What Is the Point of Philosophy?

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0:00 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Meriwether Academy podcast. My name is Warren. I run Meriwether Academy. We are an educational nonprofit. We host events for men and boys in Nashville. And our goal is to build schools across America to reinvigorate the American man. I have a very special guest today, Dr. Mark Anderson from Belmont University. I first met Dr. Anderson about a year ago. We met through X and he saw some of the events that we were doing and he actually came and spoke at one of our dinners. He spoke again a few weeks after that. And the reason why we're doing our call today is here in just a few weeks, a week and a half or so on August 1st, Dr. Anderson is coming back to the academy to give another talk to our group. Uh Dr. Anderson, thank you for your time. Thanks for having me. Happy to be here. Yeah. So, I thought it was funny how we met. It was I don't remember what post it was. Maybe it was a a picture of a an

1:03 event that we had posted, but you had reached out. Um, and we had kind of talked about, you know, what makes you interested in wanting to come and speak to a a group like ours. You've got all this stuff going on at Belmont. You're the chair of the philosophy department. You've published seven books, working on your eighth. So, you're a busy guy. and you said, "Well, you know, I just like to see when people care about this stuff." Uh, so with that being said, how did you come across our group and what's kind of been your experience, uh, you know, with us talking at some of our dinners and contrasting that to kind of some of the culture that you see now where people seem to really not be interested in philosophical conversation anymore? Well, I think what you're doing is great. I've enjoyed the dinners. I've enjoyed meeting the people who attend them. And yeah, we did meet on X. I don't reme remember the exact uh post, but it was probably related to one of your advents or ventures. Um I'm happy

2:06 to say I'm off X now and it's good for me and probably for everybody else to be off social media. However, on the other hand, uh people like you can use those those uh sorts of uh media outlets to spread the the good word. So, I guess they have advantages and disadvantages. And what's great about what you're doing is you're u offering a place for adults who are serious and self-motivated to explore ideas to read books to get together with like-minded people and have thoughtful conversations. And as a university professor I get some of that. Um I don't have graduate students. I have undergraduate students and the majority of the undergraduate

3:06 students I encounter are here because their parents and society have told them they have to be here not because they have a genuine interest in learning anything much less philosophy. There are those who um there are very few who do come here interested in philosophy and there's a slightly larger group who become interested in philosophy when they first encounter it here. So people major and minor in philosophy and then they're genuinely interested. But for the most part, I'm teaching philosophy to students who are just taking the class because they have to be there. And I think they wind up liking it because most of them because it's good. And I teach an entertaining class, I think, um that introduces them to some real substance in a palatable way. But as as good as it is, it's always better to

4:07 have a group of serious people who just genuinely want to think and read and talk about this material. Absolutely. Here's my first question for you. What's the point of philosophy? You know, for somebody who's maybe not planning on writing any books or just a normal guy, what does the study of philosophy offer to the average man? Uh I laugh because that's a very difficult question especially for me in recent years and it's very much related to uh the book that I've just finished and I'll be talking some about at our next dinner. But what I'll be talking about at our next dinner is not really this part of the book that you've just asked me about, though it might come out and it might come out in the in the

5:08 discussion. Um, on the one hand, I want to say there's no good point to it. And uh I think that's a serious truth about a lot of philosophy, in particular the type of philosophy that I've mostly been engaged in, and I'll say more about that in a minute, but that's a different sort of um philosophy or intellectual material from what you tend to do with your group. So there's a sense in uh the sense in which a lot of what you do say reading say Benjamin Franklin for example right or many of the founders that or reading Plutarch which you do um Plutarch was himself among other things a philosopher and you could describe

6:11 some of what's going on in the American founders and in Plutarch and um those sorts of writers as philosophy. But that's that's a different sort of thing than say reading Plato's late dialogues where he's engaging in very obstruuse metaphysics or Nietzsche when he's critiquing Plato's very obstruuse metaphysics from his own obstruuse metaphysics or his analysis of the history of the west in the wake of the death of God say so that latter sort of philosophy that I've just mentioned relating to Plato and Nietzsche and which I've engaged in most of my career. Um, and again, this is really the uh one of the main themes running through this new book. Um, I think it's either

7:12 I'll just exaggerate a little and say it's it's either pointless or it's uh crosses over into the line of being harmful. And when I say it's pointless, obviously pointless with respect to what? Well, with respect to living a good life, being a happy, contented, psychologically, spiritually fulfilled person. Um, I thought engaging in this sort of deepest level of philosophical analysis is how one acquired wisdom and that wisdom was the height of the intellectual life and coincided with in a way induced happiness. the good life, happiness as an objective

