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More discussion of Plato's "Apology."
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[…] To increase your enjoyment, download and read Plato’s Apology. The episode continues on part 2. […]
I recently discovered your website and I’m already enjoying it a lot. I feel as if I should work my way through the podcast episodes in order, though I just finished reading James’ “Pragmatism” (what a coincidence) so maybe I will jump around.
The “Apology” is such a classic defense of the activity of philosophy that I never thought of the Socrates character therein as an irresponsible a–hole. You are right to point out that most non-professional philosophers will look upon the activity of philosophy with some wonder and awe, and will probably not naturally seize upon such an uncharitable characterization of Socrates in the text. Thanks for the refreshing perspective.
There is a really wonderful piece in the “Ways of Learning” edition of Lapham’s Quarterly that speaks to the conversation about learning and goodness and those perhaps less learned and certainly less intellectual.
This is a great podcast, and I am slogging … I mean … *enjoying* these, in order, one at a time.
For this one, the purpose of an examined life is discussed. What is that purpose, teleological or otherwise. One of my students (I teach) nailed it. Her name is Miley W.: “So, Mullinax, if the examined life is not human or worth living, then does that mean the examined life is the only one worth dying for?”
Bingo.
What would MLK say?
Rock on.
Marc
Hi! Enjoyable to hear you guys think. One possible alternate understanding of the contemplative life – You present that there is some separate time needed for that. I contemplate my life from moment to moment, maintaining an awareness of what I’m thinking, saying, feeling, experiencing. I’m aware of people around me, their feelings, how I can improve their state of mind. I find a lot of moments of deep happiness.
Thank you for sharing that and I hope you continue to enjoy the podcast!
I only learned of your website a couple of days ago and I am loving the podcasts. Your senses of humor are exquisite. Thank you for making this available to all of us closet liberals with degrees in philosophy who feel isolated in the north central Texas area of tea bag right-wing libertarian closed-minded conservatives. Oops, as I look back over this, I am terribly afraid that I am projecting my biases on to my Baptist neighbors. Thanks for entertaining me, anyway, and even for making me examine my own life a little more.
Thanks LJ! If you are ever in Austin, give me a shout and we can be isolated together. Actually, here we won’t be so isolated…:)
Thank you for this excellent podcast and interesting discourse, I am thoroughly enjoying it and wish I had been introduced to it sooner.
It is reassuring to hear that one of you has also experienced (and survived) the train of thought that to do anything, however trivial, you must first define everything.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” -C. Sagan
Cheers!
All the way from Dubbo Australia, thanks so much for hours of serious fun and and an education in philosophy, a subject I always thought I wanted to study at university after graduating with a BA, until I spoke to a professor. Lucky for me I didn’t allow him to turn me off. After that I looked for lots of other ways and this week I found your podcasts. I began with Kierkgaard and then went back to podcast zero. I aim to work my way through all of them You have definitely hit the spot, placed philosophy where it should be. Thank you. Poli.
Love this podcast. Takes me back to philosophy class in high school, an interest I look forward to getting back into.
http://www.theprcave.org
I just started listening to this podcast and it was really enjoyable. It makes my tedious job go by faster keeps my brain engaged. I look forward to the rest!
Thanks guys 🙂
Thanks, Cynthia!
I am glad hear the revelation/admission that “even” liberals have “a lot of dogma” and haven’t examined their positions. I grew up (“hippie days”) thinking that “the left” was where we looked deeper and would THINK, and examine. Not so. Which, to my heart, makes it even worse. That is a betrayal.
Love this comment (yes, it does feel like betrayal – and the worst hypocrisy ever) and absolutely loving this podcast.
I live in a “terribly” liberal town. “Terribly” in that many, many of my fellow so called liberals are incredibly closed minded and absolutely incapable of looking at anything from other than the “liberal herd mentality view” (also known as the echo chamber). I am learning to replace the terms “liberal” and “conservative” with “open minded” (which may or may not apply to either).
As I continue my philosophical readings (started with Plato – whom I adore, and currently reading Nietzsche – whom I also adore) I have enjoyed observing how I could totally agree with one philosopher’s point of view and then see him contradicted in another and totally agree with that philosopher. Wishy-washy? Perhaps, but the unexamined life, for me is absolutely not worth living and learning something new every day (whether a particular philosophical perspective or how to garden) is incredibly exhilarating.
Thank you for adding to my quest for knowledge, whatever that term may mean.
Thank you very much for this inspiring podcast. Reminding me about Socrates brings new reflections and more to learn. Was he foolish then….. perhaps?
I am an older student learning a few things late in life….
Thanks again guys. I like your conversational style in imparting this philosophical information.
I’ve been listening for a while, but decided to start again from the beginning…
One thing that struck me here was the idea that, at St. John’s, the texts were treated reverently, which can get in the way of thinking critically about what one is reading. This is sort of the opposite of the experience I had as a student, in which we were more likely to think of the older philosophers as ridiculous. “What a stupid argument”, we’d say.
