, and infinitely more.

Sponsor: Try online therapy at betterhelp.com/improv.

What did the artist who drew this picture intend to draw, and what does he think pointing at it is supposed to indicate? YOU DECIDE!

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 unedited on YouTube.

It’s our season three premiere, and the elephants are in the room! It’s St. Lawrence University philosophy prof Jenny (a frequent PEL guest) in the ring with UIC Theater instructor/Podcaster with Hey Riddle Riddle and Hello From the Magic Tavern Adal, along with Mark and Bill, of course. And the Bullshot is flying! Who will be hit? Who will master the rings? Who will shoot from the hip? Who will tell it like it is? Who will have the narrowest viewpoint? The big promotion? The most clear and succinct tattoo?

Oh, also, this is another philosophy of language episode. PEL will actually be covering Frankfurt’s “On Bullshit” in a more systematic way very soon.

Care to watch this episode on video? Do it:

At the end, Adal recommended the comedian Theo Von as a good example of bullshitting as comedy.

Follow Adal on Twitter and Instagram. Jenny is too cool for social media, but you can follow her in your mind, if that’s not too creepy.

Adal appears to have a brand NEW podcast, “The Word Association.”

The image here is by Anshika, and for the first time, we have audio of the artist explaining her work and how it uses colors “like blue and yellow.” Sounds like I need to start a child’s art appreciation podcast!

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.

Sponsor: Visit FactorMeals.com/improv50 (code improv50) to get 50% off America’s #1 Ready-To-Eat Meal Kit.

Philosopher Matt, host of the Elucidations podcast and frequent PEL guest, finally gets in on Philosophy vs. Improv in this, our Season Two Finale. And many is he a de dicto. Or is he a de re? Slowly learn the difference as we make things personal through scenes of shit-talking and crime reporting.

Follow @ElucidationsPod.

The image is from a story about Hong Kong.

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

Audio editing by Tyler Hislop.

Sponsor: Check out The Good Life Method by Meghan Sullivan and Paul Blaschko.

How does new technology affect ethics? Anthony (who is on strike, but that doesn’t apply to improv) is an improviser with a computer science degree who now coaches kid TV actors. We talk personal identity, transhumanism, genetic engineering, AI, organizational ethics, Black Mirror, Beastars, and transporter virginity.

Listen to more transporter talk on The Partially Examined Life’s episode on Derek Parfit.

Follow Anthony @anthonyleblanc and @anthonypaulleblanc.

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

Audio editing by Tyler Hislop.

The image was pulled from a child’s review of a Star Trek film.

If you like our podcast, check out another show: Articles of Interest.

The guests are away, and so Billy and Markaroony will play. This fast-paced, sweet-moving discussion covers the genius individual artist and how that might or might not allow collaboration, genres and definitions, strife, and more. Mark just can’t WAIT for a canoe, and getting CRAZY at the salad bar. Oops, we forgot to determine a winner, so YOU decide.

The image was pulled from Reddit and is supposed to depict Nostradamus picking lottery numbers, which is not really relevant to anything we discussed apart from the word “numbers.”

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

Audio editing by Tyler Hislop.

If you like our podcast, check out another show: Articles of Interest.

Watch this episode as a video. This includes the full post-game segment, so you can see what you’re missing by not being a supporter to this podcast. Don’t you think it’s time you became one?

Monica is an actor and writer who ran a live-on-stage philosophy podcast called The Happier Hour, and so naturally we talk about happiness, or flourishing (eudaimonia).

Can babies with cancer be relied upon to responsibly spend donations? How can Bill get his hands on one of those rings of Gyges? Is philosophy necessary for the good life? Is humility? Does every philosopher carry a slide rule? Is an ethic “fulfilling your potential” problematic? Are some people’s happiness fundamentally opposed to others’? Also, reacting to the unusual, undertunity, and lawn care ideology.

The image was snatched from this site. Cancer sucks!

Take an online course this fall from Mark at partiallyexaminedlife.com/class.

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.

