Great reads! The one about the different human species was very interesting. It’s wild to imagine a modern world where different human species exists. The death anxiety article was helpful too--I realized I’ve always had a bit of that, and I thought it was funny when it pointed out it’s more common in young adults and agnostics (I am both)!
I don’t think it interferes in my daily life per se, but I often have morbid thoughts like “how sad would it be if I got into a car crash on my way to visit my girlfriend” or “what would I do if my girlfriend died?” and other such things. While my study of philosophy has benefited me a lot, perhaps it’s also given me more pressure to try to live a good life, and so the fear of it being cut short is now scarier.
The Dennett interview was very nice and I'm looking forward to his autobiography.
In fact, since reading "Consciousness explained", I've read and enjoyed several of his books. "Intuition pumps" is a favourite.
Puzzle for all of you: Among the four horsemen of Atheism, Dennett's the only one to have survived with his reputation intact. How would that have happened?
Sam Harris went down a rabbit hole of rabid anti-Islam ranting , IQ-fetishism and conspiracy theories, Christopher Hitchens, who was as far left as could be, went anti-Muslim post 2001, pro-Iraq invasion etc (but, credit due, stood up to some of its excesses notably by reporting on waterboarding and undergoing that himself - voluntarily!), and Richard Dawkins, who wrote the great "Selfish Gene" and several sequels but says some bat-shit crazy misogynic (and more) nonsense.
Regarding physicalism and idealism I’ve some time ago concluded that always and never statements tend to inextricably generate their own contradictions. Life is replete with these buts and howevers to almost every encompassing statement made by often much too fallible people.
Peter Adamson, philosophy professor in Munich (Germany) did a very long series of podcasts that he later turned into a 6 volume book series.
Classical Philosophy: A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, Volume 1
Philosophy in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds: A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, Volume 2
Philosophy in the Islamic World: A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, Volume 3
Medieval Philosophy: A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, Volume 4
Classical Indian Philosophy: A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, Volume 5
Byzantine and Renaissance Philosophy: A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, Volume 6
My holiday reading this summer included Vols. 1 and 2.
Adamson’s chapter length clearly matches a fixed podcast duration. Chapters are basically 7 pages long (some 6, some 8 but chapter length is just about as uniform as you find it), 43 chapters in Vol. 1 and 53 in Vol.2. Has he given up anything as a consequence of this choice? I haven’t noticed it but I’m an amateur. For sure, he doesn’t spend as much time on Plato as on Porphyry. Socrates/Plato and Aristotle have many chapters dedicated to them; to Marcus Aurelius, Porphyrus, Origen etc one chapter only. Not that each chapter deals with a philosopher. Some address various philosophers or schools or aspects or other issues (“Sky writing-Astronomy, Astrology and Philosophy”; women philosophers).
(Vols 3 and 4 have just arrived: they also consist of 7 p chapters and esp. vol IV has many more chapters)
I’ve learned a lot in my reading of these first two volumes.
You may know that Epicurus wasn’t Epicurean in the pejorative sense of the term – it’s all very measured for him and he thought sex wasn’t worth the consequences. But there is a school of Hedonists, who are actually more radical than the worst modern depiction of Hedonist – Cyrenaics the short-term pleasure maximisers of antiquity (Cyrenaics - as from Cyrenaica in Eastern Libya; perhaps not the area that comes to mind when thinking of partying (and Derna, of the recent flooding, is in Cyreneica)).
Adamson has an incredibly high opinion of Plato as a writer (I mean, as distinct from a philosopher) and that surprises me a lot. In secondary school, I studied classical Greek for years and after some time, I managed to translate from the Odyssey and from Herodotus, the New testament etc. But Plato was just degrees harder, very complex sentences. My feeling was that even in translation that was unreadable unless completely redacted. My bad, I guess.
(I've just read Gorgias, the dialogue on Sophism and it's been fun and I can't contradict Adamson's conclusion in this respect; quiz question: do you think of Socrates as a backgammon player?)
And Adamson contrasts him with Aristotle who’s stylistically an amateur. But I had never thought of Aristotle as someone with such wide interests and with such empirical attitudes. He looks around, he looks for facts and cuts open animals to find the truth (OK, not great but a lot better than to do that for skin cream; example: Aristotle was the first to arrive at the conclusion that whales and dolphins aren’t fish).
