Philosophy on the Way

About Philosophy on the Way

Charles Griswold’s philosophical ruminations and conversations are open-ended, Socratic, and accessible explorations of a wide range of themes (such as wonder, walking in nature, solitude, self-delusion, old age, philosophy, perfection and perfectionism, authenticity, music, the ineffable, to name a few). They form an archipelago, so there is no one starting point—but all are rooted in shared human experience.

Publisher

Charles L. Griswold

Category

education · religion & spirituality · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

5 Nov 2025

Latest episode

5 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

9 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   5 Sept 2026

   Who Goes There? Warfare in Hamlet from beginning to end. A conversation with Christopher Ricks

   “Who’s there?”  Those are the first words of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.”  They are uttered by a sentry, and are themselves challenged by the soldier whose turn it is to stand guard: “Nay answer me: Stand & unfold your selfe.”  This tense opening reflects an aspect of “Hamlet” that is present not only at the play’s beginning and end, but throughout.  The play unfolds in the midst of battle and conflict—past, threatening, and indeed current.  Battle vies with diplomacy.  The figures of the soldier and the diplomat pervade the play, and yet they are often made too little of.  The “To be, or not to be” soliloquy, famous for its intense philosophical inquiry and self-reflection, and the violence that culminates in Hamlet’s death, dominate attention on and off the stage.  Hamlet, the occasional philosopher, in that way displaces the soldier and the diplomat. Christopher Ricks reflects, at the start of our conversation, on his experience as a British soldier while serving in Egypt, a period when he had occasion to ask “Who goes there?”  Christopher and I explore the international give-and-take of “Hamlet.”  What is its relation to the rest of the play, in particular that deeply personal dimension exemplified by the “To be, or not to be” soliloquy?  Is political order, imposed by force of arms, required in order to restrain the delusions and ailments to which the human spirit is prone?  Might forgetfulness of what the ghost of Hamlet’s father calls his “imperfections” be necessary in order to keep us from the madhouse?  In a variety of ways the play portrays a persistent gap or tension between appearance and reality.  Might that be connected to Hamlet’s rather extreme—mad?—thoughts about suicide at the start of the play, not to mention his “To be, or not to be” question? “To be, or not to be, that is the Question”; is that really THE question, and is it answerable?  Hamlet next inquires “Whether ’tis Nobler in the minde to suffer / The Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune, / Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles / And by opposing end them”. In response to my concluding invitation to share with the audience several texts or works of art or artistic performances (or combinations of the above) that the listener might find particularly illuminating, Christopher mentions two books: Chris Walsh’s Cowardice: A Brief History (Princeton, 2014), and David Mayers’ FDR’s Ambassadors and the Diplomacy of Crisis (Cambridge, 2012). Christopher Ricks is the William M. and Sara B. Warren Professor of the Humanities at Boston University.  For more information about him, please see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Ricks This conversation with Christopher Ricks was recorded on July 7, 2026, and has been edited. This podcast episode is divided into three parts separated from one another by brief interludes of flamenco music. Show notes: [1] In the course of the conversation, Christopher refers to (and at times quotes) the following sources and figures (here listed in alphabetical order): —Samuel Beckett’s 1965 text “Imagination Dead Imagine” (Beckett’s French title when the text was first published: “imagination morte imaginez”). —William Empson’s poem “Let It Go,” in Empson’s Collected Poems (Chatto and Windus, 1955).  The poem may also be found at https://mypoeticside.com/show-classic-poem-9874 —Stephen Greenblatt on purgatory; Hamlet in Purgatory (Princeton, 2013) —A. E. Housman’s Last Poems XXVII (“The sigh that heaves the grasses”), in The Poems of A. E. Housman, ed. Archie Burnett (Oxford University Press, 1977).  The poem may also be found at https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Last_Poems_(Housman)/The_sigh_that_heaves_the_grasses —John Keats’ poem “To Autumn,” in John Keats: The Complete Poems, ed. by John Barnard (Penguin, 1988).  The poem may also be found at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44484/to-autumn —Rudyard Kipling’s poem “Dane-geld” —Andrew Marvell’s “An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return

2. 