Sponsors: Visit HelloFresh.Com/improv50 (code improv50) for 50% off (plus free shipping) of America’s #1 Meal Kit. Visit Twit.tv/apple for three great podcasts about all things Apple.

Watch this episode in its unedited video form.

Chris has an act called “I Am the Show” where he improvises to a film that he hasn’t seen that’s playing silently, making up all the dialogue and sound effects. Here’s an example.

Mark and Bill talk to Chris about being a spectator or critic of art: To understand a work, is it good or necessary to try to divine the artist’s intentions, or is meaning in art something that happens after a work becomes an objective thing, such that the artist’s intentions are not really relevant, and in fact the author might not have any better idea than you do of its meaning?

This spurs us for some reason to enact some scenes initiated by pantomime, i.e. silence. Darts, anyone?

Listen to the Partially Examined Life episode where we talk about “death of the author” and related concepts.

The image, which for some reason came up when I searched for child’s drawings of monkeys, is from here. Audio editing by Tyler Hislop.

Follow Chris @RidingontheWall and @00george. Read his blog.

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

Sponsor: Visit HelloFresh.Com/improv50 (code improv50) for 50% off (plus free shipping) of America’s #1 Meal Kit.

Genevieve is a comedian, podcaster, and she was a philosophy major who’s studying for her doctorate in Divinity (in the Science of Mind/New Thought tradition). We talk about the idea that “we are all one” (and thus we are all God, if you want to call the sum of all things by that name) that’s in various traditions. Ralph Waldo Emerson called this the “oversoul.”

Unique to this episode, we pretty much front-load the philosophy and spend our second half under the bleachers not making out, get bored at the Grand Canyon, get nervous before the big show, and consider everyone’s food allergies.

For a more through take on Genevieve’s theology, watch this other interview that’s not interrupted with our nonsense. Listen to Genevieve and Mark on Pretty Much Pop talking about disgraced entertainers. Listen to Just Genevieve and Not Just Genevieve.

The image is by Lily, ripped from this page. Audio editing as always by Tyler Hislop.

Follow Genevieve @catfightj0y and @CAtFightJOy.

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! You’ll get all of our post-game discussions and other exclusive bonus content, including the unedited video recording of most recent episodes (but not this one!).

Sponsors: Get 16 free meals and free shipping via HelloFresh.Com/improv16 (code improv16). Check out the Skeptoid podcast at skeptoid.com.

Mark Oppenheimer and Jason Werbeloff of the Brain in a Vat podcast join Bill and Mark L. (aka Alf) to talk about rationality, broadly construed, while not moving a couch and not giving each other Christmas presents.

Does “reason” by itself tell us what to do and what to believe? Is trypophobia really just bigotry? (It is not.) What’s the rationale for making negative comments online about a podcast? Are bigots bigger than bigamists? Was Ayn Rand a cannibal?

The image is from this site, and truly, you do not want to be there.

Audio editing by Tyler Hislop, who is looking for more podcast editing clients, if you want to reach out to him.

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! You’ll get all of our post-game discussions and other exclusive bonus content, including the unedited video recording of this episode.

If you like our show, check out the Banned Camp comedy podcast.

Zach is an improvisor who’s written for MST3K, been a commentator for Resistance Pro Wrestling, and has been a recurring guest on Hello From the Magic Tavern.

He joins Mark and Bill to discuss competitiveness in all its forms. Is strife part of utopia, or would all conflict be removed in an ideal political situation? Is the controlled competitiveness of sports or improv games fundamentally different than mere aggression? Also, we chase a dog.

Follow Zach @PocketThunder.

The image is by “Charlie,” and is on several websites that seem too unsavory to link to, but you can find it by searching on these keywords: child’s drawing wrestling dream house.

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! You’ll get all of our post-game discussions and other exclusive bonus content, including the unedited video recording of this episode.

Sponsors: Get 16 free meals and free shipping via HelloFresh.Com/improv16 (code improv16). Check out the Skeptoid podcast at skeptoid.com.

Tanner runs the popular daily podcast Practical Stoicism, so of course we brought him on to talk about on-board flight services and attitudes among retail service workers.

