In this thought-provoking episode of Stefan Molyneux's podcast, a father and philosophy graduate student shares his journey through the intricacies of modern philosophy education with Molyneux. As the conversation unfolds, the caller describes his experiences in grad school, discussing the structure and expectations of philosophy programs, and how they contrast with other disciplines, particularly history. He reflects on the seminar formats, roundtable discussions, and the challenges of deep engagement with complex texts, highlighting that philosophy courses often require students to navigate dense readings and articulate their understanding through rigorous discussion.
The caller elaborates on the nature of coursework in philosophy, noting the balance between lecturing and open discourse, and the varying workloads across different professors. Insightfully, he shares anecdotes about his experience studying significant works, including Plato's *Republic* and readings from key philosophers like Martin Heidegger and Kant. Molyneux prompts the caller to reflect on the intensity of intellectual struggle associated with grappling with philosophical texts, which often demand a level of concentration and depth not typically found in other fields of study.
Throughout their dialogue, they explore the philosophical landscape's inherent challenges, from understanding Kant’s categorizations to the implications of Schopenhauer's pessimism. The caller, who has also dabbled in historical classes, discusses the necessity of circulating various sources in the historical framework compared to a more focused set in philosophy, showcasing the unique demands each discipline imposes on students.
As the conversation progresses, they delve into the impact of political ideologies within academia, where the graduate student observes a predominant left-leaning perspective among faculty and student bodies. Despite acknowledging the biases that may exist, he maintains the value of what he has learned and stresses the importance of critical thinking that philosophy fosters. Molyneux and the caller engage in a spirited discussion on the complexities of contemporary politics, the significance of free thought in the sphere of education, and the potential risks of ideological conformity and suppression of dissenting opinions within the academic environment.
They also explore the vital responsibility of philosophers to articulate complex ideas in a digestible manner, especially when interlinking philosophical thought with moral education. Molyneux contends that ethical teachings must be accessible to children and the average person, arguing that convoluted philosophical ideas should not ultimately dictate moral responsibility in society. This leads to an inquiry into the practicality of philosophical discussions in addressing real-world scenarios, like societal violence and political events, illustrating the essential nature of practical philosophy.
The episode wraps up with a personal touch as the caller reflects on his journey toward philosophy, influenced by his early exposure to Eastern philosophies and music. Despite facing setbacks in his personal life—such as a failed engagement—the caller finds solace in intellectual pursuits and the communal aspects of the philosophical community. They express mutual appreciation for the dialogue, an exchange that enriches their understanding of both the philosophical discipline and the pressures of modern academia.
As the episode concludes, Molyneux invites the caller to return for further discussions, recognizing the value of continuing conversations about philosophy's role in society and education, leaving listeners with food for thought about the intricate relationship between philosophy, academia, and real-life experiences.
0:00 - Intro to Grad School Philosophy
12:06 - Diving into Kant and Schopenhauer
36:19 - Philosophy's Purpose in Academia
47:37 - Navigating Political Bias in Philosophy
51:27 - Ideological Justifications for Violence
56:05 - Journey into Philosophy
59:48 - The Impact of Music on Thought
1:06:24 - The Challenge of Explaining Ethics
1:13:54 - Parenting and Moral Responsibility
1:21:06 - The Complexity of Moral Theories
1:27:52 - Critiques of Philosophical Ideas
1:35:04 - Personal Life and Philosophy
1:38:22 - Closing Remarks and Future Discussions
[0:00] Hey, Stefan. Can you hear me okay?
[0:01] I can hear you just fine. How are you doing?
[0:03] Pretty good. I mean, other than being a little sick here, I apologize. I caught something funky a few days ago.
[0:10] Oh, no. No problem at all. We've all been there. I've given speeches with half my brain pouring out my sinuses, so no sweat.
[0:18] Excellent. Well, I'm very honored that you invited me on. I guess you're really interested in what grad school is like in philosophy now.
[0:26] Sure. I'd love to hear.
[0:30] Are we beginning?
[0:32] Yes. It's a public call, of course, so just stay off names and places, and we're good to go.
[0:38] Okie doke. So, yeah, I'm currently in my second year of grad school of philosophy. I guess we can start with the general format of grad school. Like, I'm sure you took a history grad school, which was a seminar format, correct?
[1:02] Yeah, it was mostly classes, a lot of reading, and some group projects and that kind of stuff. And then a final thesis that went on and on and on, as you know. So go ahead.
[1:16] Right. Yeah, I would say philosophy is really similar in that regard. So most of the courses have been like in a round table seminar format where each week we are assigned readings and we study that and we go to class, a professor usually will give a brief lecture and then there will be open discussion now, it really depends on how the professor approaches this, like I've had one seminar course where.
[1:49] It's more of like a typical class format where the professor's standing up in front of everyone, you know, primarily lecturing, and then there would be people assigned to give like a 60-minute speech about the readings. That format's a little bit different than everyone kind of just chiming in in a seminar format, but that's primarily what the actual class format is like. It really depends on the professor's approach for the workload. Like there could be a weekly write-up or there could be a midterm paper, a final paper, or a different kind of project. Like I guess a lot of philosophy students, they want to be educators. So there's a lot of emphasis on that with pedagogy teaching. Um and so like you might have to create some modules um to teach undergrads or something like that um but i would say is i've taken a couple electives in the history department and history is certainly a lot more reading than philosophy uh i would say the average weekly reading for a history seminar in grad school is about 300 pages and philosophy is about 100 to 150 pages Yeah.
[3:13] I remember taking a full year course on Aristotle and we spent about a week and a half on a paragraph. It can really dig deep.
[3:24] Yeah, that's certainly possible. Martin Heidegger, I believe, taught an entire philosophy course on just the first sentence of the Republic, you know, going down the little port city. I forget the name of the city, but he kept reinterpreting what that first line in the Republic meant. But fortunately, it's been more general, in my studies at least, where we'll plow through a few major works of philosophy. I took a social and political philosophy last semester, and we hit the main marks there. We did Plato's Republic in its entirety. We did John Locke's Second Treatise. Then we did Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition, and we were able to go through all those pretty thoroughly. So I was really grateful for that. But getting into the contrast between philosophy and history, history, I feel it's a lot more reading, and it's a lot more writing too. So history papers at the grad level are about 30 pages, whereas philosophy papers, they range from 15 to 20 pages. So I'm not doing a thesis as a master's student. I'm just going to do a capstone.
[4:44] I'm sorry, a what? A capstone? I'm not sure what that is.
[4:48] In your final semester, they'll assign specific readings that kind of go over your experience, what you've been studying in philosophy. And it's a three-credit course and essentially you have to, I believe you have to write a paper, there's tests and various factors that go into that, but you can do that instead of a thesis. And from what I've heard from some professors, a master's thesis nowadays is kind of frowned upon. There's no real weight to master theses compared to the PhD level.
[5:32] Well, I mean, they want to keep people in the system, right? So, of course, they're going to downgrade. I think my master's was about 110 pages, if I remember rightly, or something like that. But I took on huge topics, so that's a different matter.
[5:46] I think it's about that and philosophy as well, because I was asking questions. Because originally I wanted to do a thesis, but I was talked out of it. I'm really into Schopenhauer, and I was kind of correlating a lot of different things, how he was influenced by Eastern philosophy and that's what I did with my entrance paper. I wrote about the Eastern supplements and the world as well and representation and that got me accepted into grad school. But.
[6:14] I wanted to take that further and turn it into a master's thesis but i was talked out of it honestly with the the like i'm doing a full load this semester um i i if i had to work on a thesis on top of that i'd probably go insane because barely have enough time to you know especially taking you know the history because every week we're doing so much reading and i'm doing actually an art of war class so we started with sun tzu and we contrasted that with a mouse guerrilla warfare um then uh we did klaus of it's uh carl von klaus of it's you've heard of him the pressure the depression general i love that because there's actually philosophy i know there's philosophy and you know the art of war and all that but uh klaus of it's he really tapped into uh some cons um i i know he kind of works in like the hegelian dialectic a little bit um well i i didn't really pinpoint that as much as uh also plato he worked in a plato's tripartite soul with his trinity of warfare so um i really enjoyed that in the klaus of its um but uh that was a huge tome i had to read a couple weeks ago and a couple i'm taking two philosophy courses on top of that i'm taking german idealism and existentialism so just the sheer amount of reading like if i had to do a master's thesis on top of that i'd go insane i'll just be strapped to my desk 24 7 but uh yeah.
[7:39] I remember um i had to do an unholy amount of reading for my master's thesis because i was doing, uh well i was doing uh plato lock kant and uh hegel and anyway i want to sort of get into the whole thesis thing here but i was like i had my own little little corner of the library with my own little cubby, and I could leave the books there. And it was like my area, my little démons. And I found out, it was about a week after I'd handed in my thesis, that the CD-ROMs with searchable indexes came out for looking up these things. Because I had to go old-fashioned, right? I had to go to the indexes of the books and look up the topics that I wanted and make sure I got them in context and so on. And then the searchable CD-ROMs came out about a week after I handed in my thesis. So I guess it taught me well, but it would have been a whole lot easier the other way. So yeah, simply having searchable text is really a huge benefit.
