Within Reason - #100 Philosopher Shootout - 16 Thinkers, Ranked (With Joe Folley)

Episode Date: March 23, 2025

For episode 100 of Within Reason, I'm joined by Joe Folley, from the YouTube Channel "Unsolicited Advice", to tackle a completely arbitrary and ridiculous tournament of thinkers, each of whom are to some degree relevant to the show. Joe graduated from Cambridge University with an MPhil in Philosophy, specialising in logic, in 2023. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Episode 100. Mm-hmm. I'm joined again, ladies and gentlemen, by fan favorite Joe Foley. Actually, I asked people what I should do for episode 100 of the podcast, and a number of people said, just get Joe back on because we like him so much. Oh, thank you. That's very kind. And I thought we did something a bit special.

We were considering doing a tier list of philosophers, but we realized that if we did like 100 philosophers rank, if we spent like two minutes on each one, that's 200 minutes, and the likelihood is that we'd actually spend about half an hour on each. So we abandoned that idea quite quickly. That's why, ladies and gentlemen, we have this board, which you may notice has some pencil marks on it because it took us a few tries to get the layout right. It's not exactly my forte. It wasn't a great argument for the practical applications of philosophy. That's right.

If only everybody here could have seen us, like, I was like scribbling on the floor about 15 different times to try and get this layout. And it's about right. Hopefully you can see what we're doing here. We're going to do a shootout of philosophers. We just kind of do like a tournament. And so we've somewhat arbitrarily chosen and organized philosophers who are significant or have been relevant to the channel. And we're going to see who comes out in that red line in the middle as the best philosopher of all time, or at least of the ones that we thought of yesterday while putting this list together. So, are you ready?

I'm ready. We're going to start with David Hume versus René Descartes. Mm-hmm. This is a tricky one, right? René Descartes represents the rationalist school of philosophy. Rationalists believe that there's such thing as innate knowledge that you can know things without any need for experience. Descartes' favorite, famous cogito ergo sum, I think, therefore I am, is perhaps the most famous phrase in the history of philosophy. It pulls a lot of weight. Yeah, I think that to a certain extent, Descartes, though, is a victim of his own success. A lot of his more significant. accomplishments from maths. So he invented, almost invented analytic geometry sort of as a field. You know, you know, coordinate systems. That's Descartes. You know, those, you know, when you have a

kind of X, Y coordinate system, Descartesian coordinates. Yeah, it's a, you know, this fantastic unification of algebra and geometry. But of course, you know, philosophers tend not to notice about that quite as much, even though, you know, that's, talk about global impact. That's, that's pretty major. Yeah. And representing this rationalist school of philosophy as well pits him quite nicely against David Hume, because David Hume is often seen as the archetypal empiricist philosopher. And these are two schools of thought that oppose each other. Empiricists think that all knowledge comes from observation and experience. Rationalists think that there is such thing is innate knowledge. So Descartes, I think, therefore I am, is a way of saying, I don't need to look at anything. I don't need to do any scientific investigation. I can just sit in my armchair, close my eyes, and know that I exist. Yes, a priori. Exactly. Whereas Hume believes that all knowledge is sort of grounded in the a posteriori, which means after the facts. So we've got these two schools rubbing up against each other.

And in a way, if we endorse Descartes or Hume, it seems like we might be endorsing one of those schools of philosophy. However, I think it's fair to say that although David Hume is incredibly influential, especially over like atheists, I think therefore I am, is just so like foundation. it's yeah although has come up against quite a lot of pushback that's true i mean you as far as i'm aware your interpretation of day car which i think is a very is probably the more plausible one is that it's not a formal argument it's a kind of baseline intuition um and i think that's probably the strongest way of conceiving of it because i think therefore i am if you put it in propositional form as um there is some or in order to doubt there must be some doubting going on in order for there to be doubt there must also be a doubter um there

Therefore, if I am doubting, then I exist, I doubt therefore I am. Or I think therefore I am, as it's later put. Yeah. Then the argument doesn't quite work, because the second premise is fine. It's very plausible. You know, if there's doubt, there must be a doubter. Very few people would dispute that. But considering that Descartes' project here is to build his epistemology on purely what can be known with absolute certainty, then that second premise is often called into question.

Yeah. Interestingly, Descartes is often painted as trying to come up with what we can know with certain. to me. But what Descartes really does is shows what we can't doubt, which is not quite the same thing. Descartes is in meditations on first philosophy. And what we mean by first philosophy are our foundational principles. And what Descartes is he realizes that there are loads of things he could in principle doubt. Maybe this chair doesn't really exist. You know, maybe you're just an illusion. And so what he does as a tool is he treats everything that could possibly be false as if it is false and sees what's left over, right?

And so he thinks to himself, well, as long as I'm doing some kind of thinking, can I doubt that I exist? Well, if I'm doubting, I'm thinking. And that means there is something doing thinking. And so it's impossible to doubt that I'm thinking because doubting is a kind of thinking. But that's not quite the same thing as saying, I'm certain that I exist. It's saying that I can't doubt that I exist. And I think that this is, I think that that's a much strong way of putting the argument, right? because especially as you move on to later thinkers, like Kant's a really good example of his style of transcendental arguments, especially as it's been interpreted by later thinkers like Barry Stroud, for example, kind of interprets transcendental arguments, which are arguments of the form, you already believe this, therefore necessarily, this must be true.

You know, this is true, therefore necessarily, this is some precondition of that original thing being true, but therefore that must also be true. And Barry Stroud reinterprets these kind of transcendental arguments as effectively, you believe this, therefore you must also believe this as a precondition to this. And in some ways, this more slightly pragmatic framing of the Cogito argument, I think actually holds quite a lot of water. I think that, you know, I think it's Russell that ends up, you know, absolutely hammering Descartes for this assumed second premise. But if you paint it as just, can I actually, can I express doubt without assuming that I exist? And actually, there's a strong argument to suggest, well, you know, maybe I can't know it for certain. But at the very least, my belief that I exist is a precondition of my statement I adapt. Yes.

Now, as you say, there are different interpretations of what it means. Some scholars think that it's a mistranslation. I think, therefore I am. It first shows up, I think it first shows up in French. Yeah, yeah. And there is an argument to say that instead of this meaning, I think, therefore I am. It should mean something like, I am thinking, therefore I exist. It's not a syllogism.

It's not, well, premise one, I am thinking, conclusion, therefore I am. It's just a singular intuition of the mind that by thinking, I just know that I exist. It's just that our language has to capture it in and sort of if this, then this. Yes. But that really what's being gotten at is just a singular intuition happening all at once in the mind. There's debate about which of those Descartes meant. There's a debate about which of those actually works. But at the very least, this is incredibly influential.

and Descartes is often seen as the founder of the Western philosophical tradition. He is put up against David Hume a fair bit. I can imagine, sir. But Hume doesn't have that same position in the history of philosophy as like, you know, the father. You are, you are, you have a bit of beef with Hume though as well. I do. I think Hume's overrated in many respects. I just did a video on whether Chat GPT can or why it can't draw a full wine glass,

which was extremely popular I can't remember where I got the idea for that video actually now that it comes to it some clever clogs decided to send me a text and I exposit some of Hume's views there but Hume thinks that all knowledge comes from the external world but he comes up with a counter-example which I explained in that video

the missing shade of blue and then he admits that it is a counter-example but then just says we should ignore it but then previously said the only way that he can prove his thesis is by saying well you come up with a counter-example of you're so clever There are many things about Hume, which I just think are overrated in terms of the actual philosophy. Like, I'm pretty sure Hume doesn't believe, that doesn't think we can know that parallel lines won't intersect.

So if you have two parallel lines and they stretch on infinitely, they will never intersect with each other, right? Hume, as far as I'm aware, as far as I can remember from my interpretation of reading him, thinks that because all knowledge comes from empiricism, and we've never seen too perfectly parallel lines, there is no basis for that belief. We cannot know with certainty that if you were to extend those. lines infinitely, they would never intersect. Though, of course, in some ways, she was vindicated in that view, right? Because then later on, we were shown that it's not as simple as space as Euclidean. And of course, the parallel lines not intersecting is based on Axiom 5 of Euclidean geometry, which is, as far as that, I can't remember the exact wording, but it basically is just

parallel lines won't intersect. And of course, general relativity theory has shown us that actually, no, parallel lines in terms of the actual geometric structure of space time as, oh God, I always get this wrong, a four-dimensional Riemannian manifold, I think, is the technical terminology for it. I don't know the math behind it. Sorry, everybody. It's going to be a lot of this today. It's just so far over my head.

But effectively, one of the consequences of this non-Euclidean view of space time is that actually, given the right gravitational conditions, parallel lines can intersects. Or parallel lines in as much as I think that technically parallel lines there are conceived of as beams of light in a vacuum. Having said that, I don't think that's what Hume had in mind. No, no, absolutely not. This may be, you know, a principle of charity to Hume to the point of incredulity. Yeah. Hume is a genius in presenting the problem of induction, for example.

That's another one of his famed sort of philosophical thoughts. and it is extremely clever to sort of realize this, to explain it, it's brilliant. He does then just say, I have no solution to this. I do believe in induction, but I have no rational warrant for it. And then basically says to the reader, like, if you can come up with something, let me know. It seems like, though, right? So if anybody who's familiar with Hume will know that induction, which is deriving truths about unobserved things from observed things, so I've observed the sun rising every single day

and I conclude that the sun will rise tomorrow that's something I haven't observed but I conclude the unobserved from the observed that process is called induction as opposed to deduction like a deductive inference is one that necessarily follows

like all men are mortal Socrates is a man therefore Socrates is mortal that's a deductive inference but if we say every single swan I've ever seen is white therefore the next swan I see will be white

doesn't necessarily follow but it's like an inductive inference and Hume says that any kind of inductive reasoning is completely unjustified probably don't have time to go into why exactly but instead of just saying okay on my worldview of empiricism I can find

absolutely no justification for induction but I do believe in induction therefore instead of saying therefore my worldview must be incorrect he goes well, therefore, there must be some explanation that, you know, will somebody will come up with one day. Why can't Hume just say, I'm an empiricist, and I've just discovered all of these unsolvable problems about the way that the world works, about the missing shade of blue, about the problem of induction. And instead of going, so because at least all of these problems, my theory must be wrong.

He says, no, my theory is correct. So, and just sort of tells us to basically ignore those problems. Oh, yeah. Hume is the absolute master of looking a reductio ad absurd argument in the face and going, going, no, I will stand by my original principles. The other one, of course, is saying that causation doesn't exist. Yeah. Which seems absurd, right?

This idea that actually we never observe one thing causing another. We only ever observe two events happening next to one another regularly. In conjunction, yes. And thus we observe a, we infer a necessary connection. But all of it, because Hume says, you know, I can't justify causation because I look at the objects. I look at one billiard ball hitting another. And I can't find this causal principle, I can't find it in the same. the ball, I can't find it in the other ball, I can't find it in the snooker queue, like,

I can't find it anywhere. But that assumes that it is something that's subject to empirical observation. And so it's the very fact that he's an empiricist that makes him, like, rule out the possibility that causation can just exist as an immaterial principle of the world. Now, there is an argument that you could make that says induction, Hume's right on empiricism, induction can only be justified, or can't be justified on empiricism, but induction is justified therefore empiricism is false and i do think that to a certain extent um can't does so much justice to a lot of what's good about hume while recapturing a lot of more common sense notions you know recasting causation as a as a synthetic a priori aspect of the phenomenal world and stuff like that i think

that i mean i really like hume because i think that he is possibly um the greatest skeptical thinker Yeah, that's the thing, man. Someone like Piro, you know, even more skeptical than Descartes by far. I mean, Descartes plays with skepticism, but Hume is all throughout his works as saying, here are the limits on what we can know. But do you think is Descartes, Descartes' entire project is a radical skepticism. Like, Hume never doubts, like, the validity of his senses. He never doubts, like, he never doubts that 2 plus 2 equals 4.

Like, Descartes even doubts that. Like, Descartes pushes this doubt as far as he possibly can. I suppose it's that Descartes does do. that, but he does it for one chapter of one of his books, as in whereas Hume's entire project is skeptical. Blaise Pascal said that he can never forgive Descartes in the Ponce. He says, I will never forgive Descartes because he sort of brings up God in, I think, like, the second or third chapter, like establishes God's existence as a way to ground his epistemology.