Seriously, this is one of the most beefy philosophical discussions (about Stoicism and virtue, naturally) we’ve had on the show.

Follow Tanner @stoicismtanner.

Listen to PEL’s episodes on Stoicism (starting with Epictetus).

The art is from here, by Anggiana.

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! You’ll get all of our post-game discussions and other exclusive bonus content, including the unedited video recording of this episode.

Sponsor: Listen to The Psychology Podcast with Scott Barry Kaufman.

Tamler teaches philosophy at The University of Houston and hosts the Very Bad Wizards podcast. He joins Mark and Bill to talk about personal identity and whether the “self” is necessarily co-extensive with a particular body. Plus: meditation, Daniel Day Improv’s method acting, All of Me vs. Regarding Henry, what does “metaphysics” mean to YOU, dreams as improv, unstuck-in-time Grandma the last slaveholder, and more.

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 the proceedings unedited on YouTube.

Listen to the PEL episode on secular Buddhism/meditation and the one on Parfit on personal identity.

This episode is here, so why not listen? Philosophy vs. Improv advances to a new level of improvisation (aka half-assery) as Mark and Bill engage in a wide-ranging discussion (with scenes, of course) through the categorization of things, paradigm components and essences of things, historical advertisements, what goes in a museum, irresponsible loans, using the tools of convenience, diner culture, obsolete storage media, undefined locations, self-serve oil change, and a surprise ending whereby you learn that we’ve been painting the fence all along!

Image by Anthony, some years back.

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! You’ll get all of our post-game discussions and other exclusive bonus content, including the unedited video recording of this episode.

Marla is an improviser from the Whirled News Tonight iO Theater show. We talk about obeying proper forms of behavior and drawing improv inspiration from outside sources. Plus, a thruple blind date and BBQ chain of custody. And introducing a new character, Lil’ Confucius.

Image from here. 

Follow Marla @MarlaCaceres and @marlacaceres.

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! You’ll get all of our post-game discussions and other exclusive bonus content, including the unedited video recording of this episode.

We talk transcendental idealism and Schopenhauer with Cole, who teaches philosophy at the College of Southern Nevada. How does the idea that everything is ideas actually affect behavior? What if you think that reality is a swirling mass of chaos? What are you gonna do then? Huh? Also, the least effective confidential informant!

Hear Mark talk about Schopenhauer on The Partially Examined Life.

Follow Cole @super_coleider. Hear more of her on YouTube.

Why did Google serve up the image I’ve featured here when I searched “ferret child’s drawing”? You decide!

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! You’ll get all of our post-game discussions and other exclusive bonus content, including the unedited video recording of this episode.

Mark and Bill act out a couple of scenes of a person trying to convince a stubborn person of something. But there’s a twist in the characterization! Also, before you were born, the world did not exist.

Part of this came out of some comments in The Partially Examined Life’s second Wittgenstein On Certainty episode and anticipates our upcoming treatment of Daoism. Mark also brings up up Rawls’ liberalism. And the meaning of the phrase “partially examined life” is revealed!

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! You’ll get all of our post-game discussions and other exclusive bonus content, including the unedited video recording of this episode.

Check out the Self Esteem Party podcast on TheSonarNetwork.com.

Rachael was a mentor of Bill’s and works with him at the newly reopened iO Theater. So it’s like we have TWO improv instructors here. We run some  scenes, talk a bit too much about chili, and touch on functionalism, idealism, napism, and other isms. Jump into the marzipan! Brucie and Frucie are waiting for you!

Rachael has been a guest on many improv podcasts.

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! You’ll get all of our post-game discussions and other exclusive bonus content, including the unedited video recording of this very episode.

Sponsor: Check out the History Cache Podcast.

What does the shortness of our lives and the beauty of the world actually entail in terms of behavior and philosophy? Nick is a former pro skater who teaches philosophy at U. of San Diego and has written This Beauty about this question, as well as On Being Awesome.

Mark and Bill (your philosophy/comedy puppets, here eternally to dance for your entertainment) engage Nick via car wash planning, the appearance of Bill’s imaginary friend, Groundhog Day, excess copies of the Pol Pot biography, and other invitations to awesomeness.

Get more at nickriggle.com. Watch him talking a lot more about awsomeness. Follow him at @nickriggle.

Hey, supporters! Do you want to watch the unedited video of this episode, recorded solely for your benefit? Do it! Thanks for your support!

The episode image is from the car wash project.

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! You’ll get all of our post-game discussions and other exclusive bonus content, including the unedited video recording of this very episode.

Sponsor: Check out Spencer Wants to Know.

Voice actor Dee, who has a background in both improv and stand-up, talks to Mark and Bill about the meaning of life and engages in THREE scenes all about a parent trying to get some kids into a vehicle and on the road. Also, does COVID cause ennui?

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! You’ll get all of our post-game discussions and other exclusive bonus content, including the unedited video recording of this very episode.

Sponsor: Check out Killed to Death, an improvised true crime podcast.

As our first stand-up comedian (albeit one on sabbatical) guest, Matty has inspired us to largely ignore the philosophy on this one and instead look at these two different ways of producing comedy. Do the motivations of improv folks and comics differ? Which group is more annoying?

We talk about unintentional comedy, how the search for social media followers has degraded comedy, podcasts satirizing other podcasts, improvising as a stand-up, the Steve Bartman incident, Picasso on demand, how music fits into all of this, and Funlosophy.

Our scenes include HR-mandated improvisation and Hated vs. Twirling Man, with some pre-programmed emotional reactions.

Art is from this page.

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! You’ll get all of our post-game discussions and other exclusive bonus content, including the unedited video recording of this very epiosde.

Sponsor: Check out the A Pastor and a Philosopher Walk Into a Bar podcast.

It’s back to just Mark and Bill today. We talk about the lost art of prank phone calls and act out some “customer service nightmares” with an eye to the foundations of law and creativity that defies artistic rules. The scenes are longer and riskier than normal. Long-overdue apologies to Dirwin Zook.

The image is by apparently a pretty disturbed child and somehow came up when I was looking for images of shopping, so I’m going to say that’s what it is.

Audio editing by Tyler Hislop.

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

Sponsor: Check out the Totes Recall film review podcast at totesrecall.com.

The anonymous policy wonk who runs the Carneades.org YouTube channel joins Mark and Bill to discuss the core concept of his new book, Are All Lives Equal?: Why Cost-Benefit Analysis Values Rich Lives More and How Philosophy Can Fix It.

Should economics really be measuring the value of life at all? Can it do this in any principled way? Can economists really understand how much joy cat videos really bring us? What should parasitic micro-organisms value? Does the choo-choo train of peas going in a child’s mouth continue in a similarly fun way within the body? Were all the world’s religions originally infections diseases? No question is off the table!

The image is by Sahana Prasanna. Audio editing by Tyler Hislop.

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

The actor/writer/comedian joins us to talk about the philosophy of fashion, from the ancients to the present: Is clothing a mode of self-expression or something more (or less)? What does retro fashion say about the current state of culture? Should you wear clothes that you have to be sewn into? If you only had one little piece of cloth to wear, where would you put it? Are philosophers anti-fashion, and is that sexist? What color wedding dress is best for an arranged marriage? Are improv scenes like tissues?

Follow Sheri at @SheriFlanders and @sheriflanders.

For a more elaborate treatment of this topic, see Partially Examined Life #245.

The image here is swiped from this Pinterest page.

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 the proceedings unedited on video:

What is personhood? How can a group best collaboratively invent a scene? Sarah is a host of Marty and Sarah Love Wrestling and a repeat guest on Hello From the Magic Tavern. We fit in THREE scenes, some discussion of the various layers of what it is for something to be (or not be) person, and some musings about the weather and such.

Follow us @sarahjoyshockey, @btarnett, and @MarkLinsenmayer.

Image swiped from here. Can you find all three persons in this picture?

Audio edited by Tyler Hislop.