[8:43] Oh certainly uh and i know in history just from the electives i've taken that they like you having a lot of sources to cite from so philosophy may you know be required to have like five to ten sources of history they require a whole lot more um so i i just bought uh 15 because, i plan to do my final paper on it's kind of like blending anthropology with history just the kind of cultural influences that influenced the war fighters during world war ii and you know like how the japanese were influenced by the samurai ideals and all that so i just ordered a whole bunch of books for that was like 15 books and the professor just gave me the green light for that but i know if it was under 15 he probably would have recommended me you know searching for more sources so yeah history definitely need a lot of sources for that just from my experience well Well.
[9:38] But mine was actually more about, I mean, it was more about philosophical concepts that I was arguing. My basic argument was that the philosophers who believe strongly in a higher realm, the new communal realm, the realm of forms and so on, inevitably end up having to advocate for dictatorship as their ideal political model, whereas the more rational empiricists end up with limited government. And that was sort of the general. And I had to sort of go through and find all of the sources and prove all of that. And the argumentation was quite tricky. and yeah so it wasn't so much in history it was directly in philosophy and yeah searchable searchable indexes would have been a big plus all right so uh are you in your 20s or 30s or oh.
[10:22] I just turned 40 so i'm a late bloomer where it comes to philosophy uh i was in the military i was in the air force um.
[10:30] Yeah you sound older but i wasn't sure if it was a cold or not it's both yeah yeah um.
[10:36] But uh I was in the Air Force, and then after I got out, I did the white-collar job stuff, and then I got my bachelor's in business, and the entire time I was doing my bachelor's, I was, of course, born into philosophy. So I realized like in Texas, if you're a Texas veteran, you have what's called the Hazelwood Act. So I can go to any public university and do courses for free. So yeah.
[11:10] That's what i'm doing philosophy so i'm not actually spending money on the courses now i do have to pay the school fees and yeah all that but uh no i'm a late bloomer like i really unsure what i want to do after this like uh something i've always wanted to be more well-rounded in this philosophy because you can learn you know so much on your own um but having that friction between you and the professor is really important just to kind of smooth out your rough edges and all that like you're mentioning the noumenal realm uh and something that i always interpreted with kant is that the thing in itself was like there was a thing that has to it but the the thing in itself for kant is just an epistemic boundary it's just the you have the limit of what is knowable um sorry i'm having a pop-up come up here but do you still hear me yeah go ahead.
[12:06] Okay yeah teams pop up real quick but uh uh there's something that was really like eliminating when i came in so right now i'm doing a one-on-one course with the professor in german idealism and we're doing it at breakneck speed um so really fortunate to have this and by the way the the critique of pure reason that is the most difficult text i have ever read but it's great to actually sit down and you know pound it out and you know flesh out you know exactly what con is saying there, especially the two different editions, the A edition and the B edition, and the differences between those.
[12:43] I got into Kant through Schopenhauer, so I was learning all this Kantian terminology to understand Schopenhauer better. Schopenhauer, for the thing in itself, there is a thingness to it as well. Will is the thing in itself for Schopenhauer, but I interpreted it like there was a thingness to the thing in itself for Kant. Um but no it's epics epistemic boundary is the limitation of you know our knowledge um it's not an actual thing so oh that in itself is wonderful that i'm able to you know be corrected in that instance and you know be better at philosophy um so but i understand what you're saying about the the like the higher realm like a lot of people interpret plato's forms you know especially like he has the different uh, levels like the noble lie with the the bronze souls the silver souls and the gold souls and he kind of places aristocracy above democracy and you know frowns upon democracy and all that and a lot of people interpret that as could lead to authoritarianism um but my interpretation of plato's republic yes there's the political side of it but there's also like a psychological side The whole thing is about harmony, and that's expressed throughout the Republic. But did I answer your question?
[14:07] Yeah, I mean, of course, with Plato, he watched his mentor and beloved father figure get voted to take Hemlock. So I can see why he'd be a little bit leery of democracy as a whole. And of course, when he tried to get into politics, he ended up being sold into slavery. It was only redeemed by a fortunate student who came by who bought him for a song and a dance. So, I mean, yeah, there are definitely personal experiences with Plato that would lead him that way. But, yeah, totalitarianism does seem to be the case when you believe in a higher realm that's inaccessible to the general senses. Because then you need to be part of a mystery religion to make good decisions in society. And most people aren't. So they just have to be told what to do, which is why I think the noble lie comes in.
[14:51] Yeah, yeah. And, you know, we have our own kind of noble lie here in America where this is the American dream where you can go out and be successful at anything, which is obviously a fucking lie. But that's kind of what it's presented as when you're in school is that you can become the president. You can become a doctor or astronaut. It's all bullshit. But, yeah, we kind of have our noble lie here in the U.S. So that in itself hasn't gone away. Having that, you know, civilizational or societal type of noble lie just to kind of have like this idealistic view of the nation that you live in.
[15:36] Well, I mean, I wouldn't say that the noble lie is not particular to America is you can go out and be anything you want. What they're saying is that, you know, the pursuit of happiness, not the guarantee of happiness. So there's no legal barriers to have you go out and stop trying to and try. There's no legal barriers to stop you going out and try and become a captain of industry or something like that. That doesn't mean that everyone can do it. Like there's no law that says I can't go and be a ballet dancer. I just I won't be a ballet dancer or an opera singer or something like that. But I think, you know, one of the big lies in the West is that we vote and because we vote in our politicians, they listen to what we do and therefore we have to obey them because the majority has gotten what they want. And I had Dr. Brian Kaplan on my show many years ago, The Myth of the Rational Voter.
[16:30] And also there's been countless studies that what the people actually want and what they vote for has almost no correlation to what the government actually does. So I think the noble lie is, well, you know, hey, man, you voted for this, so you have to obey it. And it's like, but there's almost no correlation between what the voters expressed that they want and what the politicians actually do. I mean, heaven's sakes. I mean, didn't the Trump voters want the Epstein files released and all of that kind of stuff? So there's sort of not much correlation and barely any, but I think the noble lie is, and it's a very convenient lie for those in power. Like, we give you a vote, which legitimizes the political process, and then you have to obey us because, hey, man, we gave you the vote. But, you know, if they just do whatever they want, regardless of the vote to a large degree, with Trump being, I think, an outlier in that area as a whole. But it's a very convenient way to get people to obey you to pretend that they're participating in your decisions.
[17:25] Yes certainly i certainly agree with that um as you know george washington warned us about political parties forming so it's more about what those parties want to do than the actual, you know will of the people um voting for those parties so like we you know there's the the promised wall that trump would do and that got him you know his first presidency yeah and where is it where's the wall so but it seems like he's cracking down more on illegal immigration now so at least there's that but i remember like ann coulter was really you know pushing for trump and his strong voice there and she was super pissed off when that wall wasn't built but yeah yeah i definitely see that as a kind of noble lie um representative democracy uh so as goes back to george washington with the political parties you know ruling of more than the actual will of the people.
[18:22] Yeah, or the idea that the government is interested in teaching you how to think. We got to have kids, got to educate them, got to put them in these government schools for 12 years straight, where they emerge with no capacity to think, very few math skills, few writing skills, and absolutely zero economically valuable skills at all. I mean, it's just a holding pen to release parents to go to work so that they can pay more taxes and to program the children into leftist gobbledygook nonsense but yeah so this idea that that government education is anything other than programming people to obey the government and be dependent is uh you know it's the old saying like if you send your children to be educated by caesar don't be shocked when they come back as romans.
[19:10] Oh certainly um even in higher education when i took uh microeconomics and macroeconomics it was just a whole bunch of memory work and memorize all these different terms and that's it, and you know after the course is done you you brain fart all that it's it's all gone um right after the course is over you don't really retain much um there's a lot of courses like that in business i have met people with mbas that can't even spell like it's ridiculous um but i would say philosophy is a little bit different in that regard like you you do get confronted by the professors they will grill you when you are wrong about something um yeah i just i just.
[19:53] Had a professor try and do that with me on wednesday.
[19:55] I know i listened i listened to that and uh john or whatever his name is. It's not an example of what I've experienced at grad school.
[20:07] No, but I really appreciated him calling in. I really did. I mean, I enjoyed the conversation. I'm very glad that it happened because, you know, for better or for worse, I have a big voice in the world of modern philosophy. I've had like a billion, almost a billion views and downloads. So i i have a big voice and it's always sort of surprised me that more professors of philosophy.
[20:32] Aren't calling in to set me straight, to help me think better, to communicate their great skills to an audience. Because, you know, I mean, certainly in my heyday, a professor might teach, you know, a couple of thousand people over his whole career, but a professor who called in and had a debate or a conversation with me could reach like a million people. And I guess it was all surprising to me that more philosophy professors didn't call in and say, here's what I think you got right, here's where I think you could improve, and give a sort of public lecture because they care about philosophy, and I have a big voice and a big audience. And I was just kind of surprised. And then I thought, well, maybe it's because reputational damage. But then, of course, I thought, well, I mean, everybody who studies the history of philosophy knows for absolute certain that philosophers suffer reputational damage if they're good. If they're bad, nobody cares, right? But if they're good, and we won't go through the whole list, but everybody knows the number of philosophers who've been attacked and slanted and lied about and maligned. That's just the gig. That's the deal. And so I thought, well, it can't be because of reputational damage because they are fully aware that good philosophers, and by good, I don't necessarily mean right or correct in every instance, obviously, but I mean, like, has some influence on the world, has some significant influence on the world.