For Platonists gods can’t be like the Olympic gods, the drunk, quarrelsome and horny lot we know from Homer and others. Platonists expect a more abstract (ideal?!) god and some appreciate the Old Testament’s god in that light.
Platonist philosophers (sorry: some Platonist philosophers) are among the early Christians and that doesn’t quite work in my feeling. I mean, for these philosophers, you need to have all sorts deep thoughts about the nature of god, souls etc in order to be a philosopher and when they decide to become Christians, that’s what they do with Christianity, diluting or forgetting about love, faith charity etc.
Adamson has a lame sort of humour that I like a lot - he makes the type jokes that my wife and son complain about. He again and again refers to giraffes (sometimes blue giraffes), Buster Keaton and a bit less often, the Eiffel Tower (the first two are in the index, the tower isn’t).
Some examples: In the chapter on Marcus Aurelius, Adamson notes that MA was the last of the good five emperors and that these had all been adopted by their fathers. MA, however, appoints his son as successor. “That son was Commodus, and if people talked about the five bad emperors, Commodus would definitely be on that list. He was bad enough that in the movie Gladiator the happy ending consists in Commodus getting killed by Russel Crowe. But apart from his megalomaniac son, Marcus had plenty to crow about. [followed by paragraphs about MA]”
Early on in the chapters on Plato’s concept of the soul I had to think of James Brown (as in the Godfather of Soul) who eventually appears but from a completely unexpected direction.
There is another occasion (no spoiler this time) when Adamson hints of a joke of this type and for pages you wonder what’s coming and eventually the joke never arrives (what were you waiting for, Peter, the hand of God, your hair?)
The price of these books is wonderful. They sell for a bit over 10 USD/EUR in paperback and some 25 as HC. I’m a HC fan (HC snob?) and found the first two vol's best - hard cover with an image on the cover itself, without dustcover (I normally destroy dustcovers in a week or two). Vol's 3 and 4 are unfortunately with a dust cover. I'll be careful ....
Great reads! The one about the different human species was very interesting. It’s wild to imagine a modern world where different human species exists. The death anxiety article was helpful too--I realized I’ve always had a bit of that, and I thought it was funny when it pointed out it’s more common in young adults and agnostics (I am both)!
I don’t think it interferes in my daily life per se, but I often have morbid thoughts like “how sad would it be if I got into a car crash on my way to visit my girlfriend” or “what would I do if my girlfriend died?” and other such things. While my study of philosophy has benefited me a lot, perhaps it’s also given me more pressure to try to live a good life, and so the fear of it being cut short is now scarier.
The Dennett interview was very nice and I'm looking forward to his autobiography.
In fact, since reading "Consciousness explained", I've read and enjoyed several of his books. "Intuition pumps" is a favourite.
Puzzle for all of you: Among the four horsemen of Atheism, Dennett's the only one to have survived with his reputation intact. How would that have happened?
Sam Harris went down a rabbit hole of rabid anti-Islam ranting , IQ-fetishism and conspiracy theories, Christopher Hitchens, who was as far left as could be, went anti-Muslim post 2001, pro-Iraq invasion etc (but, credit due, stood up to some of its excesses notably by reporting on waterboarding and undergoing that himself - voluntarily!), and Richard Dawkins, who wrote the great "Selfish Gene" and several sequels but says some bat-shit crazy misogynic (and more) nonsense.
So that’s what spines are for. I still wish a few GOP congressional folk had them, and not just prickly pears
Regarding physicalism and idealism I’ve some time ago concluded that always and never statements tend to inextricably generate their own contradictions. Life is replete with these buts and howevers to almost every encompassing statement made by often much too fallible people.
A while ago, Massimo recommended the “philosophy without gaps” series (https://figsinwinter.substack.com/p/recommended-books-eaa/comment/13099117)
Here some more on those.
Peter Adamson, philosophy professor in Munich (Germany) did a very long series of podcasts that he later turned into a 6 volume book series.
Classical Philosophy: A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, Volume 1
Philosophy in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds: A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, Volume 2
Philosophy in the Islamic World: A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, Volume 3
Medieval Philosophy: A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, Volume 4
Classical Indian Philosophy: A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, Volume 5
Byzantine and Renaissance Philosophy: A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, Volume 6
My holiday reading this summer included Vols. 1 and 2.
