The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

Ep. 259: Locke Clarifies Misleading Complex Ideas (Part One)

On Book II (ch. 22-33) of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689). Simple ideas get complex quickly when you put them into words, and can give rise to various philosophical problems that are either easily cleared up when you figure out how the complex idea is built out of simple ideas, or if they can't be so broken down, then we really don't know what we're talking about and should just shut up. Don't wait for part two, get the ad-free <a href="https://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2020/12/27/ep259-locke-complex-ideas-citizen/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Citizen Edition</a> now. <a href="https://partiallyexaminedlife.com/support" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Please support PEL!</a>

The Partially Examined Life is a podcast by some guys who were at one point set on doing philosophy for a living but then thought better of it. Each episode, we pick a short text and chat about it with some balance between insight and flippancy. You don't have to know any philosophy, or even to have read the text we're talking about to (mostly) follow and (hopefully) enjoy the discussion. For links to the texts we discuss and other info, check out www.partiallyexaminedlife.com.

We also feature episodes from other podcasts by our hosts to round out your partially examined life, including Pretty Much Pop (prettymuchpop.com, covering all media), Nakedly Examined Music (nakedlyexaminedmusic.com, deconstructing songs), Philosophy vs. Improv (philosophyimprov.com, fun with performance skills and philosophical ideas), and (sub)Text (subtextpodcast.com, looking deeply at lit and film). Learn about more network podcasts at partiallyexaminedlife.com.