Ideas Matter – Details, episodes & analysis

Can becoming a better liberal really increase your wellbeing? That is the argument made by today's guest, Alexandre Lefebvre, in his latest book: Liberalism as a Way of Life (2024). Liberalism is the hegemonic morality of our times. Rather than despairing at this fact, as many on the post-liberal right do, we should double down on our ideals and strive to become better liberals. A fairer, more playful and fun world awaits us if we do.

Lefebvre is Professor of Politics and Philosophy at the University of Sydney. Find out more about his work here.

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Kickstarting a new era of Ideas Matter, Louis interviews Canadian-born political theorist Daniel Bell about his latest book, The Dean of Shandong: Confessions of a Minor Bureaucrat at a Chinese University (2023).

Bell is currently Chair Professor of Political Theory at the University of Hong Kong. Prior to that, he served as the Dean of Shandong University's Department of Political Science and Public Administration - the first non-Chinese to ever hold such a position.

Bell's academic work focusses on Confucianism and how it can be applied to contemporary Chinese politics. He makes a number of controversial but interesting claims, including that Western-style liberal democracy may not be the best way forward for China. Instead, he favours what he calls 'Confucian Political Meritocracy'.

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Enjoy!

Friedrich Nietzsche has exerted a profound influence on Western philosophy. Thinkers diverse as Martin Heidegger, Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud and Michel Foucault all count Nietzsche as one of their inspirations. Nietzsche is also one of the most popular philosophers among the general public and is sometimes regarded as the “non-philosopher’s philosopher”. In our second episode covering this enigmatic thinker, we take a look at Nietzsche’s very first publication: The Birth of Tragedy (1872). In brief, Nietzsche argues that art is the only consolation for the horror and absurdity of existence. Existence, he writes, is only justified as an aesthetic phenomenon. This is Nietzsche in his primordial phase; those interested in his more mature philosophy will learn a lot from reading the Birth of Tragedy. If you enjoy the episode, please rate the podcast and follow us on Instagram and/or Youtube @ideasmatterpod

Raymond Geuss’ lecture series on Nietzsche

William James was an American philosopher and psychologist, most known for expounding the philosophy of pragmatism. In episode sixteen of Ideas Matter, Louis and Alex read a series of lectures James gave in 1906 entitled “Pragmatism: A New Name For Some Old Ways of Thinking”. We discuss James’ theory of truth, the pragmatic method, pragmatism’s influence on educational philosophy, and offer our own criticisms and comments on the pragmatic project. Please rate and share the episode so that more people can learn about ideas that matter. Feel free to reach out on Instagram @ideasmatterpod

Plato’s ‘Symposium’ is a Socratic dialogue about love. Situated in the home of the famous Athenian poet Agathon, Symposium presents a series of speeches by prominent Athenians who expound on the nature of love.

We encounter a range of ideas familiar to the modern mind: love creates happiness, encourages us to lead good lives, creates harmony and justice, and is the longing for unity with our better half.

All of these views, however, fail to capture the true essence of love. Love’s essence can only be understood by contemplating love itself, love in general - the Platonic form of love.

Socrates tells his fellow Athenians that love is the desire to have the good forever. Love therefore motivates us to reproduce so that we may approximate immortality. Physical reproduction is obvious: we reach towards immortality by perpetuating the human species. Yet it is mental reproduction that brings us closest to immortality and into favour with the Gods.

When two people pregnant in mind with creative and intellectual potential come together to discuss virtue, they give birth to children whose lives will outstrip their own: great works of philosophy and art. This is Platonic love. A relationship built around mutual appreciation of the beauty found in ideas and virtue. Platonic love grasps at what is truly immortal: the Form of Beauty itself.

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Ideas Matter takes a trip back to the fourth century AD to read St Augustine of Hippo, a famed Christian theologian from Thagaste, North Africa. Augustine’s writings have proved tremendously influential not only within Christian theology, but in philosophy and political theory more broadly. His teachings on the nature of human sin - that we sin because it is fun - have informed political realism in domestic and international relations theory.