He does, I think, therefore I am. Then he uses, people forget this. The most famous phrase in philosophy, I think therefore I am. Descartes then uses the same reasoning to establish God's existence. Well, it's clear and distinct ideas. straight afterwards, yeah, and he uses exactly the same thought to establish God's existence, and then says, because God exists, I can sort of justify the rest of my senses. And Pascal says, I can never forgive him, because he sort of brings in God to justify his epistemology and then has no need for him ever again. Well, yeah, I mean, Descartes, again, it seems to, you know, a lot of his work is in math, a lot of his work is in the foundations of natural science.

You know, is this, in some ways, meditations, although it's so famous, it's sort of orthogonal to a lot of the rest of his work. Also, mind-body dualism? Well, yes, also from meditation. I mean, that's the, I always, you know, controversial opinion, the interaction problem of mind-body dualism where, so where does the soul touch the body? I've never quite got why that's such a big problem. Partly because if you've already got God on your theology or on your philosophy, so much becomes possible. It's like I kind of...

Yeah, well, because it seems like a mystery to me, if the mind is immaterial, like Descartes thinks. But just think about the influence of Descartes here. You talk about Cartesian mind-bodied dualism. Yes, yeah. about, you know, the Cartesian coordinates. We talk about the Cartesian cogito, right? But, yeah, the mind-body thing, like, if you're like Descartes and you think there is a mind and a body and they're distinct and they interact with each other somehow, like,

why can my mind interact with my brain, but not your brain? Like, why not? And you might think, well, because in some sense, my mind is like inside of me, but no, if the mind is immaterial, it has no spatial location. Yes, I think this is... So it is as much a mystery that my mind can... can affect my brain, as it would be if my mind could affect your brain. That would be mysterious.

Yeah, and he attempts to solve this by appealing to the pineal gland. Yeah, that's great. Which is amazing. When I, I don't think he needs to, because he's got divine providence in his philosophical toolkit. Even though. He has a trump card that neither of us could ever dream of it. They think that God just still kind of can't do or that still wouldn't make sense. It's still unclear.

Like, maybe God just designs it so the mind interacts with the body. But the mechanism of how that works is still a complete and utter mystery. I suppose. But to be honest, I think that, you know, Christianity has a lot of mysteries. It's got the Trinity. It's got the incarnation. I kind of, I think that the Descartes could potentially appeal to that. I mean, obviously, it's a really unconvincing answer for somebody like us because, you know, I'm pretty skeptical of the Trinity and I'm pretty skeptical of the incarnation. But I think that Descartes is almost admirable for not appealing to that. But I think that if you wanted to use that to resolve it in his philosophy, you probably could. So, okay, we've got, like, two of the ultimate skeptical thinkers. We've got, like, the person who embodies the tradition of skepticism in, like, the atheist sort of tradition of philosophy, David Hume. And we've got Reney Descart, founder of Western philosophy, most famous phrase in philosophy, probably of all time. Who wins out here? Also, what's our metric here?

Are we saying who would, like, win in a debate? Who's a better philosopher? Yeah, I felt the metric is sort of vibes-based. In that, in that, yeah, I mean, I say, René Descartes sort of... Who do you vibe with more? It's supposed to type of father of modern philosophy, I think. think is sometimes the title. I mean, it's a, it's a good title. I like Descartes, but I also think that I'm swayed there by a lot of his, his mathematical contributions, I think that.

I think that might tip the scale of me, because I do feel a bit more at home with David Hume. Like, I feel like I'd get on with him better. Daycart, like, I don't know, he sort of grumpy in his paintings. Hume always looks a bit sort of friendly and chummy. But the mathematical contributions, the most famous phrase in the history of philosophy, Hume's got all of these really interesting thoughts like induction and whatnot, but he doesn't even attempt to solve them. Yes. I think that David Hume, I think that a lot of people, I mean, I do like David Hume. David Hume is, I think, that a lot of people find him more palatable today, because I think that in a lot of ways, our current epistemology leans much more empiricist.

Yeah. But like Hume himself, people today, when pressed on their empiricist assumptions, actually a lot of the time just don't have justifications for them. And also, they're not empiricists and same with the David Hume is. Most people believe in causation. Yeah. Well, so does Hume. Hume believes in. causation. Or believe in causation as an aspect of the world outside of our perceptions. Right. I mean, Hume believes that causation exists, as far as I know.

He just doesn't know, like, how to justify that belief. Which is the thing. Like, Hume asks some great questions, but admits that he can't answer them. It doesn't even seem to consider the possibility that the unanswerability of those questions might just show his worldview as incorrect. Well, yes, I think it's a response that has been leveled at him by a lot of Thomist philosophers, funnily enough. Yeah.

Come on, man. You can't do anything with this philosophy. We'll get on some of the point in us later as well. Yes, he is on our list. So what do you think? Hume, Descartes. Oh, I think that I would. I'm leaning Descartes.

I'm leaning Descartes. I mean, this is, I really love David Hume as a philosopher. Yeah, I think that I still. No offense if you're watching Mr. Hume. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Don't take it personally. Some of these philosophers are in fact still alive. So if we're a little bit mean about you and you are watching, then it's all in good faith, if you like.

But, okay, I think let's put Descartes. Because otherwise, we are going to be here for 24 hours. Our first bout has Descartes in the middle. Fantastic. By the way, for those who are just listening on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or whatever, on the video version of this podcast, we are showing a visual of this overall tournament of philosophers and how it all goes. Hopefully you can keep track.

We will explain where we're at for those. who are just listening, but you might want to, if you want the visual, then then hop over to YouTube. We should have put a betting pool on or something like that. Yeah, man, we should have done. We still could. We still could before this goes out. Well, do you know what? I took a picture of this before we started and I will stick it onto like Twitter and Instagram and see who people think will come out on top. And I tell you what, we'll put the results of that poll on screen, if that's all right. Note it down. Note down the timestamp. Remember to do that. Yeah, we'll, we'll take a vote on who people think is going to win.

Who do you think people will think will think will win out of the list we've got? I think Aristotle will get a fair amount of votes. Aristotle. Nietzsche will get a fair amount of votes. Jesus Christ will be up there. Oh, yeah. I mean, in terms of influence, there aren't many more influential thinkers than Jesus Christ. If you believe he exists, of course.

I don't know where you stand on that at the moment. Yeah, Jesus definitely existed. About as certainly as Dostoevsky did, who I can imagine will also get a few votes. I'm very much in the Jesus existed cam. Yeah. Okay. What should we do next? we've got we've got a bunch to choose from

why don't we look at Plato versus Aristotle okay yeah something completely different yeah Plato and Aristotle again two of the most influential philosophers but this time in the sort of classical sense yes it's it's quite difficult to compare them because Plato is I think seen as more foundational Plato is like the first one

Alfred North Whitehead I think described the whole of philosophy as a footnote to Plato yeah all of all of Elise Western philosophy I suppose is just just consists in a series of footnotes to Plato. It's significant. But Aristotle, he's got some stuff going from too. I'm a big Aristotle fan. I really like Plato for a number of reasons. I think that the way he's almost because of, again, less because of what he said and more because of the general analytical vibe, almost behind his writings. You know, on the entrance to the academy, he reportedly had inscribed, or something like, if you don't like, if you don't like,

geometry don't come in or something like that, or something much more poetic than that. But that was the gist. And he has, you know, the kind of ethos that Plato sets, things like the dominance of reason over, or the moral superiority or normative superiority of reason over the rest of what it means, of the human moving parts, if you like, still remains quite a big part of the general character of, you know, what we define as philosophical virtues today. So I think that in terms of influence, you know, Plato is, in terms of setting the tone for philosophy, Plato is absolutely integral. And, of course, he's the only reason that we have so much of Socrates's writing, or not writing, but ideas, yeah. But Aristotle, you know, it is difficult to grasp just how prolific Aristotle is. You know, you think about writing species on physics and ethics and, you know, various aspects of natural science and metaphysics and poetics and, you know, politics. And those are just the ones we have access to. Well, yes, exactly. Well, see, yeah, there's, it's room.

I can't remember where I read this, but there's some ancient source which comments very, very highly on Aristotle's dialogue writing, which, of course, we just don't have access to. We have his sort of essays, which are, which some people think are just like lecture notes times of, you know, they're, they're not, they're not beautifully written, or at least they're not thought to be beautifully written, but they are very clear, I think. Yeah. And for me, Aristotle, I think that the absolute pinnacle, I think, in a lot of ways of Aristotelian philosophy is the Nicomacian ethics. I think that just as a, there is so much in there that even now is so relevant.

I mean, my favorite, you know, it crops up in old places. Like, you'll be surprised at how much of atomic habits is in the Nicomacian ethics. in Aristotle's notion of habituation, you know, you think that, and he just deals with it in sort of like a couple of paragraphs, basically, the main aspects of how to develop a habit that will then translate into a virtue. So just on beyond philosophy, on a pure practical level, the Nicomacian ethics is something that, that I think everyone could benefit from. Aristotle is also incredibly influential over a bunch of religious philosophy. Tom's Aquinas is quite influenced by Aristotle. So like the classical, um, toomistic. Yes, yeah. And of course, it is. Islamic philosophy has a lot of influence. Aristotle seems to have sort of pervaded it in a more like, in a sense that you wouldn't necessarily attribute to him. Like you might be talking about Thomas Aquinas, and in many ways sometimes you're talking about Aristotle, you just don't realize it. Whereas Plato has brought up a lot.

And in a way, his ideas are like embedded into philosophy too. But I think that Aristotle's influence is so easy to spot, especially in the history of religious philosophy. Plato is our sort of founding father. If Descartes was the founding father of modern philosophy, Plato is seen in many ways as the founder of philosophy. I mean, I guess that's Socrates in a way, but Plato's the guy that we have to read. Certainly Western philosophy is, I mean, this is a proper benchmark. But I do wonder how much of that, just because Plato was the one who came first and he sort of started it off, how much of that, like, sentimentality about that is getting in the way of seriously considering their ideas. That's for me, again, like vibe check here.

I get, I think I get more out of Barrasol than I do. I certainly get more of Aristotle. There are certain things about Plato. As I say, the general ethos of Plato's philosophy, I think, has been incredibly influential. We owe a lot of very significant images to Plato, things like Plato's cave. Though, of course, a lot of those images are repurposed. So Plato's cave is initially to do with transcending from knowledge about mundane ideas to eventually leaving the cave and seeing the forms, which are his sort of perfected ideas that are instantiated in imperfect forms around our physical.

world. And then finally seeing the sun and gazing upon the form of the good, which is almost the highest of the forms in his metaphysics, epistemology. It's all kind of one in ancient philosophy anyway. Yeah. But so that's the kind of famous cave image. But that's not necessarily how it's used today. I think it's just kind of people like the image. Yeah, they kind of, it's like fun, you know. Yeah. And it is a very compelling image. But I think that again, the influence of the image itself, I think, is pretty divorced from how Plato was using. Aristotle's influence over this sort of exposition of virtue ethics is also it hasn't been quite as popular in like recent years exactly

but I think virtue ethics is kind of making a bit of a comeback well was it it fell out of fashion for ages yeah Elizabeth Anscombe did so much seemed to kind of be so much work and Anscombe is her own gene she nearly made our list nearly made yes I think I'm kind of I mean again I'm I'm leaning Aristotle here I'm certainly leaning Aristotle. I mean, I think hands down for me personally. Hands down.

Yeah, I really like Plato. I just think that Aristotle for the prolific nature of his writings, the variety of subjects, and how often you will be reading a relatively modern bit of philosophy and then go, oh, this reminds me of something in Aristotle. Yeah. And almost, you know, this Aristotle's thought, I would say, just spreads out. and pervade so far beyond himself, even in its details, in a way that, you know, there are certainly in a Plato against hugely influential. But for me, I think Aristotle edges hammered. I think so too.

I'm impressed with the ethics as well. The Nicomacian ethics is wonderful. Virtue ethics, influence over religious philosophy for me. And of course, Aristotelian logic. I mean, that bears lesser resemblance to our modern logical system. Just the word Aristotelian is such a fun word to say. It's so much better than like platonic. Although platonic is fun, but it often gets mixed up with like, you know, I don't know, it's Aristotelian. It's like one of my favorite words in the English language. It's just such a fun extension of his name.

So he's kind of got it all going for him. Even just the way it looks written down is, it's pretty spectacular. So it's all pointing to Aristotle for me. Yeah, the thing is it seems so almost sacrilegious to be like, oh, yeah, we're knocking out Plato and round one, you know, this is, but we've got it. That's true, actually. game. I think this is why, you know, this is one strength of this over a tier list is that we can say, oh, well, Plato's only not there because he's been edged out by Aristotle.

