PODCAST

Deadbeat Philosophy

Dave Baumeister

Philosophy, just a little less reliable. deadbeatphilosophy.substack.com

society & culture philosophy

All Episodes

61:40

Everything has an end . . . including Deadbeat...

Deadbeat Philosophy ·

2025/12/31

There’s a saying in German: everything has an end, except for the sausage, which has two . . . So it is with podcasts as with human beings. Everything has its end. Everything ends, sometime. Even the sausage, which simply ends twice. Deadbeat Philosophy is no sausage (at least not in the traditional sense). Hence, its end is singular. Just like 2025: it only ends once. And its end, like that of 2025, is now.In this final episode of the Deadbeat Philosophy Podcast, Dave signs off, and leaves you with

42:38

Plato vs. Kant, Aristotle vs. Nietzsche - Who’s the...

Deadbeat Philosophy ·

2025/12/18

In this first of two “year in review” episodes, Dave shares two of his favorite pieces from the past year–a pair of “philosophical smackdowns” featuring titans from the history of western philosophy. The first pits Plato against Immanuel Kant, the second Aristotle against Friedrich Nietzsche. Who will win out? Whose text should you gift to your mother on mother’s day? Watch to find out!Featuring analyses of the following works:Plato, RepublicPlato, PhaedoAristotle, PoliticsAristotle, PoeticsKant,

60:52

Stories for a Better Future (w/ Kristen Jakstis)

Deadbeat Philosophy ·

2025/12/04

Kristen Jakstis is a researcher at the Institute for Landscape Planning and Ecology at the University of Stuttgart. In this episode, recorded live at the Museum Hegel-Haus, Dave and Kristen explore the power of storytelling as a vehicle for optimism, critique, and experimentation in the midst of the unfolding global environmental crisis. They cover Kristen’s doctoral research in urban ecology, the contribution of the history of philosophy (and of Hobbes and Rousseau in particular) to how the

69:45

Revolution or Collapse? On Humans and Nature (w/...

Deadbeat Philosophy ·

2025/11/20

Andrew George is an Australian environmental activist and social organizer. Dave and Andrew chat about Andrew’s life on an uninsurable floodplain, the material weight and faux-permanence of urbanized consumer-capitalist existence, the peril and promise of social media and AI in our age of environmental crisis, Rousseau, Roger Hallam, and the dialectic of revolution and collapse shaping the (in)human future of planet earth.Andrew’s newsletter (subscribe!)Andrew’s Recommendations:Rutger Bregman,

86:34

Halloween Special: Death and the Devil in Goethe,...

Deadbeat Philosophy ·

2025/10/31

Jacob Barto is an expert in German literature and language, currently adjunct assistant professor of German at Bellevue College. In this Halloween-themed conversation, Dave and Jacob claw their way through a splattering of spooky classics from European literary history, encountering as they go child-seducing ghosts, philosophical demon-devil hybrids, and even a few subversively bloodthirsty lesbian vampires. They end by sinking their teeth into the question: what accounts for the power that horror

38:42

What is Philosophy?

Deadbeat Philosophy ·

2025/10/23

How can philosophy be defined? Who can philosophize, and what roles do age, language, or geography play in one’s aptitude for philosophizing? When and where in planetary history did philosophy “begin” and will it someday “end”? To what extent should knowledge of past philosophy and philosophers determine how philosophy is done today?In this episode, Dave approaches philosophy “in a broad way” and “in a general sort of sense,” drawing upon Aristotle’s identification of philosophy with wonder and

42:20

Audre Lorde as Philosopher (w/ Caleb Ward)

Deadbeat Philosophy ·

2025/10/07

Caleb Ward is postdoc in philosophy at University of Hamburg and leader of the DFG project “Moral Opposition and Political Agency under Oppression.” Author of multiple articles and book chapters, their monograph–on the philosophy of Audre Lorde–will appear in 2026.Caleb’s webpage. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit deadbeatphilosophy.substack.com/subscribe

77:52

A Political Ecologist Climbs Mount Kilimanjaro (w/...

Deadbeat Philosophy ·

2025/09/23

Sierra Deutsch is an interdisciplinary political ecologist in the department of geography at the University of Zurich. Dave and Sierra chat about Euro-American academic identity, Sierra’s grueling recent trip to the top of Africa’s highest mountain (where she nearly developed altitude sickness), the global economic-political-environmental polycrisis, the deep tradition of Marxist environmental theory, the importance of foregrounding Indigenous voices in our efforts to combat entangled structures of

38:42

Mountain Landscape with Rainbow

Deadbeat Philosophy ·

2025/09/09

Rob Mottram is a scholar of modern European literature and culture, and senior lecturer in German studies at Whitman College.Rob and Dave chat about sandwiches, nostalgia, encountering computers as kids in the 1980s and early 1990s, AI (including AI term papers and AI podcasts), the overwhelming power of aesthetic experience, Goethe’s Faust Pt. II, and Rob’s transformative melding into Caspar David Friedrich’s “Mountain Landscape with Rainbow.”Rob’s Recommendations:Don’t Go to Montana and Don’t

66:06

Die Freiheit der Philosophie (w/ Tatjana...