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

Stephen West from the juggernaut Philosophize This! podcast joins Mark and Bill to learn to say no and talk about reason vs. emotion in grounding ethics. What do the voices in your head (or at your lunch table) say to you?

The image came from this site, somehow depicting what went on in both of our improv scenes here.

Audio edited by Tyler Hislop.

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

Mark and Bill break former patterns by each bringing in not a lesson but a question, which we knew about beforehand, and those questions are about pattern-breaking and about what current philosophers worry about. With special surprising scenes conveying cutting-edge podcasting/instructional techniques.

Image snatched from this page. Edited by Tyler Hislop.

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

Jay Sanders, famed not only for his appearances on Law & Order: Criminal Intent and The Day After Tomorrow and many many other screens and stages, joins us to talk tragedy, how he’s applied the lessons of improv to his scripted acting, and more. Jump into the improv maelstrom with us!

In the post-game, which just this once, we’re sharing with the general public, we more about Jay’s projects and getting recognized on the street for things.

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

It’s all down to this. Which discipline, which host will prevail? Will a third-party cheater bust in and take the big prize? All stakes are on the table, and if this thinking isn’t critical enough, if these scenes aren’t congruent enough, if we fail the big scan-tron test that is life, then it’s all been for nothing. Get out your cushion and get in the lotus position, clear your mind, and tune in for this, the most exciting single podcast episode you’ve ever heard in your whole goddamned life.

Read Bill’s posts on Literate Ape. Watch Bill’s improv reaction videos. Catch up on Mark’s Chickie videos.

The art this time (until someone complains about my using it without permission) is by Jean-Michel Basquiat, who is not in fact a small child, through this image sure looks like a small child drew it. But in a good way! Maybe one of you with kids have ask those kids to draw some boxers for our future use. (Boxers, yes, briefs, no. …And with that “joke,” I absolutely lose the humor contest. Sorry.)

Audio editing by Tyler Hislop; check out his new Pixel Box Media podcast.

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

Skye teaches and Columbia and the City University of New York, and she recently published How to Be Authentic: Simone de Beauvoir and the Quest for Fulfillment.

She joins Mark and Bill to talk about what authenticity might mean for an existentialist, how it relates to truth, responsibility, and picking a theme for your birthday party.

For more on this ladder of authenticity, i.e. Beauvoir’s take on ways of lacking, see PEL’s episodes on her Ethics of Ambiguity.

The art was snatched off naturalsciences.org, author unknown. Why is it a picture of a snake? Well, I’d called this episode “Authentic Snake Oil,” but Skye didn’t like that much. I was not implying her book is snake oil! As a side note: Is something snake oil as in inauthentic if it in fact oil from a snake and advertised as such? It is authentic but in being so is clearly not “snake oil” in the colloquial sense despite its literal identity as such. In any case, to repeat, Skye’s book is neither snaky nor oily

Audio editing by Tyler Hislop; check out his new Pixel Box Media podcast.

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! You’ll get all of our post-game discussions, exclusive bonus content, and help ensure that season two of this podcast happens!

We talk about observations and how they relate to theories and other types of preconception. Is there such a thing as pure observation? 

For our pen-pen-ultimate episode here of season one, I must say that these were some of my favorite scenes we’ve ever done. We tour a submarine and plan a party. There is no Chumbawamba in either case.

Improv guy Chris starred in the Improvised Star Trek podcast (and stage show) and has been a recurrent guest and now an editor on Hello From the Magic Tavern (hear his first appearance as Baron Ragoon on #51).

Image by Zavier, age 6. 

Audio editing by Tyler Hislop; check out his new Pixel Box Media podcast.

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! You’ll get all of our post-game discussions, exclusive bonus content, and help ensure that season two of this podcast happens!

Barry teaches at Vassar and hosts a documentary-style philosophy podcast called Hi-Phi Nation, and his most recent season had a four-episode run on David Lewis, America’s foremost philosopher of possible worlds (also covered by PEL), after Dr. Strange, of course.