Plato's still a phenomenal force. It is an instant knockout. And in fairness, we've tried to design this so that we get some good matchups. It would have been interesting to see Plato against some other philosophers perhaps. But I think Plato wins out against... Well, Plato would win out against almost everyone else on the board. Which is why putting him against Aristotle, I think, you know, you have to... I mean, we've got the likes of Peter Singer and Nietzsche and Schopenhauer and Dostoevsky and he's a great bit like putting them up against Plato I think the only person who can hold a candle on our list really

is Aristotle or maybe Jesus of Nazareth you know so I think we've got to get it yeah we've got to get it done at the beginning otherwise we might have ended up with Plato versus Aristotle is our final well yes exactly so let's get it out of the way I think Aristotle is our winner okay I'm going to stick this on this is all totally arbitrary by the way

oh yeah this is don't take this too seriously Aristotle is our winner. Do you struggle to focus? I know I do sometimes, and especially given the nature of my work, it can be incredibly frustrating when I'm seemingly unable to just sit down and get on with what I'm supposed to be doing. Luckily, people like me are exactly who today's sponsor, Brain FM, was created to help. Brain FM is an app for professionals seeking productivity boosts.

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So you might want to pick low if you're sensitive to sound or easily get headaches or high if you have attention difficulties like ADHD. And Brain FM is the only music company supported by the National Science Foundation to improve people's focus. So help unlock your brain's full potential free for 30 days by going to brain.fm forward slash within reason. That's brain.fm forward slash within reason for 30 days free. Okay. I think we should move over to the left-hand side of the board. Yeah. For those watching at home.

And I think we should start with Peter Singer versus Richard Dawkins. Oh, you know Richard Dawkins and Peter Singer personally. That's right. So I feel like you should take this one of her. To Cool Dawkins, a philosopher, is already a bit controversial. Do you think he'd be offended? The first question I ever asked Richard Dawkins was whether he considers himself a philosopher years and years ago. There's a video of it online.

I've got a little squeaky voice and I'm excited like 16 year old or something. And at the time, he said something like that I think Daniel Dennett wrote an afterward to one of his books and asked that question. And Dennett's conclusion was yes. But I think Dawkins just kind of doesn't care. I think Dawkins wants to be remembered as a scientist. He's happy to answer questions about God and stuff on his recent tour. He understood people would want to ask him about God and religion because this is his last tour. But he wanted to talk about biology.

That's like his passion. And so in a way, he's definitely more of a scientist than a philosopher. But he is probably the world's most famous atheist. Well, yes. I think that in terms of impact, the god delusion, in terms of, yeah, impact on atheism and atheist thought. I mean, the kind of atheist, you know, to stereotype that you will meet today is much more likely to be a materialist, modern empiricist atheist along the lines of Dawkins, as opposed to say a non-materialist atheist along the lines of Nietzsche or Schopenhauer. You know, these are, the tenor of Dawkins's atheism has been incredibly influential. and just the

in the vein of atheism that is by far the most popular sort today yeah and so influence I think we get a tick Peter Singer is also quite influential I mean he's probably the most famous modern ethical philosophy

he's got to be still alive ethical philosopher sorry he's got to be Peter Singer is most famous probably for two things one is charity his originally famine, affluence, and morality, I think the essay is called.

Yes. The life you can save. The drowning child analogy, which regular views of this channel will be familiar with, if you are walking down the street and you see a child drowning in a shallow pond, and I said, I could wade in and save that child, but I'll ruin my shoes, and my shoes cost me 50 bucks, so I don't want to do it, you would think I'm a moral monster. You'd think I was evil. But if Oxfam come to my door and say, if you just don't,

donate $50, we can, you know, set up a malaria net somewhere abroad in Africa and save X many children from getting malaria. And you say, you know what? No thanks, because I want to spend the $50 on my shoes. People are just kind of okay with it. And confronting us with that question of what's the difference is really important. Of course, I'm an ethical emotivist. I think that morals just sort of evolved, and so it makes sense that we care more about those who are in our immediate vicinity than those who are far away. We did not evolve over thousands, hundreds of thousands of years, millions of years, in a situation where we could have an impact on people halfway across the globe. And so our brains are like emotive capacity is just not

capable of like properly comprehending that ability and responsibility for caring for people across the globe. I suppose Singer would probably say that the evolutionary history isn't relevant. That's a description. Because Singer is a, is an objectivist as far as I know. He used a moral realist. He used to be really influenced by hair, I think, and the kind of non-cognitivist prescriptivist tradition. But recently, I think post-2014, in 2014, he released a book, and I can't remember what it's called. It might be called the Universal Point of View or something like that. It's like a book or an essay or it's something that he said. It's, you know, there in the back of my mind where he defended an impersonal view of ethical objectivism

or some kind of ethical objectivism where he was defending the idea that we ought not to give preference to you know one person's pleasure over another he defends a series of my first podcast with him we talked about this and I sort of was trying to sort of grill him on his meta ethics and the big jump to me was like I mean he thinks that like he thinks that like, my pleasure is good, my suffering is bad, and he tries to extrapolate that if my suffering is bad, then I can sort of understand that suffering is bad, and therefore no one's suffering is worse than anybody else's. That's the jump that I can't quite rationally justify, but Singer does believe that there is truth and falsity in ethics, and so he will say, yeah,

of course we evolved in a particular way, but that doesn't matter because there are ethical truths, which is consistent, but so demanding. And the demanding this objection is, is really interesting. People say, can an ethical theory be so demanding that it's implausible? Can how demanding an ethical theory is be evidence that it's not true? Well, I mean, talking about Aristotle, Aristotle would probably be reasonably kind of on board with a demanding subjection because of how closely he links being a good person or being a virtuous person with eudaimonia. You know, the idea that's going to bring you fulfillment, you know, he thinks those two things are aligned.

But also with proportion, with, you know, the famous golden mean of not going too far in either direction. Because if you've got too little confidence, you're a coward. But if you've got too much confidence, then you're too, like, rash. And so you've got to find something sort of in the middle. And I wonder if singer is the embodiment of the extreme of Aristotle's virtue on the too much side. You know, too much empathy makes you essentially, like, unable to do anything, unable to live the good life because you're constantly preoccupied with giving away every single thing that you have to help other people.

Though interestingly, I think at the end of famine affluence and morality, or might be at the end of the life you can save, he does make the point that actually his final conclusion isn't that people should give away, you know, everything until they reach marginal utility, which is the point where giving away would do you more harm than it would do good. his final point was basically that even if you don't agree with the full hog of my argument can you honestly say that you are not falling short in your ethical duties in some way which I think is a much more a much stronger kind of conclusion is saying he's saying you know well even if you don't even if you don't agree with the whole of my conclusion

are you really doing enough singer is extremely confronting in that way Oh, yeah. And of course the other area is animal ethics. Animal liberation is like the book for animal ethics. It like it put animal ethics on the agenda. Like the entire vegan movement today just owes so much to Peter Singer normalizing it as a topic of conversation and making people take it seriously. I mean, he wrote it in 1975 and he opens it kind of by saying like, I know this is going to sound ridiculous. But there was a time when it sounded ridiculous to think that. women should be able to vote, but we move on. And now people take animal ethics much more seriously. I think it's still nowhere near seriously enough. But Singer confronts you. If you read Animal Liberation, it is, it is haunting. I mean, it turned me vegan, and it was just, I did always say, though, I didn't know if it was because I thought Singer was like a particularly amazing philosopher, but just because he happened to sort of choose the right thing to think about. Like, if anybody thinks about it for long enough and carefully enough, animal ethics,

giving to charity, suffering, like, you can probably land on the conclusions that Singer came up with. He's not like Derek Parfit coming up with the non-identity problem or something, or Hume with induction. It doesn't take, like, a level of genius to, like, to really follow the thought and get this interesting conclusion. But Singer just, like, knew what to think about. He knew to think about animals. He knew to think about... The thing that I do admire about Singer as a thinker is his, similar to Hume, his dogged commitment to some of the more repugnant conclusions of hardcore utilitarian thought. For instance, I have, I mean, I've talked about in my channel before, but not very often. I have a chronic

pain condition, which means that I'm in pain kind of most of the time. And I'm pretty sure that if I asked Peter Singer to his face, does this mean that I'm less my life should be deprioritized against somebody who won't have that? I'm pretty sure that he would say yes. And obviously, that's not nice to hear. I can't help but admire it. I think that he would just bite the bullet. He would say, yes, Joe. I think that if there was someone without a chronic pain condition, I think their life should be saved over yours because they are likely to experience more pleasure and less pleasure. A singer semi-famously wrote a paper called something like, should the baby live or something, which is about infanticide. And he argues, I don't know if this is his actual

position or if he was just entertaining it, but he sort of argues in favor of euthanizing disabled children, not even because of the suffering that they're going through, but because of the resources that we're putting into preserving the life of somebody who's so physically disabled that their life quality is so low. If we took those resources and gave them to babies of normal health, like we would do much more and increase utility and reduce suffering overall, so we should euthanise the severely disabled children. For a lot of people, that is just like instantly discrediting it. That's particular example. is what made me revise my general utilitarian...

Right, so this is the thing, right? Singer, again, is incredibly valuable because he just will push these utilitarian premises to their extreme to the point where at some point most people will get up. They'll get off the train, but Singer will ride that train to the very end. But I think for the people that do end up getting off the train,

I think that Singer helps them get off the train. As in, it's useful to have a think of pushing these to the extreme because to a certain extent, ethics in practice I'm not making a meta ethical point but in terms of how people craft their own ethical codes people tend to have different points where they consider

a given scenario to be a reductuary of ad absurdum of the original principle and Singer's dogged commitment to riding the train of preference utilitarianism to the very end is valuable whether or not you're an utilitarian. You need someone to do it to know where it leads because I mean people look at Singer and think like that is an evil thing to think and

that might be true but it's also like That's informative, because if it is an evil, if you think it's an evil thing to think, and if you read Singer's essay and think that he is correct to conclude that we should do that, then you realize that the philosophy is evil and you've just sort of discounted at least his version of utilitarianism, which is so useful and important. It's useful to know. I mean, another criticism of Singer that's been leveled at him by other utilitarians is that he may not give quite enough attention as you might want to what long-term effects altering

certain moral principles might have. For instance, you know, you can make a counter-argument against Singer's point of Atim Fantaside using utilitarian principles by saying, well, hang on a sec. If we start doing this, we're going to value one life over another thing, that could and potentially would lead to some undesirable places that would ultimately cause more suffering. Tends to be, if you were going to give a utilitarian counter-argument to that, and other people just say that's a slippery slip. Richard Dawkins, I think, is less willing to...

He does bite some bullets. I mean, famously, he says, like, you know, it seems like at base the universe, there's nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. He seems sort of happy to say, when people say, where do you get purpose in life, Professor Dawkins? He says, well, the universe doesn't owe you a sense of purpose. And it's, for a lot of people, it's quite sort of jarring. But a lot of people really like that.

They're like, yeah, like, just tell them how it is, Doc, because, yeah, maybe there's just no purpose. Like, what kind of question? He says, like, you know, asking, you know, why is a bit like asking, you know, what is the color of jealousy. You can formulate it into a question, but it doesn't actually make any sense. There's no answer to it. And for a lot of people, the most foundational question is what is the purpose of life? And for Dawkins, it's not even really a legitimate question. And so in a way, he rides that train too. Like, where does atheism get you? But he doesn't like, I think if you really press him on ethics, he's not going to say something like, yeah, I think that ethics are all just

subjective or emotive. And I recognize the seriousness and the implications. of that, but I'm just going to bite that bullet, he will just sort of say, well, you know, like, I suppose it's sort of, yes, I suppose it's subjective, but I think this, and I think, like, he doesn't sort of have the same philosophical feeling when he bites the bullet. It's more of like, on a personal level, he bites the bullet, but he doesn't sort of embody the philosophy of the bullet that he's bitten. I feel like Richard Orkins would be very at home in either Cambridge or Vienna in the 1920s. As a philosophical system, I think that he would, I think that, I don't know if Richard Dawkins has ever read language, truth and logic.

I think he'd really like it. I think it would, because I get this vaguely logical empiricist vibe from him. It wouldn't surprise me if he, I mean, he must have read it. He must have read it. I mean, he's familiar with AJ Ayer. He's at least familiar with his ideas. He wants, he tells the story of A.J. A. A.er being at an Oxford, at dinner, at an Oxford formal. And I think he says grace.