[22:01] And, yeah, I was just kind of surprised that none of them said, gee, and I'm going to, you know, because they only have philosophers to study because people in the past took risks. And yet philosophy professors don't seem to want to come on my show. So maybe it's too risky, in which case it's like, well, then you're just studying men more courageous than you are, which seems not ideal.
[22:29] Yeah, that kind of goes back to Plato and the Republic. Like philosophers and a democracy are delegated to the fringes in a democracy. So for Plato.
[22:38] Well, no, but they don't have to be on the fringes. They could just call in. And if they were worried about reputational damage, we could just use a voice changer. I mean, that's, you know, not the end of the world. They could put on a Scottish accent for all I care, right? Right.
[22:52] I was a little concerned about that, too, because obviously in the humanities, it's, you know, quite left-leaning. And you know there's a lot of people who are really passionate about their political beliefs.
[23:03] Oh yeah we saw that last week um.
[23:06] So i i was a little concerned in that regard but as long as we speak generally i i think we're okay um.
[23:12] Well and you know of course you're welcome to say as everyone does well i don't agree with everything Stef says i mean and i'm sure you don't and if it sounds any consolation neither do i uh because i've been doing this for 43 years and I've changed my opinion on, not my opinion, I've hopefully improved my arguments on a wide variety of topics. So you and I wouldn't see eye to eye on everything for sure. But so tell me a little bit, I mean, how is the philosophy departments that you've been exposed to? Are they leftist too? Like, I can see that in, i don't know the education department or the social sciences or whatever but you know the sort of rigorous logic stuff uh i'm not sure that skews specifically political so what has your experience been of sort of political bias or perspective just.
[23:57] Like the humanities as a whole and i think it's just universal not just to the u.s but um europe as well um philosophy is certainly left-leaning with the faculty and all that. Now, I've had some very left-leaning professors, but they still knew their shit. So I was still very valuable. The courses are still very valuable, but occasionally there will be a contemporary political conversation and they might try to work in what the material that we're reading and interpreting that through a modern lens. But no, there's certainly, in philosophy, there's certainly a left-leaning skewering there.
[24:44] Now, is that just taken for granted, or do they make the case and they say, you know, we're about rigorous logic from first principles, and that just leads you to the left, and here's how and here's why, or is it just accepted as that's the good?
[25:03] A lot of the people you know in the you know the humanities in general they want to be educators and those types typically are a little bit more on the progressive side now i'm not saying you know that's 100 universal you know certainly there's you know right-wing you know professors like when i was an undergrad i went to a private baptist university and i was primarily right-wing, professors and libertarians, but I'm in a public university setting now, and it's like the complete opposite.
[25:35] Yeah, you can't, whoever pays the piper calls the tune, right? You can't do much to criticize the state if the state pays and protects your job.
[25:44] Yeah. So it's something that it was eye-opening to begin with. And I did clash a few times with other individuals, but mainly I don't stick to politics at all at school. I'm there to learn about the material.
[25:59] Um so but do the professors ever talk about that conflict of interest because if in the medical fields and in other fields but in primarily the medical field if you're paid by pfizer then you're supposed to disclose that like because that's a potential conflict of interest so that people are aware that you have a financial conflict of interest and of course philosophy is fundamentally, to me at least, fundamentally is about ethics. And so do professors say, here's my political perspectives, but remember, I'm paid by the state, so I may not be fully objective, and I'm certainly willing to have my arguments attacked and overturned, but I have enough self-knowledge, because of course, Socrates says the unexamined life is not worth living, and you know thyself, and so on. And so I have enough self-knowledge to know, because I love Socrates, that I have a conflict of interest being protected and paid by the state, and so here's my political perspectives, but be aware of this potential conflict of interest because that's what's required in other fields where you will have to reveal your source of income so that people can take that into account when evaluating your perspective.
[27:21] So obviously uh here in texas we've had that uh dei ban and i'll just say this i i feel like i could get into a little bit of trouble by expounding you know the the detailings of your question but um when the dei ban happened in texas like my university had a dei office and there was a lot of backlash so that like a lot of people were really upset including people in my department and you know passions were really high um so yeah they're they're the it's well.
[27:58] I'm sorry i'm not talking about dei specifically at all i'm talking about if you're going to evaluate the state but you are paid by the state and not only are you paid by the state but your entire job is fenced in and protected by state edicts and state power, would that not be something to, talk about, right?
[28:24] Yeah, certainly. And there's...
[28:29] It doesn't matter whether you're DEI hire or not. You're still paid and protected by the state. And it would seem to me that that would be something to discuss. If I had a particular, let's say, company XYZ, if Corporation XYZ was paying all my bills.
[28:50] And I was talking about Corporation XYZ, it would be unethical for me to not disclose that I was being paid by XYZ. Like if you're in the financial reporting industry or you write financial articles, if you write about a company and you hold stock in that company, you kind of have to tell people, right? And so that sort of basic ethics of disclosing conflicts of interest, I guess that would be something that I would expect philosophy professors to do when talking about politics, saying, well, I am talking about politics, but remember, I'm paid by the state. So take that into account when you're evaluating my position. I'm paid and protected by the state. I get summers off, four months off in the summer because of the government. I get my sabbaticals every couple of years where I get to go and write and read on the taxpayer's dime. And nobody can come and compete for my position because the government or the contracts enforced by the government require a phd so i you know so that to me would just be sort of basic disclosure of conflict a potential conflict of interest and i'm just wondering if anyone's done anything like that.
[30:01] Oh no no um.
[30:03] Wild i.
[30:05] Mean it's pretty much assumed that you know they're all paid by the state and all that but um yes something that it's not really expound upon um.
[30:15] And i guess people aren't i mean And I know that everyone knows that they're paid by the state, but it should, certainly for undergrads, it would be important to remind people who may not have been exposed to that kind of thing. And I suppose if an undergraduate were to stick his hand up or her hand up and say, hey, but you're paid and protected by the state, do you think that has any influence on your view of government? I mean, would there not be a rather chilly silence in the room in that situation?
[30:46] Exactly yeah especially you know when they're criticizing you know the state but the state allows them to voice their political opinions um yeah there is kind of a catch-22 there um, But, yeah, it's not something I've really experienced. I understand that, you know, obviously with a lot of left-leaning sentiments, it's more about, you know, the passion that they have. And a lot of that sentiment comes out to, you know, disagreeing with the current administration and all that. But this semester, there's not much of that happening. It's all just been about philosophy. I understand there's a lot of stuff happening on campuses about Charlie Kirk being assassinated. And one of my professors said, we're not mentioning that at all. We're just going to stick to the material that we're covering.
[31:42] Sorry, so you had a professor who explicitly said, although a truly groundbreaking and horrifying political assassination occurred because of philosophy, because of moral ideas and arguments, The philosophy professor said, we are not going to talk about that.
[32:01] Well, he was cautioning us because obviously students have been getting in trouble and expelled from universities. So it's more of a caution not to go there. And he preferred to just delve into the material that we're covering.
[32:18] Sorry, sorry. Just so he wasn't like, this is not going to be part of our course. He was cautioning students to not talk about it, like at all, like don't post videos because you might get kicked out of university.
[32:34] No, I think it was in that specific class that he was teaching that we're going to be covering the material and not delving into that.
[32:45] But that would be interesting because you were talking about Clausewitz and Mao and Sun Tzu and so on. I mean... So they're willing to talk about political violence, political terrorism, and so on, but just not in any contemporary way.
[33:01] Well, that's because a lot of students have been getting in trouble. And obviously, you don't want to end up being on the evening news because, you know, so on.
[33:12] Sorry, and what is the perception about why? I mean, I don't know if he said this, and I appreciate you sharing this, but what is his perspective as to why students are getting in trouble?
[33:23] Well, obviously, people have been mocking Charlie Kirk's death, and that has resulted in a lot of videos going viral. Like Greg Abbott called for the governor of Texas, called for one student to be expelled, not at my university, just at a different university. But I think we're buying a little too much into this. I apologize for, I'm still recovering from being sick, but he just kind of gave a little warning, like, hey, if we delve into this, we could get into some turbulent waters.
[34:00] But isn't that the job of philosophy, is to get into turbulent waters? I'm sorry if I'm missing that, but I mean, what a fascinating thing to talk about in a philosophy course, which is the political assassination and people's responses to it and where that fits into philosophical concepts and virtues and so on and partisanship and cognitive dissonance. And, you know, it's a fascinating topic. But again, I understand that it could ruffle some feathers, but… I mean, they're studying people who ruffled everyone's feathers in the past, but sorry, go ahead.
[34:39] No, you're certainly correct to point that out. Like philosophy is about, you know, questioning, you know, the state that we live in and the different ideals and how those clash and, you know, what is the most moral in that regard. But I apologize. I may be... Putting too much projection onto what the professor said. But it was a very brief passing comment that he said that he mentioned that, you know, people have been getting in trouble at universities for discussing.
[35:15] And I don't want to push you on this topic, so I recognize the sensitivity of it. So I would just point out that from my standpoint, and we can move on after this, but I would just point out that from my standpoint, for a philosophy professor to say, don't do something because it might get you in trouble does not seem to me specifically philosophical.
[35:35] I think it was more about be careful.
[35:38] Right, right, right. Be careful, but how about not be careful, but be moral, right? Like, let's look at the ethics of mocking and doing some Korean TikTok dance over somebody getting shot through the neck for expressing peaceful and rational opinions, or at least hopefully rational opinions or arguments. So rather than saying don't do stuff that will get you in trouble how about don't do stuff that's kind of cold-hearted and immoral but you know that it might get you in trouble is not a very philosophical argument that's just rank consequentialism and that's sort of how you would train a puppy to not go on the rug but anyway i get i get it's a sensitive topic so i just think it would be i.
[36:20] Know the professor um pretty well he's also teaching me german idealism 101. And I think it was more of just a warning for other people that may be really passionate and may go over the boundaries and get themselves in trouble. I think it was more of a warning to them. Again, I may be projecting, I may not be accurately presenting what he said. It was just a really brief passing comment that he made. And I do have utmost respect for this professor.
[36:48] Yeah, he was giving a caution, and I sort of understand that. Now, what's the, sorry, if there's other stuff that you wanted to mention, I have a couple of questions, but I don't want to preempt if there's other topics that you wanted to talk about. And I really appreciate this view into the modern academia.
[37:03] Yeah, certainly. Yeah. Feel free to ask anything you want.
[37:08] So what would you say the general purpose is, and let me just give you a tiny bit of backstory as to why I asked this. So I had a professor. Most of my professors really loved what I did, although they disagreed with me quite strongly, which of course turned out to be really great in hindsight, because it gave me a chance to sharpen my rhetorical blades, so to speak. But I had a professor who made me rewrite an essay twice, and I was very tempted to ask him, although I chickened out at the time, I was very tempted to ask him, okay, but what's the purpose of history? Because for me, the purpose of history is to learn moral lessons to avoid them in the future. And...
[37:51] I guess I never quite understood with that professor, or indeed with most professors, like what is the larger purpose of history? So for me, the purpose of history is to change the future by learning the lessons of the past, because you can't change the past, but you can use it to, like the purpose of pain is not about the past, right? You pick up something as a kid, it's too hot, you burn yourself, the purpose of the pain is not about the past, it's about preventing you from doing something in the future. And that to me was why you study history. And I did have some of those conversations with some professors, but this guy kind of gave me the creeps and the willies. And I ended up doing quite well in the course, but that was only because I basically had to just do what he said. And, you know, I was a young kid and all of that. So it took me a while to get more of my moral musculature developed. But in philosophy departments, is there a sense as to the why? Because, you know, that's the fundamental question philosophy is the why. And is there a larger sense of purpose or mission? Is the goal where we want to get people to think more critically, more rationally? We want to get them to challenge their assumptions. We want to get them to be resistant to propaganda. We want to oppose sophistry and promote Socratic reasoning. Is there a larger mission in any of the sort of philosophy, people that you've been around in this arena?
[39:15] So for critical thinking, certainly, I think that's where the roundtables and the seminars, they really flourish with having people discuss the text because you want to do it through a critical lens. And when someone veers off into nonsense land being corrected or just having some rough edges that need to be smoothed out, they're given that opportunity. Last week, I saw one student completely be grilled while presenting a section of Heidegger's Being and Time. And I did not expect that student to be grilled. I thought he was actually doing really well with his presentation, but the professor got grilling him and grilling him and grilling him, and, i i see the the benefit of that because you're constantly having to delve deeper into the, the material that's being covered and really consider it at a deep level um especially when we're getting to heidegger and all that heidegger itself is something that i'm glad i'm finally getting around to but it's it's very complex stuff um so.
[40:32] The grilling sorry to and i know of course you can't recall it verbatim, I'm sure. But what sort of grilling? Is it more definitions, or is it exposing contradictions in the text or contradictions in the argument? What sort of form did that grilling take?
[40:50] Well, Heidegger brings up the word facticity.
[40:54] I'm sorry, what was the word?
[40:56] Facticity.
[40:57] Facticity, okay. Sounds like truthiness, but all right, facticity, go ahead.
[41:00] Yeah and he the professor asked what the definition of that was and uh the student couldn't you know give a satisfactory answer and um when the professor kept groaning about you know what does this mean in the context that heidegger's saying in relation to the sign um and um, it turns out the professor is actually curious what it what it meant like he didn't know like and so it was a learning experience for everyone like the i understand he used that as an opportunity to try to get to what the true meaning of facticity is for heidegger in that context which this you know people looked up online what the what other heideggerians say it means but the the professor found all of those unsatisfactory.
[41:52] So he was using a specific instance of Heidegger that's universally unclear with all the scholars to really have the student giving the presentation consider deeply the material that's being covered by certainly bringing something like facticity that there's some issues there with interpretation. So I feel like even when there's not a correct answer to something, but just having the discipline and the rigor to dig deep into that is beneficial overall. That's part of philosophy is that critical thinking and trying to reach the best conclusion, most preferable.
[42:42] So I feel that being very rewarding in philosophy and grad school. As well, I understand you're talking about the historical context. Granted, it's really cool that you're able to do your master's thesis on philosophy in the history department. Whenever I mention Plato or Kant, my history electives professor just kind of gives me a weird look. But in the philosophy department, it's like different legal in different departments. But, um, I would say like professors feel like some of them, at least not speaking for all of them, of course, but, uh, there's some, um, that may view like the, the current administration or the current, you know, what's happening, uh, with the Trump administration being like the downfall of democracy and all that. But, uh, um.
[43:41] And do they invite criticism in a 360, like when I was in the business world, you have sort of 360 reviews where you don't just give performance reviews to your employees, but your bosses give it to you, your colleagues give it to you, your employees give it to you so that you can get a sort of 360 review of what you're doing and how to improve. Do the professors say, yes, I think that Trump is the downfall of democracy or something like that. Let's hear the counter arguments. Let's examine this. Let's examine even my own perspectives from a critical.
[44:15] Yes, I have heard professors ask if there's any contrary opinions or anything like that. And I've had some professors wish students would speak up and present contrary opinions. But the thing is, I've had just personal experience. You know, I've clashed with some individuals, not professors, but some, you know, other students. And I realized it's like, it's very fruitless for me to go down that channel and, you know, voice my authentic opinion about, you know, the current state of the world and where we live in and all that. But uh yeah it just gets messy because you know there's different factions of different students having different views and um the typically the what you we would consider woke um they tend to be the the loudest and they tend to um be the most uh dominant voices um so it's it's really a, i don't know like i prefer just to me personally just to kind of stick to my own devices and not let that stuff get to me um and have.
[45:39] You seen uh if the professor invites a contrary opinion particularly about current events have you seen those conversations go well as a whole or or do they usually go badly or how does that work.
[45:50] I i would say even if someone has a contrary opinion in some instances that they realize that it could just turn into a, you know, I really, so like me personally, and this is just my opinion, not representative at any university or anything like that. Like I've clashed with individuals and they catch you off guard because it's not one-on-one argument. It's you know numerous people um it's like you're you're poking the the wasp nest, um so i i realized early on like yeah let's just not go down that road it's gonna i'm gonna get upset and you know i'm gonna go home and i'll be ruminating and it's not gonna do me any favors, um you know poking a wasp now is this sort of in.
[46:47] Class or in the calf or.
[46:49] It's it's uh, It's happened more outside of class, but there was one instance where a couple individuals spoke up to me for othering, which I really don't know the details and all that. But they viewed that I was othering another group of people, and they both really just loudly shut me down.
[47:25] A full struggle session, right?
[47:28] Yeah. So that's when I kind of realized, oh, I need to be quiet in this regard. But that's just a small part of grad school.
[47:37] Like you do have the the political orientations and all that but i i still like i view like my education is still very valuable like um i i love like i have to be very disciplined to get through some very difficult texts and uh you know understand what i'm reading especially of the first critique oh my goodness that was that was a behemoth to tackle um and you know i felt so accomplished from doing that and you know, every Monday I have two hour one on one discussions with the professor where we discuss the text you know very thoroughly and he ensures that you know I'm getting it, I feel so, it's very wonderful to have that experience and you know be more well-rounded in that regard especially uh a section of philosophy that i'm very interested in and getting a good education there so um i i feel like the benefits definitely outweigh the the cons of you know perhaps you know.
[48:45] Ideological side of some of the students definitely not all like i would say maybe it's one-fourth of the students share that quote-unquote wokeness, and they're very vocal about it. So it's definitely not all of them.
