Episodes

Very Bad WizardsMarch 31, 2026
329
01:20:1291.99 MB

Episode 329: Why We Suffer

David and Tamler return to the work of Richard Shweder and colleagues, focusing this time on his foundational paper "The "Big Three" of Morality (Autonomy, Community, Divinity) and the "Big Three" Explanations of Suffering. What are the various ways that ...

Very Bad WizardsMarch 17, 2026
328
01:42:36117.62 MB

Episode 328: Weapons Free

David and Tamler cross the border into Denis Villeneuve's taut and propulsive thriller Sicario , the story of an FBI agent who gets pulled into a task force drawn from the shadiest elements of the US government. The assignment: to disrupt, infiltrate, and...

Very Bad WizardsFebruary 24, 2026
327
01:32:33106.13 MB

Episode 327: You Ain't So Smart (Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People")

David and Tamler return to the Southern Gothic well and talk about Flannery O'Connor's short story masterpiece "Good Country People." A nihilistic atheist philosophy PhD named Joy or Helga (depending on who you ask) lives with her mother and some tenants ...

Very Bad WizardsFebruary 10, 2026
326
59:1067.93 MB

Episode 326: The Most Important Episode of Your (Academic) Life

Are you a college student or about to be one? Do you have friends or family in college? This is the most important episode of your life. David and Tamler do something a little different this episode and tier rank a wide range of academic fields from engin...

Very Bad WizardsJanuary 27, 2026
325
01:12:1282.84 MB

Episode 325: It Is Happening Again

David and Tamler return to Mircea Eliade's The Sacred and Profane and discuss the chapter "Sacred Time and Myths." How does viewing time as circular give us a periodic window into the sacred? What does it mean to reactualize the creation of the universe i...

Very Bad WizardsJanuary 13, 2026
324
01:07:2777.41 MB

Episode 324: Irruption of the Sacred

David and Tamler consecrate their podcast with a discussion of "The Sacred and the Profane" by Mircea Eliade. We focus on the first chapter on sacred spaces, where the divine breaks through (or irrupts ) our homogenous and chaotic reality, creating a cent...

Very Bad WizardsDecember 23, 2025
323
01:08:0978.2 MB

Episode 323: Debate Me 'Phro

David and Tamler dive into Plato's Euthyphro, part of our intermittent Back 2 Basics series. A young cocksure priest, confident in his holiness, bumps into Socrates on his way to court to prosecute his father for a wrongful death. After a few rounds with ...

Very Bad WizardsDecember 09, 2025
322
01:21:0093.41 MB

Episode 322: A Theater of Simultaneous Possibilities (William James' "The Stream of Thought")

David and Tamler return to William James' monumental "Principles of Psychology", this time wading through his famous chapter "The Stream of Thought." We talk about his rejection of empiricist theories of consciousness in favor of a view that consciousness...

Very Bad WizardsNovember 25, 2025
321
01:29:41102.86 MB

Episode 321: The Journey Begins (Plus Blind Ranking Philosophers)

David and Tamler begin their long journey home to Homer's Odyssey , the tale of king Odysseus' 10 year journey home after the Trojan war (maybe the greatest story ever told). We dive into the first two books, which focus on Odysseus' 20-year-old son Telem...