   3 Aug 2026

   Dignity, respect, and “passionate personhood”: a conversation with Remy Debes

   In his brilliant autobiographical essay “Stranger in the Village,” James Baldwin writes—with the long and in some ways tragic relation between white and black Americans in mind—“Joyce is right about history being a nightmare—but it may be the nightmare from which no one *can* awaken.  People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.” Baldwin certainly sought to free us from that trap.  In his recent book, entitled The Possibility of Respect: Human Dignity and The Ethics of Difference, Remy Debes continues that effort by reflecting philosophically on what constitutes “dignity” and on what it would mean to respect it.  The tension between our moral ideals and practice, between word and deed (consider the example of Thomas Jefferson’s ownership of slaves), is his point of departure.  Remy suggests that in order to make progress we need to go beyond the notions of autonomy, non-interference, and rights, to something deeper, namely an effort to understand others (particularly those less fortunate than, and different from, ourselves) on their own terms. Correspondingly, we also need to revive what Remy terms “passionate personhood,” a notion of the human that Remy finds not only in canonical philosophical authors such as David Hume and Adam Smith, but also in seminal literary works, such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, among others. In our conversation, Remy and I discuss these topics, as well as what “dignity” and “respect” mean, what it would take to “understand” a person who is differently situated than us, and whether his proposals could accomplish the goal he envisions.  James Baldwin’s debate with philosopher Paul Weiss (see the show notes to this episode) provides a striking example of the reality of not understanding another’s lived experience and the challenge that it poses to respecting dignity.  We discuss that debate as well. In response to my concluding invitation to share several texts or works of art or artistic performances (or combinations of the above) that the listener might find particularly illuminating, Remy mentions three songs: “Song for Zula,” by Phosphorescent; “Let My People Go,” by Darondo; and “I am I Be,” by De La Soul. Remy Debes is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Memphis.  For more information about him, please see: https://www.remydebes.com or https://www.memphis.edu/philosophy/people/bios/remy-debes.php This conversation with Remy Debes was recorded on April 30, 2026, and has been edited. This podcast episode is divided into four parts separated from one another by brief interludes of flamenco music. Show notes: [1] In the course of the conversation, Remy refers to James Baldwin’s debate with Paul Weiss that took place on the Dick Cavett Show (June 13, 1968).  The debate itself is on YouTube; the important conversation between Baldwin and Cavett (which takes place before Weiss joins the conversation) along with the debate itself may be found at: https://vimeo.com/979174967. Remy also refers to James Baldwin’s “Stranger in the Village,” in Notes of a Native Son, with a New Introduction by E. P. Jones (Beacon Press, 2012), pp. 163-179.  The autobiographical essay was written in 1951 and first published in 1953.  Remy quotes this passage: “The rage of the disesteemed is personally fruitless, but it is also absolutely inevitable; this rage, so generally discounted, so little understood even among the people whose daily bread it is, is one of the things that makes history.  Rage can only with difficulty, and never entirely, be brought under the domination of the intelligence and is therefore not susceptible to any arguments whatever.  This is a fact which ordinary representatives of the *Herrenvolk*, having never felt this rage and being unable to imagine it, quite fail to understand.  Also, rage cannot be hidden, it can only be dissembled.  This dissembling deludes the thoughtless, and strengthens rage and adds, to rage, contempt.  There are, no doubt, as many

3. 

