Speaker 1: We deceive ourselves with high falutin reasons. It aren't the
Speaker 1: real reason for hiding the real reasons. Welcome to the
Speaker 1: one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the
Speaker 1: importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in,
Speaker 1: garbage out, or you are what you think ring true.
Speaker 1: And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen
Speaker 1: or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is Rebecca Newburger Goldstein, an
Speaker 1: American philosopher, novelist, and public intellectual. She is the author
Speaker 1: of ten books, many of which crossed the divide between
Speaker 1: fiction and nonfiction. Her latest book is called Plato at
Speaker 1: the Google Plex, Why Philosophy Won't Go Away. The book
Speaker 1: is an exploration of contemporary relevance of philosophy. Goldstein is
Speaker 1: a MacArthur fellow, has won the National Jewish Book Award
Speaker 1: and numerous other honors. In September of two thousand fifteen,
Speaker 1: she was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Obama
Speaker 1: in a ceremony at the White House. To get a
Speaker 1: free download of Eric's favorite Rebecca Goldstein quotes, go to
Speaker 1: one you feed dot net slash Rebecca and here's the
Speaker 1: interview with Rebecca Newburger Goldstein. Hi, Rebecca, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: I'm happy to have you on to talk about your
Speaker 1: latest book, Plato at the Google Plex, Why Philosophy Won't
Speaker 1: Go Away, and also to talk with you a little
Speaker 1: bit about the fact that you just won a National
Speaker 1: Humanities Medal, which was presented to you by the President
Speaker 1: at the White House. Can you talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about what that was like and then the ceremony itself.
Speaker 1: You know, what it reminded me of was in the Iliot,
Speaker 1: when a warrior is in great danger and he's about
Speaker 1: about to be killed, and the god who favors that
Speaker 1: particular warrior just sort of smoops down and picks him
Speaker 1: up and put him some place on some beautiful Frank
Speaker 1: will Field, and he looks around. He was like, what
Speaker 1: has happened to me? That's what I felt like. It
Speaker 1: was just somebody swooped it down and picked me up,
Speaker 1: and I was back in my life and thinking what
Speaker 1: just happened to me? I can't believe this happened to me? So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it was. It was a kind of transcendent experience. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I bet, well, congratulations, that's really a that's a big deal.
Speaker 1: It was, It was, It was great, and I have
Speaker 1: to say that it was. I don't want to get political,
Speaker 1: but the fact that it was that particular president meant
Speaker 1: a great deal to me. Yeah, yeah, that sounds amazing. Well.
Speaker 1: Our podcast is called The One You Feed, and it's
Speaker 1: based on the parable of Two Wolves, where there is
Speaker 1: a grandfather who's talking with his grandson and he says,
Speaker 1: in life, there are two wolves inside of us that
Speaker 1: are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which
Speaker 1: represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the
Speaker 1: other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed
Speaker 1: and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he
Speaker 1: thinks about it for a second, and he looks up
Speaker 1: at his grandfather, and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins?
Speaker 1: And the grandfather says the one you feed. So I'd
Speaker 1: like to start off by asking you what that parable
Speaker 1: means to you in your life and in the work
Speaker 1: that you do. Certainly, I'm a great believer that there
Speaker 1: are certain emotions in us that we ought to cultivate
Speaker 1: and and enlarge, and others that we should try to
Speaker 1: shrink as much as possible. I was interested in the
Speaker 1: in the parable as you just told it, because they're
Speaker 1: both they're both called wolves, and wolves are usually thought
Speaker 1: of as um. I don't know what's kind of um,
Speaker 1: not particularly lovable beasts, very very clever beasts, but that
Speaker 1: particularly lovable not like dogs. UM. You know that they're
Speaker 1: both called wolves, um, and and I do. I do
Speaker 1: think that actually those those negative emotions are more they
Speaker 1: are more wolves like, and they're more voracious, They're very strong,
Speaker 1: and that it's very easy to let things like you know,
Speaker 1: resentment and anger and hatred overtake you, and it's much
Speaker 1: harder to cultivate and to enlarge the the wolf emotions
Speaker 1: that um. Gratitude is is another one that I would
Speaker 1: put there on the list. I think that's in a
Speaker 1: very very strong, a very important emotion to to cultivate gratitude. Um.
Speaker 1: And that's that's you know that that that can be
Speaker 1: more difficult, especially to make them grow so that they're
Speaker 1: not just directed to the people who are genetically connected
Speaker 1: with us, you know, our own our own family and
Speaker 1: tried can um, but you know, the world at large.
Speaker 1: That's very very hard. Um. But one of the things
Speaker 1: I said thinking about was that they're both wolf like
Speaker 1: in the sense that they can you know, they can
Speaker 1: take you over. They can, they can. It's kind of
Speaker 1: eat you up. And what we want is for the loving, ennobling,
Speaker 1: grateful emotions to to take over one's personality as much
Speaker 1: as possible. But that's that's hard. I think one has
Speaker 1: a bigger appetite than the other certainly seems to be
Speaker 1: and that seems, uh, there's plenty of the bad wolf
Speaker 1: food kind of laying around. It really is, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's probably an evolutionary you know, legacy that we
Speaker 1: are very devoted to ourselves, our own will to survive
Speaker 1: and for our own uh you know, kim to survive,
Speaker 1: and we have natural feelings of empathy towards you know,
Speaker 1: those who are very close to us. But it's it's
Speaker 1: much it's much harder to to uh, to feel it
Speaker 1: for the world at large, and that it takes real efforts.
Speaker 1: So one seems to just sort of naturally be there
Speaker 1: and the other the other takes great effort. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: had a guest to said that the good Wolf is
Speaker 1: kind of the runt of the litter for him, which
Speaker 1: made sense to me that that one takes a little
Speaker 1: bit more effort to feed. So your latest book is
Speaker 1: called Plato at the Google Plex, and it's pretty clever
Speaker 1: in that what you do is you basically cast Plato
Speaker 1: into a bunch of modern settings. One of them is,
Speaker 1: you know, going to Google and the other is going
Speaker 1: to a book reading, like we were just talking about
Speaker 1: before the show. And so if I were to be
Speaker 1: able to get Plato on the show, which would really
Speaker 1: be quite a guest, um, they'd have to feature us
Speaker 1: on iTunes if we had Plato. I'm pretty sure if
Speaker 1: we were able to get Plato on, what do you
Speaker 1: think he would have to say about the parable Plato
Speaker 1: would have a lot to say about this parablel I mean,
Speaker 1: in some sense this is exactly what he was most
Speaker 1: concerned with which was how do we nourish what's good
Speaker 1: in us? And how do we start what's not good
Speaker 1: in us? And he believed that it was reason um,
Speaker 1: that it was the kind of philosophical reason and ethical
Speaker 1: moral thinking that he was trying to develop the various
Speaker 1: techniques for that we're seeing our way clear of our
Speaker 1: innate selfishness and self centered this scene, he knew it
Speaker 1: as well as as well as wed. He didn't have
Speaker 1: the benefits of knowing about evolutionary psychology, but he knew
Speaker 1: he was a great observer of human nature, and he
Speaker 1: knew that there was a great tendency in human nature
Speaker 1: to be self centered, to be egotistical, to be greedy, uh,
Speaker 1: to be angry, to be resentful. UM. And in that
Speaker 1: he actually used oh you know what, it just he
Speaker 1: uses a parable that he that that features two animals,
Speaker 1: not wolves, but two horses and a and a charioteer.
Speaker 1: So there's this chariot and it's being pulled by two horses,
Speaker 1: and one is good and noble and can be easily
Speaker 1: controlled by the chariot here and yeah, there is wild
Speaker 1: and and and lotful, and UM wants what it wants.
Speaker 1: It's only aware of its own desires, um, And there's
Speaker 1: that charioteer, which is, you know, one's controlling self, trying
Speaker 1: to trying to rein in the bad horse, and and
Speaker 1: and and goad on the good horse. And so it's
Speaker 1: very it's very similar actually, So he's very concerned with this,
Speaker 1: and you could actually say that he was developing philosophy,
Speaker 1: and he really is in some sense the founder of
Speaker 1: the Western tradition of philosophy. He was trying to answered
Speaker 1: precisely this question, um, how do we reign in what's
Speaker 1: bad in us and cultivate what's what's good in us?
