Very Bad Wizards

Why do baseball players have so many superstitious rituals compared to athletes in other sports? How does this relate to the magic rituals of the Trobriand Islanders of Melanesia? We dive into Bronisław Malinowski's classic 1925 paper "Magic, Science, and Religion" along with George Gmelch's "Baseball Magic," two articles that explore the role of religion and superstition as a response to the absence of control. And speaking of losing control, we do a conceptual analysis of "crashing out" in the opening segment- analytic philosophy at its finest.
Malinowski, B. (1925). Magic, science and religion. In J. Needham (Ed.), Science, religion and reality (pp. 19–84). The Macmillan Company. [link to our Amazon S3 so everyone can find it easily]
Gmelch, G. (2012). Baseball magic. In J. Spradley, D. W. McCurdy, & R. Shandy (Eds.), Conformity and conflict: Readings in cultural anthropology (14th ed., pp. 266–274). Pearson. (Original work published 1971).

David and Tamler discuss The Odyssey's iconic books 11 & 12, in which our hero visits the ghosts of the dead, hears the call of the sirens, and survives a no-win situation.

Tamler and David discuss the action-packed books 9 & 10 of The Odyssey, in which Odysseus makes some questionable choices, the crew encounters cannibal giants, and Circe casts her porcine spells.

Since well before the big bang, people have been bitching about Tamler's chosen field. We talk about Bernard Williams' (qualified) defense of analytic philosophy in his essay "On Hating and Despising Philosophy." We also dig into Lily Hu's review of a recent book by Christoph Schuringa, an ideological and historical critique of the philosophical tendency to think they engage in an unbiased perspective-free search for truth. Plus - is it unethical for philosophers and other academics to make money on Substack?    
Is it unethical for academics to monetize Substack? by Walter Veit [substack.com]
 On Hating and Despising Philosophy by Bernard Williams [lb.co.uk]
Review of A Social History of Analytic Philosophy: How Politics Has Shaped an Apolitical Philosophy by Lily Hu  [academic.oup.com]

Tamler and David discuss books 7 & 8 of The Odyssey--while at Alcinous' palace in Phaeacia, Odysseus listens to poetry, plays some games, cries some more, and finally starts to regain his identity.