   2 Mar 2026

   Faith and Philosophy: a conversation with Marina McCoy and Ryan Hanley

   In this conversation, Marina McCoy, Ryan Hanley, and I explore several deeply important, complex, and long-standing questions. What does it mean to be both a philosopher and an observant religious believer?  Is religious faith compatible, in the end, with the philosopher’s Socratic awareness of ignorance and corresponding commitment to questioning?  Do faith and reason even undermine one another,  or on the contrary might religious faith be essential to the project of understanding the world through reason? As the conversation develops, we explore what faith is and what some of the roots of faith might be.  Is revelation of the sort famously undergone by St. Paul and St. Augustine necessary for Christian belief?  Does that belief depend on your having the experience of God communicating with you?  What does Christian belief commit us to so far as the next life is concerned—as well as this life? In the last phase of this conversation, we also begin to discuss the motivations for and merits of a very different view, namely the Epicurean.  Elsewhere in this podcast (such as in my solo ruminations on getting old and on the notion of perfection), I tentatively propose that elements of that view (such as the idea that the divine, however defined, does not guide or care for us) can be liberating.  But I also acknowledge in this conversation that such a view deprives us of assurance that we are, no matter what, known and loved by a divine being. In response to my concluding invitation to share with the audience several texts or works of art or artistic performances (or combinations of the above) that the listener might find particularly illuminating, Ryan mentions Pascal’s Pensées, and Marina proposes not only Augustine’s Confessions, but also “Supernatural Love,” a poem by Gjertrud Schnackenberg (available at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47547/supernatural-love ). For more information about Marina McCoy, please see: https://www.bc.edu/bc-web/schools/morrissey/departments/philosophy/people/faculty-directory/marina-berzins-mccoy.html For more information about Ryan Hanley, please see: https://www.bc.edu/bc-web/schools/morrissey/departments/political-science/people/faculty-directory/ryan-hanley.html This conversation with Ryan Hanley and Marina McCoy was recorded on January 12, 2026, and has been edited. Show notes: [1] In the course of the conversation, Marina refers to St. Ignatius of Loyola.  The source in Ignatius for the idea that the Creator deals with the creature directly (i.e., that God is engaged in self-communication with human beings) is in the Fifteenth Annotation of his Spiritual Exercises, where he gives advice to those who are directors/companions of those undergoing the exercises. See https://www.liturgies.net/saints/ignatiusloyola/spiritualexercises.htm Marina also refers to St. Thomas Aquinas’ definition of faith (see  https://ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/nature_grace.ix.i.i.iv.html). She refers as well to Augustine on the importance of friendships and their relevance to his conversion (see Confessions Book 8, especially chapters 2, 5, 6, 8, and 12); to Augustine on the Manicheans and on his trust in things that cannot be demonstrated (see Confessions Book 6, sections 4 and 5); and to Augustine on love of one’s brother and God’s love (see De Trinitate (The Trinity), Book 8, chapter 8). [2] In the course of the conversation, Ryan refers to St. Augustine’s phrase “crede ut intellegas" (“believe so that you may understand”), which is to be found in Augustine’s Homilies on the First Epistle of John (Augustine is glossing Isaiah 7:9).  See https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf107.iii.xxx.html#fnf_iii.xxx-p9.1 Ryan also refers to Augustine’s Confessions Book 7 (specifically to 7.9.13 - 7.10.16) with regard to Augustine’s engagement with the Platonists and the importance of Christ as a mediating figure. [3] I refer to Plato’s Apology 38a (where Socrates famously says that the unexamined life is not worth

4. 