8:13 state of being, being being good and as a subjective state of well-being. And uh I no longer believe that. However, just to wrap this up, engaging in the more sort of practical um intellectual reflection that uh you and your group tend to deal with, I think can be very helpful and advantageous. I've heard the terms analytical philosophy and continental philosophy. Do those describe the two paths that you just described? Continental is this more practical and analytical is this academic study? No, no, no, no, no, not at all. um both analytic and continental would be uh non-practical in you know just using that those words roughly in the way that I was just talking about or to put it another way both analytic and

9:13 continental go into the deep aspects of analysis it's just that they do it in different ways analytic philosophy is more influenced by mathematics atics, science, logic, the conceptual, rational, linear, discursive mind. Whereas continental philosophy is more uh influenced by let's say literature uh poetics, historical, cultural analysis. less interested in kind of rigorous clarity and logical um analysis. Um and now there's been over the past several years now an attempt to kind of bridge that divide and because the those two camps have

10:14 been kind of hostile to one another. The analytic philosophers look at the continental philosophers as you're not serious. You're mushyheaded. You're just really doing bad poetry. And the continental philosophers look at the analytic philosophers and say, "Well, you're just mathematicians or you're just obsessed with science." Um, but as I say, people are trying to bridge that divide these days. But you could say you could say that neither of them have been inter as interested as they should be in downto- earthth practical life. Yeah, that's one of the things that I like to focus on with our programming is is practical skills, practical thoughts. That's why I like Franklin so much. It's the social philosophy in a way where it's these these fun witty ways to think about life that actually help you operate more in life. Yes. You know, one of our big goals

11:15 is the seeding of boys boarding schools across the United States. We'll start with our first one in Tennessee and then to put one in every state uh is our ultimate aim of this academy. Mhm. I want to ask you as a, you know, professor of philosophy, if you had a group of high school boys, who were some of the thinkers that you would want them to really engage with in a way that would set them up for success in their personal life, with their relationships, in their civic duty as a citizen, things like this. Who were some of the big names and big ideas that you would really encourage them to study? Well, I can best address that in relation to the field that I'm most familiar with. So, um, and that is canonical western philosophers.

12:15 Um, so they're likely other thinkers that would be better to name. um but that I'm not the person to name to do the naming of them like say reading Benjamin Franklin. Um so I'm going to immediately go to well who among the ancient Greeks would I suggest say um this analytic continental divide we just discussed is really hundred years old. um you could theoretically push it back uh to the beginning of the modern period 500 years ago in the way that it's framed though mostly in the academic sphere. It's a 20th century phenomenon. Um um but as I say you could turn it into a modern phenomenon the past 500 years if you if you wanted to. Um, but

13:16 if you go back to the preodern period, then this sort of division doesn't come into play really. Um, and that's one reason I'm drawn to the to the Greeks and to the Greeks more than to the Romans. And so my mind immediately goes when I'm talk when I'm thinking about teaching a group of high school boys um and I'm thinking Greek philosophy my mind immediately goes to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Um this is a very practical book. Now there's a question, a serious question, a philosophical question about whether reading about ethics can in fact make one ethical. Um but let's set that aside for now. Um the Nicomachean Ethics is a a great work about the nature of the good life, the nature of virtue, how one develops habits, um what habits are, um a list

14:21 and an accounting of the various important virtues and habits. Um and so as and it it it gets deep but not so deep that it becomes too ab abstract or obscure. So it's great for just intellectually training the mind to read a long work. A work that at times can be difficult but also inculcates very again uh setting aside the question of whether any work on ethics can actually do this inculcates uh virtue in the reader. Yeah. You know, I've through my limited studies, it seems like Aristotle has a lot more practical things to say, whereas Plato, it's very speculative, a

15:22 lot of metaphysical conversation, whereas well, I believe the the uh portrait on your wall is the school of Athens. Yes. Plato pointing up, Aristotle pointing down. Yeah. And and that's kind of what I've learned is the division in those two thoughts is kind of a direction of the mind. Yeah, it's a bit of a caricature. Um because Aristotle is himself something of a platonist and he c he can get in some of his works as uh difficult, deep, obscure as Plato ever does. And Plato in some of his works talks about very practical matters. However, he talks about them in the context of dialogues always. So even if he's talking about somewhat downto- earthth practical matters, he's not like telling the reader directly what to think about them. And you know that can be helpful