So we talk about that notion, in the philosophy of metaphysics and language, and also in the literal physics sense that Hollywood has so much fun with lately. And WE have fun with it in a couple of variations on a classic diner scene. Cheese salad, anyone?

Image by Batiste, apparently, from paintingvalley.com. Audio editing by Tyler Hislop.

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! You’ll get all of our post-game discussions, exclusive bonus content, and help ensure that season two of this podcast happens!

Bill is a sad but steadfast street sweeper. Mark has secret character traits. Filmmaker Jack C. Newell is our inaugural non-philosopher, non-improviser guest, and his film knowledge leads to us talking about ethics in terms of film tropes plus some meta-historical-reenactment. Learn more about Jack’s (non-garbage!) work at jackcnewell.com.

Image by The Children of Arendal. The whale has eaten some trash! Audio editing by Tyler Hislop.

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! You’ll get all of our post-game discussions, exclusive bonus content, and help ensure that season two of this podcast happens!

Prof in the house! Babette teaches at Fordham and recently edited the collection “Reading David Hume’s ‘On The Standard of Taste,’” which Mark made use of for The Partially Examined Life’s treatment of that essay in #289. So this can serve either as a follow-up to that discussion or as a fresh cogitation on the idea of an art critic. Can such people’s superior tastes be defined objectively according to their sensory, discriminatory capabilities? Like, we should listen to them when it comes to judgments about art because they can detect things about artworks that most of us can’t, whether due to their extensive experience studying such works or their particularly acute senses?

This is more philosophically beefy than our typical PvI ep, so let me spell out some of the points made: Are there objective, detectable features of things in the world that make them beautiful? Not exactly, because of the logical is-ought distinction, which goes for ethics just as for art. We could all agree that something occurrence will hurt a lot of people, or that some object is perfectly symmetrical. Various philosophers have argued that hurting = bad by definition, or that symmetrical = beautiful by definition, but Hume (and subsequently Kant) disagree. For Hume, in both cases these are matters of human feelings. It’s sufficient that correctly functioning people will feel that hurting is (normally) bad and that symmetrical things are (generally, in the absence of other blemishes) prettier than lopsided ones.

So a good art critic can’t just be someone who is a great detector of fine details, but has to actually feel pleasure at the right things, and defining which are the “right” things is difficult when the whole point of designating some people as good critics is that they’re the ones who know better than the rest of us which ones are right! Plus, as Babette points out, for art, while there might be some eternal principles like symmetry that always please people throughout the ages, our artistic sensibilities change with the age, so that particularly when it comes to humor, what smart people found funny 100 years ago is not going to be identical to what humor connoisseurs find funny now. Clearly, though, not finding this podcast to be a hoot indicates some sort of cognitive and/or affective disorder.

Relating this more directly to improv: As a beginning improviser, you might want to look for particular rules to follow that will guarantee humor, but of course there are no such things. 

Babette was then game to participate in some scenes involving incorporating pop culture topics into university curricula and a post-mortem (fictional) musical about David Hume by Meat Loaf scribe Jim Steinman; for my inspiration on the latter, I will refer folks to my three-time guest Tim Quirk’s essay about Bat out of Hell. (Prediction: among my musician acquaintances, Tim may be the first to appear on PvI if and when I start dipping in that well, and if he’s amenable, of course.)

One of the passing references that Babette dropped that I was not familiar with is the “Hottentot Venus” as a potential model of beauty. As Bill points out, one of the elements of changing tastes is dialectical, meaning that the next fashion is seen as an answer or antidote to the previous one, as tastes swing back and forth.

Babette also refers to Nigel Warburton as being the direct descendent of the man who censored Hume and thus unintentionally commissioned this essay (i.e. it was created to replace something that was suppressed).

My Internet searching is not able to confirm the historical accuracy of Babette’s claim about putting baby chicks in a mattress and then erotically crushing them. But it’s fucking wild that she threw that in, so don’t give up on this before our second improv scene is complete!