Augustine shows how deeply Christianity was influenced by Neoplatonic readings of the bible, furthering cementing the claim that all philosophy is a footnote to Plato. Even in the fourth century, educated theologians recognised that the Bible was an allegorical work, whose apparent contradictions are great wellsprings of profundity and meaning.

Even if you do not consider yourself religious, reading Augustine is a humbling experience. Most contemporary criticisms of Christianity are straw-man arguments, or “mental figments” as Augustine would describe them. An informed agnostic or partisan of another spiritual tradition could do much worse than to read Augustine. Indeed, there is much in common between Augustine’s Christianity and Daoism, Hinduism, and other Eastern religions. Perhaps they all point to the same fundamental human need to connect with something greater than ourselves.

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As per listener request, today we delve into Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s ‘The Social Contract’. Published in 1762, Rousseau sets himself the ambitious task of reconciling individual freedoms with the collective protection of society. Rousseau thinks we can have both. Although society has the power to corrupt humanity, it also has the power to refine and enlightenment us, replacing our crude natural freedoms with more sophisticated civil freedoms. A society based upon the social contract is the best way to achieve this.

There is much to like in Rousseau - and much to dislike. His writings represent the “best and worst” of liberalism, as co-host Louis describes it. We hope you enjoy the episode. Please like, share, and rate the podcast. You can contact the show on Instagram and Twitter @ideasmatterpod

What does it mean to be against morality? Why does Friedrich Nietzsche describe Western morality as a “slave-morality”? Episode 12 of Ideas Matter answers these questions and more, with our deep-dive into Nietzsche’s ‘On the Genealogy of Morality’.

Nietzsche is one of the most popular philosophers today, especially with those who don’t normally read philosophy. His beautiful literary prose brings ideas of great insight to a wider audience than the usual humdrum style of analytic philosophy. Nietzsche knew that life involves great suffering, but he teaches how to find meaning in that suffering, by exercising our will to power.

Modern life is stultifying. Our world has been stripped of glory and meaning - we no longer have higher causes to die for. In this vacuum of meaning, nihilism seems like an attractive response. Nietzsche will have none of it. Nihilism is a weak, life-denying response. We need to be active, purposive creatures. We are meant to move, create, dominate and exercise our power over the world. Reading Nietzsche can be like a shock to the system: a cold shower and a shot of coffee all at once. How many authors, let alone philosophers, can you say that about?

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In this episode we read two of Kant's most influential essays: “An Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose” and “What is Enlightenment?”.

In "Universal History", Kant suggests that history is the progressive development of humanity’s reason. In “What is Enlightenment?”, Kant argues that being enlightened is the capacity to think for oneself. History’s purpose, therefore, is the gradual enlightenment of the human race. How might we achieve this enlightened state? Well, listening, sharing, and liking the Ideas Matter podcast is a good place to start!

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Can there ever be a peaceful transition from capitalism to socialism? According to Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolsheviks and eventual head of the Soviet Union, workers must seize the state in a violent revolution. The task does not end here. Workers must reconstruct the state into a “dictatorship of the proletariat” in order to prevent a bourgeois counter-revolution. Eventually, once the bourgeoise have been repressed and all classes have been abolished, the state will wither away. Communism will have been achieved.Lenin presents this argument as the true and original interpretation of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. In State and Revolution, written in 1917, Lenin takes aim at those who he regards as distorting Marxism. Violent revolution and a dictatorship of the proletariat are absolutely necessary to bring about socialism and eventually communism. This is a seminal work of political theory, which influenced not only the Soviet Union but also the Chinese Communist Party and other Marxist-Leninist organisations. Of course, no work is beyond reproach. In this episode of Ideas Matter, Louis and Alex turn a critical eye towards Lenin’s masterpiece. What follows will surely bother both Marxists and non-Marxists alike. Enjoy. To contact the podcast, you can email ideasmatterpod@gmail.comInstagram and Twitter: @ideasmatterpod