So he, like, leads people in grace and says, of, prayer and somebody says to him like, you know, you don't believe in God. How can you say grace? And Aya says, I'll never utter a falsehood, but I have no issue with making meaningless statements, you know. And I think there's something in that. Dawkins is familiar with that. He seems to know who Aya is. And like you say, his influence seems present in Dawkins thinking. It is very like, well, what's the evidence for that? Well, I mean, I think that it probably came through Popper because Popper's so influential in scientific methodology. and famously has this falsification principles, the thing that separates science and, you know, depending on which point of Popper, which point in Popper's thought you're talking about, what separates stuff worth talking about from not talking about. The falsification criteria tends to come up. And Dawkins seems like he might be some kind of logical positivist, but it's probably more just that he's a scientist. And what do do? They look for empirical evidence for things, and they come up with theories. And then he looks at God, and he considers God to be a scientific topic. People say, like, is whether God exists really a scientific question? Isn't it a philosophical

question? And Dawkins always says, well, it's definitely a scientific question because a world in which a God exists is incredibly different from a world in which a God doesn't exist. I'm thinking to myself, you sure about that? Because if there is a, the theist will say, of course they're very different in the sense that the second one doesn't exist at all. Like, if you believe that there is a system, a sort of universal system that can work without a God, why would it look any different? Why would it have to look any different? And it seems to me, the question of God's existence is much more philosophical than scientific. I've made the argument in the past about how scientific laws don't apply to, like, the origin of scientific laws. I use this analogy a few times

now, but like the discovering of the book of Shakespeare's sonnets where you try to uncover where it came from, and you start studying the book, and you discover all of these laws, like the law of iambic pentameter, the law of punctuation, the law of capitalization, the laws of grammar, and you start discovering all of these things, and somebody says, where does the book come from? You say, well, we don't know yet, but look at all of these laws that we're discovering. One day, these literacy laws will explain the origin of the book. That would be a category error. And I think people do the same thing with science explaining the origin to the universe. scientific laws describe what happens in the universe.

Will they be able to describe the origin of the universe itself? I don't think so. And Dawkins just seems optimistic that one day, I'm sure that will happen. I think that's a, yeah, I imagine that. I mean, that's a point that Dawkins would disagree with someone like Hume on. Hume just thinks, I don't know. As in Hume would say that the analogy with God would be that if there was only ever one book and you didn't know as a general principle that people wrote books

and that that was a kind of you only had access in the same way we have access to one universe and he would say well no in that scenario if you only ever encounter one book you don't know you can't establish empirically the principle of whether somebody whether people write books or whether agents write books and as a result you would have to remain agnostic

I mean Hume is far more agnostic than atheist I think that Dawkins are sometimes more agnostic than he's more not believe that God than believe that not God sometimes although I think that occasionally it seems to waver back and forth in like his writings at least, but that kind of is, isn't that uncommon. I think is, I'm just not sure how much Dawkins is interested in philosophy.

No, I think it would almost be offended if we put them to. Yeah, I did once, I did once ask him, or he asked me, you said once Alex that, like, my, you know, I could have done more on Thomas Aquinas's arguments than the God delusion. And he asked me, like, what do you think I could have done? And we were about to leave this event in Oxford, and he was like, literally about to, about to leave. And I called him, I said, oh, well, you could have, for instance, separated out the different kinds of causation. You treat them as if they're all one kind of argument, like the first three ways are all the same. But there are different kinds of causation. And he says, well, do you think there are different kinds of causation?

I said, yeah, I think there are, actually. And he said, like what? And I thought, oh, gosh. So I, as quickly as possible, try to explain the difference between hierarchical and temporal causation. And I sort of gave this little explanation. And then Dawkins said to me, I don't know if I can quote this. He said to me, what the fuck has that got to do with anything interesting? Thank God I'm not a theologian.

And then he walked off. To be, to reconstruct a philosophical position out of that. That sounds like a methodological naturalist position. Like, I mean to say, those were the last words he spoke to me that evening. He said those words and then he walked away. And that was that, and I was left there. Like, you know, I'm trying to explain like the causal chain thing. Oh, yes.

So that comes between a ladder and the way. Yeah, so I'm like, so if I'm like holding this thing and I'm sort of stood there like like with my hands up sort of trying to explain this thing and he just and he says that and then walks away and I'm just like, fair enough. In a way, that's kind of based because like, you know, is that kind of like what's that got to do with my life? Like I don't I don't really care. He wasn't being rude by the way. It was just like he's just like, yeah, but that's not like why would anybody want to read that? Why would anybody want to look at that? But the philosopher is going to go because that's what philosophy is.

You know, that's what it, like, in my first ever podcast with Richard Dawkins, I asked him about his chapter on morality in Outgrowing God. And he sort of says some things. He sort of describes moral history. And I say, but there's a difference between just describing moral history and justifying moral principles. And at one point, he says, you're getting a bit too philosophical for me. And I thought, fair enough, you are a scientist. But you did write a chapter in your book about morality. It's like, I don't mind you saying, you know, I'm just a scientist. But if you're going to make sort of moral claims, and I think, you're going to make sort of moral claims, and I think,

you should, you know, engage with the, with the philosophy. And so, similarly, if you're going to write a book about God's existence and deal with Thomas Aquinas in, I think, literally one page, or maybe two, and then when somebody says, there is more to this, and when you try to explain it, basically saying, what's that got to do with anything interesting? Well, maybe nothing, but then don't write a book about it, you know? And so I think that Dawkins sees himself as a scientist, who has stepped into philosophy almost by mistake by trying to apply the scientific method to the questions of God's existence, and it's now spending the rest of his life trying to remind people that he is a scientist and not a philosopher. So I don't think he'd mind if we put Peter

Singer ahead of his philosophy chart. Yeah, I think Pete Singer partly for making me less of a utilitarian, which I don't know if you would like that as a, as a, it may perhaps a dubious honor for Peter Singer. Peter Singer turns people vegan. He turns people into more charitable people. he also, when he says that you should euthanize children, turns people off utilitarianism, which say what you want about his moral character as a person. As a philosopher and as a guide to your thought, it's pretty important. At the very least, I think he does that on a philosophical level more so and better than Richard Dawkinson. Of course, to be fair, I'm also an ethical non-cognitist, so it's very easy for me to step back from moral principle and say, yeah, yeah, I'll revise this.

And the thing is I do vibe more with Richard Dawkins like maybe it's just because I because I know I'm a bit now like like at dinner I would just have a better time talking to Richard Dawkins than I would to Pete Singer I think. Maybe. I'm not entirely sure. But, like, as a philosopher, I think, I think Peter Singer has to go on top. And I think Dawkins wouldn't dispute that himself. No, I think that I think that Dawkins would probably, again, I think he'd probably object to us calling him a philosopher at all. Maybe, maybe. So again, knocked out in the first round, sorry, Richard, if you're watching, which you're probably not. But it would be cool if you were. I felt like Richard Dawkins is, she's probably busy. Yeah, that's probably right. But we're going to put Peter Singer as our second winner. What's that our semi, semi-final? What do they call that? Yes, quarterfinal. I don't know.

I don't do sports. Okay. Arbitrarily choosing the next. Let's go up top left. Zeno versus Judith Jarvis Thompson, who apparently does not have a P in her name. Yes, that we felt, yeah. You were writing it out.

I was writing it out. I said, do you want to know? As I finished writing the name Thompson, I said, oh, I should probably check on. spelling this right? And then you sort of awkwardly waited for a few seconds and said, do you want to know if you have? Of course I want to know if I have. So

sorry. Well, the thing is, Judith Jarvis Thompson. To J.J. Thompson. Judith Travis Thompson is, because more modern philosophers is significantly less well known than a lot of people on this list. You probably could have got away with it. Yeah, probably actually. But for those of those you may not necessarily

be as familiar with Judith Jarvis Thompson, she is quite a prolific writer and quite a prolific thinker. But she's probably best known for her work in the trolley problem and in practical ethics. She writes on abortion, I think, is her most famous contribution with the violinist analogy. And the trolley problem, I mean, she's the person that coined the phrase trolley problem. So, yeah, I think she's tied with Philippa Foot for like, who sort of came up with it. Yes, well, Philippa Footh's version of the trolley problem is 1967, I think.

And in her version of the trolley problem, you're the driver. And you're deciding whether you turn to hit the wrong person. I see, I see. Judith Jarvis Thompson is the person that made you the bystander. So the famous little man with his... With the hand on the lever. Yeah. I think I've heard of that.

That's from Judith Jarvis Thompson. I mean, probably not the drawing in particular. But that's... So for me, I may as well just put her on the red line in the centre already because that is pretty incredible. The trolley, I mean, inventing the trolley problem is about as good as it gets. It's better than this Nicomachian whatever, I think. But perhaps warrant some discussion. So Thompson is an originator of the trolley problem, and also, like you mentioned, has the same as violinist analogy.

In the debates around abortion, one of the most influential arguments in the history of the pro-choice philosophical tradition has been the violinist analogy. For those who aren't familiar, it's this idea. I mean, people say that if you are pregnant with a child, it is immoral to terminate that pregnancy because it's its own life. It's not like just your body part. That's its own unique life and it has a right to life and you can't kill that child. Thompson imagines that you are like, I think, kidnapped and then you wake up, you've been kidnapped by like some violinist society because there is a award-winning best violinist in the world who has some rare condition and can only survive if he's hooked up to you medically for nine months. Otherwise he's going to die. After the nine month is up, you can disconnect and you can go about and live your life. but you've been kidnapped and tied up to this to this guy. And the question is, like, are you allowed to cut the violinist off of you? And, you know, there are versions of this where you're not kidnapped and you're like, you know, you volunteer and then you change your mind.

So the, I think perhaps the most, you know, the most interesting part of the paper for me actually isn't to do with the argument itself. It's to do with the different levels of which she pitches it. So this paper was one of the first times that I was, considering very seriously the distinction between considering something wrong and saying someone ought to be punished for doing it. So the violinist analogy, the level at which she pitches it at, I think in the original paper, isn't, is the person doing something wrong? It's should they be prevented from doing so or should they be punished if they actually do decide to unplug from the violinist? And I mean, this, I think, draws upon a distinction that we don't often discuss just generally immoral topics,

which is the distinction between saying that something's wrong and saying that it should be illegal. Yes. The classic common sense example of this that some people use is adulterary. Almost everyone agrees that adultery is wrong. Yet, broadly, people don't think that it should be illegal. And, you know, it's an interesting question as to why that is. You know, some people appeal to, you know, just a principled idea that I don't think it's the kind of thing the government should be getting involved in. Other people will say something like, I don't think, I don't agree with the practical consequence.

of perhaps enforcing a law of this kind. So it depends on your view of what law is and what it's for. Like, is law there to moralize? Like, a lot of people would be upset with, like, you know, when the law criminalized homosexuality, it's sort of even, like, even aside from whether you think homosexuality is moral or immoral, it's sort of like, that seems like a private matter. Even if you think it's wrong, the law isn't there to moralize. The law is there to protect citizens against sort of threats from inside society and outside of it.

That's what laws are for. And if that's the case, then adultery really sucks, but it's not the kind of thing that should be illegal. But then adultery does cause harm to children. It causes harm to spouses. So it's a bit of a gray area, but at the very least, it's two different questions. Do you think that cutting off the violinist is wrong? And do you think you essentially have a right to do it, even if it is wrong? Yes. Should you cut off the violinist and should you be punished for doing so are two different questions? And I think that Thompson draws that out incredibly clear.

and also in a way that I think perhaps isn't given enough credit generally in discussions. You know, in moral discussions generally, you could, for instance, support the death penalty in principle, but not in practice. You could say, I actually do think that some people deserve to be killed by the state for doing certain things. However, certain practical considerations like false convictions or the cost it might have on appeals with the legal system means that I don't think that it should practically be implemented, even if on principle, I think that it's perfectly justifiable. And I think that that pragmatic principle distinction, I think, comes out very strongly in Thompson's writing. And Thompson writes very well against potential counter-examples,

because with relevance to abortion, people will always say that the situations are different. Like, the violinist in the original thought is, you are kidnapped to be tied up. And so it sort of assumes that you get pregnant when you don't want to be pregnant. But people say, well, if you have sex, then you know that you run the risk of getting pregnant. And Jarvis discusses that and says, like, is doing something with the risk that there might be a consequence, the same thing as consenting to the outcome of that potential consequence, especially if there's a way to then undo it that is kind of nasty in some other respect. And she discusses it really well. And like I say, it's just incredibly influential. Yes, it certainly, I think that there are, I mean,

practically no one writing on the issue of the morality of abortion. today won't have been influenced by. Yeah, and they won't have it in, and they'll all have it in their back pocket. Like every single, like, pro-choice advocate who is worth their salt will have this in their back pocket to pull out. And almost any pro-life

thinker or activist will have a critique. And we'll have a critique of it. There are very few arguments and ethics that are like that, that both people on either side are almost bound to engage with that. With that specific analogy. And so Thompson's similar to the trolley problem. Almost every ethical philosopher have an opinion on trolley problem. Every single person who's ever thought about

ethics has come across the trolley problem. And it's so iconic. I mean, it's such a meme. It's given my channel a newly set life at one point and given me a series. So I've got a lot personally to thank Thompson for. And so, yeah, she's got a lot going for her. But we are so underrated.

