Podcasts by CultureCast

What Is Philosophy? According to Kant from 2022-08-04T23:13:52

In this episode, I provide some thoughts from Kant’s logic about the nature of philosophy. Philosophy is not sophism, which merely seeks to appear clever and win debates. Philosophy is not the pict...

Surrealism from 2022-07-25T21:44:22

In this episode, I give a brief rundown of the surrealist movement in the art and literature. The surreal is a merger of dream and reality, such that dreams can provide a source of truth and there ...

The New World Order and Kant’s Idea of Free Will from 2022-07-09T22:10:45

Kant tried to balance the strict lawfulness of nature with an absolute idea of human freedom. To accomplish this, Kant established the natural world as ideal, i.e. based on mental mediation in part...

The Cultural Battle from 2022-06-30T21:24:42

In this episode, I discuss the philosophical roots of the cultural battle, after the recent repeal of Roe v. Wade. There are three key issues that have profound implications for how we view the con...

The Extreme Right and the Extreme Left from 2022-06-23T17:12:31

In this episode, I discuss an article by the Spanish writer Pedro Trevijano in which he distinguishes between two extreme attitudes in one’s moral philosophy. One is pharisiacal and rigid, judging ...

Is the Soul Incorruptible? from 2022-05-16T01:35:30

In this episode I go over an argument for the immortality of the soul from St. Thomas Aquinas. The idea is that the soul can grasp unchanging principles, while the senses are rooted in a specific t...

Kant on True Freedom from 2022-05-08T23:59:43

In this episode, I discuss two conceptions of liberty. One is the ability to do what one desires. The other is the a self-mastery in which true autonomy is the following of the moral law. Kant gave...

Human Perversity: Why Do We Reject What Is Good? from 2022-05-01T21:09:27

In this episode, I discuss an episode in the Gospel of Matthew in which the people of Nazareth dismiss Christ for his wisdom and miracles. I was wondering how people could be so foolish and pervers...

Remi Brague: The Attack on Western Culture from 2022-03-17T04:23:52

In this episode, I discuss a recent interview with Remi Brague, a prominent European thinker. He documents the phenomenon of “cancel culture.” It is common to hear about this, but we must not take ...

Ben Franklin’s Treatise on Human Liberty from 2022-02-28T01:39:25

In this episode, I discuss a fascinating and vigorous philosophical treatise by a great American, Benjamin Franklin. It is called “A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain.” Frank...

Adorno and the Dialectic of the Enlightenment from 2022-02-20T03:06:11

In this episode, I discuss how Adorno views the Enlightenment as sliding inevitably towards totalitarianism. The Enlightenment seeks to reduce reality to numerical rationality. It suffers no exempt...

Aporia, Time, and Death from 2022-02-13T04:14:37

Aporia is a state of speechlessness in which we are unable to articulate a mysterious phenomenon. In this podcast, I explore the precarious existence of time, and how it is an aporia insofar as it ...

Hegel’s Master-Slave Dialectic and Identity Politics from 2022-02-06T04:27:05

In this episode, I illuminate the modern notion of identity politics through a description of Hegel’s parable of the master and the slave. This parable is about how consciousness views itself as a ...

Postmodernism, Nietzsche, and Theothanatology from 2022-01-29T21:25:13

In this episode, I discuss again the death of God theology. I root this movement in the rational religion of Kant, which sought to remove the doctrines of historical religions and make them subordi...

Postmodernism: The Death of God Theology from 2022-01-23T04:05:30

In this podcast, I discuss how postmodernism represents a radicalization of the Enlightenment. Not only is faith abandoned, but human reason’s ability to develop objective knowledge is challenged. ...

Kant’s Aesthetics from 2022-01-16T03:46:25

In this podcast, I go over Kant’s great work, The Critique of the Power of Judgment. I discuss the difference between the beautiful and the sublime. I discuss what Kant means by free play, in the i...

Hume and Art from 2022-01-10T04:17:11

In this episode, I discuss how Hume deals with the problem of subjectivism in artistic appreciation. If beauty is just a feeling, and not a property of objects, how can anyone be wrong about their ...

Art and the Enlightenment from 2022-01-04T06:29:45

In this episode, I discuss how the theory of beauty, or aesthetics, developed during the Enlightenment. Aesthetic judgement has to do with how we react to works of art and beauty in nature. I discu...