Speaker 1: And he felt it was reason uh, And it was
Speaker 1: trying to gain perspective, trying to gain some sort of
Speaker 1: objectivity over one's own life, and understanding the nature of virtue,
Speaker 1: what it is, and why it's good for us, uh,
Speaker 1: and why it's good for all of us, you know,
Speaker 1: why it's good for society as a whole. So this
Speaker 1: is really the ruth of of Ustern philosophy lies in
Speaker 1: trying to answer precise as a question that you're posing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the subtitle of the show is Conversations about creating a
Speaker 1: life worth living, and that idea of a life worth
Speaker 1: living is you have it in the book many times
Speaker 1: that that's what Plato was concerned with exactly, so you
Speaker 1: know he he was very much under the influence of
Speaker 1: of of Socrates, and there's so much so that you know,
Speaker 1: Plato wrote in in dialogue forms, which is wonderful because
Speaker 1: it's art. It's not only great philosophy, but it's great art.
Speaker 1: It's kind of philosophical drama, and there's really there are
Speaker 1: sort of real characters and almost real stories that run
Speaker 1: through through a lot of them. But he features Socrates,
Speaker 1: who was this eccentric character in in Ancient appens in
Speaker 1: almost all of the dialogues. We have twenty six of
Speaker 1: his dialogues, and in twenty five, Socrates is often the
Speaker 1: main character. Sometimes he takes a more marginal position, but
Speaker 1: he's often the main character. Um And one of the
Speaker 1: earliest dialogues is Plato's presentation of socrates defense his apology
Speaker 1: because he was brought up on charges of capital, charges
Speaker 1: of having challenged the gods as been impious and corrupting
Speaker 1: the youth. And in the apology that that Plato gives
Speaker 1: us Socrates others what is probably the most famous found
Speaker 1: bite in you know years of Western velocity, which is
Speaker 1: that the unexamined life is not worth living. Let's work
Speaker 1: our way back to how Socrates got himself into that position. Um,
Speaker 1: And it's going to be sort of a long journey,
Speaker 1: but I think we're gonna come right back to this
Speaker 1: point in a minute. One of the things that you
Speaker 1: talk about in this book and uh, in some of
Speaker 1: your other books is this idea that is humans we
Speaker 1: have this incredible will to matter. You talk less about
Speaker 1: meaning and about the fact that we are we are
Speaker 1: desperate to feel like our very short time on this
Speaker 1: earth actually matters in some way. And Um, you sort
Speaker 1: of play off of a couple of different ways that
Speaker 1: we as humans go about that. And you talk about
Speaker 1: the Greek approach to mattering, which will will follow down
Speaker 1: the road here back to Socrates, and but you also
Speaker 1: talk about at the same time the Hebrews were coming
Speaker 1: up with a different approach to mattering, and you say
Speaker 1: that Western society has kind of bounced back and forth
Speaker 1: between those two ever since. Can you explain a little
Speaker 1: bit about each of those approaches to mattering. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: it's really amazing because in this period that we're talking about, UM,
Speaker 1: when the Greeks are inventing philosophy. There are there are,
Speaker 1: there's a tremendous kind of normative ferment in a large
Speaker 1: part of the world. Um. So there's you know, the
Speaker 1: Hebrews across the Mediterranean, UM, who are quietly at this
Speaker 1: point working out their own view as to what it
Speaker 1: is to live a life worthly, living a life that matters,
Speaker 1: that features. Eventually they come round to the idea of
Speaker 1: of one God. Takes a while, but of one God
Speaker 1: who created the physical universe without, in the moral universe within,
Speaker 1: and to live a life that matters is to live
Speaker 1: as He wants you to live. Of you know, the
Speaker 1: beginnings of a real supernat trall answer to this question
Speaker 1: of what it is to live a life that matters.
Speaker 1: And the Greeks, even before philosophy, even going back um
Speaker 1: I argue too to the Homeric times, um, to the
Speaker 1: Iliad and the Odyssey. Although their society was filled with gods,
Speaker 1: it was a policyistic society when it came to acting
Speaker 1: this kind of question, what is it to you know,
Speaker 1: what is it to spend one short time here in
Speaker 1: a way that that matters? Um. They didn't look to
Speaker 1: their gods. They actually gave a very uh human answer
Speaker 1: to it. It was to do something out outstanding. Um.