I think because there are, in terms of the almost everyone who's kind of interphilosophy in some way will have heard of either the violinist argument or the trolley problem or both and yet may not have heard of Thompson despite her being, you know, not inventing the original trolley problem

but being, you know, one of the top, you know, the innovations between 1985 and 2000-ish for the trolley problem are kind of all, well, not all, but mostly down to Thompson in some way, shape or form or reactions to Thompson and in the violinist argument being so influential, you know. There aren't many thinkers that have come up with such influential thought experiments and problems, and yet not had their name be a household name outside of academic philosophy.

Yeah, that is really, really interesting. It's nice. So everyone to go Google, Judith Jarvis Thompson. Yeah, yeah, I think she's got a lot going for her. She deserves more credit. But we are pitting her against Zeno. Zeno, perhaps most famed for his series of paradoxes. attempting to defend the idea that there is no such thing as plurality or motion.

You're likely a third of, in one way or another. For example, the impossibility of clapping my hands. If I want to clap my hands, I'm holding my hands about half a meter apart. And if I want to clap them together, then I first have to half the distance between my hands. I cannot clap my hands without first halving the distance between them. It's not possible. So I've got to half the distance. Then to clap them, I'll have to half that distance again.

Then I'll have to half that distance again. I can't clap my hands without halving the distance. distance every single time. The problem is, it seems like I can infinitely divide the amount of space in between my hands. I can keep halving. There'll always be half left. There's no point at which you can't half the amount of space left between them. And thus, if there is an infinite number of times that you can half the distance, but you have to half all of the distances in order to clap your hands, you can't complete an infinite series. Yes. And since there's an infinite number of divisions, your hands can never

clap. And yet yes, and this is Zeno, Zeno's attempting to give a reductio-ad absurdum argument for the concept of divisibility in motion. He thinks that motion at a base level doesn't exist in the way that we think of it today. He thinks, he's a student of Permanides, who is an ancient

Greek thinker, who thought that at a deep metaphysical level, everything is one indivisible, unmoving and unchangeable ball. I think he actually does give it the shape of a ball in the fragments that we have of his work. And Zeno's defending this proposition. A lot of the records that we have of Zeno's writings in Plato in his dialogue, and I think it's actually called Permanides. And Zeno gives, you know, Plato treats some of these arguments in that dialogue. And yes, the idea is that Zeno is saying, well, motion can't exist because if it

existed, my hands would never be able to clap. And he also uses the example of, the example of divisibility to say, well, if I have an object and I divide it in two and I keep dividing it and I can just keep dividing it ad infinitum, I will either end up with lots and lots of objects that are all zero amount of matter, an infinite amount of objects that are all zero amounts of matter, in which case, you know, using his mathematical framework in ancient Greece, you would say, well, that will just sum to zero, so there was no object in the first place. Or I can infinitely divide it and there are some bits of matter. Each one has a mass greater than zero. And then when I sum them all, I have an infinite amount of mass for the object. Yeah. So this is, this was his

argument against divisibility. And, you know, I think that, I think that broadly calculus has put to rest a fair amount of these paradoxes. We now, has it really? We now, we now just have mathematical ways of treating infinity. I mean, our way of treating infinity now is really sophisticated. You've got, I mean, Cantor's work on infinite sets, just the concept of calculus, you know, we've got much more sophisticated ways of treating infinity than Zeno had. There's no reason why Zeno should be able to, you know, it would be a bit much to expect Zeno to invent both calculus and Cantorian set theory and like non-standard analysis in order to solve some of these problems. There are a few solutions to this like, like the paradox of the

clapping. One is to say that like you can just summon infinite series, as our modern math allows us to do. The other is to say that space isn't infinitely divisible, that space is discreet, that there is a smallest possible sort of distance. That might also be true. I'm more attracted to that second solution. Well, there's, I

mean, God, I'm not a physicist, so I'm probably going to completely butcher this, but there is a, is it Planck's constant or Planck's distance or something like that? And you'll probably know more about this than I will. The plank length is this really tiny length, but I'm actually not, I don't think that that is

I'd sometimes refer to the plank length in this context and been told that I'm wrong to do so. I mean, I imagine that I'm getting it wrong just because I don't have very good grasp of what it is. I can't remember exactly what the plank length is. I'm not sure if it's like the smallest conceivable distance or if it's something like the smallest distance that we could like measure or something like that. Physicists who are watching somebody, somebody leave a comment. They're probably already typing down below. I'm not sure if that's the case, but you can just like philosophically conclude that there must be a smallest possible distance. That does just seem counterintuitive as well, though, because, like, the smallest possible distance to me seems to be a point.

And a point is indivisible. It seems like as long as it's not a point, you can keep dividing it. And so it does seem like a paradox to me. You could say that, well, you can just sum infinite series now. But, like, yeah, you can with, like, maths, I guess. But, like, we're talking about, like, physical things. We're talking about, like, actual space. I'm not talking about numbers off in the, you know, mathematical realm or whatever.

I'm talking about, like, actual space. atoms, air between my hands and I'm just expected to believe that because someone invented calculus I can now just infinitely divide a physical space. I just I struggle to wrap my head around it, but of course

I know that I can clap my hands and so something's going wrong. Well it's in Parmenides, sorry Parmenides, Zeno would probably say that you, I can't remember exactly the parmenidian distinctions, but would say that you're clapping your hands but you're at the baseline

metaphysical level, motion isn't occurring in the world of, I think, what is, is the term that Parmenides uses? Well, Parmenides doesn't believe in change at all. Motion is a kind of change. Yes, well, motion is a kind of change. Motion is a kind of change, and Parmenides says that for something to change, it requires that something which was not comes to be. There is something that is not the case, and now is the case.

That's what changes. But you can't get something from nothing, and so change can't exist. Yes, he thinks that I, from what I remember, he thinks that it entails a contradiction. Because you have something that both is and is not. And I would say at the same time, because now we're so used to time indexing truths. You know, we say things like, we say X is true at time T. Parmendi's didn't do that. And a lot of people think that this is just where his thinking goes wrong.

He doesn't have access to this time indexing. Or doesn't, you know, it's not a standard bit of the logic that he's using. Yeah. My favorite of Zeno's paradoxes is the tortoise and the hair. which is actually kind of secretly a version of the hand-clapping thing. But if you've got a tortoise and a hare and the hair, or I guess what was it, like Achilles and the tortoise? Yes, Achilles and the Taurus's fables. And the other is one of Zeno's paradoxes.

And I never get them the right there out. I think Achilles and the tortoise is Zeno's paradox, where Achilles runs really fast, the tortoise runs really slow. And so if they had a race, Achilles would win. But suppose you gave the tortoise a head start. You gave a 10-second head start. Achilles will still, like, run really fast and overtake the tortoise, right? But after that 10 second head start, let's say that the tortoise has moved a meter forwards. Achilles starts running.

By the time Achilles has reached that meter, by the time Achilles has got to the point where the tortoise was, the tortoise will have moved forward a bit. The tortoise will have moved forward a bit. Maybe it's on 1.2 meters. Okay, then by the time that Achilles reaches 1.2 meters, the tortoise will have moved forward a bit. Because the tortoise isn't still. It is in constant motion, and so it will have moved forward a bit. Maybe it's on 1.3 meters now. And when Achilles gets to 1.3 meters, the tortoise will have moved forward a bit.

And that will always be the case. Whenever Achilles catches up to where the tortoise was, the tortoise will have moved forward a little bit. And when Achilles gets to that point, the tortoise will be a little bit further on still. And that will always be the case, that wherever Achilles gets to, the tortoise will have moved forward a little bit. Which means that Achilles can never overtake the tortoise, because whichever point he gets to that the tortoise was once at, the tortoise will have moved forward from that point. So Achilles can never overtake the tortoise. And yet, once again, you play it out and Achilles overtakes the tortoise. Now, this is, as far as I'm concerned, a version of the vision.

Or the arrow, I think, is his... Because the diffs, I don't think it's the same as the arrow. I think it's the same as the hand clapping, because the distance between Achilles and the tortoise gets smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. Like the tortoise moves forward a little bit and then Achilles catches up and the swords moves forward a little bit less. and then Achilles catches up and then a little bit less and the tortoise is like the distance is getting smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller and essentially like you could

say it might not be halving but it's going down by a third or an eighth or whatever the speeds are every single time and the question is will Achilles overtake the tortoise? That is when the distance between them come become zero. So it's sort of like these hands trying to come together and getting over an infinite

number of halving. Achilles catching up and the tortoise moving forwards every single time that tauders gets a little bit smaller and so you're basically still just dealing with two things getting closer and closer together that seem to overcome an infinite gap I just think it's a more fun way of putting it but it's the same problem

how the hell does Achilles overtake the tortoise man I swear I think about this a lot I feel like this troubles you a lot more than it troubles me I just don't understand how he overtakes the tortoise I just don't know how he does it yeah I suppose you could I don't get it man you can either I mean I'm quite happy to accept sums of infinities

I think this is just but then again I think this is this is more of a just kind of I don't know I think that it's more that using you know doing I mean I'm not that good at calculus but doing just even basic calculus

my intuitions are so accepting of the prospect of summing infinite series I just I just don't get how that I just don't get how that would help like there are rules in mathematics that sort of just don't seem not to apply

to the physical universe I don't know man like I don't understand I think you have to say that space is not infinitely divisible. I mean, while we're on infinite paradoxes, you talked about, have you come across the idea of sort of, there's a technical term for it, but effectively smaller and larger infinity. Yeah, yeah. Where, you know, you've got the, the smallest infinity is the natural number line, which is what's called a, well, I think it's the smallest anyway, it's called accountable infinity. And any infinity that you can have a bijection, which is sort of a one-to-one mapping of each set.

a member in the set with the natural number line is also a countable infinity. But then there are uncountable infinities like the real number line. Or indeed, as far as I'm aware, any subset of the real number line is also an uncountable infinity. Yeah. I'm really struggling to think how to rank this one. For me, Thompson comes out on top here. How come? Because I think that I think that I just find the paradoxes, you know, slightly less compelling than you do.

I mean, I find them at the very least really fun. They're very fun. Don't get me wrong. Extremely fun. I find them actually extremely challenging. But, like, how influential? Like, is it like an influential philosophical thought that actually sort of changes the way that I view the world in the way that Thompson makes you think about ethics with the trolley problem and with violinism. My relationship between law and ethics.

I think if we were actually living our lives, the ideas that Thompson, like, discusses and talks about are going to come up more. I like if we were actually living our lives. Yeah, as opposed to whatever the hell we're doing here. As opposed to what we're doing now. But, you know, like, Zeno comes up because we're talking about philosophy. Yes, exactly. If we were just living. Thompson is, her philosophies are far closer to the ground level.

And Zeno wouldn't say that his philosophy is meant to be practical. No, it's just like a bit of a bit of, and Zeno only really comes up in the context of being like, look at these fun paradoxes. Yes, exactly. Whereas Thompson, her ideas are more famous than she is, whereas Zeno, he's probably more famous than his paradoxes are in many ways. I would say Thompson is going up in top for me. For me, it's really tough, but if you're confidently on Thompson, I'm happy to grant it because I'm a little bit torn, but I do think Thompson just has more going for her here.

I would say I'm, yeah, I'm pro Tompon. So, okay, we'll put Thompson as the winner between Zeno and Thompson. And there's no P this time. Yeah, if you're watching Judith Jarvis Thompson. Is she alive? Do you me to Google it? Yeah, fine. This is what happens with philosophers is that you never kind of...

Jamie, pull that up. Where I was... Pull it up. Can you look up, is Judith Jarvis Thompson still alive? I don't think she is. Apart from Daniel Dennett, where I find out when Daniel Dennett dies. Actually quite sad when Daniel Dennett died. I was much more sad than I thought I was going to be, if that makes sense.

