A Life You Can Choose: Existentialism with Experts

What is “subjective truth”, why is it important, and how is it relevant to us?

In this episode, Professor Rick Anthony Furtak explains the claim at the heart of Kierkegaard’s project: “truth is subjectivity”. Objective truth concerns whether a belief matches reality. Subjective truth concerns how a person holds a belief: whether it, in Professor Furtak’s words, grips you and guides you. The latter is essential to Kierkegaard’s project because he is concerned more with human existence than with systematic, objective knowledge. We then ask what this means today, when the news, “the public” and now AI offer ready-made opinions, making it easy to know what “one” thinks without deciding what “I” think.

About the guest: Rick Anthony Furtak is Professor of Philosophy at Colorado College. He is the author of Wisdom in Love: Kierkegaard and the Ancient Quest for Emotional Integrity, and his new book, Kierkegaard’s Existential Philosophy: How to Lead a Meaningful Life, comes out in December.

Timestamps:

1:19 What "truth is subjectivity" means

7:52 Can objective and subjective truth coexist?

11:51 Why subjective truth matters to Kierkegaard's project as a whole

17:56 Subjective truth today: the press, "the they", and AI

24:18 Closing

Who was Kierkegaard, why does he still matter, and what will this season cover?
In this introductory episode, I explain who Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) was and the three main ways he is read: the philosophical, the theological, and the literary. The three overlap, and I separate them only for clarity. I then explain why Kierkegaard matters: he takes up questions most people actually ask, about boredom, choice and meaning. Finally, I outline the season, which follows his three spheres of existence: the aesthetic, the ethical and the religious.
About the host: Ethan Ye lives in Shanghai and is the author of A Life You Can Choose: Kierkegaard on Questions We All Ask.
Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction

1:03 Who was Kierkegaard

1:52 Three ways of reading Kierkegaard

6:57 Why Kierkegaard still matters

10:25 What this season covers