Speaker 1: You see this in in in the Homeric code. UM.
Speaker 1: I call it the ethos of the extraordinary, to do
Speaker 1: something so that, um, you don't really want to impress
Speaker 1: the gods in that if you if you attract too
Speaker 1: much of the attention and of the god, something bad
Speaker 1: usually happens, you know, a rape or murder, or it
Speaker 1: was something pretty bad usually. Uh, So you really don't
Speaker 1: want to attract too much attention from the gods. What
Speaker 1: you want is to really well others so that your
Speaker 1: name will live on this idea of your doing something glorious.
Speaker 1: And the word for glory was was claioffs. To do
Speaker 1: something glorious so that you would win same and that
Speaker 1: also was the word claioffs. So the glory and the same.
Speaker 1: The measure of the glory is the same to have
Speaker 1: your name on other people's lips, of it is so
Speaker 1: that it won't be as if you had never been. Um.
Speaker 1: This was this was how they saw it, living a
Speaker 1: life that matters and that kind of propped up you know,
Speaker 1: certainly the Athenian society and you're saying far more than that,
Speaker 1: in that it created a group of people who were
Speaker 1: very very focused on being exceptional, allow of competition, a
Speaker 1: lot of striving. That that made some of the civilization possible.
Speaker 1: But then Socrates comes in and he sort of turns
Speaker 1: that on its head exactly. So, so yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, so the Greeks, I mean, they were amazing, right,
Speaker 1: they created a culture that that you know, still makes
Speaker 1: our jaws drop and uh. And they were quite impressed
Speaker 1: with themselves also. But they're you know, they're highly competitive.
Speaker 1: They was divided into many different city states, and they
Speaker 1: would compete with one another. I mean, the Peloponnesian War
Speaker 1: was thought between the two leading city states, Starta and Athens.
Speaker 1: So you know, it was it was a highly competitive society.
Speaker 1: They would compete at theater, and they would compete in more.
Speaker 1: They were compete in rhetoric, and they competed in thinking too,
Speaker 1: So it was, uh, there are many parallels between their
Speaker 1: society and in our society. So when Socrates gets around
Speaker 1: to considering this question and of what is it till
Speaker 1: of a you know, a life worth living, um, a
Speaker 1: life that matters. He again, he's very Greek in the
Speaker 1: sense that he doesn't bring the gods into it. It's
Speaker 1: nothing like the monotheistic answer. H that that that that
Speaker 1: the Hebrews working on. But you know, it is an
Speaker 1: answer in terms of achieving something great. So in that sense,
Speaker 1: he's also very Greek. But the greatness has nothing to
Speaker 1: do with uh, impressing others. It has to do with
Speaker 1: achieving real knowledge and achieving real virtue, you know, figuring
Speaker 1: out what is just and what is good and doing it.
Speaker 1: And you may not impress your fellow citizens and and Socrates.
Speaker 1: And the proof is, of course, the Socrates didn't impress
Speaker 1: his fellow citizens. Well, he did many of them. He
Speaker 1: certainly impressed Plato and many other thinkers, but he didn't
Speaker 1: impress his fellow Athenians citizens. Uh. You know, they sentenced
Speaker 1: him to death, and then they they voted him guilty,
Speaker 1: and then they voted him uh uh that he deserved
Speaker 1: to die, and he died by hemlock. And so it
Speaker 1: is uh So it's it's in some sense a very
Speaker 1: Greek answer. You know, it's not in terms of the
Speaker 1: gods or god. Uh. It's in terms of what we
Speaker 1: can achieve, and it takes all of our work. It's
Speaker 1: very very hard. But it's not measured in terms of
Speaker 1: the claim that we win. It's really more in our character,
Speaker 1: in our characters and our mind, you know. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: it is a good thing to know more. And it
Speaker 1: is a good thing too to be a good person. Um. Yes,
Speaker 1: and that you know, depending on the society you live in,
Speaker 1: that may not be valued, but it is of value.
