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.
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Defending Libertarianism: a conversation with Douglas Den Uyl
Épisode 7
dimanche 25 janvier 2026 • Durée 01:06:34
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.”
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 slaves is more expensive (and so less economical) than that done by free persons).
I also refer to Wealth of Nations book V, Part III, where Smith outlines the functions of the state, one being the duty of “erecting and maintaining those publick institutions and those publick works, which, though they may be in the highest degree advantageous to a great society, are, however, of such a nature, that the profit could never repay the expence to any individual or small number of individuals, and which it, therefore, cannot be expected that any individual or small number of individuals should erect or maintain” (WN V.i.c.1; similarly, see IV.ix.51, which is at the very end of WN book IV; in the conversation with Doug, I mention interstate highways as a modern example of “publick works”).
These quotations are from the two-volume edition of WN edited by R. H. Campbell, A. S. Skinner, and W. B. Todd (Oxford University Press, 1976; rpt. Liberty Press/Liberty Classics (an imprint of Liberty Fund), 1981).
[6] I refer to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s discussion of “civil religion” (and to his underlining the importance of citizens being willing to sacrifice their lives for the common good). I had in mind his Of the Social Contract, book IV, ch. 8 (titled “Of Civil Religion”). That chapter, and the “domineer” passage in Smith mentioned in note [5] above, are discussed in my Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith: a Philosophical Encounter (Routledge, 2018).
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.
I am grateful to Douglas Den Uyl for his help with this episode, including the short description thereof, the title, and the show notes. I also wish to thank David Roochnik. The photograph that serves as the image for this episode was taken in 2024 by Douglas Den Uyl, and is used here with his permission. The building pictured is the Industrial National Bank Building (Providence, Rhode Island).
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/
Getting Old
Épisode 6
mardi 13 janvier 2026 • Durée 01:07:24
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.”
[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”).
Odysseus as Poet, as Philosopher: the Great Wanderings. By Mitchell Miller
Épisode 5
jeudi 1 janvier 2026 • Durée 51:31
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.”
From Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy to Psalm 121: a conversation with David Roochnik
Épisode 3
jeudi 6 novembre 2025 • Durée 01:18:32
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).
Perfection: what is it—and is it worth striving for?
Épisode 2
jeudi 6 novembre 2025 • Durée 46:26
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.
Responsive Openness, Philosophy, Basketball: a Conversation with Drew Hyland
Épisode 1
mercredi 5 novembre 2025 • Durée 01:21:38
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.”
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).
[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 Interpretation of Plato’s Charmides (Ohio University Press, 1981), pp. 10-17. See also my conversation with Hyland on this podcast.
[11] When speaking of gratitude I cite (with permission) Mitchell Miller's email to me of June 12, 2017. Check out Miller’s guest presentation on this podcast.
[12] I refer to Pierre Hadot's view that the Epicureans claim "grateful astonishment" as a fruit of their philosophy, and his interpretation of their notion of living in the present. See his “ ‘Only the Present is our Happiness’: The Value of the Present Instant in Goethe and in Ancient Philosophy,” in Philosophy as a Way of Life, edited with an Introduction by Arnold I. Davidson (Blackwell Publishing, 1995), pp. 217-237 (my quote is from p. 225). My thanks to Ryan Hanley for pointing me to Hadot.
[13] On the Epicurean indifference to death, see Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus, in The Epicurus Reader, translated and edited by Brad Inwood and L. P. Gerson (with 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.
[14] On Thomas Nagel’s response to the Epicureans on indifference to death, see his essay “Death,” in his Mortal Questions (Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 1-10, and the sources I mention in notes 9 and 13 above. I also referred in this connection to Setiya’s discussion of the fear of death in Midlife: A Philosophical Guide (see chapter 5).