Religion and the Enlightenment from 2021-12-27T04:54:53

In this episode, I discuss the attitude of Enlightenment thinkers towards religion. I discuss how they sought to purge religion of any unreasonable elements involving miracles and supernaturalism. ...

Ethics in the Enlightenment from 2021-12-21T06:26:46

In this episode, I discuss how ethics changed in the Enlightenment. The classical basis in ethics, in the Platonic intelligible domain, and the Aristotelian teleology, was lost in the secular natur...

Political Thought of the Enlightenment from 2021-12-15T04:41:28

In this episode, I discuss he transition from a faith-based, mystical view of political authority to a rational and secular order. In the Enlightenment, politics is based on the consent of the gove...

Kant’s Reconciliation of the Two Images from 2021-12-08T03:02:59

I continue in this podcast to describe how Immanuel Kant reconciles the religious and the mechanistic understanding of humanity. Kant uses transcendental idealism to show that our experience of law...

Enlightenment and Subjectivity Part I from 2021-12-08T02:29:55

In this episode, I show the dual conceptions of humanity produced in the Enlightenment. On the one hand, the Enlightenment shows a new pride in which humanity claims to know the world through unaid...

The Metaverse and the Enlightenment Part II from 2021-11-28T04:40:28

In this episode, I continue to trace the intellectual roots of the Metaverse and the current “toxic” moment in human history in which intellectual trends of the past have reached a culmination. I d...

The Metaverse and the Enlightenment Part II, III from 2021-11-28T04:40:28

In this episode, I continue to trace the intellectual roots of the Metaverse and the current “toxic” moment in human history in which intellectual trends of the past have reached a culmination. I d...

The Metaverse and The Enlightenment: Part I from 2021-11-21T03:02:06

The Metaverse is a virtual internet in which we would interact through digital avatars. The Metaverse involves humanity creating its own world and so it is not a mere creature beholden to its Creat...

The Biden Scam Is A Great Opportunity from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Clearly, Biden stole the 2020 election and the current numbers are completely fraudulent. But, though this is a painful situation, it is a huge opportunity to excise a cancer in our society. Biden ...

The Navarro Report on Election Fraud from 2020-12-20T02:17:13

Peter Navarro, who is the trade advisor to President Trump and an economic nationalist, has developed a very sharp report on the massive election fraud that took place in 2020. If this fraud is ...

Election Analysis from 2020-11-15T20:14:07

In this episode, I provide just a brief glimpse into the utter fraud of the 2020 presidential election. Democrats used both mail-ballots and electronic manipulation to create an illusory Biden v...

WHAT IS CURRENTLY HAPPENING from 2020-11-11T06:29:56

In this podcast, I give you insight into what is currently happening in the world. This is a fascinating but difficult time of transition. We are learning a lot about our world and I suggest you...

Wallace Stevens, "The Snow Man," Meditative Consciousness from 2020-11-01T05:09:33

In this podcast, I continue to explore the meaning of Wallace Stevens' poem, "The Snow Man," and its connection to Eastern traditions depiction of meditative consciousness. "The nothing" at the ...

The Atheists Claim to Believe in Just One Less God Than the Christian from 2020-10-30T02:41:18

Some atheists will try to make their worldview appealing to a Christian by claiming that they just believe in one less god than the Christian. The atheist is right that the Christian is an athei...

Wallace Stevens, "The Snow Man" from 2020-10-18T05:03:26

In this podcast, I discuss Wallace Stevens's haunting and beautiful poem, "The Snow Man," in which someone enters a wintry landscape, savors the extreme bareness and simplicity of it, and enters...

Mario Cuomo's View on Abortion: Personally Against it But Does not Seek Its Imposition on Others from 2020-10-17T06:38:29

In this episode, I discuss how former governor of New York, Mario Cuomo, son of current governor, Andrew, laid the groundwork for the Democrat Catholic politician to both embrace the abortion wi...

Catholic and Protestant Attitudes Towards Prayer to Mary from 2020-10-11T05:55:04

In this podcast, I discuss differing attitudes towards prayer to Mary in Catholic and Protestant theology. Protestants view the Catholic Church as falsely usurping spiritual authority, and adult...

