Dennis Hollingsworth

Monadology

I've been listening to the podcast The Partially Examined Life in the studio (this is one podcast among others that I listen to while painting, I'll report on them all in a subsequent podcast) with much satisfaction. I ike the banter, the rim shots, the chemistry between the characters there, the Jack Black-like musician (Mark Linsenmayer ), the sad one with calm voice who usually guides the rudder of the conversation back into the topic (Seth Paskin?), the avuncular and wry Wes Alwan. What's cool is that the internet has shown a spotlight on the life of mind of other communities of philosophy, you don't have to get tenure to live the properly examined life.

At the beginning of my volumetric painting production (1996-onward), I had named the spiny hemispheres in my work Monads, after Leibniz's atomic entities. I had only a sketchy idea of what they were at the time and the more I learn about his ideas, the more confirmed I feel in my intuitive assignation. If you too want to confirm my intuition, check out The Partially Examined Life's Episode Six: Leibniz?s Monadology: What Is There?. Good stuff.

Also, don't miss the Arthur Danto podcast, super, super interesting.