   25 Jan 2026

   Defending Libertarianism: a conversation with Douglas Den Uyl

   How do libertarianism, classical liberalism, and liberalism (as in the American “liberal vs conservative” contrast) differ, and where do they overlap?  Both libertarianism and classical liberalism are under attack today, from both the Left and the Right; what are those critiques, and how might they be answered?  Douglas Den Uyl and his co-author Douglas Rasmussen have worked out a fascinating defense of libertarianism which is grounded in a perfectionist ethics inspired by Aristotle’s theories of happiness and human nature.   What is it, and what questions does it raise? In this episode, Doug and I discuss these questions, as well as Doug’s views about the relevance of such thinkers as Spinoza, Adam Smith, and others for a viable contemporary political philosophy. In response to my concluding invitation to share with the audience several texts or works of art or performances (or combinations of the above) that he thinks are particularly interesting, Doug mentions C. S. Lewis’ book Four Loves, friendship in the films of John Ford and Charlie Kaufmann, and the movie “Cinema Paradiso.” For more information about Douglas Den Uyl, please see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Den_Uyl This conversation with Douglas Den Uyl was recorded on January 2, 2026, and has been edited. Show notes: [1] In the course of this conversation, Doug refers to his 2023 two-part essay on Adam Smith.  The first concerns Smith’s identification of the imagination’s possible “obsession with symmetry, order, perfection, or fittingness.”  This possible obsession is, for Smith, a powerful counterweight to self-interest (a notion with which Smith is so often associated).  See https://www.adamsmithworks.org/documents/paradigm-lock The second essay concerns taking Smith’s awareness of the power of the imagination and showing how we sometimes can lock what that power imagines into influencing how we see and interpret other events taking place around us. Doug calls this phenomenon “paradigm lock.”  He then uses the concept to identify “pathologies morality may be subject to, and how can we avoid becoming dangerously locked in a moralistic paradigm.”  Those pathologies lead to social divisiveness.  See https://www.adamsmithworks.org/documents/den-uyl-paradign-lock-2 [2] Doug and I both refer to his “Artificial Sociality,” an essay in which he explores the question as to whether one can be friends with a robot.  Doug draws on Adam Smith in setting out his analysis.  Please see https://www.adamsmithworks.org/documents/denuyl-artificial-sociality [3] In the course of the conversation, Doug refers to Lewis S. Feuer’s Spinoza and the Rise of Liberalism (Boston, 1964), as well as to Jonathan Israel’s work (Doug has in mind Israel’s Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750 (Oxford University Pres, 2001) and Spinoza, Life and Legacy (Oxford University Press, 2023)).  Doug refers as well to Friedrich Hayek, and has in mind Hayek’s The Constitution of Liberty (University of Chicago Press, 1992).  Doug also mentions his own books Power, State, and Freedom (Van Gorcum, 1983) and The Virtue of Prudence (Peter Lang, 1991), as well as The Philosophic Thought of Ayn Rand, edited by Douglas J. Den Uyl and Douglas B. Rasmussen (University of Illinois Press, 1984). A number of the works alluded to in the conversation will be found on Doug’s Wikipedia page (for the link, please see above). [4] I refer to being a philosopher in “the agora,” meaning, in the public gathering place(s) or public space. [5] I refer to Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations book III (ch. II), where Smith says “The pride of man makes him love to domineer, and nothing mortifies him so much as to be obliged to condescend to persuade his inferiors.  Wherever the law allows it, and the nature of the work can afford it, therefore, he will generally prefer the service of slaves to that of freemen” (WN III.ii.10; in the preceding paragraph, Smith tells us that work done by

5. 

