What is the intrinsic link between philosophical inquiry and personal development? How can academic thought and theory be applied well to practical living in the real world?

Kieran Setiya is a professor of philosophy at MIT and also the author of a number of books, including Knowing Right From Wrong, Life Is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way, and Midlife: A Philosophical Guide.

Greg and Kieran discuss how philosophy and self-help have diverged over time and the potential for their reintegration. Kieran explores the practical use of philosophical reflection in everyday life, the evolving view of philosophy from his early academic years to now, the impact of Aristotle's concept of the ideal life on contemporary thought, and the nature of midlife crises including his own. They also touch on topics like the value of choice, future bias, the role of suffering, and the integration of philosophy in early education.

*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

Episode Quotes:

Why Aristotle’s ideal life isn’t always the answer

06:58: What am I going to do here and now, in the conditions I'm in—which are always, to some degree, imperfect—right now, maybe particularly challenging for many of us? And it's just not obvious at all. In fact, I think it's not true that the best way to answer the question, "What should I do in my problematic circumstances?" is, well, look at what an ideal life would be and just sort of aim towards that. And that just—it's both impractical and often very bad advice. It's like if someone said, "Well, you don't have any yeast; try to make some bread." You could think, "Well, what's the thing that's going to be most like a regular loaf of bread?" Or you might think, "Yeah, that's not the right thing to aim for here." There's some more dramatic pivot in how I'm going to try to make a kind of bread-like thing. And I think that's a good—a better—analogy for the situation we're in when we try to think about what to do here and now, when ideals like Aristotle's are not really viable.

On regret, choice, and the value of missed opportunities

21:21: Regret is a function of something that's not at all regrettable. Mainly the diversity of value.

Detached wanting and the good enough life

38:10: Stoics have this idea that virtue is the key thing for eudaimonia, and nothing else really matters for eudaimonia. But there are all these—what they call—preferred indifferents. So all the other stuff you might want, it's reasonable to want it, but you should want it in a kind of detached, "that would be a bonus" kind of way. And I think, while I'm not a Stoic and I don't think they draw that line in the right way, I think they're right that there is some kind of line here that has to do with sort of moderation and greed. In effect, thinking at a certain point: "If your life is good enough, you look at all the other things you could have," and the right attitude to have to them is something like, "Well, it’d be great if I had that. Sure." But the idea of being angry that I don't, or feeling like "this is unacceptable that I don't" is just not a virtuous — for want of a better word—it's not a reasonable, justifiable response.

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Steven Heller