Concerns About Pope Francis's Document, "Fratelli Tutti" from 2020-10-10T07:01:26

In this podcast, I outline some concerns about Pope Francis's new encyclical, Fratelli Tutti. This document reiterates many themes that the Pope has emphasized throughout his pontificate. We kno...

T.S. Elliot: Tradition and the Individual Talent from 2020-09-20T07:00:23

Elliot is a great American poet of genius. In this podcast, I discuss his literary theory, specifically his attitude to the relationship between the individual poet and tradition. Elliot puts fo...

The Man Against the Sky, Edwin Arlington Robinson from 2020-09-13T05:13:37

In this podcast, I go through the profound, searching imagery in Edwin Arlington Robinson's poem, "The Man Against the Sky." This poems follows a man embarking alone on to a hill where he stands...

Is Man Just Another Animal? from 2020-09-11T23:33:25

In this podcast, I start a conversation based on the wonderful blog of Manuel Alfonseca, a Spanish thinker, known as Divulgacion de Ciencia. The piece is on whether man (including both sexes) ha...

Calvin and the Self-Attestation of Scripture: How Do We Know Which Books Belong in the Bible? from 2020-09-07T06:15:05

Catholics and Protestants use different Bibles. Protestants omit what they call the Apocryphal books. Catholics call these books the Deuterocanoncial books: Sirach, Baruch, Wisdom, Tobit, Sussan...

Poetry Wars Between Plato and Aristotle from 2020-09-05T06:34:20

Even though Aristotle was a student of Plato, he diverged from his teacher greatly in terms of his attitude towards art (although I challenge the idea that they diverge at the end of this podcas...

Consciousness As An Inferential Model from 2020-08-30T05:51:07

In this podcast, I discuss the nature of consciousness as presented by Karl Friston in his article in Aeon magazine, entitled "The Mathmatics of Mind-Time." Friston is interested in the transiti...

The Spirituality of Emily Dickinson from 2020-08-27T22:48:06

In this podcast, I discuss the spirituality of the great American poet, Emily Dickinson. Dickinson was not a doctrinaire Christian, and had a deep suspicion of organized religion in general. Nev...

The Third Secret of Fatima, Part II from 2020-08-21T05:23:46

In this podcast, I finish my discussion of Dr. Maike Hickson's article on the third secret of Fatima: Listen

Our Lady of Fatima's Third Secret (Part I): Is It Happening Now? from 2020-08-21T04:47:51

This is the first part of a two-part series on whether the third secret of Our Lady of Fatima is occurring now. With Pope Francis aligning with secular globalists who want a secular socialist wo...

Walt Whitman, Minor Prophet: Founder of a Post-Christian Religious Myth from 2020-08-19T21:37:50

In this episode, I discuss Walt Whitman's for a post-Christian religion. Whitman was influenced by deism, which sought a rational religion that did not include elements of revelation. Whitman re...

The Endgame of the World Economic Forum For the Coronavirus: Untact from 2020-08-17T23:48:47

In this episode, I discuss some of the grand ambitions of the World Economic Forum in the post-Covid world. I discuss how they are working to double down on social distancing, reinvent sexuality...

Why is the World So Screwed Up? The Gnomic Will! from 2020-08-16T20:56:38

In this episode, I discuss a controversy in the sixth century Church over the nature of the will (or wills) of Christ. The Monothelite heresy claimed that Jesus, even though he had both a human ...

Are Christianity and Socialism Compatible? from 2020-08-15T21:17:21

In this episode, I address the issue of the compatibility of socialism and Christianity. I argue that socialism does not cultivate compassion through forcible seizure of property, and it actually s...

Ideas Behind RussiaGate from 2020-08-11T23:39:55

In this episode, I analyze the philosophical beliefs of key players in the RussiaGate story. I focus specifically on the ideology of Strobe Talbott who runs the Brookings Institution. Talbott is a ...

Is God Living A Solipsistic Nightmare? from 2020-08-10T20:47:16

In this podcast, I consider a bleak article by blogger Benjamin Cain, that can be found at http://the rabbitisin.com/the-nightmare-of-god-152c2cc8694b. In this article, Cain advances the thesis tha...