   13 Jan 2026

   Getting Old

   Is old age just a time of hopelessness, struggle, and decline?  Are there any virtues (such as wonder and gratitude) at home in that phase of life?  How to combine forward-looking engagement with the world, a degree of longing for fulfillment in the here and now, a minimum of self-estrangement, an honest recognition that one’s body and powers are not what they were, an unblinkered recognition that one’s life is coming to a close, and a decent level of tranquility?  In old age you are likely off the public stage, and in that sense you turn inward rather than outward.  Is it possible to turn inward—to “live within” yourself—while also remaining open to the world? Mulling over the virtues of old age (as I term it) that might help us to meet the challenges of that phase of life, I ponder whether those virtues harmonize with a cosmology that doesn’t posit a divine guiding hand. So many questions, so much to contemplate!  In a dictum inspired by Hippocrates: life is short, the quest for understanding is long … but step by step, we are on the way.  That remains my hope in these ruminations and conversations. After a short prologue, this episode is divided into three parts separated from one another by brief interludes of flamenco music. Show notes [1] At the start of this episode I refer to Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness (Ballantine Books [Random House], 1968), p. 208. [2] The passages I quote from Aristotle are from his Rhetoric, Book II, ch. 13 (1389b13-1390a27), trans. by W. Rhys Roberts, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. J. Barnes, vol. II (Princeton University Press, 1995), p. 2214.  Ryan Hanley suggests reading, in this connection, part III of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels on the endless old age of the “Struldbruggs.” [3] I quote from Stanley Kunitz’ poem “The Layers.”  See https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/54897/the-layers [4] My reference to Simone de Beauvoir is to her The Coming of Age, trans. by Patrick O’Brian (W. W. Norton & Co., 1972), p. 488 (I mention her report of research that some older folks “no longer defined themselves by their social function,” and “now they are really themselves”). [5] On the notions of living “within” (or, “in”) rather than “outside” oneself see Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin and the Foundations of Inequality among Men and elsewhere.  For the passages and discussion, see ch. 4 of my Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith: a Philosophical Encounter (Routledge, 2018). [6] I refer to Martha Nussbaum’s “Living the Past Forward: The Present and Future Value of Backward-Looking Emotions” and to Saul Levmore’s “No Regrets, and a Cheer for Retirement Communities," both of which are to be found in Nussbaum and Levmore, Aging Thoughtfully: Conversations about Retirement, Romance, Wrinkles, and Regret (Oxford University Press, 2020), pp. 125-143 and pp. 144-149 respectively.  Levmore takes issue with Nussbaum’s critique of “presentism.” [7] On the critique of travel, I refer to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance,” in Essays and Lectures, ed. J. Porte (Literary Classics of the United States, Inc. (Library of America), 1983), pp. 277-78; and Agnes Callard, “The Case Against Travel,” The New Yorker, June 24, 2023 (available at www.newyorker.com). [8] I quote from and advert to Kieran Setiya, Midlife: A Philosophical Guide (Princeton University Press, 2017), pp. 106-110, 125, 133-35, 140-41, 148, 153, 159. [9] On the tranquility that the materialistic Epicurean view of the cosmos purports to bring, I have in mind Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, translated with an Introduction and notes by Martin F. Smith (Hackett, 2001), Book 2, lines 1090-1174 (to the end of Bk. 2); Book 3, lines 978-1094 (to the end of Bk. 3); and Book 5, lines 1193-1240; as well as Epicurus’ Letter to Menoeceus (see notes 13 and 14 below). [10] I refer to Drew Hyland’s notion of the “stance” of “responsive openness”; see his The Virtue of Philosophy: An Interpretatio

6. 

   1 Jan 2026

   Odysseus as Poet, as Philosopher: the Great Wanderings. By Mitchell Miller

   This episode is a guest presentation about Homer's Odyssey by philosopher Mitchell Miller.  Here are Mitch’s own words of introduction to his talk: “The Odyssey is the seminal Western story of homecoming.  Throughout the tales of what is known as the Great Wanderings, we hear Homer’s Odysseus reflecting on how to make his way home.  But what does coming home mean? How to prepare for it, how to sustain it?  And, poignantly, how might a couple in Odysseus's and Penelope's situation, separated by long absence and life-changing struggles, recover the intimacy and trust that had once been the center of their lives? “I read Homer as both a poet and philosopher who, by means of the extraordinary stories in the books of the Great Wanderings, helps us to understand how to respond to these deep human questions.  Odysseus vividly narrates, in the language of fantasy, episodes in which, among other close calls, he almost dies a grim death when encountering the monstrously huge one-eyed cannibal Polyphemus as well as the terrifying Scylla and Charybdis, comes to terms with the dread and treacherous witch Circe and the seductive nymph Calypso, and cleverly resists destruction by the Sirens.  He also tells of his daring descent into the underworld and the saving prophecy he receives from the shade of the blind prophet Tiresias. “Tiresias brings into focus a theme that has run through all the stories Odysseus narrates, the ancient notion of xenia, that is, of the mutual obligations of guest to host and host to guest.  At the close of these reflections I find myself led to share an arresting possibility: can we hear in Tiresias’ prescription that Odysseus end his wanderings with an inland journey to propitiate the angry Poseidon a raising of this theme to the level of the perpetual question of how humankind may fulfill its obligations as a guest of the earth?  Is there implicit in Tiresias’ account of the ceremony of propitiation, the burial ceremony in which Odysseus is to plant his oar in the earth, a nascent call to address what is arguably the most acute challenge we face today, the call to bring art — that is, the craft or, as we now know it, the technology by which we seek to master the forces of nature —into harmony with nature itself?” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mitchell Miller is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Vassar College.  He has written extensively on Plato, Hesiod, and Parmenides.  In his books on Plato (including The Philosopher in Plato’s Statesman [Martinus Nijhoff, 1980, and Parmenides Publishing, 2004] and Plato’s Parmenides: The Conversion of the Soul [Princeton University Press, 1986, and Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991]), he is fascinated by the irony, structure, and psychagogic power of the dialogues; he has also explored what Plato has Socrates call "the longer way" (Republic 435c-d), and he has attempted to recover, within the dialogues, exhibitions of what Aristotle reports as Plato's "unwritten teachings.” For more information about Professor Miller, please see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Miller_(philosopher)  and  pages.vassar.edu/mitchellmiller/ Professor Miller’s original presentation was delivered as The Andrew Steiner Lecture at St. John’s College (Annapolis), on October 24, 2009.  For this episode, he has replaced the initial five and a half minutes with new opening remarks. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Show notes: The following show notes to this episode on the Great Wanderings in the Odyssey are written by Professor Miller. [1] I owe special thanks to two dear friends and dialogue partners in all things Greek at Vassar College, Professors in the Greek and Roman Studies Department Rachel Kitzinger and Rachel Friedman.  My debts to each greatly outstrip the following particular remarks, but for this occasion I want to single out Rachel Kitzinger’s keen insight into the homophrosune, “like-mindedness,” that emerges in and governs the mutual testing of each other that Odysseus and Penelope do in