[15] I am grateful to Kurt Blankschaen, Douglas Den Uyl, Steve Griswold, Caroline Griswold Short, Geoff Griswold Short, Ryan Hanley, Steve Karbank, Annice Kra, Marina McCoy, Mitchell Miller, Robin Reif, Lisa Griswold Robbins, David Roochnik, and Susanne Sreedhar for their comments on and discussion about this rumination on old age. Caroline and Geoff Griswold Short very helpfully suggested a reframing of my introductory remarks about the topic, and also the importance of distinguishing there between old age and old people. The photograph that serves as the image for this episode was taken by Steve Griswold as we stood on Dante’s Peak in Death Valley (2016); I thank him for permission to use it here.
The snippets of flamenco you hear throughout this and my podcast’s other 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):
For a wide-ranging discussion of works in philosophy and literature that discuss old age, see Helen Small, The Long Life (Oxford University Press, 2007). See as well Marina McCoy’s splendid Wounded Heroes: Vulnerability as a Virtue in Ancient Greek Literature and Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2013), and Sally Gadow’s “Body and Self: A Dialectic,” in The Humanity of the Ill: Phenomenological Perspectives, ed. V. Kestenbaum (University of Tennessee Press, 1982), pp. 86-100. I also suggest listening to the Aug. 1, 2024 episode (entitled “Aging”) of the podcast Philosophical Currents with Jack Russell Weinstein (https://philosophyinpubliclife.org/pc40-aging/). Informative as well is the April 10, 2016 episode of Jack Weinstein’s podcast Why? Philosophical Discussions about Everyday Life. His guest is Sharona Hoffman and the episode is entitled “How to Think Philosophically about Aging” (https://philosophyinpubliclife.org/2016/04/10/how-to-think-philosophically-about-aging-with-sharona-hoffman/ ). I also recommend reading Henk bij de Weg’s remarks about aging and old age in his philosophy blog: https://philosophybytheway.blogspot.com/search?q=old+age. As I was finalizing this episode, Drs. Don Howard and Ioulia Howard kindly sent me their recent book The Art, Science, and Strategy of Longevity: An Expansive Exploration of Aging, Health, and Human Potential (Vibrant Ages Publishing, 2025). As is obvious even at first glance, it is an important work that is very pertinent to reflection on the topic of getting old. I look forward to reading it.
For more information about Professor Miller, please see:
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 Book 23 of the Odyssey and Rachel Friedman’s illuminating examination of the dialectic between Homer’s and Derek Walcott’s notions of journey in the Odyssey and in Walcott’s Omeros. Interested listeners to this podcast will be deeply arrested by Friedman’s Derek Walcott’s Encounter with Homer: Landscape, History, and Poetic Voice in Omeros (Oxford, 2024) I also owe thanks to Professor John Peradotto, who introduced me to Homer many years ago; his Martin Classical Lectures, published as Man in the Middle Voice: Name and Narration in the Odyssey (Princeton University Press, 1990), are a model of hermeneutic scholarship. And on Homer’s ability to inspire heightened ‘seeing’ in his readers, I want to acknowledge Eva Brann’s Homeric Moments: Clues to Delight in Reading the Odyssey and the Iliad (Paul Dry Books, 2002). I am grateful as well to generations of Vassar students, to my colleagues in the Departments of Philosophy and of Greek and Roman Studies, and to an attentive audience when I gave this talk at St John’s College (Annapolis) as a Steiner Lecture in October of 2009.
[2] I refer in this talk to Robert Fagles’ translation of Homer’s Odyssey (Viking, 1996).
[3] Listeners to this podcast episode will hear occasional sounds of chalk on a chalkboard as I punctuated my talk by drawing a map of the episodes that Odysseus guides us through in what we now call his “Great Wanderings” as he made his way home from Troy. Unfortunately, it is not possible to reproduce the format of that map here, but this is really no matter; both my map and the list I will provide in note [4] are abstract to the point of being unhelpful — their usefulness depends on my success in making their significance concrete and vivid in the talk.