Of course, I've never met him. It's kind of shocking. Yeah. It's a... Because you have this kind of philosophical... giant. Yeah, he's just sort of, he's just there. Oh, no, that's terribly sad. Yeah, Julia Shelf Thompson died in 2020. That's right, actually. I remember

now. Yeah, it was, it was, it was quite recent. I was sure she, I was sure she died, but I forgot that it was actually not that. Yeah, no, I hadn't, I hadn't heard about it, but yeah, so, so well, Thompson, if you're watching, let's look up instead of at the camera. I apologize for misspelling your name, but I'm

sure that you can think of, you know, more pressing ethical concerns than that. Okay, I think next we should look at Christopher Hitchens, versus Jordan Peterson. Right. I think that I've read shockingly little Christopher Hitchens.

Yeah, for such an influential writer, I really haven't read very much. But not a philosopher. I mean, I would die on the hill that Christopher Hitchens was not a philosopher. Do you think he called himself a philosopher? Because I suspect that he probably don't think so. He would call himself, he self-described

as a journalist, a polemicist, a writer. Fantastic rhetorition. Speaker, yeah. I mean, there was one point that he's doing like an interview, I think in his flat and he says something like he's talking about his writing and then he says

and public speaking which I can also do which is something of an understatement given that he's probably the best refarition of the past hundred years or more in a way

I think that Jordan Peterson is like the new Christopher Hitchens in that like when you look for like the new Christopher Hitchens you look for somebody who's like British alcoholic speaks well

but what Hitchens did was he like created and then filled a niche and just like And just like swooned people. People were swooning over him, over how sort of elegant and persuasive he was debating and he had like a diehard fan base. And in all of those regards, Peterson is fulfilling that kind of role. You certainly got a very enthusiastic following.

Having an enthusiastic following who really just like hang on in his every word, who thinks he's incredibly eloquent, who speaks well, who can debate, all of this kind of stuff. So they make for an interesting comparison. I mean, it's the great debate that never was for a lot of people. Yes, exactly. I think it would be lovely to have seen them go up again. It would have either been really, really cool and interesting to see them lock horns, or it would have been a complete disaster like Jordan Peterson and Slavuizek, where it just sort of was a bit all over the place. I didn't actually catch that, wasn't?

You're not missing out on much. I think it was like a huge spectacle. Like everybody was like really highly anticipated, and no one's mentioned it since because kind of nothing happened. Jordan Peterson started talking about the communist manifesto, I think, because if he'd like read it last night, it was really strange. But, look, Peterson also might be a little bit reticent say I'm a philosopher. You know, he's a psychologist and a thinker, but he does engage in depth with his favorite thinkers. I think that suddenly, you know, I've read his most recent book.

And I had many people with God. Yes. And I had many things that I disagreed with quite a lot of it. But I would say that the style of argument was classically philosophical. philosophical. He puts forward a definition of truth that's to do with what you cannot avoid committing to, which, you know, isn't an unprecedented definition of truth. You find it in kind of CS Pierce and you find it a number of pragmatist philosophers. Hitchens doesn't even touch that kind of stuff. Well, no, exactly. So I think that I think that I think that I think that there, it's a lot more resembling of a philosophical style argument. I think I have read a lot of Christopher Hitchens and I don't see very much philosophy in there. I'm quite familiar with as well. works. I think, I mean, I can, like, roughly quote the beginning of God is not great from memory. Yeah. If the intended reader of this book should wish to go beyond disagreement with this author, an attempt to identify the sins and deformities that animated him to write it,

they will not only, and it's where I get a bit lost, they will not only be quarreling with the ineffable something creator who presumably opted to make me this way. They'll also be defiling the memory of a decent woman of stable faith named Mrs. Jean Watts, something like that. It's so eloquent, isn't he, Christopher Hitch? When I was a boy of about nine attending a school on the edge of Dartmoor. I'm telling you, I don't know, if anyone's got the book pulled up and see how accurate that was. Like, I'm pretty familiar with the guy's work. And not anywhere have I seen any serious engagement with philosophy.

Like, when he's asked if he thinks free will exist, he says, well, I think, of course, free will exist. We have no choice but to believe it. And everyone laughs. And that's actually the end of the discussion for him. Hitchin said in his final interview conducted with Richard Dawkins for the New States, man just before he died. Dawkins says to him in that interview, you're perhaps the most well-read man

I've heard of since Aldous Huxley. And Hitchens goes, yes, well, Richard, he's got that real, real hoarse voice, like near the end of his life, you know, it might come at the expense of some depth. And he basically just admits to the idea

that he's read incredibly widely, but not very deeply, as if his, and sort of his job as a journalist is to sort of be aware of everything. And so, you know, he knows who Nietzsche is, he knows who Thomas Jefferson is, he knows, but in the way that Peterson, he's got,

I think he's got a video on his channel that's something like, you know, four-hour lecture on one paragraph of Nietzsche. He loves that kind of thing. He loves going absolutely right into the depth of every single word. Hitchens was the exact opposite. Like, I think if you asked Peterson what he thought about the philosophy of, you know, someone like Thomas Jefferson, he'd probably just be like, I don't really know. I know a bit, I don't know if he knows about Thomas Jefferson, but he'd be happy to say, like, I know Nietzsche, I know Dostoevsky, I know Young, and he really knows what he's talking about when it comes to those guys. Hitchens was the opposite.

He knew about absolutely everybody, but how much did he actually understand their philosophical world views? Yeah, I mean, I think that, I mean, I have disagreements with the way that Peterson interprets Nietzsche and things like that. But I think that, as again, I would be much more comfortable describing Peterson's work as philosophical in terms. and he makes philosophical argument there are plenty of thinkers that you can disagree with while still recognising that the structure of their thought is similar to how philosophy is classically written if Dawkins is the most famous atheist

Christopher Hitchens is the second most famous atheist and because of the way he died Jordan Pisa may or may not be an atheist he might be the world's famous atheists actually yeah Jordan Piz is probably the most famous academic alive right now Yeah, maybe Chomsky. I think he's more famous than Chomsky.

Yeah? I think almost certainly. I think if you ask people on the street who's Jordan Peterson, they'll have heard of him. Maybe not with Chomsky in the same way, to the same degree. You know, like I remember once I was speaking at a university society, and somebody came to pick me up from the train station in her car. And we were driving to the event student, and I mentioned Jordan Peterson. I think I mentioned Michaela Peterson and then said, oh, that's Jordan Peterson sort her. She said, well, who's Michaela Peterson?

I said, Jordan Peterson sort her. and she went, who's that? And I was actually taken aback. I was like, I genuinely was like, how can you not know who Jordan Peters is? You sort of forget that, like, you're not exactly at her house with the same way. But I wouldn't feel that way if she said who's Noam Shomsky.

Well, I was only introduced Jordan Peterson when somebody gave me 12 rules for life as a birthday present. And I then didn't realize that I kind of thought that it was just like a, I kind of, you know, thought he was a self-help author because I think Charles Rural's Life is very much in that vein. It depends on what. And then apart from that, I only really know his religious one as much as anyone can kind of tease it out. I have my interpretation of his religious views.

Which I think, you know, I say, I like elements of, you know, I like that he's engaging with an idea of pragmatist theories of truth. I think there's something in that. And I think that it's a kind of neglected part of philosophy. Yeah. Twins the Wilderun, you know, you know how like Robbie Williams just put out like a weird film where he's portrayed? Oh yeah, no one knew who he was outside of the UK. Americans just have no idea who Robbie Williams is, and it's kind of like, it's kind of, like, I understand that because like it makes sense to me that Americans don't know who he is. But like, for the Brit who sort of knows, like, take that and, I mean, Robbie Williams is huge.

It's kind of really strange that, like, nobody seems to have heard of it. Yeah, it's really weird. I've not seen it. Me neither. I think it's some kind of con. Apparently it's quite good. I've heard, I've heard, like, good reviews, actually. But yeah.

Now word from our sponsor is Robbie Williams. Yeah, people do, you just haven't heard him. And it's maybe the same kind of thing with Jordan Beard. But, you know, like Hitchens, the thing is Hitchens, people loved him so much. But I've seen people go up to Jordan Peterson and say, like, you have changed my life. I was going to kill myself and then I read your book and now, like, I'm married with kids. That kind of stuff, right? Although it does teeter into a little bit of the sort of self-help-help-y side as well.

I didn't mean that as being demeaning. I mean, Nicarakian ethics is, I mean, it's not self-help. I mean, it's not self-help. I mean, but so as then I wasn't using self-help. help as like an insult. It's sort of like, it's like, it's a different kind of approach because Hitchens, people would have come up to him all the time and told him that he's just the most eloquent person, like, they're so impressed that like their books really help them pretty.

But like, I don't think he's got that same level of people seriously coming up in tears and saying, you've saved me, you know? So, he doesn't, is obviously doing something for people in a way that Christopher Hitchens was not quite in the same way. But then there are probably a lot of people who feel like they were liberate. from their religion by by listening to someone like Christopher Hitchens the problem is that a lot of what Hitchens had to say about religion in my view is just it's just wrong unfortunately eloquently put but but wrongly put Peterson is of course the same like the difference between

them is that Hitchens is very precise but but I think quite shallow philosophically Peterson is very deep philosophically but incredibly almost comically imprecise I find yeah I find that, again, I kind of, I disagree with quite a lot of Peterson's philosophical argument, but nonetheless, it is recognizably a philosophical argument. Yeah. I think, but then I'm, I'm trying to think, like, if there were an issue, like, if something sort of came up, like, who would I rather look to as to like, oh, I wonder what they think about this? Like, who would I, who would, I be more interested in hearing what they have to say? I think I would choose Hitchens in that circumstance, just because he's been

dead for so long that I'd be interested to think, what do you think about anything? But if he was still alive. Would I want to know what he thinks about a moral debate? Actually, yeah, but I think I'd be more interested in the way that he put it. I'd be more interested in the arguments that he constructed. You know, Peterson, I'm just kind of not that interested at all, though, in hearing what he has to say. I've never sort of looked at a new story or something going, like, I'm going to go see what Peterson thinks about this. You know, Peterson uploaded a video the other day called, like, a message to Elon Musk, sort of very dramatically, like, this is my, and I'm not even going to watch it. I kind of don't care, you know? I feel like I...

Again, I feel like, I feel like you know who's working much better than I do. Because I feel like he's so embedded into the culture war that I kind of feel like I kind of know the kind of things he's going to say anymore. I can predict the message he's going to. The thing that made him so great is that like, you're never quite sure what he was going to say. Like, he's going to exposit Genesis for you. And you're like, wow, okay. Like, I know Peterson's really deep. I wonder what he thinks about the book of Genesis and why it's worth doing electrons.

So people watched. And they, and they really, they've really paid attention and thought it was cool. He's been around long enough now that people kind of know what they're getting themselves in for. you know, and they find these kinds of lectures, the Exodus thing, the Gospels more recently, to be a bit too, like, all over the place. And so I'm more interested in listening to Christopher Hitchens, but I think that he's more sort of confidently wrong about things. Hmm.

I don't like Peterson's method. I don't like his method of conversational sort of style. I really appreciate that he recognizes that it's never quite a straightforward. Oh, yeah, the other, I suppose the other thing that I tend to like about. to like about Peterson is, you know, as much as it's mocks, I do, I do think that it's worth clarifying word meaning sometimes. Like when he says, what do you mean by believe? I actually think that's a pretty, a pretty, um, it's important. A pretty important question. I think that, you know, that's that famous clip which says, what do you mean by the? And I think, oh, I don't know.

I don't know if that's like, well, I think that was, you know, put to arrest by Russell. There's the famous clip of, of him saying, like, so you ask, do you believe in God? What do you mean, do? What do you mean, what do you mean, what do you mean, what do you mean believe? And what do you mean God? Yeah. And I think that believe and God, actually very, very pertinent definitional questions. Do, I think, and that's just introducing the question structure. And you seems to be a straightforward direct reference term.