The Phenomenon of the Sublime from 2020-08-09T18:48:26

In this episode, I discuss the phenomenon of the sublime, a peak experience involving a pleasure because of terror at being overwhelmed. It can occur when overpowered by an experience of the awesom...

Challenging the Umwelt from 2020-08-07T19:23:08

This is an episode on how to break out the limited presuppositions and perspectives of our place in history. We each have an Umwelt that is an incomplete map of reality. You can find the article on...

Billy Budd and the Irrationality of Evil from 2020-08-07T05:58:51

In this episode, I analyze the novella Billy Budd, by the Great American writer Herman Melville. I analyze the novella in light of two philosophical issues. One is the question of whether the law o...

Communion on the Tongue: Gnostic and Calvinistic? from 2020-08-06T04:50:23

In this episode, I address an article by Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, in Lifesite News, in which he disputes the view of a priest who thinks that communion on the tongue is both Gnostic and Calvinistic. ...

Christians and the Nazis: How We Treat the Disabled from 2020-08-05T04:22:11

In this episode, I go through a timeline of different approaches to people with disabilities. I chart the evolution from dismissive and ethnocentric ideas of Ancient Greeks and Romans, to the empha...

Kevorkian’s Utilitarian Creed from 2020-07-31T20:50:25

In this episode, I discuss the competing world views associated with the euthanasia debate. This debate has to do with the very meaning of life and cosmological questions about the nature and origi...

Lingering Doubts Over 9/11 from 2020-07-30T19:05:54

In this episode, I analyze a compelling documentary found on YouTube put together by the architects and engineers for 9/11 truth. It compellingly debunks the official narrative from NIST (National ...

Elizabeth Anscombe: Modern Moral Philosophy from 2020-04-12T06:19:59

In this episode, I discuss how Anscombe breaks down modern moral theories, showing their deep deficiencies and their inability to provide guidance effectively. There are quandaries with utilitarian...

Robert De Mattei on the Coronavirus; Part III from 2020-03-25T02:53:21

In this episode, I discuss De Mattei’s analysis of the coronavirus. I touch in particular on his idea that collective sins promoted by leadership that is also corrupt merit the greatest punishment ...

Part II, Episode 3: Robert De Mattei on the Coronavirus from 2020-03-21T03:53:37

In this episode, I continue to break down De Mattei’s discussion of the coronavirus. I discuss how De Matteo compares the current convulsions, both in terms of public health and the economy, with t...

Episode 3, Part I: Roberto De Mattei on the Coronavirus from 2020-03-20T03:19:13

Professor Roberto de Mattei is a Catholic historian and thinker with an interesting political, historical, and theological perspectives on the coronavirus. In this episode, I discuss the relationsh...

Trailer: Roberto De Mattei On the Coronavirus from 2020-03-20T02:33:01

In this trailer, I introduce a lecture De Mattei gave on the political, historical, and theological significance of the coronavirus. The coronavirus, which originated in Wuhan, China in late 2019, ...

Part II, Existentialism Is A Humanism from 2020-03-18T16:56:44

In this episode, I complete my discussion of the famous lecture, Existentialism Is A Humanism. I discuss the idea of absolute freedom in relation to Marxism and certain sociological accounts of inc...

Part I, Existentialism Is A Humanism from 2020-03-18T05:32:31

In this episode, I explain Sartre’s famous lecture, Existentialism Is A Humanism. I identify objections to existentialism from both communists and from Christians. The communists feared that the fo...

Episode 2: Existentialism Is A Humanism, Trailee from 2020-03-18T00:21:52

In this episode, I will go through the famous lecture Jean Paul-Sartre have in post World War II France just as the Nazi occupation has ended. This celebrity intellectual spoke to a deeply confused...

Is Darwin’s Theory Dead Part II from 2020-03-16T18:41:30

I continue in this episode with David Gelernter’s piece, “Giving Up Darwin,” at https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/giving-up-darwin/. He thinks we need to shift away from the idea that natural sele...

Is Darwin’s Theory Dead? Part I First Episode of CultureCast from 2020-03-16T18:03:54

CultureCast is a podcast devoted to keeping people up to speed on cultural matters. I am a philosopher currently currently completing a doctorate at Temple University. I am also a novelist who has ...

CultureCast (Trailer) from 2020-03-15T18:03:54