Adamson’s chapter length clearly matches a fixed podcast duration. Chapters are basically 7 pages long (some 6, some 8 but chapter length is just about as uniform as you find it), 43 chapters in Vol. 1 and 53 in Vol.2. Has he given up anything as a consequence of this choice? I haven’t noticed it but I’m an amateur. For sure, he doesn’t spend as much time on Plato as on Porphyry. Socrates/Plato and Aristotle have many chapters dedicated to them; to Marcus Aurelius, Porphyrus, Origen etc one chapter only. Not that each chapter deals with a philosopher. Some address various philosophers or schools or aspects or other issues (“Sky writing-Astronomy, Astrology and Philosophy”; women philosophers).
(Vols 3 and 4 have just arrived: they also consist of 7 p chapters and esp. vol IV has many more chapters)
I’ve learned a lot in my reading of these first two volumes.
You may know that Epicurus wasn’t Epicurean in the pejorative sense of the term – it’s all very measured for him and he thought sex wasn’t worth the consequences. But there is a school of Hedonists, who are actually more radical than the worst modern depiction of Hedonist – Cyrenaics the short-term pleasure maximisers of antiquity (Cyrenaics - as from Cyrenaica in Eastern Libya; perhaps not the area that comes to mind when thinking of partying (and Derna, of the recent flooding, is in Cyreneica)).
Adamson has an incredibly high opinion of Plato as a writer (I mean, as distinct from a philosopher) and that surprises me a lot. In secondary school, I studied classical Greek for years and after some time, I managed to translate from the Odyssey and from Herodotus, the New testament etc. But Plato was just degrees harder, very complex sentences. My feeling was that even in translation that was unreadable unless completely redacted. My bad, I guess.
(I've just read Gorgias, the dialogue on Sophism and it's been fun and I can't contradict Adamson's conclusion in this respect; quiz question: do you think of Socrates as a backgammon player?)
And Adamson contrasts him with Aristotle who’s stylistically an amateur. But I had never thought of Aristotle as someone with such wide interests and with such empirical attitudes. He looks around, he looks for facts and cuts open animals to find the truth (OK, not great but a lot better than to do that for skin cream; example: Aristotle was the first to arrive at the conclusion that whales and dolphins aren’t fish).
For Platonists gods can’t be like the Olympic gods, the drunk, quarrelsome and horny lot we know from Homer and others. Platonists expect a more abstract (ideal?!) god and some appreciate the Old Testament’s god in that light.
Platonist philosophers (sorry: some Platonist philosophers) are among the early Christians and that doesn’t quite work in my feeling. I mean, for these philosophers, you need to have all sorts deep thoughts about the nature of god, souls etc in order to be a philosopher and when they decide to become Christians, that’s what they do with Christianity, diluting or forgetting about love, faith charity etc.
Adamson has a lame sort of humour that I like a lot - he makes the type jokes that my wife and son complain about. He again and again refers to giraffes (sometimes blue giraffes), Buster Keaton and a bit less often, the Eiffel Tower (the first two are in the index, the tower isn’t).
Some examples: In the chapter on Marcus Aurelius, Adamson notes that MA was the last of the good five emperors and that these had all been adopted by their fathers. MA, however, appoints his son as successor. “That son was Commodus, and if people talked about the five bad emperors, Commodus would definitely be on that list. He was bad enough that in the movie Gladiator the happy ending consists in Commodus getting killed by Russel Crowe. But apart from his megalomaniac son, Marcus had plenty to crow about. [followed by paragraphs about MA]”
Early on in the chapters on Plato’s concept of the soul I had to think of James Brown (as in the Godfather of Soul) who eventually appears but from a completely unexpected direction.
There is another occasion (no spoiler this time) when Adamson hints of a joke of this type and for pages you wonder what’s coming and eventually the joke never arrives (what were you waiting for, Peter, the hand of God, your hair?)
The price of these books is wonderful. They sell for a bit over 10 USD/EUR in paperback and some 25 as HC. I’m a HC fan (HC snob?) and found the first two vol's best - hard cover with an image on the cover itself, without dustcover (I normally destroy dustcovers in a week or two). Vol's 3 and 4 are unfortunately with a dust cover. I'll be careful ....