16:24 too. Uh again thinking in the context of group of high school uh boys um to develop their ability to think through these matters and to discuss and deate debate these matters with one another without the author telling them what they ought to think about it as Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics will do. And there are advantages to both. Um, if you send young men off in a exploration with not that Plato does this, I'm exaggerating a little bit, but with with no guidance um, and with the suggestion that there really is no answer. That can be dangerous. um it can also have some benefits and if

17:25 like Aristotle now again I'm exaggerating if you just say here's the right answer uh if you're correct about what the answer is that can be very helpful but it could also be a little dangerous and that you're not inviting exploration. Yeah, it seems to be one of the big things that's important, especially when working with with young people, is the Socratic method of of pulling the information out of them and not just telling them what it is. Do you approach your professorship in that way? And also with that, you're the chair of the philosophy department at a a major institution. So in a way you are a steward of the minds of you know so many young Americans coming through your school. How do you approach that and what has that role kind of meant to you? Oh, it's hard. I mean, one of the major themes of conversation that I have with my colleagues and literally just

18:26 yesterday over lunch with one of my good friends and colleagues here in the philosophy department, we had the a version of the conversation we've been having since uh I I first uh met him I think in 2007, which is how do we teach students? And um his approach has always been more having them read and then try to pull thoughts and ideas out of them. Um and now I'm talking about like an introductory level class, okay? um which requires a different sort of pedagogical approach than an upper level class with majors, right? Um in which it seems natural that that's the approach everybody's going to take. Here's some difficult texts. We're going to read them. We come to class. I'll I'll pitch

19:27 in and explain uh material where I need to, but I want you to like open up and develop your own thoughts. Uh so he he's done that in his intro level classes where I've been more just look let me let me explain this to you and as I'm explaining to you interrupt me at any moment with questions but I've never wanted them just to come in and like be comfortable engaging with the ideas because I don't know if they're going to read it deeply enough if they're interested. did you know from the beginning to read it deeply enough etc. So, uh, different professors have different ways engaging with different students in different level classes, right? Um, I will say that my friend has found

20:27 it in recent years harder and harder in introlevel classes to let the students just start talking on their own initiative, right? um he finds himself more and more thinking, I guess I just need to explain it to them and then hope that that generates some conversation. Yeah. We've talked about how you feel like students are not the same as they were 10, 20 years ago. You've noticed some changes in the way that they show up to class, changes in the way that they engage with the ideas, changes in the way that their attention span enables them to engage with the text. What are some of those changes that you've observed over your career and what is causing it? Um, one thing, and I've probably put it this

21:27 way to you before in conversation, but one thing that stands out is different between me, my generation, and I'm Gen X, and the generation I'm teaching now, which is Gen Z. So skipping over the millennials is that in my generation we came um kind of preloaded like say by the time we're in high school and I wasn't an intellectual until my early 20s. So when I'm in high school I'm not reading books. I don't care about ideas. I'm not interested in any of that stuff. But I was preloaded with a lot of background knowledge about history, politics, stuff that happened before my time. Um, just because I was raised at a

22:30 period when we're watching the news with our parents or that sort of thing. Um, so just even though I I don't know I didn't know anything deep about them, I knew facts and names about decades prior to when I was born. I get the impression that people I'm teaching today don't have that. They have no knowledge of anything that happened before they were like 10 or 14. And the knowledge that they have of what happened when they're 10 or 14 is knowledge within a very small sphere which probably has to do with, you know, pop culture, right? So they've just got no background knowledge of anything. I'm generalizing and it's exaggerating to some extent of

23:32 course but that that's how it feels. Um so yeah their intellectual world is much much smaller than the intellectual world of somebody like me who was not an intellectual right at their at their same age. Yeah. You know, a lot of the way I approach our programming is I just ask what were the founding fathers reading? Like what were they engaging with? You go back and read things that John Adams wrote when he was 13 years old and you're like wow this is almost like a different species of human need to relate to this man. Yeah. um what are the consequences of not understanding history? Whereas, you know, Adams at 13 years old has studied

24:32 the ancients. He understands the different forms of government, how they've risen and fallen and and he understands philosophy and all these things gave him the tools to engage with his present moment uh accurately and well informed. And now you're describing a generation that doesn't have any of that. So what are the consequences of a country where the generation coming up has no context and no care for what happened before them. Yeah, of course it's impossible for me to say. Um, and I guess there's two different aspects of this that come immediately to mind. Um the first just say on an individual level for individuals leading their lives it would be theoretically possible for it not to have so their ignorance