Speaker 1: And that's where he Plato and Socrates to really diverged
Speaker 1: from the rest of their society. You say that Critiz
Speaker 1: is presented as asserting something so radical that his hearers
Speaker 1: think it has to be a joke. He would, he says,
Speaker 1: rather be treated unjustly than treat others unjustly, which sounds um,
Speaker 1: at least for that time, right, a crazy thing to say.
Speaker 1: Now absolutely, and um so this isn't well he says
Speaker 1: in various places, but he says it very very strongly
Speaker 1: in a dialogue called the Gorgeous and that you know,
Speaker 1: he would far more rather be the victim of a
Speaker 1: tyrant um, you know, imprisoned and and and tortured than
Speaker 1: be the tyrant who has ultimate power and can do
Speaker 1: anything he wants. Because that tyrant and his power what
Speaker 1: seems like power is simply destroying himself. He's destroying his soul.
Speaker 1: He is he is not living a life worth living.
Speaker 1: He is wasting his brief time here on earth um
Speaker 1: by by committing on justice. And uh, I think that's
Speaker 1: an extraordinary uh message, it's it's fun. I believe in
Speaker 1: very pretty strong like and and it's fun. I think
Speaker 1: that's still sounds shocking, you know, then when you say, look,
Speaker 1: you know, I know I wouldn't want to have all
Speaker 1: this power if if what I did with this power
Speaker 1: was pursues, you know, silly things or or even unjust
Speaker 1: things inflicting justice on others. Than that, I'd rather be powerless, right,
Speaker 1: And that is certainly a statement very out of vogue
Speaker 1: in most of today's world. You came up with this
Speaker 1: idea that you called the will to matter, and you
Speaker 1: you came up with a concept, actually in a fictional book,
Speaker 1: but of something called the mattering map. What is a
Speaker 1: mattering map? This idea of the mattering map UM, which
Speaker 1: is which is caught on? I hadn't realized that it's
Speaker 1: been used in UM and all sorts of contexts UM,
Speaker 1: even behavioral economics. I had first proposed it in my
Speaker 1: very first book, um and, which was a novel. It
Speaker 1: was called A Mind Body Problem and it was published
Speaker 1: in three so very long time ago. And uh, I
Speaker 1: came up with both these ideas of the will to
Speaker 1: manner in the in the mattering map, because I've written
Speaker 1: this novel about this young woman. And my editor at
Speaker 1: that time said to me, you know, I don't understand
Speaker 1: Renee Foyer. This is this character, she's she's she's so
Speaker 1: beautiful in then you know, she's sosorrible and she's so right,
Speaker 1: and she's so miserable. She's always on the verge of
Speaker 1: despare Why And I thought about this, you know, what
Speaker 1: was it about this character? And I realized she didn't
Speaker 1: feel like she mattered, that she wanted to matter in
Speaker 1: a particular way. And that's the idea of the mattering map,
Speaker 1: that we all, we all want to matter. We don't
Speaker 1: want it to be the case that you know, it
Speaker 1: makes no difference that we lived, h you know, that
Speaker 1: we hadn't shown up for our existence, it would have
Speaker 1: made the whole difference at all. Sometimes it's terrible thought
Speaker 1: to us, maybe even more to terrible terrible than the
Speaker 1: thought of death itself. Um but but we all find
Speaker 1: different ways of of trying trying to feel like we matter,
Speaker 1: you know, for some For some people it's you know,
Speaker 1: I know people from you know, just being the best
Speaker 1: dress person in the room is the way that they
Speaker 1: really feel, you know, that they matter. If somebody else
Speaker 1: is more flashily dressed, they they they take a hard
Speaker 1: hit or um through some sort of art through music
Speaker 1: or um poetry or her novel writing, or for being
Speaker 1: very very smart enough for U Renee Lawyer. Um, she wants,
Speaker 1: that's what manager she wanted. She was, she was in philosophy.
Speaker 1: That was the field she had gone into this as
Speaker 1: I had. And um, it's a field in which your
Speaker 1: judge very um, they really on how smart are you?
Speaker 1: It's it's it's such about people in there, you know,
Speaker 1: graduate school. How good is she? How good is she
Speaker 1: meaning you know, how how smart are they at at
Speaker 1: at this this kind of very subtle and difficult reasoning.
