About Reality Podcast

Can a philosopher of ethics get away without a metaphysics to support or corroborate their ethical theory? Can a metaphysician get away with leaving unexamined the existence of good and evil, as well as free will, which informs good and bad action? In this episode, we use Mr. Ramsey from Virginia Woolf's 'To the Lighthouse', as well as Socrates, as exemplary case studies of one version of the philosopher—the ethicist without a metaphysics—and the other—the metaphysician whose own conduct is his blind spot when examining reality.

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So many centuries later, still we philosophers are asking the question as to the right way of being. In this episode we contribute two facts about life which may be essential to the discussion: one, that 'to be' is to have no choice but to act, in order to persist; two, that life is movement, and it resists anything that would cause it to grind to a halt. What does that have to do with the philosopher being the life of the party? Tune in to find out!

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Whenever I read Cormac McCarthy I always want to talk about the visionary nature of his work and aesthetic, and my current reading of 'The Crossing' is no different. We jump right into it, and by the end of the episode we come up with one definition of the value of art (that it prompts an individual to ask questions which their day-to-day life does not require them to ask), and we also contemplate the need for a conflict at the heart of an artist's work, and whether these conflicts are in fact real, or simply imagined and supported by the artist's insistence upon them, for the sake of their art.

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The episode begins with an announcement that I've started working on a novel, the choice having been made following an inspiring conversation I had this past weekend with my tattoo artist. I take a moment to explain how that might affect the release of new episodes in this podcast series. The rest of the episode explores what a novel written these days achieves, and whether that achievement is enticing for a so-called philosopher, such as myself, who would like to think they're slowly wending their way down one of the multiple pathways which sooner or later all lead to the Truth about reality. Is writing a novel a distraction from such a path, or is it just another route which ends where I think I would like to end, as philosopher? Such questions I ask in this episode.

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Speaking on consciousness in this episode, which is a question and phenomenon I don't usually dwell on as philosopher; hopefully I bring something new to the discussion with today's podcast.

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Follow E. S. Dallaire on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ESDallaire

The irony of today's social and political climate is that so many individual voices, in our so-called democracy, are insisting that their voices be heard and their status as self-defining individuals recognized for the sake of social harmony. In other words, we have individuals—call them activists—who feel within themselves that they will not rest until the group which they represent, even if it's a group of one, is acknowledged by the current social order—even if that means upending the current social order entirely. In part this is an unfair description of an activist. In part this is a consequence of many self-proclaimed activists, whose voice is so loud they are shaping the conversation, also existing within an elitist milieu, where self-assertion and a careerist mindset and agenda are a part of their conception of activism. In this episode we go deep into what is described as a 'perennial psychological drama', and we address it with a helping hand from Schopenhauer.

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An episode inspired by a reading of the initial chapters of 'My Bondage and My Freedom' by Frederick Douglass, as well as by Frederick Douglass as a historical figure.

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In this episode we're questioning what it means to be a philosopher in this time and place in history, rife with such conflict and turmoil. Do we measure existence according to some high standard of philosophical criteria, and cast judgment and affect change accordingly, or do we just exist, opening ourselves, as philosophers, more and more, to whatever order of existence happens to be, at the time and place of our own accidental history?

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It's not an easy discussion, and the answer is not simple, but the question of today's episode is the extent to which present ideological forces stand in the way of the philosopher's search for truth, and how have those forces impacted the philosopher's pursuit throughout history.

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Once again finding ourselves in a world of complexity, the moment of clarity in this episode is that we've got to trust our instincts, if only we knew ourselves, etc.

Follow E. S. Dallaire on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ESDallaire