In the penultimate episode of First Philosophy, Awee discusses Emmanuel Levinas and his radical claim that ethics comes before everything else. Instead of understanding the world first, Levinas argues that we are immediately confronted by the “other,” whose presence places a demand on us that cannot be reduced to knowledge, interpretation, or theory. Philosophy, then, is no longer about truth or being—but about responsibility.

Sonia and Kas interrupt, interpret, and unpack these ideas, translating Levinas’ dense philosophy into concrete examples and sharp discussions. Through debate, analogies, and moments of tension, they try to make sense of a thinker who resists being fully understood—while showing why his ideas still feel urgent today.

In the fifteenth episode of First Philosophy, Awee continues with the philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer and the idea that understanding is never neutral. Every act of interpretation begins within traditions, prejudices, and historical contexts, and according to Gadamer these are not obstacles to knowledge but the very conditions that make understanding possible.

Sonia and Kas t explore the consequences of this view for philosophy and dialogue. If interpretation always exceeds our control, can we ever reach objective understanding? 

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In the fourteenth episode Awee Prins continues our journey from Martin Heidegger to Hans-Georg Gadamer, tracing the shift from Heidegger’s analysis of technology as a way of revealing to Gadamer’s idea that we live within a fundamentally hermeneutic universe. If technology is not merely technological, then truth is not merely scientific.

Kas and Sonia push the discussion further by connecting these ideas to contemporary culture — from human resource management to historical interpretation — asking what it really means to say that we are always interpreting, always historically situated, and never outside perspective.

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In the thirteenth episode of First Philosophy, we continue our deep dive into Martin Heidegger by reading and unpacking The Question Concerning Technology.

Rather than asking whether technology is good or bad, Heidegger urges us to question it more fundamentally: what kind of world does modern technology reveal to us?

From “standing reserve” and enframing to the dominance of calculative thinking, this episode explores why technology is not just a collection of tools, but an entire way of relating to beings, nature, and ourselves.

As always, Kas and Sonia try to help, interject, and underscore key parts and passages. They also discuss Heidegger’s complex legacy with regard to his association with the Nazi Party and the infamous Black Notebooks.

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In this episode of First Philosophy, Awee Prins begins with Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialism through the lens of freedom, responsibility, bad faith, and the phenomenon of the gaze. Sartre’s insistence that we are “condemned to be free” is unpacked with care, revealing a philosophy far less nihilistic than it is often assumed to be.

From the claim that there are no accidents in life to the unsettling demand that everything that happens to us is, in a profound sense, ours, Sartre’s existentialism emerges as a radical call to take responsibility for meaning itself.

Only after moving through Sartre’s account of human freedom does the episode return to Martin Heidegger. Heidegger’s analysis of being-in-the-world and situated existence reframes Sartre’s existentialism, showing its deeper ontological roots and shifting the focus from individual choice alone to the structures of meaning that always already shape our experience.

Throughout the episode, Sonia and Kas intercede with clarifications, objections, and contextual expansions. They connect Sartre’s analysis of the gaze to later developments in feminist theory, critical theory, and to Michel Foucault’s notion of the medical and disciplinary gaze, showing how questions about being seen evolve into analyses of power, normalization, and social control.

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Along the way, Sonia and Kas (inevitably) interrupt — not to derail the argument, but to test it, resist it, and occasionally push it somewhere unexpected. Their interruptions become part of the episode’s rhythm: philosophy as something that refuses to stay neat.

This episode also sets the stage for what comes next, as Sartre’s bleak account of intersubjectivity opens toward later thinkers who try — and perhaps fail — to escape the violence of the gaze.

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#existentialism  #JeanPaulSartre #BeingAndNothingness #ExistencePrecedesEssence #HumanCondition #TheGaze

In the 10th episode of First Philosophy, we move from Martin Heidegger to Jean-Paul Sartre, tracing how existential philosophy shifts from structural analysis to lived drama.

Where Heidegger describes the structures of existence, Sartre insists on filling them in with freedom, responsibility, conflict, and anguish. If we are thrown projects, what does that actually mean in everyday life? What does it mean to act, to choose, to flee, or to take responsibility?

Sonia and Kas as always, pause, interrupt, and reflect —  we move from cafés and prison camps to novels, short stories, and philosophy lectures packed with thousands of listeners. Freedom, Sartre argues, comes with no excuses, no alibis, and no guarantees. The question is not whether we are free—but whether we dare to acknowledge it.

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#existentialism  #JeanPaulSartre #BeingAndNothingness #ExistencePrecedesEssence #FreedomAndResponsibility #BadFaith
#HumanCondition

In the ninth episode of First Philosophy, Awee Prins is moving deeper into the existential analytic of Dasein. After introducing Heidegger’s project in earlier episodes, we now explore how being-in-the-world shows itself in everyday life: through tools, moods, language, and our relations to others.

The episode also examines fallenness, the “they” (das Man), idle talk, curiosity, and ambiguity, before turning to anxiety, nothingness, being-towards-death, conscience, guilt, and resoluteness. Rather than offering advice or moral prescriptions, Heidegger’s philosophy is presented as a descriptive account of what it means to exist at all — to be a thrown project that must take up its own being.

As always, Sonia and Kas pause, interrupt, and reflect — not to simplify Heidegger, but to stay with the difficulty of what he is trying to think.

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#Heidegger #BeingAndTime #Philosophy #Existentialism #Moods #Anxiety #Boredom #Authenticity #BeingInTheWorld#FirstPhilosophy #ContinentalPhilosophy#ExistentialPhilosophy

In this episode, Awee embarks on a slow and thoughtful exploration of Martin Heidegger's Being and Time [Sein und Seit], one of the most complex and influential works in Western philosophy. Awee addresses the importance and complexity of what Heidegger endeavours in this project; showing the structures of everyday existence, which he terms Dasein.  

Kas and Sonia assist the listeners in grappling with the contents of the book, as it requires an entirely new vocabulary. They also discuss two ways of interpreting one of Heidegger's most influential concepts; authenticity. 

Let’s begin, finally! 

Kas and Sonia guide you through this challenging episode, as Kas modestly fanboys about his first philosophical love: Heidegger. We also find out that in philosophy and life, language is kind of a big deal. 

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 Awee delves into reading the works of Edmund Husserl, guiding the listener through the first steps into transcendental phenomenology. Through key fragments, as well as contextualizing Husserl through his early influences and the thinkers he influenced, this episode will give you a firm starting ground to understanding the father of phenomenology. 

Sonia and Kas disagree whether Husserl is thinking warmly or falls to his math-envy, and remind themselves as well as the listener that we still limit ourselves to the canon of western philosophy. 

Let’s begin, finally! 

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Please let us know what you think?

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“What is man? There are no definite answers to this question.”

In this first episode, Awee Prins explores the phenomenological approach, which tries to understand the world—not as a sum of objects or a totality of things but as a crossroads, a patchwork of different perspectives.

Sonia and Kas introduce themselves and the First Philosophy podcast.
 
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“Philosophy is a strange zigzag, and with a lot of zigzags to come that we don't even know about.”

In the second episode, Awee continues exploring the phenomenological approach while questioning what it means to practice philosophy.

Sonia and Kas take a moment to examine the nature of stories, specifically Awee's stories but also in the realm of literature. And also the first of many Dostoevsky mentions.

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P.S. Do you like Dostoevsky? In that case, you might as well press the follow button and give this podcast five stars because, boy-oh-boy, are you in for a treat!

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