Deadbeat Philosophy ·

2025/08/26

Tatjana Schönwälder-Kuntze is a philosopher based in Munich and the author of, among other books, Freiheit als Norm? Kritische Theoriebildung und der Effekt Kantischer Moralphilosophie, Philosophische Methoden, and Judith Butlers Philosophie des Politischen: Kritische Lektüren.This is the first (but probably not the last?) German-language episode of the podcast. Recorded with a live audience at the Städtisches Lapidarium Stuttgart: https://www.lapidarium-stuttgart.de/Tatjana’s Recommendations:Ilija

32:25

A Bipolar Manifesto (Book in Progress III)

Deadbeat Philosophy ·

2025/08/12

While producing the podcast and creating bizarre philosophy-themed YouTube videos over the past months, Dave has also been working on three books in progress–“Animality and Finitude,” “On the Kanthropocene,” and “A Bipolar Manifesto.”Parts of each book have been released on a rolling basis on the Deadbeat Philosophy homepage (deadbeatphilosophy.substack.com), and episodes 20, 21, and 22 of the podcast will feature readings of available sections of each.In this episode, Dave reads the first three

36:33

Six Short Texts on Kant and the Anthropocene (Book in...

Deadbeat Philosophy ·

2025/07/29

28:27

Animality and Finitude (Book in Progress I)

Deadbeat Philosophy ·

2025/07/17

65:51

Ideas to Rap Your Head Around (w/ Ivo Martin)

Deadbeat Philosophy ·

2025/07/10

Ivo Martin is a philosopher, educator, and musician based in Stuttgart.Dave and Ivo chat about the relative places of philosophy in the education and social systems of Germany and the USA, the (non?)relationship between studying philosophy and acting ethically, teaching philosophy to young children, the expectation of “neutrality” in the teaching of philosophy and politics, the value of anti-democratic philosophy in democratic states, the philosophical possibilities of rap music, spontaneity in

65:32

The Poetic Disintegration of the Self (w/ Brian)

Deadbeat Philosophy ·

2025/07/03

Brian is a poet and novelist based in Colorado, USA.Dave and Brian chat about writing, relating (or not relating) to previous versions of oneself, mortality, grief, memory, identity, delusion, attachment, parenthood, marriage, divorce, loss, depression, solitude, nerds, my little ponies, and the philosopho-therapeutic value of literature and art.They discuss in some detail early twentieth Japanese novels by Natsume Sōseki (“Kokoro”), Osamu Dazai (“No Longer Human”, and Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

77:06

Catholic Theology, Existential Philosophy (w/ Chris...

Deadbeat Philosophy ·

2025/06/26

Chris Anderson is a Roman Catholic theologian, high school theology and philosophy teacher, college instructor, and pastoral minister based in Fayette County, Pennsylvania.Chris was a student of Dave’s during their overlapping time at Seton Hill University, and in this conversation the two revisit and expand upon themes they had first discussed years prior, including the relationship between philosophy and theology, the value of a liberal arts education, Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica, the

62:44

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love AI (w/...

Deadbeat Philosophy ·

2025/06/19

Thibaud Henin is a Canadian political scientist based at Concordia University in Montreal.Dave and Thibaud chat about artificial intelligence from a variety of angles. They focus on algorithms and their interface with patterns of human and non-human behavior, thought, history, life, and physiology. They discuss the concept of AI agency, and of the creation within AI systems of delegated management, agency, and meta-agency roles. They debate the question of whether AI could in fact produce “truly

84:28

Pantheism in Life, Death, and Ministry (w/ Rev. Tasha...

Deadbeat Philosophy ·

2025/06/12

Reverend Tasha Brownfield is a Pantheist, Unitarian Universalist chaplain, minister, and educator. Currently, Tasha serves as the outpatient oncology chaplain at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, senior minister at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Smithton, PA, and a professor of religious studies and philosophy at Seton Hill University in Greensburg, PA.Tasha and Dave chat about Tasha’s life as a chaplain at one of the world’s largest and most cutting-edge hospitals, including accompanying

71:01

The Genesis of Creativity (w/ Jim Martin)

Deadbeat Philosophy ·

2025/06/05

Jim Martin is an American author, composer, musician, editor, photographer, and long-time Genesis fan living (like Dave) in Stuttgart Germany.Jim and Dave chat about ex-pat identity, about Jim’s upbringing at a military school in the US, about the unpredictable multiplicity of the creative process, and about Jim’s musical theatrical directorial debut scheduled for later this year. They cover mortality, Alan Watts and Joseph Campbell, Zen Buddhism and Taoism, the slippery moral quandaries that emerge

64:23

On Fantasy Novels and Steampunk Mustaches (w/ Patrick...

Deadbeat Philosophy ·

2025/05/29

Patrick Reinhardt is a book collector, publisher, illustrator, and self-defined “atavistic gentleman scholar.” Patrick and Dave chat about Patrick’s lifelong obsession with books, beginning with childhood readings of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion, all the way to his running of an independent classic literature publishing outfit today.They talk about developing an identity based around reading and designing books and the power of description, atmosphere, and

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Deadbeat Philosophy

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