The image for this episode was swiped from this article, and I hope that painting is actually by a child. Now, since the fingers are not drawn, you can’t actually see that the figure in the picture is giving the finger to the critical spectator, but as perspicacious critic I can see and enjoy that this is clearly the case. What, are you blind or something?

Get more PvI at philosophyimprov.com.

This is a pledge drive of sorts to support season two! Join patreon.com/philosophyimprov, or there’s no guarantee that PvI will exist after this summer! Here are some benefits/points about this:

• Patreon charges by episode, so if we don’t put out any, you’re not paying a monthly charge.
• However, you can also maximize your pledge per month, in case we go back to posting more often.
• All content is (for now) available for pledges at any level. Showing your support is more important than the sheer income we receive (though that of course does matter to how much we can afford to produce).
• This means you get the post-game chatting for all our our past episodes plus a few bonus recordings for free just by signing up.
• I’ll be posting at least two audio readings from my new book Philosophy for Teens over the next two weeks just for supporters. As with all bonus footage, we won’t charge supporters anything (beyond your per-episode pledge) for them (i.e. they don’t count as episodes).
• The more people that sign up, the more bonus stuff we’ll post, and the more episodes of the show we can afford to produce.

The philosopher and entertainment journalist direct from Mark’s Pretty Much Pop podcast joins PvI for an hour of merriment. We talk parenthood, philosophy of race, the RULES of improv (or the singular answer to a philosophy question), old 9th graders, one black Peggy, using racy improv in a classroom setting, and more.

Here’s an excerpt from the essay Lawrence refers to by philosophy George Yancy on the film White Chicks.

The image was swiped from here. Is it a spiritual representation of Lawrence? You decide!

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 the proceedings unedited on YouTube.

Contemplate the difference between signs, symbols, and symptoms. Did our improv scene get Zoom-bombed, or is that just real life intruding? THINK OF THE CHILDREN (eating Doritos)! What flavor of chip is Bill trying to teach today? Why is Brooke sad?

Brooke is of course an improviser and has also been on TV and works for Jackbox Games. Follow her @brookebreit,

For more information about this whole signs vs. symbols thing, listen to The Partially Examined Life #290.

Image by Ryan, age 4, from this page. Audio editing by Tyler Hislop.

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast to get bonus stuff and good karma! In this week’s post-game available only to supporters, we we hear more about Brooke’s acting and video game work and talk more chips n’ childrearing.

…which, as I was saying, is right in the middle of a sentence or scene! Sheesh!

How should our personal and family histories shape our behavior, both in real life and in improv scenes? Do these histories, these stories we tell ourselves, nail us down as people? Are we all old before our time? Are those your real parents? Hang on to your poser wallet!

Image by Julia as found here. Audio editing by Tyler Hislop.

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast to get bonus stuff and good karma!

Panpsycast host Jack, the Liverpudliest Liverpudlian of all, brings his promiscuous philosophy of mind to the show, wherein mind is here, there, and everywhere. But what does that mean? Skits about renting a flat for nefarious purposes and designing software for Nozick’s experience machine reveal all! But the question remains… So what? You have to care!

Hear Jack on his own podcast talking about various philosophies of mind including panpsychism. Hear PEL cover the “hard problem of consciousness” with one of Jack’s co-hosts. Listen to the Pretty Much Pop on The Matrix. Watch the Deep Thoughts that Bill refers to. 

Get Jack’s book Talking About the Mind.

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast to get bonus stuff and good karma!

Sponsor: Get 15% off premium earbuds at BuyRaycon.com/pvi.

Today’s episode is about questioning: how one might question, what sets the parameters for a proper answer, and how to give those answers in an informative and/or dramatically effective way. Watch out for dream pigs! Also, how to get into the VIP room at Stuckey’s. Perhaps a pair of paralegals can help.

In the post-game, included JUST THIS ONCE for public enjoyment, we reflect on improv in the real world and some potential spin-off improv podcasts from our episode.

The image is from the Children’s Drawing Archive. Audio editing by Tyler Hislop.

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast to get bonus stuff and good karma!

Sponsor: Get 15% off premium earbuds at BuyRaycon.com/pvi.