Mark Rowlands is a writer and philosopher. He is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Philosophy Department at the University of Miami and the author of several books on the philosophy of mind, the moral status of non-human animals, and cultural criticism. His books include Animal Rights, The Body in Mind, The Nature of Consciousness, Animals Like Us, The Happiness of Dogs and a personal memoir, The Philosopher and the Wolf. His latest book is The Word of Dog.

In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the most important questions: “what’s real?”, “who matters?” and "how can we make a better world?"

Sentientism answers those questions with "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

00:00 Clips

01:01 Welcome

- Previous episode links: Frans de Waal, Marc Bekoff, Jessica Pierce, Michael Hauskeller

03:20 Mark's Intro

- 20-something books... the mind, moral consideration,animals, environment, the meaning of life...

- "The Word of Dog... an exploration of the idea of meaning in life through the ideas provided by a series of dogs"

- Luna enters the chat

05:25 What's Real?

- "We weren't a religious family... I never went to church"

- Mother's father was an Anglican vicar "that just puther off formal religion"

- "The younger me was hostile [towards religious orsupernatural ideas]... I just didn't buy it... I was just a firm, died in the wool naturalist... we're just physical organism - when we die we die"

- "I've come to the view that 'real' is ambiguous"

- Two different perspectives: from the outside and from theinside

- "...from the outside I'm just an unremarkable being in an unremarkable world who leads an unremarkable life"

- "From the inside our lives are hubs of meaning and purpose... we matter... what we want matters deeply to us"

- Tom Nagels' paper "The Absurd": "We have these two different views of reality - we know they both can't be true because they're incompatible but we can't bring ourselves to get rid of either one of them... Our existence in this sense is absurd... it doesn't make sense."

- #wittgenstein : "Our lives have no limit in the sense that our visual field has no limit"

- "We find it very difficult to understand the idea of death... but we know that there is an end"

- "Which is more real? [the view from the outside or the inside]... to which do we attach the word 'real'?... It's not clear that there's a straightforward answer..."

- JW: Is suggesting that the subjective is just another partof objective reality a potential resolution?

27:40 What (and Who) Matters?

45:50 Who Matters?

01:10:10 A Better World and The Meaning of Life?

01:26:20 Follow Mark:

- The Word of Dog

- Mark on PhilPeople

- Mark at the University of Miami

- Mark on Wikipedia And more... full show notes at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Okinawa

Mentioned by

Mentioned in 1 episodes

The AI-powered Podcast Player