The HBS hosts discuss the many and varied ways we lie to ourselves.

For our final episode of each season, we take up a text or concept in philosophy that has crept out of the discipline and made it into the wider popular consciousness and culture. This week, we're talking about Jean-Paul Sartre’s idea of “bad faith” (mauvaise foi) from his text Being and Nothingness.

[Trigger Warning: at around the 24-minute mark in this episode, we have a brief discussion of people ending their lives. You can jump ahead to minute 28:15 if you prefer to skip that part of our conversation.]

As we end Season 9, we're sad to say goodbye to co-host Jason Read, who is stepping back from the microphone. Jason will still be writing books, like his most recent The Double Shift: Spinoza and Marx on the Politics of Work (click that link and buy his book!), doing amazing work as a public philosopher, and devoting more of his time to local activism. Rick and Leigh want to express their most heartfelt gratitude for Jason's work on HBS for the last 45 episodes (Seasons 6-9), and also to let him know that we've always got a barstool saved for him!

Full episode notes available at this link:
https://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-135-jean-paul-sartres-bad-faith

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If you enjoy Hotel Bar Sessions podcast, please be sure to subscribe and submit a rating/review! Better yet, you can support this podcast by signing up to be one of our Patrons at patreon.com/hotelbarsessions!

Follow us on Twitter/X @hotelbarpodcast, on Facebook, on TikTok, and subscribe to our YouTube channel!

The HBS hosts celebrate the paw-some impact of furry companions on our lives.

Companion species, like dogs and cats, have been a part of human history for thousands of years. The first domesticated dog was over thirty thousand years ago, and the first cat over ten thousand years ago. So, much of what we call human civilization has always been a multispecies endeavor. In recent years, however, cats and dogs have seemed to have taken on increased significance, both in terms of what they offer us and in our dedication to them. With respect to the former, the term “emotional support animal” has gone from being a specialized term for service animals to a general understanding of an animal’s role in our life. With respect to the latter, many millennials and later generations have responded to the foreclosed possibility of having human offspring by focusing on their “fur babies." We spend more money on our animals, with doggie daycares and excursions, and we also spend more time with animals, going to cat cafes.

What does the significance of dogs and cats tell us about ourselves, the world we live in, and about our connection to non-human animals?

Full episode notes available at this link:
https://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-134-companion-animals

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If you enjoy Hotel Bar Sessions podcast, please be sure to subscribe and submit a rating/review! Better yet, you can support this podcast by signing up to be one of our Patrons at patreon.com/hotelbarsessions!

Follow us on Twitter/X @hotelbarpodcast, on Facebook, on TikTok, and subscribe to our YouTube channel!

The HBS hosts take a break from the bar and lie down on the couch.

Almost from the beginning of its theoretical elaboration and clinical practice, Psychoanalysis has had a profound impact on culture, particularly in the west. We all laugh at the idea that “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar!” And we speak freely of “Freudian slips.” And many are at least passingly familiar with the main concepts: Ego, Id, repression, sublimation, etc. Philosophy, in particular, has been in a fairly constant dialogue with Freud and psychoanalysis–some philosophers embracing it and using it to understand aspects of our moral, political, social, and cultural lives, others critiquing or even rejecting it. It seems that European philosophy and its heirs cannot get away from Freud and psychoanalysis. But what is so compelling about the theory? Why have philosophers turned to psychoanalysis but not to, for example, behaviorism? Is the influence of psychoanalysis on philosophy a good thing? And are there not really terrible things about psychoanalysis–that it simply helps bourgeois people adjust to their own alienation; that it turns social and political issues into psychological ones; and that it is not necessarily liberating but might instead be reactionary?

This week, were are joined by philosopher and practicing psychoanalyst Benedetta Todaro to bring psychoanalysis on the couch, dig into its darkest recesses, understand its dreams, and see what is really going on.

Full episode notes available at this link:
https://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-132-psychoanalysis-with-benedetta-todaro

-------------------
If you enjoy Hotel Bar Sessions podcast, please be sure to subscribe and submit a rating/review! Better yet, you can support this podcast by signing up to be one of our Patrons at patreon.com/hotelbarsessions!

Follow us on Twitter/X @hotelbarpodcast, on Facebook, on TikTok, and subscribe to our YouTube channel!