[49:01] Yeah, and good luck saying if people start talking about white privilege and you say, I'm sorry, you're othering white people. Yeah, good luck with that, right?
[49:08] Oh no, I'd be shut down so fast. Yeah, that's a nightmare.
[49:14] Or, you know, anybody who expresses any satisfaction about Charlie Kirk's assassination or says good riddance or he deserved it or something. It's like, you're othering conservatives, you're othering Christians. And it's like, yeah, othering seems to be kind of a one-way street, as these things tend to be. So how did you... I'm sorry, go ahead.
[49:32] Yeah, fortunately, I have personally not heard anything negative in that regard about Charlie Kirk's assassination. So take that as you will. People are just not talking about it that much.
[49:45] But that is negative. To not talk about it and say, look, obviously this was an evil act and we should talk about it because that is something that is contemporaneous and is the result of a great evil and we need to trace the roots of the thought that might have ended up happening.
[50:08] With this justification, because we assume that the shooter felt that he was justified. And we have to look at the justifications, because justifications open the door to these kinds of evil actions. And to me, I think that would be like, let's trace the threads of what he believed and how he came to believe it. And because this is, I mean, this is crime and punishment stuff, right? So the murderer felt that he was justified. And in the same way that Raskolnikov in crime and punishment felt that he was justified in murdering the old porn broker. And the belief systems that give rise to those justifications, I think, are really important to examine. So not saying anything about it is interesting, because if they could use it to further their own political ends, I'm sure they would say a lot about it. So it's kind of a confession that They can't use it to further their political aims, therefore there's no point talking about it at all. But it would be the same if a prominent leftist got shot. It would be fascinating and instructive and hopefully preventive to examine the ideological threads that led to those justifications and figure out what philosophy can do to, de-escalate or oppose those ideas.
[51:27] I certainly agree with you, Mr. McFarland. I do see it as a quote-unquote turning point, this political assassination because it's not just killing a person, it's attacking what that person stood for, their ideas, and that's what philosophy is. It's about testing ideas and understanding where those ideas come from. So I certainly agree with you in that aspect.
[51:54] Well, I'm seeing especially the combination of Kirk and Kimmel, right? So seeing all the leftists, you know, protesting, outraged, canceling subscriptions and so on because a late night comedian lost his job, but they specifically weren't having the same level of outrage when a young family man got murdered in front of his wife and kids. That's troubling on every conceivable level, and that to me would be a very interesting philosophical discussion to have.
[52:29] Indeed, indeed. Another thing, too, this semester, I'm not taking political or social philosophy, so I'm taking existentialism, German idealism, and the art of war, I guess, but the art of war's in the history department, it's not the philosophy department, but that could be another reason why. I would definitely see if this was political and social philosophy, Charlie Kirk, his assassination being discussed in that course, but it could also be just the type of courses I'm taking this semester, why there's not a spotlight on that right now.
[53:08] Or you could say, we're not going to talk about the Charlie Kirk murder because whatever beliefs led that person to murder Charlie Kirk may be so prevalent that it might be physically dangerous for us to do so, which would be an example of how violence works.
[53:26] Yeah, certainly that could be a factor as well. There's probably a multitude of reasons why I have- I mean.
[53:34] Do you think if a leftist had been murdered, it would not be discussed as well?
[53:39] In these specific courses, I don't see a reason why it would be, because the content of these courses aren't dealing with social or political philosophy.
[53:49] But- No, but moral philosophy for sure. I mean, most philosophers focus on moral philosophy.
[53:56] Yeah, you're right.
[53:57] So what would I have to say about this or Hegel or?
[54:02] Categorical imperative for Kant. Then you have Heidegger, which care is very important for the interaction of the science. Care is very, very important. So compassion, even Schopenhauer, which he viewed compassion as very important.
[54:23] Nietzsche's will to power would be interesting to discuss. in this context?
[54:28] Yeah, yeah. A political will to power happening right now. But yeah, there's certainly a lot of different ways you can look at it. And I kind of do wish that, you know, I was in political philosophy right now where we had that discussion. I think it might be illuminating.
[54:49] Well, again, I would argue that it would be more relevant to moral philosophy than political philosophy. Yeah. Because what he did certainly was politically motivated, in my opinion, but it is the question of when, you know, just war theory, when is violence justified self-defense theory, and so on. You know, if the shooter believed that Charlie Kirk was advocating for the murder of himself or people that he liked, this is the old, you know, do you go back and kill Hitler when he's little uh that argument right uh when is preemptive violence acceptable when is you know you don't have to wait for the guy to cut off your arm with a chainsaw to use self-defense if he's just running at you he hasn't harmed you yet but he's going to uh our work and words what's the relationship between words and violence i mean there's a lot to talk about philosophically from this kind of stuff but um.
[55:41] No you're right you're very right there's.
[55:44] I also get it's volatile and could be challenging. And it also might reveal a certain bloodthirstiness, you know, because I think that's what's come out of the left. Yeah, yeah. Over the last week, it's a certain kind of bloodthirstiness. Sorry, go ahead.
[55:55] No, I certainly agree. There's, they want blood. It was very apparent. So, yeah. So, next question. You said you had another question?
[56:05] Oh, yeah. So, how did you get into philosophy, your interest in philosophy as a whole?
[56:11] Oh, that's a great question. Thank you very much for asking that um so my father he was part of the theosophical society um so he exposed me to what they interpret as philosophy quote unquote which is a mishmash of a lot of different practices a lot of it being eastern and all that and so i had always heard the word philosophy and kind of as a child i correlated it to more of esotericism um however uh it's actually through music um that i got into traditional philosophy uh i was really into heavy metal and extreme metal um as well as classical music and uh there's a lot of nietzschean themes in metal um Um, and so I started reading Nietzsche when I was in the air force, I had, uh, the will to power, uh, this book was Air Thustra, um, and read those walls in Japan, um, while stationed there. Um, but it was all metal. Um, and it was, you know, in classical music too, there's a lot of Nietzsche references and, you know, there's Mahler and, uh, Strauss, um. And so I got into Nietzsche and started working my way backwards from Nietzsche.
[57:36] Eventually landed on Schopenhauer, and that really resonated with me on a lot of different levels. Because at that point in time, I had delved into some Eastern philosophies, especially Advaita Bendanta, which really spoke to me, non-dualism. And here's a western philosopher who's a trust of course um schopenhauer his knowledge of hinduism and buddhism it was just now being presented in europe like there wasn't a lot of information on it when schopenhauer was getting into it so it's kind of at the forefront of that and a lot a lot of what he said may not be 100 correct just because it was in this nascent stage there in europe while he was writing about it but um getting into schopenhauer just blew my world especially when i got into his aesthetics and music and i would say um i've always kind of viewed philosophy as i know the the definition of it a lot of people say is love of wisdom but for me it's illumination um and illumination can take forms outside of traditional philosophy It could take form in music, take form in the arts. It could take form in whatever that broadens or expands our minds and understanding, I would say is philosophy.
[58:59] And Schopenhauer really, really resonated with me and got into him. Then to understand Schopenhauer, you need to get into Kant. So I got into Kant. Now I'm very fortunate to be studying very formally Kant. I've also gotten into Plato and delved into a little bit of Neoplatonism. I wouldn't say I'm a Neoplatonist, more like traditional Plato and some other Platonists. But yeah, of course, you know, just started expanding from there more and more. But I would say initially my interest in philosophy came from my father, but that was more from the esoteric side. And but music is what thrusted me into traditional philosophy.
[59:49] If that answers your question.
[59:51] It does. Yeah. I mean, I think that it sounds to me and obviously correct me if I'm going as right. It sounds to me like you got more into philosophy. Maybe muscular or manly philosophy out of the metal stuff. Because the esoteric stuff, you know, this tentative stuff kind of drives me. Like I had a guy on the show last night who was saying he thinks that two and two make four. And that kind of esoteric stuff is very sort of tentative, very sort of world consciousness, brain, soul uniting stuff. I was always looking for something more practical, Anglo-Saxon, perhaps robust, certain, because if I'm going to build my knowledge base. I want to build it on certainties, not on sort of this mystical, goopy, everyone is everything kind of stuff, which struck me as, I mean, it's pathologically female. It's an extension of female nature to the point of absurdity.
[1:00:44] Yeah, you would probably like Schopenhauer thinking about this. Have you read Schopenhauer?
[1:00:49] I've read some Schopenhauer. I've certainly been very curious about because, of course, most people will talk about Schopenhauer's view of women in the modern.
[1:00:56] Context yeah that's exactly so yeah.
[1:00:58] So tell me tell me a little bit about the stuff that you like about schopenhauer.
[1:01:01] Oh like i was saying i like uh his aesthetics because he gives music metaphysical weight um so there's like a metal metaphysical aspect of music and i've experienced something kind of transcendental with music especially sitting up front at a symphony like brookner's ninth or eighth symphony and just being transported into a different realm um like uh everything about the phenomenal world just disappears and i'm just you know focusing straight on the musical forms but uh with nietzsche we brought the will to power um nietzsche was really influenced by schopenhauer's the will to survive which is very darwinian but uh, But Schopenhauer viewed that there's a metaphysical will embedded in everything. And that kind of correlated to some of the esoteric stuff I was into like the Advaita Vendanta, the non-dualism and all that. Of course, I wasn't really into Christianity because it is dualism or pluralism depending how you look at it.