Speaker 1: And she worried that she didn't matter in the region
Speaker 1: of the mattering map that mattered to her, and therefore
Speaker 1: she didn't matter. And so if she was the one
Speaker 1: who really came up with this whole idea of the
Speaker 1: mattering map, and and she comes, you know, at the
Speaker 1: end of the book to the realization that you know,
Speaker 1: we all of us matter to be human, it's to matter.
Speaker 1: And yes, there are things that each of us feel,
Speaker 1: you know, are worth pursuing, and it differs among us.
Speaker 1: But our our sense of you know, our right to live,
Speaker 1: you know, whether in that really fundamental sense we matter
Speaker 1: shouldn't depend on that on whether we matter in this
Speaker 1: particular region of the mattering map. That there's complete relativism there.
Speaker 1: You know, you want to matter, you know, as a
Speaker 1: flashy dresser, I want to matter as a good philosopher. Um,
Speaker 1: there's complete relativism and subjectivity there, but on the level
Speaker 1: in which it really matters. Um, we all matter exactly
Speaker 1: the same amount to be humans. If to matter, you know,
Speaker 1: I think we're actually realizing that, realizing that about ourselves
Speaker 1: and about others. It's another way of understanding what human
Speaker 1: dignity is. Is a way of of feeding um the
Speaker 1: good wolf. I think it's one of the most important
Speaker 1: ways we have a feeding or good wolf to realize
Speaker 1: to the extent you know that any of us truly matters.
Speaker 1: We all matter in exactly not the same way m M.
Speaker 1: In the book you have a dialogue between Plato and
Speaker 1: his book publicist about an idea that Plato holds that
Speaker 1: she finds pretty difficult to stomach at first. And the
Speaker 1: basic idea is that in the same way that a dentist,
Speaker 1: for example, is better able to, you know, fix our
Speaker 1: bite and adjust our bite in our mouth, then say
Speaker 1: Chris sitting over here, that there are also people who
Speaker 1: are better able and trained to determine what a life
Speaker 1: worth living means, what living well means, That that decision
Speaker 1: is not necessarily made best by the person themselves, that
Speaker 1: there's a class of people that might be better able
Speaker 1: to make that decision. Yeah. So Plato does truly believe this,
Speaker 1: and in fact, he things this is what philosophy is
Speaker 1: is all about, and that these are the most difficult
Speaker 1: questions that we could ask, we all naturally ask them.
Speaker 1: To be human is to ask these questions and and
Speaker 1: and and to have opinions about it um. But that
Speaker 1: there there are subtle questions and difficult questions um as
Speaker 1: difficult as in a math or or physics or or
Speaker 1: or any of these questions that require experts. And he
Speaker 1: calls these people who devote their lives to trying to
Speaker 1: answer this question philosophers. That's really what he means by philosopher. Um,
Speaker 1: and he understands very very well. Um, how odious this sounds.
Speaker 1: And and the natural resempment of philosophers, I mean, if
Speaker 1: they are at the very ton of philosophy as it's
Speaker 1: being created by Plato. Uh, he understands the kind of
Speaker 1: resent meant that that it will cause. And it's true
Speaker 1: it still does even in our day. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: to be human is to have a point of view
Speaker 1: on these questions about you know, what it is to
Speaker 1: little life worth living? Um, how dare somebody claimed to
Speaker 1: be an expert about this? It seems somehow to diminish
Speaker 1: a person's humanity to be told no, no, there are
Speaker 1: experts on this field, in this field, this this is
Speaker 1: you know, Plato understood the um he was saying something
Speaker 1: very radical and it and it is something radical and
Speaker 1: it I think it, you know, justifiably understandably causes resentment.
Speaker 1: And yet the philosophers have helped us to inch along
Speaker 1: and making progress and seeing our way clear to to
Speaker 1: these difficult questions. They really have. That's one of the
Speaker 1: things I try to argue in the book that you know,
Speaker 1: they have helped to enlarge our points of view and
Speaker 1: to feed our better holds. A lot of the theme
Speaker 1: of the book is why philosophy matters today, And you
Speaker 1: say that progress in philosophy consists, at least in part
Speaker 1: and constantly bring into light the covert presumptions that burrow
Speaker 1: their way deep down into our thinking, too deep down
Speaker 1: for us to even be aware of them. Yes, exactly. So,
Speaker 1: you know, we are very complicated creatures. We are reasoning creatures.