In fact, each of these approaches to the text is problematic in its own way. Treat it too reverently, and it will be difficult to attempt to show it is wrong. Like a fearful chess player, you will assume any possible mistake you see is in fact a clever move you don’t understand. Read it too arrogantly, and you will stop short of actually seeing the argument. Like an arrogant chess player, you won’t try to figure out whether what looks like a mistake is, in fact, a clever move you don’t understand.
Both are mistakes; both prevent learning. I encourage my students to ,when they see something that sounds stupid, read it again. The principle of charity isn’t really about being nice to the author – it’s about honing your interpretive skills so that you can dig deep for good arguments.
Bottom line: don’t be intimidated into thinking that you won’t be able to understand. If you don’t get it, you just need to keep working at it. But also realize that if these philosophers are making what look like bad arguments, you probably need to work on it some more as well.
Sounds very reasonable!
My comment about ‘reverence for the text’ and your reply is this:when I studied, we were always told that you had to consider only the text itself and that you couldn’t contextualize it historically or politically. Perhaps that was a symptom of the very reverence you proposed… I any case, that always struck me as completely asinine since I felt that the study of canonical work could really only be background for whatever is the current discourse of a thing.
i re-listened to Ep1 and enjoyed the oft-tangential banter among @Mark, @Wes & @Seth.
I would like to reiterate a point brought out in the discussion- doing philosophy entails the willingness to question everything, including one’s core beliefs.
i’ve lost two good philosophy buddies who ultimately couldn’t entertain the questioning of core beliefs- one to Sufism and the other to Christianity.
Hello fellas. I’ve only just discovered your series of podcasts myself when they were recommended by a friend. I’m resisting the urge to jump to my favorites and go through the whole program… I’m pretty irritated that I didn’t think of this myself. I’m enjoying the discussion immensely, but I can hardly listen without being able to proffer my own remarks. I would like to be friends with all of you funny, clever and well considered guys.
I entered philosophy in my 40’s after a windfall from selling a business and spent 10 glorious years living the examined life. It was the most fulfilling and satisfying period of my life thus far, but that was 20 years ago now and I dearly miss the long and passionate discussions in the grad club about all this stuff. It is very difficult in ‘real life’ to find people who are either equipped or interested in discussing philosophy even casually when the pull of the minutiae of daily life, sport, politics or celebrity is so overpowering.
I’m so glad these podcasts are here, now I don’t feel as crazy thinking about this stuff all the time while im at work
Socrates did not support his family, but the tragedy might be that Socrates did not support anyone. What is the purpose of public discourse? It is not to find The Truth (if there even is one to be found.) And, despite what Plato tells us, that may not even have been his own and Socrates’ purpose. Their lesson may have been larger than their narrative. I suggest that the purpose of the (publicly) examined life is to wrestle with the truth, to recognize that none of us ever reach it, but to witness one another’s participation in the quest. It is, in short, a trust-building exercise. In this way, democratic alliances may be formed among people with different experiences, different perceptions, different values and different skills so that they may sufficiently understand one another’s motivations to come together in any civic project. (It is a different social scheme from, say, military Basic Training, but with the same general aim.) Socrates was sentenced to death because, in the end, no one trusted him to ally himself with them for any civic purpose, despite society’s evident flaws. He chose death because he could not trust society, despite his own evident flaws.
This, I think, is why so many philosophy clubs, debating societies, academic fora, salons, etc. weaken and fail: there is no civic consequence. People entertain one another with their arguments, then go home. This is why (some) religious communities strengthen and succeed: they follow up with concrete civic projects. (In the Old Testament, Jacob wrestles with God, i.e. the Absolute, and survives. He names the place Peniel: “for I have seen God face to face.” The next day, he encounters his brother, whom he fears, but the meeting goes better than expected. Jacob tells Esau, “…accept my present from my hand; for I have seen your face, as one sees the face of God.”)
The thought that struck me when listening to this discussion was that the phrase “the unexamined life is not worth living” is spoken from the perspective of one who DOES examine his life — a philosopher comparing his life to that of “normal” people.
Living an examined life has its drawbacks. It’s hard to just “be,” and to navigate our way through a world that we know is in many respects arbitrary and ridiculous. We feel outside the life we’re thrown into with all its societal constructs and implicit or explicit “meaning.” But would I give up this skeptical insight and choose an unexamined life instead? No way. The unexamined life from this perspective seems like a hollow shell, a fiction, an illusion.
I’m a new listener (I’ve only listened to the first couple podcasts). I felt the need to make the comment–you guys really don’t seem to enjoy philosophy all that much. A lot of the discourse in these first couple episodes feel more full of rage and scorn from past personal experiences in the field than any sort of joy for the subject.
Given that we kept going for another decade, I think we got past that attitude pretty quickly! And it was never dislike of philosophy, but dislike of many of the things that go with being an academic, most of which we haven’t had to subsequently get over. Thanks for listening! Welcome!