[1:02:18] Sorry, you mean the mind-body stuff?
[1:02:21] Yeah. But, yeah, I felt that Schopenhauer had a more coherent metaphysical system than Nietzsche. It was more fleshed out. And I felt it was more convincing in that regard. Like, Nietzsche, there's a lot of commentary. I saw some criticism of Nietzsche would have focused more n-words and got into metaphysics more that he could have been one of the main thinkers in that realm.
[1:02:50] Well, and who knows what he might have achieved if he hadn't gone mad, whether he got syphilis from that unfortunate prostitute or not. But yeah, Nietzsche's very thought-provoking. He's king of the aphorisms, which really make you think, but he's not a systemic concept builder from metaphysics to epistemology to ethics. He's an observationalist and an incredibly keen one. Very thought-provoking, but not a system builder.
[1:03:18] Correct. Very correct. but Schopenhauer is all about building systems. So he's in the Kantian tradition. Um, um, So, yeah, that's what I was initially drawn to Schopenhauer. And there was, you know, the element of music and aesthetics just reaffirmed his philosophy for me. Now, like, a lot of people view Schopenhauer as a pessimist. I feel as epiphenomenal of his observations because he saw, like, you know, how nature, like, there's the element of suffering throughout the world. That's why we should definitely have compassion for each other. But for Schopenhauer, there's just boredom and suffering.
[1:03:58] Just so prevalent in reality, which is a huge parallel to Mahayana Buddhism, which he talks a little bit about. He didn't get that far into Mahayana. He got into the Heart Sutra, which is like a Chinese simplification of the Diamond Sutra, which is all about negation. Like two negations equal an affirmation essentially is Mahayana Buddhism.
[1:04:28] And Schopenhauer was really drawn to that too because he felt like the way you get out of suffering is to kind of transcend either through being an aesthetic monk or through aesthetics, you know music great musical musical profundity um you temporarily temporarily relinquish the will um so yeah there's a lot of wonderful things to show up in there i understand and he even admits this too that you're not convinced there's nothing more i can i can say but it's not for everyone it's not something i could see being applied on a societal level or anything like That is very personal, but he does speak broadly about having compassion and all that. So that could be translated on a societal level, but if you view life itself as boredom and suffering, it's not a good foundation to build a society.
[1:05:31] No, no, I get that. And, of course, also Schopenhauer being such a, you know, once in a century kind of genius. I mean, how much is he going to actually have in common with the average person or even the intelligent person or even the highly intelligent person? It's like putting Pavarotti in a choir. He's going to be like, I'm surrounded by people who aren't as good as I am. And I can certainly, you know, one of the things that's challenging with philosophers is if you're really good at it, then you have a distance from the general population. And it's easy to interpret your distance from the general population as something existential man is doomed to be isolated and bored and it's like well no that's because you're super smart and so you're going to have less in common with the average person uh but that's not human nature that's your uh amazing mind not being able to connect with the average or even the above average around you.
[1:06:24] Yeah, I mean, he did view, even for the average person, they're always in a constant state of boredom, at least boredom.
[1:06:38] But they also might have been bored by him because they didn't follow what he was saying. So he might be like, everyone I interact with is bored. It's like, ah, that may not be the human condition. You always have to be careful about yourself as the observer. Like if I were to say, well, most people are highly aggressive and contentious. It's like, well, yeah, but I go wading in where fools rush in where angels fear to tread. I go wading in with some of the most contentious topics around just because I have a preference for the truth and I really don't care. I mean, if I cared about people getting upset by what I said, I never would have escaped my mother rights as sort of foundational training on that sort of stuff because my mother was very mystical and kind of crazy. And I had to pursue reason, even though it upset her mightily. So I had lots of training long before I was in the public square. So if I were to say human nature is to be contentious and angry, it's like, well, no, that's a lot of the reactions in a sense that I wouldn't say I provoke, but that telling the truth provokes in people. So I wouldn't say that's human nature. I would say that's human nature in the proximity of me and detaching how human beings react in the proximity of you and saying what's human nature outside of my interactions with people is one of the big challenges.
[1:07:55] Yeah, I can see that as well. Even explaining Schopenhauer to people, they get bored to death. Even if you put it in simplistic terms, the average person has zero interest in Schopenhauer. I have a shower curtain with Schopenhauer's face on it, and it's my Schopen shower.
[1:08:15] It's nothing better than being watched by a grim-faced philosopher while you're washing your balls.
[1:08:23] Yes, sir.
[1:08:24] The world is will an idea i will washing myself that's pretty funny yes and uh how do you and this is another thing that bothered me about kant is as you talk about the impenetrability of the text and it's like if you have a great idea and this you know it goes back to one of the most influential things i ever heard was you know um shake sorry that that uh that socrates never used the word epistemology. And Socrates spoke in the sort of plain language of the people and got his ideas across the plain language of the people. And to me, it's like, if you have great ideas, then part of your responsibility to those great ideas is to put them forth in a digestible fashion for the common man, especially if you're talking about ethics.
[1:09:13] Because ethics, yeah, ethics is something that we have to teach to children. So there has to be something in your ethical system that can be communicated to children. And if you don't, I'm always suspicious of people who don't take the time to express ideas of ethics. I mean, if you're talking about something technical in metaphysics, okay, I get that. We don't teach brain in a tank to three-year-olds, but we do teach ethics to two and three-year-olds. So you have to find a way to, if you have a great idea, then you have to find a way to communicate it in a manner that people can follow, particularly kids. And the more esoteric the text, the more I'm suspicious about the creation of a mystery religion that requires divine priests of philosophy to interpret it for you, the less accessible the text is to the general population, the more concerned I am about incipient totalitarianism that only the Pope can talk to God and you have to obey the Pope, and only the philosophy professor can understand, can't, and you have to obey the philosophy professor because the text is inaccessible to the gen pop. That's always a bit, my suspicion lens, my spider sense starts tingling in those scenarios.
[1:10:24] Yeah, I have 50 pages of notes on Kant, just going through the first and third critiques. I was very diligently going page by page comparing. With the first critique, there's two editions, two versions. There's the A and B versions. And you have to kind of understand what he is actually meaning by the different faculties of the mind. And it's different in the different versions. So imagination in the A version for Kant is its own faculty, like understanding is its own faculty. But in the B edition, imagination is subordinate to understanding. But when you get to the third critique, imagination is also its own faculty again. So Kant is very difficult, especially when you...
[1:11:23] Or just contradictory.
[1:11:25] It is. Like with the different editions.
[1:11:28] So contradictory is bad, right? Contradictory in philosophy is bad. If you define things as something in one book and then something else in another book without referencing the change, that's just bad philosophy. I mean, if you tried doing that in a philosophy paper or a philosophy lecture, you'd be rightly called out for, hang on, you changed definitions of terms without even saying why or acknowledging it.
[1:11:48] Yeah, so the B edition, I believe he tried to streamline that to make it more accessible, but in doing so, he made imagination subordinate to the understanding. But when you get to the third critique, he positions imagination as his own faculty of the mind again. So, um, I, I think with the, the B edition, just because I don't think the, the critique of pure reason caught on immediately. I think he went in, you know, the, the revision with the B edition, uh, just to make it more digestible for people. It was just still not digestible at all, but, um, but yeah, it's. It's definitely the hardest philosophical text that I have tackled.
[1:12:34] And it also troubles me when people talk about ethics and they've never had kids. And the reason being, not that you have to have kids to be a good philosopher, but once you've gone through the process of trying to explain right and wrong, good and bad to children, you realize that you do have to have a moral system that can be explained to children. Otherwise, children simply have to have authority inflicted upon them. I mean, can you imagine? I mean, it would actually be quite a good comedy skit to have a Kantian father attempt to explain Kant's categorical imperative and his critique of pure reason to a three-year-old who had taken a cookie without permission.
[1:13:12] Yeah, that's nonsense. No way you can, I don't even think you, like Schopenhauer, he does simplify Kant with the principle of sufficient reason, you know, everything must have a reason. Um and he does so with a time and space being bound by the law of causality um which is a lot more simplistic you know that's cause and effect essentially um this you can explain that to a child but no you can't explain you know the the 12 categories of understanding yeah.
[1:13:52] Yeah good luck no i remember with.
[1:13:54] My daughter i.
[1:13:54] Gave her a cookie and then i said you stole from me when she was very little and she said i did not steal from you and i said yes you did well why do you think you didn't steal from me because you gave it to me and i'm like yeah okay so that's you.
[1:14:08] Yeah yeah there's no way for to communicate that in a digestible like way that a child can understand it i don't think that's possible for con and that's a really good point and.