Speaker 1: We have beliefs, and we and we have challenged, will
Speaker 1: give the reasons for our beliefs. And we act. We
Speaker 1: don't just behave we act. We have reasons for our actions.
Speaker 1: You know, have challenged, we will give our reasons. We're
Speaker 1: just siftory creatures. We try to give justifications for things
Speaker 1: and reasons for actions, and reasons for beliefs can be evaluated.
Speaker 1: Some are not so good, some are better than others.
Speaker 1: And so that there are actual you know, there are
Speaker 1: there are ways these can be evaluated. But we're also
Speaker 1: very compartmentalized creatures, and we're self deceiving creatures. But you know,
Speaker 1: interestingly enough, I mean, he's a great expert on the
Speaker 1: ways in which we deceive ourselves, and we deceive ourselves
Speaker 1: you know, often with um, with high falutin founding reasons
Speaker 1: that aren't the real reasons. We're hiding the real reasons
Speaker 1: from from ourselves, and so there is a kind of
Speaker 1: excavation that that ought to take place, Lado says. You know,
Speaker 1: and the way you do this if you dialogue, UM,
Speaker 1: the philosophy is a very much a community effort. You know,
Speaker 1: you should be many people coming together, challenging each other,
Speaker 1: you know, really budding heads. It tends to be a
Speaker 1: quite aggressive sport philosophy, but you know, and and and
Speaker 1: sometimes that's dumb stuff, that's ego stuff, right, people showing off.
Speaker 1: But sometimes at its best, it's sincere, it's us antick,
Speaker 1: it's um. It's trying to examine, to get down to
Speaker 1: what is really our reasons for uh, for our actions,
Speaker 1: for our beliefs, and and evaluating them. And and you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes they're so pore to us uh that um, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's hard to see that they even require a
Speaker 1: a gentification. And that's why philosophy has done better when
Speaker 1: many different people from different backgrounds, different points of view,
Speaker 1: different genders, gender orientations um are brought together. And so
Speaker 1: in this sense, philosophy has made great progress, just in
Speaker 1: my own life because when I entered into it UM,
Speaker 1: I was always the only woman, always the only woman
Speaker 1: at the table, at the semin our table. And there
Speaker 1: are more women now and that has made a big difference,
Speaker 1: because we often find ourselves challenging presumptions that are all legs.
Speaker 1: Aren't even aware of our presumptions, they just went unseen.
Speaker 1: So it's very very important to dialogue and to dialogue
Speaker 1: with as many different cultures and points of view and
Speaker 1: orientations as possible. Excellent, Well, we are nearing the end
Speaker 1: of the show. I'd like to end with asking you
Speaker 1: a question something that you bring up in the book.
Speaker 1: Chris and I, as listeners will know, are both huge
Speaker 1: dog fans. Um we love dogs, and you say in
Speaker 1: the book that the dogs are the most philosophical of
Speaker 1: all animals. Can you tell me why you say that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know that. That's another thing. Plato actually say that
Speaker 1: dogs have a kind of love of truth and they'll
Speaker 1: they'll follow it, They follow the scent. You can't you know,
Speaker 1: a dog following as sense cannot be turned away. The
Speaker 1: dog knows what he knows, and he's going to go
Speaker 1: there and um and not be uh not be turned away.
Speaker 1: And that is that's the way we ought to be,
Speaker 1: Plato says. You know, when it comes to truth and virtue,
Speaker 1: you know that even if others are are polling us away,
Speaker 1: we know dissent, we're going to go after it. Excellent. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much Rebecca for coming on the show.
Speaker 1: Congratulations again on your recent award and all your success.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. It really was a pleasure x
Speaker 1: I enjoyed it also, you too. Take care. You can
Speaker 1: learn more about Rebecca Newburger Goldstein and get a free
Speaker 1: download of Eric's favorite quotes of hers at one you
Speaker 1: feed dot net slash Rebecca