7. 

   6 Nov 2025

   From Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy to Psalm 121: a conversation with David Roochnik

   In this two-part conversation, David Roochnik and I explore famous quotations that have long been and still are resonant, as well as thought-provoking, for each of us.  David’s is a phrase from Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy: “pessimism of strength.”  What could that provocative phrase mean in light of a Nietzschean, utterly this-worldly, secular outlook?  If you are a pessimist, does that mean that you are despairing or even depressed?  Is it possible to be pessimistic and joyful at the same time?  Does pessimism mean that you resign yourself to the status quo and live quietly in some private retreat—and if so, what does that have to do with “strength”? We then move from the person who said that “God is dead” (Nietzsche) to Psalm 121, the first line of which provides my quote: “I lift my eyes to the mountains, from whence my help will come.”  What is this mysterious “help” that the mountains offer and why do I—and why might you—need it?  Is it about the virtues of solitude and of communing with the non-human, or about finding God in the ethereal heights, or about withdrawing from social life and its proverbial inauthenticity so as to focus on the world within oneself? As David and I pursue the answers, we question each other in good philosophical spirit.  To our surprise, our responses to our respective quotations intersect at several crucial points—for example, with regard to the place of withdrawal or retreat from aspects of human life. For more information about Professor Roochnik, please see: https://www.bu.edu/philo/profile/david-roochnik/ This conversation with David Roochnik was recorded on August 11, 2025, and has been edited. Show notes: [1] Roochnik’s first quotation, “pessimism of strength,” is the topic of the initial discussion in this episode.  The phrase is from Nietzsche’s “Attempt at a Self-Criticism” in Beyond Good and Evil, trans. W. Kaufmann (Random House (Vintage Books), 1967), p. 17. In the course of the conversation, Roochnik mentions “theoretical optimism,” a Nietzschean phrase (see Beyond Good and Evil, section 15, p. 97).  He also refers to Plato’s Gorgias 521d (on Socrates’ statement that he is one of the few men, if not the only man, to practice the political art) and to Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate―Discoveries from A Secret World.  We both refer to Plato’s Phaedrus 230d (on Socrates’ indicating that the trees have nothing to teach him). Roochnik refers to the Epicurean view that “death is nothing to us,” and I follow up with a paraphrase of one of the Epicurean arguments for that view.  For some sources, see Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus, in The Epicurus Reader, translated and edited by B. Inwood and L. P. Gerson, with an Introduction by D. S. Hutchinson (Hackett Press, 1994), 10.122-126 (pp. 28-29); and Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, Book 3, lines 830-1094.  I also refer there to Thomas Nagel’s response to the Epicureans on indifference to death: see “Death,” in Nagel’s Mortal Questions (Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 1-10. As mentioned at the end of this conversation, Roochnik’s second quotation is from Plato’s Apology 21b-22e (Socrates narrates there his questioning of the craftsmen, among other of his fellow citizens who were reputed to be wise).  Roochnik and I hope to record another episode focused on our second quotations. [2] My first quotation (the topic of the second part of the discussion in this episode) is from the start of Psalm 121.  In the French version found on the front of the Swiss chalet that I mention, it runs: “Je lève mes yeux vers les montagnes/d’où me viendra le secours” (“I lift [raise] my eyes to [toward] the mountains, from whence my help will come”).  In the King James translation of the Hebrew (thank you, internet!) it runs: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.”  The next line, which I also quote, is “My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and ear