[1:14:19] The other thing too, if moral philosophy is so complicated, how can we hold people in society morally responsible? I mean, if let's say you had to have a PhD in physics to be charged with a crime, well, we'd be back to a Hobbesian state of nature, right? Because very few people have PhDs in physics. And so if moral theories are so complicated, that you need graduate school studying of Kant's 12 categories or his critique of pure reason, and even then it's still difficult and impenetrable, then what you're saying is that, like 99.9999% of humanity has zero moral responsibility because it's too complicated for them to understand. And that to me is like, if you cannot provide a moral theory that, I mean, we could scale down to, I don't know, IQ 70, 75, wherever it is that the cutoff is that people can't really understand cause and effect, but that's, that's a very tiny percentage of the population. So if you can't have a moral theory, I mean, how can you hold children morally responsible if your moral theory is so complex? How the average person, you know, I mean, if you have, if you have people who've studied Kant for their entire lifetimes, who come up with different conclusions, then how can the average person possibly be held morally responsible if experts with decades of study, can't decide on what is right and wrong.
[1:15:43] Right. And I think Kant makes that admission too, because with the second critique, the critique of practical reason, now it's different than pure reason. So now there's three metaphysical questions for Kant. And one is God, the soul, and freedom. That's incompatible of pure reason. It's incompatible with what's in the first critique. But the second critique, the critique of practical reason, he allows for freedom. And then practical reason is good. It helps us have morals for Kant. So you don't have to understand the first critique fully to kind of get where Kant's coming from with his morals. But yes, it is still very dense stuff, and I don't see a child understanding it sufficiently.
[1:16:37] Well, even the average adult, with an IQ of 80 or 85 is held to be morally responsible. And so the question is, can you explain your moral theory to somebody of below, let's say just a standard deviation below the average, right? Can you explain your moral theory to somebody with an IQ of 85 and such that they can really understand it? If you can't, get it, can't? If you can't, then that person is not morally responsible because they can't understand ethics. Can you explain your moral theory to a child of three or four or wherever you would say that children's moral responsibilities would begin? Well, if you can't, then all you can do is bully and punish them and bribe them, which is anti-philosophical. So that to me was the big sort of challenge that I set out for myself was, and I did this very early on in my podcast series called The ABCs of UPB, How to Explain UPB to Children. And I did it with my own daughter, who's obviously smarter than your average bear, but she got it at about two, two and a half, I think it was. And that's really the first time I explained it to her. And so all of this esoteric stuff, I mean.
[1:17:52] Plato's higher realm of forms necessitates the noble lie because you cannot explain it objectively to children or the average person, which means all you can do is order them around. And create a mystery religion of those who have the inside scoop on what virtue is, but can never explain it to you in rational terms or terms that the average person or the child can understand. And so all you can do is order them around, which is why these realms, higher realms, always lead to these kinds of totalitarian ideologies.
[1:18:21] Yeah, I can see that, you know, especially Plato. But for Kant, we see, at least I see on social media, a lot of like, little snippets of this saying from Kant or other philosophers, like how to encapsulate his philosophy about getting really into it, you know, just, you know, certain maxims or whatnot, which I think people innately understand. And also something to consider for Kant, he uses the word rational very specifically, like what separates man from animal. And with the critique of pure reason, And what he means by rational is essentially a functional mind. So when you get into, like what you're saying, very, very low IQ people that just can't comprehend. Even simplified Kant or the maxims or whatnot is unable to really understand it. Kant would say it doesn't apply to them, like this philosophy.
[1:19:26] But if moral rules don't apply to people and they're not morally responsible, where are they in society? I mean, are they out there roaming around doing whatever they want? And we assume that they would be more violent because they couldn't reason. So do you allow people out there who you withhold moral responsibility from? Do you just allow them to roam around in society? It seems unlikely because you would never be able to prosecute them for any crimes.
[1:19:51] Right. I meant that Kant's philosophy is like for the reader, the person to understand it. It's only for functional minds. It's the rational mind.
[1:20:03] Right. And then the more so to interrupt, the more simple you make your moral explanation, the wider the net of freedom you can provide to society. Because if a thorough and deep understanding of Kant was required for moral responsibility, there'd be like eight people in the world who would have moral responsibility. Everybody else would be in an asylum or in some sort of confinement in the way that somebody who's got an IQ of 65 is probably not. I mean, they couldn't function out there in society. They're probably in some kind of home or some sort of place where they can be taken care of. So to simplify and make it easily understandable is a way of extending people's moral freedoms and moral responsibilities. And we want to spread moral responsibilities as wide as possible until it becomes unjust, right? So if somebody's got a really, really low IQ and they just cannot piece together cause and effect, it would be wrong to hold them morally accountable. It would also be wrong to grant them freedom to roam around in society because they wouldn't be able to survive and they would probably turn pretty feral.
[1:21:07] And so for me, a moralist has to.
[1:21:12] Make the moral arguments as clear as possible to as many people as possible, because the more clear it is, the more people it covers, and the more people we can allow to be morally autonomous and independent and responsible. And so making it esoteric, to me, is limiting it to a sort of mystery religion of elites. And it condemns the majority of people to have no rational moral responsibility. I'm so sorry, go ahead.
[1:21:39] Yeah, I understand that. But there's two layers to Kant. We have the pure reason, which is for just the rational minds who can quote-unquote understand it and what's penetrated. And then there's the practical reason, which allows for God, soul, and freedom. And that can... Kant was a champion of that. A lot of people think that he was a Christian because Christianity has morals and all that um and with the second critique the practical reason Kant allows that like it's like yeah it's not part of pure reason um like reason itself for Kant which I'm sure you understand it's just a for the listeners out there may not know reason is like when the mind.
[1:22:30] Filters the raw sense data that we filter into empirical concepts. Reason tries to bring that all into totality. And sometimes reason, this is the issue of metaphysics of his day that he was trying to correct with the critique of pure reason, is that reason could go out of bounds and say, oh, everything comes from God, everything comes from whatnot that may not be part of reason itself. It's trying to make complete what it has, knowledge of everything. But practical reason allows for God, soul, and freedom. It allows for the superstition and all that. It's kind of like for the people who are unable to understand the first critique, them having morals from a higher power like the Christian Bible would be good for Kant. Does that make sense?
[1:23:41] Yeah, and there's certainly a cause to what we were talking about earlier, or what I was talking about earlier, not to put words in your mouth, which is that if you can't explain your moral theory, you have to rely on rewards and punishments. So he would say, well, my theory of ethics with its 12 categories and blah, blah, blah, that's for the elite, but for everyone else, hell and heaven.
[1:23:59] Yeah, you're right. You're right. And that's the noble lie.
[1:24:03] That would be Plato's, well, you can't understand this realm of higher forms. So, you know, bribes and punishments.
[1:24:13] Yeah yeah the noble lie of the different metals and our souls um yeah plato's weird um, he he wanted to treat comedy seriously so when he talks about like communal children and all that and telling them they're all raised you know from the earth and make them more grounded in their the republic um he's treating comedy seriously in that aspect like and philosophy should do that Like philosophy, even what's comical for most people, like having, you know, children should be seriously thought about if there's any possible, you know, positive outcomes that might come from that. But yeah, I think what he's doing, there's a lot of metaphors and analogies and symbolic aspects to the Republic, and it all revolves around the aspect of harmony. But yeah, that's something that's really out there that everyone kind of raises their eyebrow at in the Republic is that Plato advocated for communal children.
[1:25:23] And not knowing your parentage, which means that incest would be an inevitable result. Well, and personally, just very brief aside, this may be prejudicial, but because we're all mortal and you only have a certain amount of time to study people, the moment I come across something seriously deranged and obviously wrong in a philosopher, I mean, I don't throw the whole book aside, obviously, because they're still, but it means that they're not systemic. Because if Plato is like, okay, my ideal society is a tyranny and the children don't know who their parents are and they're going to end up with brothers and sisters marrying each other. And if he doesn't sit there and say, okay, something's not right about this. I'm promoting incest or the conditions for where incest will be inevitable. And something's got to be not particularly right about this. Or when Kant says, yeah, but all moral considerations aside, you have to obey the king no matter what. And it's like, okay, but that's just a recipe for pure subjugation, enslavement, and totalitarianism. And would justify Chairman Mao, Stalin, Hitler, whoever, right? Pol Pot. And so if a philosopher says something clearly wrong, clearly immoral, clearly evil, such as obey the king no matter what, or here's the conditions wherein incest will be an inevitability, and breaking the entire family bonds and so on, I'm like, okay, so if they.
[1:26:49] What else did they not notice that they got wrong? And it would be like, if the first time you use a GPS, it takes you in entirely the wrong direction, are you ever going to trust that GPS again? I mean, I had a phone once with an alternate GPS system. It took me to the wrong place. I never used it again because it's like, I now cannot trust the GPS. And so for me, it's not like everyone has to be perfect. Lord knows I'm not either. But in general, it has to be self-correcting and there has to be a process of rigorously evaluating thought to make sure you don't come up with something crazy. And again, this is another thing that changed my life, which is Aristotle saying, you know, if you come up with some theory of ethics that proves that murder is good, I don't care what you've done something wrong because, you know, that there's a sort of instinct for truth that we have. And if you come up with a system and somebody, I'm sure people at times said to Plato, you know, this is incest, right? This is just going to promote incest. And if Plato was like, no, I'm still going to stick with it. It's like, eh, you know, maybe you got some other stuff, right?
