Content note: extensive discussion of death, mortality and loss.
This week’s episode is an existential crisis courtesy of Steve's daughter, who asks “When will I die?”. This triggers a brief discussion of the chic continental philosophers you might expect to find theorising about mortality (most likely while wearing berets and smoking Gitanes outside a Parisian café). Steve and Christabel take us from Pascal’s divertissement, to Heidegger’s emphasis on finitude, to Jean Paul Sartre’s nausea.
However, rather than succumbing to a dark night of the soul, Christabel turns to what she knows best, which is (as faithful listeners will know) a worm-based metaphysics of time. This is the kind of philosophy practiced by philosophers whose invites to hip gatherings on the continent always seem to get lost in the mail.
As a result, the duo turn from contemplation of the cool and angsty philosophers to the practical question of how your philosophy of time should affect your view of death. Steve is delighted to have presentism between his crosshairs again, as Christabel compares presentist, eternalist and growing block-theoretic conceptions of the end. Natalja Deng’s assessment of Robin Le Poidevin’s claim that eternalists shouldn’t feel existential dread is examined, as is Daniel Story’s reassurance that worm theorists shouldn’t ever worry that their time is growing short.
Steve chastises contemporary philosophers Harry S. Silverstein and Thomas Nagel for their critique of Epicurus, arguing that these modern thinkers should pick on someone who’s still around to defend themselves. Christabel replies that Epicurus is still kicking about somewhere in the spacetime manifold, it’s just that he can’t respond (and probably has more pleasurable things to be doing, anyway).
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