8. 

   6 Nov 2025

   Perfection: what is it—and is it worth striving for?

   Perfectionism is a striving for perfection, and as such has a bad reputation these days.  Is that reputation deserved?  Is perfection worth longing for, whether on the political level (where it may be thought of as “utopia”) or on the personal level?  The answers hinge in part on the answer to another question: what is perfection?  That question is the main focus of this rumination. Perfection is sometimes understood as transcendent in that it is purified of the bad elements (such as illness, pain, and death) of the world.  But maybe perfection is, instead, better understood as a mix of all the elements of the world—the bad ones included—in just the right proportions.  Do either of those views of perfection make sense?  And if the first of those—perfection as transcendent and purified of all that is undesirable—is unattainable, is it possible to be reconciled to a cosmos or “natural whole” that is forever a mix of good and bad, beauty and ugliness, pleasure and pain?  Would there be a place left for wonder in so flawed a world? In the course of reflecting on those questions, I draw distinctions between what is practicable and what is desirable, redemption and reconciliation, and between seeing the cosmos as guided by the divine versus as unguided by God or gods. This episode is divided into three parts separated from one another by brief interludes of flamenco music, and concludes with a two-minute coda. Show notes: [1] In the course of this episode, I refer to Christina Caron, “Perfectionism Is a Trap.  Here’s How to Escape,” The New York Times, April 12, 2024, accessed online on Feb. 26, 2025; Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness (Ballantine Books [Random House], 1968), pp. 208-09; and Drew Hyland, The Virtue of Philosophy: An Interpretation of Plato’s Charmides (Ohio University Press, 1981), pp. 10-17. [2] I am grateful to Douglas Den Uyl, Steve Griswold, Ryan Hanley, Annice Kra, Michael Prince, Lisa Griswold Robbins, David Roochnik, and Susanne Sreedhar for their comments on and discussion about this rumination.  I am also very pleased to thank the “focus group” of Boston University students who kindly listened to an earlier version of this episode of the podcast and then gave me their feedback (individually and, on March 28, 2023, as a group).  The focus group included William Chang, Quentin Clark, Vanessa Hanger, Andrew Jacobsen, Aishwari Krishna, Gabriel Libman, Rosalie Amber Looijaard, Ruska Mumladze, Caroline Wall, Alex Wecht, and Yunyang Zhou.  I owe a particular debt of thanks to Vanessa Hanger, who not only participated in our meeting but also organized it. The snippets of flamenco you hear throughout this podcast’s episodes are inspired by, and draw on, not only traditional tropes of the art form but in particular the work of Diego del Gastor (my teacher), Paco de Lucia (everyone’s teacher in modern flamenco), and Luciano Ghosn. For more information about where I am coming from in this podcast as a whole, as well as the General Acknowledgements and the Dedication, please see “Philosophy on the Way” at: https://griswoldphilosophy.podbean.com/ Further reading (and listening): The broadly philosophical literature on perfection and perfectionism is as vast as it is ancient, due not only to the importance of the concepts but also to their complexity and varying meaning.  For a wide-ranging discussion of works that address the notion of perfection, see John Passmore, The Perfectibility of Man, 3rd ed. (1970; rpt. Liberty Fund, 2000).  I would also recommend Douglas Den Uyl and Douglas Rasmussen’s co-authored books Norms of Liberty: A Perfectionist Basis for Non-Perfectionist Politics (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005) and The Perfectionist Turn: From Metanorms to Metaethics (Edinburgh University Press, 2016).  Have a look as well at Rasmussen’s helpful “Perfectionism,” Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics, ed. Ruth Chadwick (Academic Press, 2012) 2nd ed., Vol. 3: 395-403.  In a di

9. 