[4] For the sake of reference, here is a list of the eleven fantastical episodes Odysseus narrates, each named after the most important figures Odysseus encounters: (1) the Lotus Eaters, (2) the Cyclops, (3) the bag of winds, (4) the Laistrygonians, (5) Circe, (6) his descent into the underworld to hear from the shade of Tiresias, (7) the Sirens, (8) Scylla, [9] the cattle of the sun, (10) Charybdis, and (11) Calypso. Listing these episodes seriatim is, however, unrevealing of their real order. As I will explain, they fall into groups of the first five (1)-(5), the descent into the underworld (6), and the last five (7-11), with the final five echoing the first. What is more, within each five the first two are echoed by the last two, and the middle episode in the first five is echoed by the middle episode in the last five. Finally, there is a sharp contrast between the first two episodes, between the fourth and fifth, between the seventh and eighth, and between the tenth and eleventh. Thus, episodes (7)-(11) complete a ring structure with (1)-(5), and within these two fives, episodes (4)-(5) complete a ring structure with (1)-(2), and episodes (10)-(11) complete a ring structure with (7)-(8).
[5] Near the end of my talk I wrote on the chalkboard the strange Greek word that is correctly but inexpressively translated as “winnowing fan.” It is athereloigon, a compound of ather-, “chaff,” and -loig-, “destroy.”
[6] The photograph that serves as the image for this episode was taken by Stephen Millark. I thank him for permission to use it here.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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 (Charles’ teacher), Paco de Lucia (everyone’s teacher in modern flamenco), and Luciano Ghosn.
Charles wishes to thank Steve Griswold and Annice Kra for their help with this episode. For more information about where Charles is 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/
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 earth”; however, that line is not found on the façade of the chalet in question.
In the course of the conversation, I refer to Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, section 5, p. 52: “… for it is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified …” (see also pp. 22, 141); and to Beyond Good and Evil, section 15, p. 97, on Socrates as Nietzsche’s example of a “theoretical optimist.” I also refer to Rousseau’s notion of living “within” (or, “in”) rather than “outside” oneself. For the relevant passages in Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin and the Foundations of Inequality among Men, as well as discussion of their meaning, please see ch. 4 of my Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith: a Philosophical Encounter (Routledge, 2018). In referring to Edward Abbey, I have his book Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness particularly in mind.
My second quotation—which I hope to discuss with Roochnik in another episode of this podcast—is Fragment 2 by Alcmaeon of Croton: “Human beings perish because they are not able to join their beginning to their end” (that translation is from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Alcmaeon; https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/alcmaeon/). I mention that to me the quote suggests the theme—or rather, the question—of the unity of a life.
[3] With regard to Mitchell Miller on the “amazing accident” that has led to our existence and the appropriateness of gratitude as a response, I am paraphrasing from Miller’s email to me of June 12, 2017 (which I cite with permission).
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.
I am grateful to Steve Griswold, Annice Kra, Lisa Griswold Robbins, David Roochnik, Caroline Griswold Short, and Geoff Griswold Short for their thoughts about this episode, including about the short description thereof and the show notes.
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/
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 different vein, see Marina McCoy’s Wounded Heroes: Vulnerability as a Virtue in Ancient Greek Literature and Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2013). For yet other angles on the topic, see Michael Sandel’s The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering (Harvard University Press, 2007); and John Gray, Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002; rpt. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007). Possibly helpful too might be “Philosophy, Imagination, and the Fragility of Beauty: On Reconciliation with Nature,” ch. 8 of my Adam Smith and the Virtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge University Press, 1999). As I prepared to publish this episode of Philosophy on the Way, I came across a relevant interview on “Why? Philosophical Discussions About Everyday Life” (a podcast hosted by Jack Russell Weinstein) entitled “When is Life Good Enough” (Jan. 12, 2025; https://philosophyinpubliclife.org/2025/01/12/when-is-a-life-good-enough-with-guest-avram-alpert/). His guest is Avram Alpert, the author of The Good-Enough Life (Princeton University Press, 2022). I’ve not read the book, but it sounds interesting. I also came across Iddo Landau’s intriguing Finding Meaning in an Imperfect World (Oxford University Press, 2017) and look forward to reading that book as well.
[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/