25:35 for their ignorance of let's just say big ideas. Okay. It would be theoretically possible for that ignorance not to harm them in any deep way if however this happened. They were virtuous people. Okay. Um, so I think I mentioned you the other day at uh lunch that uh I teach freshman the their very first semester, first year seminar class every fall. And um for the past few years, I've been saying a version of something like this. Um but I'll put it this way. um probably on the first day, definitely the first week of class this semester, that if you can get through your four years here without developing a drinking habit, a smoking dope habit, a habit of sexual

26:37 promiscuity, and maintaining whatever religious belief you have, if you can get through here with all that, that'll be more important than anything you learn while you are here because first of all they're not going to learn a whole lot while they're here anyway. Um the the people who are doing like a technologic technological kind of major like I say while you're here you're going to if you graduate with a BA from a college I'm not just talking about Belmont now I'm just talking about the American University. If you graduate with a BA from a university in a technological field where you're, you know, turning knobs or or pulling levers, I trust that you've learned how to do that. Okay? I don't trust that you've learned much of anything else. In fact, I assume that you haven't. Okay? Um, so and until it's demonstrated

27:38 otherwise. Um, but and and that has a value. Obviously, it has a job value if you've learned to turn the dials and pull the switches and all of that. Um, but if you've learned to pull the dials and and uh turn the dials and pull the switches, but you've developed a drinking habit and you're radically sexually promiscuous, your life's not going to be great. And this just seems to be one of the things that happens to people when when they're in college as they they develop these uh these bad habits. Um, so this is the main thing on an individual level. If you can maintain some traditional whether or not you conceptually know that this is what you're doing. I'm maintaining a traditional account of western virtue. That doesn't matter. If you can do that, then your historical ignorance, I think, is fine. Okay? I'd rather have an ignorant, virtuous neighbor than an

28:41 intellectual, vicious neighbor. Now, but for the country as a whole, right, if everybody's ignorant of these big historical ideas, that can obviously be a problem, right? Because that can allow the government to descend into all sorts of craziness. Yeah, absolutely. You know, you've written seven books and your eighth is about to come out. How has your journey as a writer been? Were you writing before you were professor? Did you start publishing books after you were professor? How has writing helped you engage with the ideas? And what do you want a reader of your work to take away? Um, I was writing before I was a professor, but you know, nothing nothing serious. Um, or nothing that good because you have to develop these

29:42 skills. So, uh, the books that we're talking about as having been published have been since I was a professor. Um, and I think it's changed over the course of writing them, the types of book that they are and what I want someone to get out of them. Um, um, a couple of them are especially one just called Plato and Nietzsche. their philosophical art is basically an introduction to an intelligent audience but who's unfamiliar with Plato and Na and so it's just meant to be a uh indepth but still introduction to their ideas. So I hope somebody reading that book will come away with some familiarity with the central ideas of Plato and Nietzsche and the way that they engage with one another or you know Nietzsche engages with Plato. Most of the

30:43 other books are combinations of giving the reader some background information usually about Plato and Nietzsche and then also attempting to stimulate them just into their own intellectual kind of revery, right? Um, and then the book that came out last, a concise history of Western philosophy that I talked about last time, that too is a more here's an introductory text to just give you a good familiarity with the history of Western philosophy. Um uh so yeah, but the bulk of them I think have been um just trying to inspire intellectual reflection within the mind of the reader.

31:43 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. you know, with this new book that's coming out on our event uh Saturday, August 1st, we're focusing on the last chapter, I believe. Yeah. And this concept of what is the premise of this final chapter? We're talking about happiness. We're talking about tranquility of the mind. What are some of the ideas that you close this new book with? And what is this concept of ataraxia and how can somebody who reads about it or comes to the event on the first use that as a way to improve their condition? So first my my apologies uh I figured that was probably it's a standard way especially in America to to mispronounce it because that's how we would pronounce it right for an English word. But ataraxia

32:45 um so the I'll explain the the concept by saying something about the word uh the the taroxia part comes from a Greek word that um means to unsettle or to upset or to disturb. Um, and the ah at the beginning of it is what's called an alpha primitive. Uh, similar to in a word like asymmetrical or amoral, right? The a there is saying not symmetrical, not moral. So aaroxia would be lack of that's the ah the taroxia of the disturbance, right? So a lack of disturbance is atoxia or another way of putting it is mental tranquility.