[1:27:52] But it's mostly accidental because if you don't have an instinct for truth and just get a feel for when you've gone wrong, like if your theory can be used to prove that murder is good or incest is good, or at least not bad, then, I mean, the instinct doesn't prove things, but it is very important that if you do end up with something like that that you go back and check your logic to see where you went wrong.
[1:28:17] No you're correct to point that out um my interpretation of the republic is more like a psychology work of psychology um harmonizing the psyche and all that rather than a political document um some people would argue that plato's politics is actually in his book, The Laws, which I myself have not read very in depth, just kind of skimmed it. But The Republic, it's really an example of idealism. And I view it mainly as metaphor and symbolism rather than a concrete political document. But other people, they do take what he says verbatim and they point out.
[1:29:02] Well, they take what he says. I mean, it's like Thomas More's utopia, right? I mean, you take what the person says literally. This is my description of an ideal society. Okay, I'm going to assume that you know what you're doing, and this is your description of an ideal society. And then saying, well, no, it's not actually what Plato said he was doing. It's something else completely. I think that's going a bit too far to try and rescue the text from the author's clearly stated goal.
[1:29:27] Yeah, I mean, that's an issue a lot of people have with Plato.
[1:29:30] Here's my recipe for cheesecake. no, no, you're really talking about how to organize a human soul. It's like, ah, I'm not sure. I think it's a recipe for cheesecake, if that's what the author does, and all the ingredients are how to make cheesecake. But anyway, I mean, I think that's an interesting discussion, but... I look for the outliers. And if something's really nutty and evil in a philosopher's advocacy, I mean, they're still worth studying. They're still worth, you know, I don't, you know, I don't obviously agree with the blonde dominant beast overlord stuff that Nietzsche went on about, but nonetheless, it's still worth reading and Plato is worth reading. I've got a four plus hour presentation on Plato at fdrpodcast.com. I've done Aristotle. And of course, I've got the whole History of Philosopher's series, which if you are a subscriber, you should check out. I've stopped right before Kant because he's such a giant jagged pill to swallow sideways that I'm going to need at least a month to refresh my memory on Kant and make, because I don't just evaluate, I provide counter arguments. But yeah, I definitely look for, okay, if there's one wildly nutty thing that's clearly wrong, like even by the standards of the time, then although, I mean, the question of Kant and you should obey the king or the prince or the ruler no matter what.
[1:30:50] Duty is the highest good for Kant.
[1:30:53] Yes, yes, yes. And of course, you know, the idea that it's vaguely Buddhist, right? That if you take any pleasure in your charitable deeds, they're not charitable or good. It has to be something that is either neutral or ideally causes you to suffer. Oh, and I guess his moral theory causes grad students to suffer. That's only fair. Sorry, go ahead.
[1:31:13] Yeah, don't write off your philanthropy on your tax returns. You'll be a bad buddhist if you do that.
[1:31:20] You said you're not sure what you're going to do after this. So you're in a two-year program, is that right? Do you think you might FUD it up after this?
[1:31:29] So I'm actually weighing a few different possibilities. I do miss having income. So I've been living very frugally while doing grad school. I apologize that I'm sick, but there's one university that has a PhD program that kind of aligns more with my personal philosophy, which is more on the traditional side. And I may apply to that, or I may go back into the workforce. It really depends. I apologize.
[1:32:06] No, no, it's fine. Sorry, go ahead.
[1:32:09] I'm going to finish this semester. The next semester will be my end as a master's student. I have a 4.0 GPA. I've been doing really well. I've been in journals. Not big journals or anything, but enough to get some credentials to be a good applicant for a PhD program. I did apply to speak at a conference at Yale next year. Waiting for word about that but uh yeah it's working on you know when i'm doing something i want to do it best my abilities so um even if i don't pursue a phd at least say as a master's student did the best i could um but if i did pursue a phd it'd be you know i'd be a solid candidate, but i don't know um like i said i miss having you know steady income my bachelor's is in business so So after a philosophy degree, I don't have to work in an iPhone store. So yeah, there's not really much.
[1:33:18] It's also really nice. I just wanted to mention, it's also really nice to talk to a student of philosophy who's actually worked with his hands and done practical things in the world. Because I could tell, man, I mean, the moment you wanted to come on the show and the moment I heard from you, I'm like, okay, this is a man who's had practical experience doing real things in the real world. because nothing grows Platonism like a tumor in your brain than only dealing with concepts and not things in the real world. And nothing grounds you in empiricism more than doing real things, hopefully with real consequences in the real world. Because you can't manipulate objects in the same way that you can manipulate concepts and it does give you a lot of grounding. So I was like, pleased to hear that in the moment you spoke. I'm like, and then you started talking about your time in the army and practical things that you've done and so on. And I can always tell It's a weird kind of Tourette's that I have where I'm like, a practical man, a practical woman has done real work with their hands, real things. And that conditions the consciousness. And I can always tell the people who've never done very practical work with their hands, particularly with negative consequences. Like you get things wrong in the army and people can die. And when I was working, doing my gold panning and prospecting, and I was using flamethrowers and giant drills. And if you get things wrong, you're going to die because you're like three days from a hospital if you're lucky. So, uh, yeah, that's sort of a practicality that comes out of that.
[1:34:36] I worked missiles in the air force, but, uh, um, I actually do like Plato, but like I said, I, I view it not as law. Um, I view it more as a metaphor or like harmonizing the psyche, um, than a political document. Like if I were to view like Nietzsche's will to power as the ultimate truth, I end up being a fruitcake. Um, but yeah, I appreciate the compliments there.
[1:35:05] Um, and I appreciate what you're doing and I'm glad you're, you're uncanceled um but to some degree.
[1:35:11] I mean it's one platform but it's you know better than nothing for sure i appreciate that.
[1:35:15] Yeah i remember watching your videos back in like 2015-16 and you know steady rotation on youtube and a very insightful voice on there um so sad to see you go um but yeah it's a great honor to be on your program did you have um any other questions before we wrap up.
[1:35:33] Yeah if i could just ask one more and obviously don't talk about anything you're not comfortable with, but you haven't mentioned anything about wife and kids or anything like that. And if you're sailing 40s and thinking of maybe doing a PhD, missing an income, is that something that's part of your life? Are you a bit more monk-like and ascetic? Because you mentioned that a little bit earlier with reference to, was it Schopenhauer or something? But is that something that you're interested in or focused on, or is that part of your life and you just don't want to mention it, which is totally fine too, but where does that realm of life lie for you?
[1:36:04] Right. I did have a fiance that fell through because she was a gold digger. And from there, I'm like, well, my master will be.
[1:36:13] Wait, she was a gold digger and you don't have an income? So she was a really bad gold digger.
[1:36:17] No, I had income back then. I actually had a really nice position as a man.
[1:36:23] Oh, so you've had the money and given it up.
[1:36:26] Yeah, yeah.
[1:36:27] Ah, okay. That's there. So you mentioned you had a business degree. So, sorry, go ahead.
[1:36:30] Yeah, so I fell through. We were going to do a prenuptial agreement.
[1:36:37] Oh, is that how you found the gold digger thing was in the prenup?
[1:36:40] Yeah, she went on a hunger strike for five days. I'm like, yeah, this isn't going to work out.
[1:36:45] Wait, what?
[1:36:46] Yeah, she threw a cancer.
[1:36:47] You said, I'm going to need a prenup, and she said, I'm going to need to not eat now.
[1:36:51] No, she agreed to the prenup because she had said some sketchy things, and it raised a red flag, and she agreed to the prenup to force us to get married. And then I called a lawyer up just to outline what would be in the prenup. I wasn't going to protect everything. So if you get a divorce, you get at least whatever. But she threw a tantrum, started crying on the phone call with the lawyer and then went on a hunger strike for five days. And I'm like, yep, that's it. Goodbye.
[1:37:23] Well, that is an impressive level of dedication to accessing your money with those, I'm sure, heavily painted nails. Wow. Wow. How long ago was that?
[1:37:32] Oh, that was four years ago. But that was my last effort at settling down. But now it's philosophy and music are my masters.
[1:37:43] Oh, come on, man. You can't be ignoring all of those hotties in the philosophy department.
[1:37:48] Yeah, right.
[1:37:50] Come on, man. Let's look around you. It's like a cheerleader of reason.
[1:37:55] Yeah. Well, anyway, I've really enjoyed this conversation, Mr. Molyneux, and I'm glad that you invited me on.
[1:38:03] Well, thank you very much. I really appreciate you giving us a view on the inside of the philosophy departments. And I obviously wish you the very best, and I hope that you'll stay in touch and let me know how things are going.
[1:38:14] Will do. Yeah, if you ever want me to come back on, if you want to do another philosophy chat of some kind, I'm on the Twitter, and you have my email.
[1:38:23] So, anyway, it was great chatting with you today.
[1:38:26] All right. Thanks, man. All the best. Have a great day.
[1:38:28] You too.
[1:38:29] Bye.
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