#76 - Christopher Mastropietro - Mythology, Meaning & Manipulation

Chris is a philosophical writer with interests in dialogue, symbols, and the concept of self. He is a co-author of several publications, including Zombies in Western Culture: A Twenty-First Century Crisis (Open Book Publishers, 2017), “Gnosis in the Second Person” (in Dispatches from a Time Between Worlds, Perspectiva Press, 2021) and “Dialectic into Dialogos and the Pragmatics of No-thingness in a Time of Crisis” (in Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture, 2021). He is heavily involved in the work of John Vervaeke and Vervaeke foundation addressing the meaning crisis.

Check out the Vervaeke foundation: https://vervaekefoundation.org/

And the awakentomeaning practises: https://awakentomeaning.com/

In this podcast, we discuss theatre, narrative, mythology, character development, art vs propaganda, pesudo-religious ideologies (or mythologies) the barrier between fiction and facts that harms development, and much more!

Timestamps:

0:00 - intro

0:49 - Arthur Miller & The Meaning Crisis

5:47 - Imaginal play & Wisdom

7:53 - Plato understood as drama

10:38 - Stories & Virtue development

14:25 - centrality of character in ethics & narrative

18:11 - Plato’s warning against drama

23:29 - Art vs Propaganda

27:25 - Hero Meta-mythology

33:44 - Nominalist obstacles to truth

42:28 - love and socratic practice

54:51 - drama and imitating the good

01:05:38 - Miller’s writing process & logos

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