So I like, that's just. But then he'll say, no, no, no, because like, what is you? Are you the person that you think you are or are you the person that you act out? Like, which one are you referring to when you're talking about your beliefs? Because, you know, it's not that simple, man. And there is a sense in which, yeah, actually, that's true. but it's got this like almost nervous energy about it sort of like you know like conspiracy theorist pins on the chalkboard sort of like yeah but then over here ah but but then but then but then what about this but then but then if that it's sort of it's too much I'm hesitant Shedemphax I also have that kind of jittery nervousness about it doesn't feel quite so sort of like like like nervous almost like I don't know it's it's kind of hard to make heads or tails of it a lot of the time like I think one review of we who wrestle with God described it as, it said, this is conspiracy theory as biblical scholarship or something

like that. Hmm. There's this feeling that it's just sort of, it's too much, you know? But then who's more of a philosopher? This is where I'm not really sure as a metric. As in, I, I, I, I, I, I'd, I'd vibe with more. For me, I vibe with Hitchens more. Like, I, I would, I would dream, as many people did, you know, I would dream of sitting

down for, yeah, everyone's got of the image of sort of sitting down with a, with him for a whiskey and a smoke, but I think that if you cultivated that, it would actually be I think I would definitely, I'd like, I'd love to talk to Christopher Hitchens. Like, just meet him. Like, he's so eloquent. I think people try to construct the imaginary scenario that they want. So they would, they would like, oh, we're going to get a whiskey because Oh yeah. And then Chris Hitchens would say, God, Joe, you know so much. And it's just, it's so lovely to meet you. Exactly. Yeah. Thank you, Christopher Hitchens. Yeah. That's probably not how it would go. No, exactly. He'd probably just tear me to shreds about something.

He'd probably, you know, storm out like his, if he's anything like his brother. I mean, he has a similar kind of temperament to his brother in many ways. I can sort of see the rage of Christopher Hitchens in his more sort of angry moments in what I saw in person in Peter Hitchens and I'm like gosh that maybe Christopher would do that to me too and that would be that would be very disheartening but like I feel like people you know it's too cultivated you're sat there

you've got your whiskey you're at the bar and it's like cool let's let's do the let's do the cool let's have a drink kind of thing and it's it's not it's not fun anymore because you've cultivated so I would just want to like meet him at the bus stop yeah I just have a chat with him I think in terms of in terms of philosophical output I would put Peterson above Hitchens, just because I think that it is recognizedly philosophical.

You know, I think so too. I like the pragmatist vein in his thought, even if I sort of disagree with aspects of biblical interpretation and stuff like that. You know, I think that's a... For what it's worth, I would rather hang out with Christopher Hitchens. I'd rather like pick his brain and go for a drink with him. I mean, Chris Hitchens seems like it could be really good company, doesn't it? Amazing company.

He's not a philosopher. Yeah. Jordan Peterson might not be either, but as you say, he's more recognisably philosophical. So I think we put Peterson in there. If you agree. Yeah, I do. I do for this. So Peterson wins out over Hitchens, at least in that regard.

Peterson. Okay. We're getting there in terms of our first round. I thought this might be a long one. Also, the first round will be significantly longer than the other rounds. You've got this kind of decreasing number around. That's also true. But, you know, famous last words, we'll see.

Okay, let's look at Friedrich Nietzsche versus Soren Kierkegaard. Who are these two fine gentlemen? Oh, yeah. I mean, where to start? The Friedrich Nietzsche, well, you know, I mean, people have heard of Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the most iconic philosophers in history and certainly one of the most influential philosophers of the 19th century. I don't know how to how to summarise his work.

The thing about Nietzsche is that he seemed to write almost all of his books assuming that you've read every one of the books that comes before it. And this is, he even states this explicitly in Eke Homo, which is his kind of philosophical autobiography, where he effectively sort of, he's constantly making reference back to his other works and he's basically saying, you know, you ought to read me as a whole. Yes.

And I do, I do really advocate for that way of reading Nietzsche because he's quite often, he's very creative with the way he plays with ideas. So quite often in one paragraph he'll put forward an idea and it turns out he's just putting it forward to criticise it.

And this can make him make reading him quite a bewildering experience. It's almost like you, in order to fully appreciate him, I think taking a broad view is probably best. You know, actually, you know, to revisit Peter and actually think that spending 40 minutes analyzing one section of Nietzsche,

while it can be very interesting, if you're, you know, comparing the way he uses particular German words in different sections and stuff could be very interesting. Actually, I think that to get a kind of grasp of his general thought, I think that a broad of view is significantly more helpful for some nature. In terms of main ideas, obviously the death of God. God is dead and we have killed him. How should we comfort ourselves, the murder of all murderers? Yes. Or the, yeah, he, this is in reference partly to the sociological event, you know, sort of the decline, what he sees as the decline of religion.

or the decline of a defensible philosophical basis for religion, in his opinion, in the 19th century, as we get certain discoveries that kind of knock mankind off its pedestal and so doubt on the idea of God. And his way, you know, he thought that this could go a number of different ways. He thought that humanity could collapse into nihilism. But he also thought that he also thought the Christianity lay the foundations for nihilism in attempting to lessen man's baser instinct. Yes. So he thought that a, there are points in his notes where it always comes across like he

thinks that somebody with the correctly organized will just wouldn't be able to make sense of nihilism as a concept that just be like, like, what do you mean? Like, what do you mean that you don't see any? What do you mean that you don't have a motivation to live? Like just, you know, we've got, we've got our wills. Our wills are strong and organized. You know, it's a, it's a very interesting way of approaching existential philosophy. And, you know, he has this figure of the ubermensch that will sort of eventually evolve in later works into this idea of the new philosophers or the philosophers of the future who legislate values.

You know, in this in this world without God, they step up and they create new values. And this is partly a rational project, but it's also partly an emotional one. It's partly an artistic one. He has this notion that we should make our lives art. And, again, another vein of his thought is this aesthetic line that runs through all the way from the birth of tragedy where he, He considers, well, very, very broadly, ways of dealing with suffering and unbearable truth using art right the way through to his later works and way he talks about the process of making yourself a work of art.

And again, it's sort of, again, it's very hard philosopher to summarize because any one of those in isolation can very quickly lead to misinterpretations. And, you know, Nietzsche is, it's a little bit like texting a crush, Nietzsche sometimes. You can be led, you know, everything's so, so emotionally high stakes, because such a big name philosopher, and then you're led down a certain path, and it turns out he might not think that, and you're led to somewhere else, and you're trying to second guess what he's thinking, and it's, but I think for me, the part of Nietzsche's works that I like the most is actually his free spirit works, which is his middle period works, from human or through human, through daybreak,

and then the gay science, and then emerging in Thus Spake Zarathustra. The last, I think the first edition of the gay science ends with in Kipit tragedy with the tragedy in question being thus spake Zarathustra and eventually he adds on

he later like publishes another bit of the gay science and ends up not being the last line in the final thing in Kippet oh begin the tragedy begins I don't speak Latin but like the I think that's what it means

and he and in these free spirit works in these free spirit works he begins with enlightenment principles. So he says, I'm only going to value truth. And then he uses this principle to dispense with a whole host of things. So he thinks that if you value truth over all else, you'll dispense with morality and God and the concept of beauty he even gets rid of at some point. You know, this is inhuman or too human. And then he eventually becomes, he eventually turns around to say,

actually, we can undermine the value of truth as well. If you just pursue truth, you get rid of all values and you get rid of the value of truth. And this clears the way for him to later say in his less rationalistic works to say no actually you can create values because there is no other legislator there are no values out there in the world I think something says in beyond good and evil

but at the same time since we've undermined this almost like you know who almost paints truth as a kind of tyranny at points we are now free to be a kind of philosopher come artist who creates values And it's incredibly unique You know

There are people that That claim that Nietzsche plagiarized Thinker like Max Sterner But there is They are quite different You know, I've read both of them And they come to very different They end at very different points

Yes And what about Nietzsche being a Nazi? I don't think he is I think that Look I mean I often, when I'm talking about Nietzsche I often use two characters Which is Monster Nietzsche

and fluffy bunny Nietzsche. And a lot of the time it's very tempting to go from one camp to the other. So you say, okay, Nietzsche was like an outright fascist. And then you read passages in Eke Homo where he says, you know, he's very, very derisive of nationalism and particularly German nationalism. And, you know, throughout his works, he's quite critical of nationalistic tendencies. You know, he thinks that it's kind of a kind of herd instinct. And then, you know, you have, there's this temptation to leap to the other side and say,

Oh, well, actually, Nietzsche was basic, you know, a lot of 20th century interpreters got accused, I think with varying degrees of plausibility of painting Nietzsche as if he's some kind of liberal humanist. And I don't think that's plausible either. You know, the passages glorifying Napoleon specifically for his ability to not care about sacrificing thousands and thousands of troops in pursuit of personal glory. That's not something that jives very well with liberal humanism. And again, then, you know, you have an interpretation that leers back. to Monster Nietzsche and goes, well, he just cared about external power. And then you think, well, no, actually, he's got this idea of, you know, Gerser, he says, is the closest thing that comes to the Ubermensch. And that's a more artistic project, something about self-overcoming. And then people very quickly go back to Fluffy Bunny Nietzsche and say, oh, well, he's just a personal existentialist. So, well, I don't know that that's quite true either. So I think that when we are approaching Nietzsche, I think we've, I think it's helpful to recognize he's interested in radically different questions to us. And also that he, that he doesn't fit neatly into any kind of modern philosophical framework. For a start, he's very anti-systematic for

quite a lot of it. His work is a mixture of broad philosophical project and random observations that tend to be kind of cool. And sometimes, you know, a less cool. You know, they did some, he as again, he is a difficult thinker to put in a single sentence and oftentimes is caricatured either one way or the other. But I think that this middle path where you recognize that he values you know, fundamentally different things to most people today. You know, he's an aristocratic elitist, I think, was a term that he thought best described him. I might not have got that entirely right. But, you know, this idea of a philosophy that was for a few people.

And I don't think, I don't think that it's that controversial to say that Nietzsche was an elitist. Yeah. Didn't you write a series of chapters, why I am so smart? Yeah, I think that's probably like tongue-in-cheek a little bit. That's echo homo. Yeah. I mean, why I write such good books. And I think why I am destiny is the last one.

I might be getting that wrong. But, you know, I'm not read Eko Homo. It's really, I think that Eke Homo is fantastic for picking up on some of the common misinterpretations of Nietzsche. Because he so often dispels them in Eke Homo. You know, again, it's where he most explicitly condemns things like nationalism. Sure. But again, so that would be, God, you know, Nietzsche in a nutshell, I suppose. I don't know how long I've been talking.

Nietzsche in a nutshell. nutshell. But again, I mean, the main thing that I tend to say regarding Nietzsche interpretation is to have these two characters in your head, fluffy bunny Nietzsche and monster Nietzsche. And anytime you find yourself veering too close to one of them, it's worth noting, oh, I don't know, have I gone too far? Have I, have I, have I, have I, um, yeah, have I gone too far in one direction or the other, how much am I just fitting Nietzsche into a modern role when he's a 19th century philosopher asking 19th century questions and approaching it in a way that is actually pretty different to most other 19th century philosophers. Okay, so that's Nietzsche, to the best of my abilities. Sheld that for a moment. Who is Kirkegaard? And am I saying that correctly? Yeah, Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard, people... I don't know, I feel like if I attempt it, I'm going to end up being more offensive than if I don't.

I'm going to end up being more offensive than if I don't. I'm called Kirk for sure. Kirk, yeah, good old Kirk. So, Kierkegaard is an extremely prolific Danish philosopher who, yeah, just has his to write under pseudonyms, which again can make it sometimes unclear exactly what he thinks. But to take just one of his ideas, I think, is perhaps his most influential. He has this idea of the three stages of life, and this comes across in two works, one of which, if I remember correctly, he's just called the stages of life.

The other one is either or, which is to do with either or contrasts to two ways of living called the aesthetic and the ethical. And the aesthetic way of living is more complicated than hedonism, but for the same of a kind of brief discussion, hedonism is a pretty good proxy for it. It is characterized by a lack of ability to commit to things in the long term. It's sort of, yeah, seeking pleasure in the short term or just seeking only short term goals with no overarching organizing principle around which you conduct your life. So Kierkegaard tends to paint people in the aesthetic stage as selfish, not necessarily entirely selfish, but just having a propensity to

towards being more selfish, because they aren't yet governed by any kind of higher law, which is the characteristic of the ethical. And the ethical for Kierkegaard is a way of life much more to do with duties to others. Embedded in an ethical framework, Kant often thrown around as an illustrative example of this. You know, he's got a very, very well-worked-out ethical framework that is adhered to pretty strictly. And this for Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard characterises the ethical stage. And the pinnacle of his ethical stage is what's called the Knight of Infinite Resignation, which, again, is a very complex figure.

