The Gray Area with Sean Illing

The case for failure

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Is our society's fixation with success hindering our ability to find humility? Sean Illing speaks with Costica Bradatan about his new book In Praise of Failure: Four Lessons in Humility, which explores failure through the lives of historical figures like Gandhi and the philosopher Simone Weil. They discuss the benefits of engaging with our limits and what we can learn from those who've embraced failure.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Costica Bradatan, Professor at Texas Tech University and Honorary Research Professor of Philosophy at University of Queensland in Australia, Religion/Philosophy editor for the Los Angeles Review of Books, and author of In Praise of Failure: Four Lessons in Humility.

References: 

  • In Praise of Failure: Four Lessons in Humility by  Costica Bradatan (Harvard University Press, 2023)
  • The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus, translated by Justin O'Brien (Vintage Books, 1991)
  • The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by Walter Kaufman (1872)
  • The Trouble with Being Born by E.M. Cioran, translated by Richard Howard (Arcade Publishing, 1973)


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    This episode was made by: 

    • Engineer: Patrick Boyd
    • Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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