33:46 Okay. So uh that's what is mental tranquility and various it's a Greek word at various Greek schools um aimed at like when you think of Aristotle we think of him aiming at Udimmonia right the good life for example um some like the ancient skeptics aim foria mental tranquility freedom from mental disturbance. And so the the last chapter of the book, which probably won't be out until ne next year, it takes a while for these things to go through all the stages to actually come out. Uh so it'll probably be sometime next year. Um but the last chapter is I think just entitled happiness, which is a a clearer word than atoxia, though I talk about in it. And the idea there is in line with

34:47 what we talked about at the beginning of the conversation about the theme of this book in relation to philosophy in general. And so a major theme of this book is how um philosophy especially philosophy as I've engaged in it thinking about Plato and Nietzsche how thinking of those two can generate skepticism in a mind. Is Plato right? Is Nietzsche right? Sometimes I think Plato is right. Sometimes I think Nietzsche is right. And that can lead to skepticism. And that kind of skepticism can in some people and did in me in periods in my life lead to nihilism. I want an answer, but I can't find it. And so I'm a skeptic. But my frustration at landing in this period of skepticism uh this phase of skepticism that

35:48 frustration can if not dealt with properly generate nihilism. Well, it's not just that I can't come to a decision. No decision is possible because there is no truth and everything is bleak and everything is black. Um and and and again this is partly the trajectory of my own mind and one of the ways I came out of that was through uh Zen Buddhism and similar ideas which is basically uh just calling off the search. It's your seeking and your inability to find which is generating this frustration which is turning into nihilism. So give up the search. Now why? Well various reasons. Maybe there is no

36:48 answer. Maybe the questions aren't properly formulated. Uh what we think are questions aren't legitimate. Uh which somebody like Wittgenstein would say too. though Zen's going to say it from a different angle. Um, and that then leads to this Zen suggestion just to live with ordinary mind. Don't chase these extraordinary questions and problems, right? Just live with ordinary mind, which is just live your life. When you're hungry, eat. When you're tired, sleep. when you're done, wash your dishes, etc. Um, and so that leads to the last chapter of this book, which is, well, how can we be happy? Right? Is nature right? Is Aristotle right? Is uh is Plato right? Well, let's just take an ordinary approach. Let's just, you know,

37:49 what would our grandparents or maybe in our case our greatgrandparents say? uh we don't need deep philosophy for it. And so I hit on this formula. Be normal. Be healthy. Be good. And you'll be fine. And now what do we mean by normal? What do we mean by healthy? What do we mean by good? But we can unpack those as I do in this last chapter in just straightforward ordinary ways that don't require any platonic or nichin plumbing of the depths of reality. Right? And that that will suffice to enable us to live good fulfilling happy lives. What type of man do you think would get the most out of this talk in this dinner that we're hosting here in a few weeks?

38:49 Uh I think the specifically the sort that we are expecting to attend the people who are familiar with you and your group people who are interested in exploring these ideas on an intellectual level but they're doing it for the sake of realworld real life practical benefits. Right? They they want to explore the life of the mind. They're drawn to it in various ways. They probably don't need or want to go into it at the sort of depth that again reading the most difficult Plato or Nietz requires and it's probably good that they don't want to do that and and they hope to actually improve their lives by engaging in it at this level. Absolutely. Um well, Dr. Anderson, thank

39:49 you for your time. Could you maybe tell our listeners, you know, if they wanted to find you and engage with your work, how they could find your books and things like that? Well, the books are all available on Amazon. Uh Mark Anderson, there's another Mark Anderson who I think publishes on Shakespeare maybe. So maybe p if you go to Amazon maybe search Mark Anderson Plato and Nietzsche and then you you can just go to my author's page there to see all the various works and then I also have an academia.edu website and that's a a site worth knowing about by the way for your viewers. Academia.edu edu is where a lot of scholars uh put their essays and articles and in some cases books or links to books uh for free. I don't know if you have to sign up to join that site. Um but it's it's a great site where you can have access to a lot of of scholars works. And then just my

40:51 Belmont philosophy uh department homepage has uh various links to I think. Fantastic. Dr. Anderson, thank you. And again for the listeners who want to come and spend some time with Mark here in person in Nashville. The event is Saturday, August 1st in the evening time and I'll put a link in the description of this YouTube video so you can go and learn more about that. And we would love to see you there. And Dr. Dr. Anderson, thank you again. I look forward to seeing you here in a few weeks. Thanks. I'll see you soon.