Philosophy vs. Improv

We wrap up Mary’s first year with the podcast, and changes are afoot for our upcoming season, but why? Let’s explore to the point of physical discomfort! We act out an odd annual employee review, a dramatic pitch for a new play, and the navel-gazing club. We talk about celebrating and escalating, high points of season 5, how comedy is never a matter of “trying to be funny” but grows out of authentic experience, Mary’s dramatic history, making unpleasant characters redemptive, Morbius, our wish lists for the future , and more. Get started reading Martha Nussbaum’s Therapy of Desire now. Image note: This was my second try with Google Gemini, and in this case it initially generated an image for “performance evaluation” that was way too detailed and (as is inevitably the case with these AIs, looked like it was drawn FOR children instead of drawn BY children), so I asked it for the same but cruder, and so it left out some details and misspelled some words, as I guess AIs “think” that children do. Hear more PvI. Follow us at patreon.com/philosophyimprov to get an ad-free experience and post-game chatter for many episodes (including this one), now absolutely free, or kick in a dollar or whatever to get the remaining bonus content including our Redacted episode. You can choose to watch this on wholly unedited video:

Future co-host philosophy Jenny joins past co-host improviser Bill along with the usual rabble (Mark and Mary) for some tag-team mud swimming, hot takes about The Odyssey (we recorded this on July 23), and discussion and play about Bill’s return to school, Maslow’s hierarchy, gamified syllabi, some dweeby math stuff, and academic dishonesty. Our shared conversation space shall now be referred to as THE CAVE. Don’t worry: No clips from the hit show The Lazy Pedophiles were included in this show. When Jenny becomes a full co-host (in addition to Mark and Mary), she will have a better microphone and no longer sound like she’s broadcasting from a puddle. Here are some Mbappe memes that she mentions at the end. Hear more PvI. Follow us at patreon.com/philosophyimprov to get an ad-free experience and post-game chatter for many episodes (including this one), now absolutely free, or kick in a dollar or whatever to get the remaining bonus content including our Redacted episode. Image Note: I’ve come to the conclusion that MidJourney bites, and I will not be renewing my paid subscription to it when it comes up in October. This “brain taking a shower” image was generated by Google Gemini (the free version), and though it still doesn’t look per my request like a child actually drew this, unlike Midjourney, it didn’t get all pretentious. So suck it, MidJourney. You can choose to watch this on unedited video:

AmirAli is a philosophy researcher who runs the Persian-language philosophy blog Praxis Publication and tries to make Islamic philosophy speak to and with the West. In this, his first international podcast appearance, we hear about doing philosophy in the “Islamic Republic of Iran,” life during wartime, the relationship between play and philosophy, Islamic philosophy in Arabic vs. Persian (and Farsi, English, etc.), Amanah (Persian for “sacred trust”), philosophy as empathy, plus the Dream Police and fun with imperialism. Read AmirAli’s posts on the Strait of Hormuz, hermeneutics, tyranny, and understanding the “enemy” during wartime. Hear more PvI. Follow us at patreon.com/philosophyimprov to get an ad-free experience and post-game chatter for many episodes, now absolutely free, or kick in a couple of bucks to get the remaining bonus content including our Redacted episode. Sponsor: Get 15% off OneSkin with the code IMPROV at oneskin.co/IMPROV. Image Note: The painting here was snatched from an article about Iranian children winning an international painting contest. AmirAli no doubt shares the dream of this illustrator that the trees of all different colors join hands, and the animals with the animals, and the people with the people, but that those three groups shall remain ever parallel and unconnected. I’m pretty sure that was Leibniz’s view. You can choose to experience this on video, entirely unedited:

The LA-based clown, multimedia performance artist, and doll stylist (see maddiemutations.com; she also goes by the name Maddie Forrest) joins Mary and Mark to talk about her Doll Court show, clown types and the role of the fool, failing on stage, cities as women, silly villains, and more. Will Carol overcome her anxiety to go into the big meeting? Will Maddie keep all the nice dolls to herself? What should the demands of the LA doll union be? How edgy can a clown be? We wrap up with an exercise about numeric levels of joy. Follow @maddiemutations. Some things she brought up are the Tiny Baby Talk Show and a Clown class she recommends. Hear more PvI. Follow us at patreon.com/philosophyimprov to get an ad-free experience and post-game chatter for many episodes, now absolutely free, or kick in a couple of bucks to get the remaining bonus content including our Redacted episode. Sponsor: Get 15% off OneSkin with the code IMPROV at oneskin.co/IMPROV. You can choose to watch this as unedited video:

Your wise and authoritative hosts explore forms of respectful address, what counts as good philosophy, the holodeck full-contact Fantasy Island experience, status in economic transactions, Trek not War, default improv scenarios, fear of playfulness, philosophy or improv as education vs. doing philosophy or improv, and more. The potential future textbook I suggested at the end is Martha Nussbaum’s The Therapy of Desire. Hear more PvI. Follow us at patreon.com/philosophyimprov to get an ad-free experience and post-game chatter for many episodes, now absolutely free, or kick in a couple of bucks to get the remaining bonus content including our Redacted episode. Image note: When I asked Midjourney to simply draw me “struggle club,” it unambiguously interpreted this as involving set-upon African-Americans. So I had to go with simply “child’s drawing of clubhouse,” and eventually got two figures out of it. You can choose to watch this on unedited video: