Enjoying this series on Sontag. Keep it up!

Once again, a great episode - thank you! I feel this episode is really about beliefs, some of which could have been initiated by a metaphor. In Indian Metaphysics such as Advaita Vedanta, metaphors are used to impart knowledge about a particular point between a knowledgeable person and someone less so. Once the point has been understood the listener is encouraged to disregard the metaphor. Otherwise, it risks becoming a belief. Suffering: There's a difference between physical pain and mental suffering in that they're independent. From personal experience of cancer patients, one can be realistic & rational about physical pain but loving supporting and compassionate about mental anguish. I loved the closing conclusion about discernment between metaphor and beliefs. It reminded me of Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay on self-reliance. Well done and I look forward to the next episode.

Really appreciate the stuff about how we talk about cancer

Would have loved to hear Sontag's views of the metaphors used to express the current rise in the awareness, diagnosis and treatment of mental illness. There is such a fear of it and people really "other" those with mental illness and diversity. Excellent series.

Thank you so much Mr. West. I am a first year college student taking intro-to greek philosophy. You have helped me enjoy philosophy more than ever and understand it as well. Unfortunately, there are no professors at my school as good as you. I hope you are well and continue to work on this amazing resource. My father and I sometimes listen to it together and I love discussing the ideas with him. Thank you again. You are doing a great service to us listeners.

Underrated episode.

Thank you so much for uploading these amazing podcasts to KZfaq, I'm learning English while I'm really interested in philosophy. I found your podcast at first but I can't understand them all by just listening, you youtube video with subtitles totally solves my problem! Thank you again!

This is a truly incredible summary Stephen, thank you.

It would be tremendously useful to expand your argument about metapor to the concpt of metaphor on political violence. As a Korean, who had to get through military dictatorship in youth, I know the danger and ubiquitity of metaphor as a means to sustain the political oppression. The militaty government tried to make every effort to tease out the metaphors of "commies" in every level. Hence, seemingly innocence poetic dictims, to their paranoid, suddenly turned into metaphoric language of the commie propaganda. They resort to creating the surfiet of metaphor to create political terror even in the level of ordinary lives. Again great job for the presentation

This was amazing

Can you add this to your KZfaq podcast playlist?

I remembered what he said in the start of this journey the work of people which came after Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Rene, Locke, Hume, Neitsche were just a footnote at best when compared to those who came before, and listening to recent epsiodes I understand why he said that. Most people in modern time are just repharsing the works of earlier philosophers. I learn more by relisting to older podcast than by listening about the work of modern day philosophers.

Great content!!

I disagree. It is metaphor all the way down. No pure description. Nature does not reveal itself to us in its own language. We always describe reality working from the language of the familiar to understand the unfamiliar. Scientists use metaphors drawn from established areas of science to penetrate little understood areas of science. That is why to the layman it sounds like pure description. The technical terminolgy is not familiar. There is no escaping metaphors but there are bad and good uses of metaphors.

* insert MetaPhore here.

I had a professor one time chastise me for my use of the metaphor, "to hit on" a woman. Sometimes the interpretation has more to do with the audience than the speaker. My prof assumed "to hit on" meant a one night stand, while I thought it meant to ask out on a date. Wildly different interpretations of a common phrase that I originally thought of as benign. I have since abandoned using this phrase for the obvious metaphor of violence. Most women are not turned on by getting clubbed over the head and dragged back to a cave, by the hair. I live in a cartoon.

First ❤

If this is a representation of her thinking, I'm, hugely disappointed and hope she revised this over time. It's completely reductive. Simile's and metaphors are not the same. She might as well have trashed all art. Metaphor's aren't easy and most people can't fathom deeper meanings in literature. Without metaphor there can be no beauty or art.

My God ... she must have had a view that people are awfully dense that she has to drone on about what is common sense to most anyone. Again, much ado about very little.