Le chemin de ma philosophie

About Le chemin de ma philosophie

Join The French Philosopher and consider me your philosophy BFF! 🤗 If you’re wondering about the meaning of life, your impact on the world, or who you truly are, you’re in the right place. Picture us chatting over a latte, exploring life’s big questions with wisdom from ancient and modern philosophers. I’m a Brooklyn-based French philosopher, speaker, and author, and as an expert in AI ethics for the European Commission, I also dive into ethics and critical thinking around AI and tech.

Publisher

Stephanie Lehuger

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

24 Nov 2020

Latest episode

5 Aug 2026

Latest episodes

66 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   5 Aug 2026

   62. Who Are You on a Tuesday at 10am?

   You're at a party. Someone hands you a drink and asks the most unavoidable question there is: so, what do you do? Notice what happens next. They asked what you do, and you're about to answer with what you are. Nobody says "I do medicine." We say "I am a doctor." So what happens to "I am my job" when AI starts doing your job? That question is bigger than "will a robot replace me." It's: who do you become if it does? To get there, I bring in a king condemned to push a boulder uphill forever, then Camus on why happiness doesn't have to wait for meaning, Arendt on the difference between doing the dishes and building a cathedral, and Hegel on why a kid throwing stones into a pond is doing something profound. Where I stand: I've spent more than ten years building AI products, so this is not an episode about the machines coming for us. It's a question my own industry doesn't ask often enough. I close on three questions no machine can answer for you. Sit with them this week, and the next time someone hands you a drink and asks what you do, your answer won't be a job title. More questions between episodes, in my newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/the-french-philosopher-7216970073071104001/

2. 

   31 Dec 2025

   61. How To Outsmart Your Resolutions With Strategy So That They Stick

   Here is the scene. You swear you will go running tomorrow. Tomorrow arrives. So does rain and a croissant. Suddenly, the morning jog turns into a coffee date with yourself, starring a pastry that insists it is “self-care” on a plate. Acrasia: When Knowing Is Not Doing The Greeks had a word for this pattern: acrasia, doing the opposite of what you know is good for you. Plato thought that if you truly understood the good, you would automatically follow it, while Aristotle pointed out that desire can simply overrule reason. You see it in everyday life: people genuinely want to stick to their health habits, sleep routines, or exercise plans, yet they quietly slide back into old patterns. It is not stupidity. It is the constant pull between quick comfort and long-term meaning. Why Resolutions Are Bad Strategy Management thinker Richard Rumelt, in his book “Good Strategy / Bad Strategy,” explains that many “strategies” fail because they are just slogans pretending to be plans. Most New Year’s resolutions behave exactly like that: * “Be healthier” or “get my life together” sound powerful but say nothing about what you will do on Tuesday at 7 p.m. * There is no diagnosis, no honest “this is where I usually fall apart.” * Everything rests on willpower, which tends to disappear right around the time the fridge light comes on. Acrasia loves this setup. It lives in the gap between big promises and zero structure. Turn Resolutions Into Strategy Let us take one example and keep it: “I want to exercise regularly.” Here is how strategy changes it. * Diagnose the real problem Instead of “I am lazy,” try “I plan evening workouts, but by 7 p.m. I am exhausted, hungry, and my sofa is closer than the gym.” Now the issue is timing and energy, not your moral worth. * Create a guiding policy for that problem Based on that diagnosis, a guiding policy could be: “Exercise early, before the day tires me out, and make it as easy as possible to start.” This gives a direction for every future choice about movement. * Design tiny, coherent actions that match the policy From that policy, you might decide: * lay out workout clothes by the bed every night * do a ten-minute walk or short routine right after coffee, not after work * on very bad mornings, at least stretch for three minutes so the habit does not break. * All of these actions serve the same strategy: make morning movement simple and inevitable. * Anchor that same example in your values Finally, you tie this exercise habit to something that matters: “I move in the morning because I want to hit middle age with the energy and body of someone who still gets mistaken for the intern.” It becomes about future freedom, not punishment for past croissants. A Kinder Way To Fail Acrasia is not proof that you are broken. It is proof that you are human, stuck between intention and temptation. Writer Susan Sontag once put it this way: “Kindness, kindness, kindness. I want to make a New Year’s prayer, not a resolution. I’m praying for courage.” This January, instead of promising a completely new you, you could try something closer to that: a little more kindness for yourself, and just enough courage to take the next small step. So this year, if you want to outsmart your resolutions with strategy, do not make them louder. Make them smarter: one clear diagnosis, one simple guiding policy, a few tiny actions you might actually do. And if the croissant wins sometimes, let it, as long as it does not win every round.

3. 

   18 Nov 2025

   60. When LinkedIn gratitude feels like emotional spam

   Wow, Thanksgiving hits LinkedIn hard in the US: “I’m grateful for my boss” ; “I’m grateful for my dog” ; “I’m grateful for my favorite stapler.” I’m from Paris, and gratitude isn’t something I grew up with. Parisians are so grumpy, we’d probably roll our eyes if you smiled at us. We save our gratitude for true miracles, like getting through a family dinner without someone bringing up immigration while carving the turkey. See, in France, we don’t just say 'merci'. No, we write books about it. There’s this French anthropologist, Marcel Mauss, who explains that kindness isn’t really kindness: it’s a debt. It’s what he called the 'counter-gift'. You don’t do someone a favor, you open a tab. You think you’re just borrowing some sugar to your neighbor, and next thing you know you’re hosting their dog’s birthday, watering their plants, and pretending to care about their homemade kombucha. Japanese agree that not every “thank you” moment is pleasant. They actually invented a phrase for when gratitude feels like emotional spam: 'arigata meiwaku'. It’s that uncomfortable vibe when somebody insists on “helping” and you end up having to perform gratitude you didn’t sign up for. It’s like being forced into a gratitude hostage situation. But hey, tossing a sincere "thank you" is free, it doesn’t add calories, and sometimes it actually pleases people. So go on, throw some thank-yous out there when you really mean it. Just remember: real gratitude doesn’t need a TED Talk or a LinkedIn post. Sometimes it’s just a nod, a laugh, and moving on before things get weird. And if your “gratitude” ends up sounding more like sarcasm? That’s fine too. At least in Paris, they’ll respect you for it.

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

4 ratings

Spotify

4.8 / 5

4 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 44 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

75

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

32

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