   5 Nov 2025

   Responsive Openness, Philosophy, Basketball: a Conversation with Drew Hyland

   Drew Hyland advocates what he calls a “stance of responsive openness" toward the world.  His key examples of that stance are basketball and philosophy.  Those are forms of play, for Hyland—but play in what sense?  What does it mean to be “open” and “responsive” at the same time?  Can we achieve that even in regard to suffering and death? Is the stance of responsive openness to the world secular, even as it recognizes that the universe is deeply mysterious?  If philosophical questioning will never yield the final answers, why is it worth asking the questions?  Is there a “philosophy of life” that is livable even though its questioning is never-ending? Other topics too come up in this wide-ranging conversation, such as the notion of “the ineffable,” the relation between philosophy and art, the distinction between showing and saying something, and the differences between academic philosophy and a philosophy of life. In response to my concluding invitation to share with the audience several texts or works of art or performances (or combinations of the above) that he thinks are particularly illuminating, Hyland mentions Plato’s dialogues (if you are on an island and can only take one book …), Alvin Ailey’s dance “Revelations,” the collections of poems by Lawrence Ferlinghetti entitled “How to Paint Sunlight” and “These are My Rivers,” and Antonioni’s film “Blow Up.” For more information about Professor Hyland, please see: https://internet3.trincoll.edu/facProfiles/Default.aspx?fid=1000600 This conversation with Drew Hyland was recorded on June 12, 2025, and has been lightly edited. Show notes: [1] In the course of this conversation, Hyland refers to Frank Deford’s Everybody’s All-American (Grand Central Publishing, 2014); Plato’s Republic book VI (508e ff., on the “The Good”); Plato’s Laws book VII (especially 803a ff., on the contrast between play and war); Plato’s Timaeus 51a-d on the perplexing problem of understanding “chora” (space, place); Robert Pippin’s Philosophy by Other Means: The Arts in Philosophy and Philosophy in the Arts (University of Chicago Press, 2021) with regard to the question of the “ineffable”; and his own “Being a Leaping Spark: Reflections on Teaching” (with regard to what it means to teach philosophy), an essay that is the first chapter in Hyland’s Intimations of Transcendence: Autobiographical Essays in Context (Wipf and Stock, 2025). [2] I quote from Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, trans. W. Kaufmann (Random House, 1966; rpt. Vintage Books, 1989), Pt, 1, par. 6, p. 13: “Gradually it has become clear to me what every great philosophy so far has been: namely, the personal confession of its author and a kind of involuntary and unconscious memoir.”  I also referred to Hyland’s essay “On Being a Leaping Spark” (with regard to the original name of the “Skiing and Being” program at Trinity College (CT)).  Some of my thoughts and questions in this conversation grow out of my “Philosophizing with Drew Hyland: the Dialogue Continues,” remarks presented at a Trinity College conference on the occasion of the opening of the Drew Hyland archive at Trinity (October 28, 2022). I am grateful to Steve Griswold, Betsy Griswold Hansen, Drew Hyland, Annice Kra, Lisa Griswold Robbins, Caroline Griswold Short, and Geoff Griswold Short for their thoughts about this episode, including about the short description thereof and the show notes. The snippets of flamenco you hear throughout this podcast’s episodes are inspired by, and draw on, not only traditional tropes of the art form but in particular the work of Diego del Gastor (my teacher), Paco de Lucia (everyone’s teacher in modern flamenco), and Luciano Ghosn. For more information about where I am coming from in this podcast as a whole, as well as the General Acknowledgments and the Dedication, please see “Philosophy on the Way” at https://griswoldphilosophy.podbean.com/

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