But essentially this is someone, this is very, very broadly, this is someone who is adept at sacrificing their own individual will to a higher principle. But, crucially, doesn't have faith. Kierkegaard is an incredibly religious thinker. And his final stage is what he calls the religious. stage. And the religious stage, different interpreters place different emphasis on different aspects of this. Some lean more towards characterising it simply by faith. So the figure that Kierkegaard uses to illustrate this is Abraham, and specifically Abraham deciding to sacrifice his son,

Isaac, at the behest of God. And Kierkegaard characterizes the level of faith that Abraham has as simultaneously believing that he was about to sacrifice his son Isaac to God and that he would be walking back down that mountain with Isaac but a moment later. This kind of ability to hold paradoxes and contradictions in your head in service to some basically unconditional faith in something. This is unsurprisingly an attitude that rubs a lot of modern thinkers up the wrong way. Camus criticises it quite heavily for this idea that you've just kind of given up reason and Kickagard would say yes I absolutely have

I've given up rationality at this point because I believe that this is the fulfilling and fruitful way to live among various other things so that the pinnacle of the religious life or the religious stage is the knight of faith and that rather than the knight of infinite resignation who's willing to give everything up for a set of ethical principles, again, very broadly.

It's obviously more complicated than that. The knight of faith is someone who has such faith and, you know, specifically Kiergaard, faith in the Christian God, that they effectively are untroubled by existential angst. And Kierkegaard doesn't necessarily, it's more complicated than Kierkard saying, you know, just believe in God, bro. He thinks that this is an incredibly difficult personal project for a believer to work out. there are also just separate from that there are huge other theses he has in his in his work so he gives an analysis of despair which has a strong religious dimension to it but also is jam-packed of observations that are very very relevant for secular life so he characterises despairs of possibility where either you have too few possibilities and you're kind of boxed in by existence or you have too many. possibilities and you're like Sylvia Plath underneath the fig tree. And you're going,

oh, you know, Sylvia Plath has this image where she sees all the lives she could live as figs on a fig tree. And she's so tormented over picking one. And she has this kind of vision that she's just agonizing over which one to pick and eventually they all fall to the floor and they rot away. And that summarizes Kierkegaard's despair of possibility, or one of them quite nicely. And again, he thinks this despair can be alleviated with a particular personal relationship to God. So he's very critical of institutional religion, for example. He thinks that his project, his religious project is very much a personal and subjective matter. Not subjective in the sense of not, he thinks that God exists, but he thinks that the particular religious experience

is something that can only be accomplished by sort of embracing your own subjectivity. And it's something that rubs a lot of people up the wrong way today, and it's something that I struggle with. Obviously, I don't, I don't quite agree with the idea that simple, or that alleviating your angst is a normatively defensible reason to necessarily believe in God. But I think that Kierkegaard's work is often quite psychologically insightful. I certainly learn more about myself reading Kierkegaard quite a lot in a similar way that you do with with Nietzsche. Yeah, I think you probably resonate more with someone like Kierkegaard than I do. It's, I guess, I think we have slightly different interests in philosophy.

You seem more into the existentialist type stuff. I quite like the existentialist. Kierkegaard is seen by many as like the founder of, at least Christian existentialism. Yes. I mean, he's a historic figure within the existentialist philosophical movement. And he has this, his concept of anxiety has filtered through into lots of non-religious existentialism as well. This, this torment, you know, his definition of anxiety as opposed to other types of distress is that anxiety he characterizes as based on decisions you're going to make. So the anxiety you feel standing on a ledge, not because you're going to be pushed off, he would call that fear, but because you might throw yourself off.

He call that anxiety. I think that's, I think there's a lot in that. I think that if you push that concept through, even separate to what he actually writes in it, I think that's a fruitful vein for reflection. But yes, I mean, ultimately, you know, I don't find the same kind of motivation for faith that Kierkegaard does in his work. Kikard's very interesting to read in conjunction with a Russian thinker called Lev Shestov, who, again, has this very, he talks about the tyranny of reason, which is just a fun concept, if nothing else. and he thinks that

existential distress and a variety of other things are helped out with believing in the Christian God or sorry, believing in a god actually, yeah, the biblical God I think he chooses a figure because through God all things are possible

and he has a book called Athens and Jerusalem where he says, you know, what does Athens i.e. Socratic and analytic philosophy have to do with Jerusalem or matters of faith and he's very, very interesting to read in conjunction with Kierkegaard, because while Shestov read Kierkegaard later in his life, he came up with the tenets of his philosophy quite independently from Kierkegaard. And yet they converge on some broadly similar themes. But, I mean, in terms of who I think would win out.

Yeah, so Kierkegaard versus Nietzsche, do their thoughts, like, intersect in meaningful ways? Do they rub up against each other, or are they just kind of pulled out of different bags? I think that they tackle similar problems. They're both interested in existential despair. Sure. and problems of meaning and problems of how to live. I think that Nietzsche would vehemently disagree with Kickgard on a whole host of things, right?

I don't think that Nietzsche really references Kickgard very much in his work, or maybe I'm just misremembering, but it's certainly not a huge theme in his writings. Instinctively, I want to say that Nietzsche is like the more obvious choice here. Yeah, I would say, they're both very influential. I would say that Nietzsche is. You know, like, again, general vibe.

I might actually vibe more with Kirkegaard these days, but, like, Nietzsche just comes up more. People are more attached to Nietzsche. They reference him more, you know? Like, I just, like, the last time Kirkagard came up in conversation, even in my line of work, I'm not sure it's like. It's probably last time we got coffee. Yeah, yeah, it's probably you. So I'm always halving on about Kirchegger. I know it's come up once in a debate that I did years ago with Trent Horn, I think he got to mention.

I can't think of another time that he's even. come up. I'm surprised because I'm surprised that Trent Horn would have referenced Kierkegaard. Just because I think I might have brought him up and not even like it might have been like a side point anyway I'm not entirely sure but anyway Nietzsche just comes up more I think

I don't know I don't know what you think about the actual philosophical views themselves but like as thinkers in terms of their significance and how iconic they are Nietzsche just wins every year in terms of in terms of influence I think Nietzsche would probably went out against against Kierkegaard especially

I mean especially in terms of modern interest I mean I think that I think that Kierkegaard it's difficult it's weird to call Kikkergaard underrated because of course you're such an iconic philosopher but in terms of modern interest I think Kikagard I think there's room in

there's room in modern culture for a Kikararar revival Yes I think so too But because I think again Even if you're not religious Some of his insights But is that because Kierkega's actually got more to say than people give him credit for

Which means that maybe he might win out against Nietzsche in terms of who's actually a better thinker I would say, I mean, it's hard. I don't know if I'd be able to arbitrate on who's a better thinker. I think in terms of influence and modern interest, I would put. I would say Nietzsche wins out in our kind of vibe-based contest. If we can't arbitrate in any other way, then that will have to be the deciding fact. I think that, but I do think that that Kierkegaard is underappreciated,

especially in the amount of topics that he writes about. Yeah. You know, he writes about, he writes about, like, tabloid newspapers and stuff like that and gives a philosophical critique of the way that we approach media. that is actually probably more person to the internet age. There's a fantastic paper that was written in the 1990s, which is pretty prescient by Hubert Dreyfus called Kierkegaard and the Internet or something like that.

That's not the exact title, but I can't remember the exact title. That's about applying some of Kierkegaard's insights in his book, The Present Age, or, you know, his essay of present age is part of quite a word. So Kierkegaard needs more attention. I would say Kierkegaard could do with more attention. But in terms of our... Yeah, in terms of our... Silly little...

I think that I think that Nietzsche would probably going to win out, right? I mean, I kind of thought that as soon as I saw them put together, but I'm not sure who else we could have maybe pitted them up against. I don't know who Kirkagard would, like, Kirkagard's beating a lot of the sort of like Dawkins, Hitchens, probably Peterson. He's probably going to beat Peterson. So Peterson, Kirriot, I imagine, would find some common ground. Sure, but then who would come out on top?

Probably Kirkagard. I mean, Schopenhauer, that would be a pretty interesting matchup. But Nietzsche seemed like the right person to put him up against. And again, it's the shame of the format, but I think he's... Yes, two very interesting things. We're going to leave them in the dirt, unfortunately. Yeah, part two behind on... For subsection supporters, we'll do the runners-up.

We'll take all the people lost and pit them up against each other. And then we really would be here forever. Okay, Nietzsche's going on top in this bat. Let me make sure I spell this right. Yep. There's definitely no Pia Nietzsche. I know that much. Okay.

We have two bouts left on our, what do you call it? Qualifier. What are they doing on X Factor? I guess this would be like the auditions and then right in the middle of... And then it's Judges Houses. Ah, of course, yeah. And then it's the live show slash final. Of course, what did they do on the X Factor?

Because that show doesn't exist anymore. Does it not? No, they got rid of it a few years ago. And the fact that you haven't noticed is exactly why they got rid of it. Arthur Schopenhauer. Fyodor Dostoevsky Boy, oh boy, where to begin Two heavyways

Schopenhauer is famous in two regards Schopenhauer has the world as will and representation his great philosophical work in many ways an expansion of and critique of Emanuel Kant It's if Kant read the Upanishads

and sort of got really into them Yeah, and yeah, exactly and that's great you know, good for him but also Arthur Schopenhauer is maybe even better known as a polemicist. He writes essays. Yes. Yeah. He wrote on the sufferings of the world, it's one of the most influential sort of, yeah, that's almost, I almost think of, pessimistic

philosophy tracks in the world. He's, he's probably the most influential pessimist. Yeah, I almost think of on the sufferings of the world as like the psychological counterpart to the pessimistic aspects of the world as will and representation. Right. Because the world is, the world as will and representation is it sort of demonstrates or argues for a metaphysical thesis whereby the world is divided into two parts. Well, really three parts, but two parts for the purpose of discussion, which is you have the world as will, which is our own kind of subjective, willing experience, which Kickagard then says everything has to a greater or lesser degree. So there are, there are, you know, rational wills, but there are also things, or there are kind of human wills, but there are also

things like plant wills, its will to grow. And then at an even more basic level, he defines, you know, the forces as kinds of will. He's got this like will-based metaphysics. And then representation is how that is filtered through our way of experiencing the world in a very Kantian manner. And he thinks that the way that are, the way that the world is set up is basically primed for suffering in effect because we carve up and individuate this underlying primal one will and we put wills in contest with one another. And much of his way of dealing with suffering is about restraining the will or in some way losing your own individuated will. So he has, I think broadly three strategies. So he has the aesthetic mode, which is sort of where you

lose yourself in art to a greater or lesser extent. And he has a really interesting theory of art, where he talks about how a lot of the, a lot of the kind of representational styles of art are hearkening towards a kind of platonic ideal of stuff in the world. But then he says music is a way of communing is probably not the right word, but an artwork framed directly around the will, you know, kind of our instincts. And he basically says, you know, a good way to think about this is, well, what do you think, what does music represent? If I was to play you a chord, what does that represent?

I remember this is before sort of the rise of lots of non-representational forms of visual art and stuff like that. So that's kind of, that's, you know, a kind of very, very brief overview of parts of his metaphysics. And then on the sufferings of the world is probably a much more, is a much more down-to-earth of psychological thesis. This is an essay, it's just sort of a, yeah, I don't know, what is it, like 20 pages long maybe? Yeah, yeah, yeah, probably less than that. It's um and in there he talks about the will in the context of the human mind. Yes. And there are a number of things she talks about. He talks about, I think that there's this and then some on the vanity of life or something like that. He's kind of, he talks about how suffering is kind of what it's all about. I think the opening of on the sufferings of the world is something like, you know, if if, you know, the purpose and ultimate end of, of existence is not suffering, then the universe has completely failed of its end or something like that.

He thinks that our wills, you know, our personal wills, to a certain extent, although he thinks that the kind of personal aspect of the will is a bit of an illusion. But they're constantly striving for things in this kind of base, instinctive, irrational way. Can you reach that? See the pink book. Oh, do you have it? See the pink one just there that's in the middle. Yeah, that one.

Yeah, grab it here. Pass it here. I'll find the section. It's very interesting. And he has this, so he thinks that we're kind of doomed to frustration in that sense, unless we embrace his ascetic path not to be confused with his aesthetic path which is which you know

he talks about restraining your will and he says that various people have achieved this like Christ or the Buddha you know these people that have managed to detach from their will to life as he cuts it God it is depressing it is really depressing and I mean the and these people have managed to detach from this sense of frustration yeah here's the here's the opening if the immediate and direct purpose of life is not suffering

then our existence is the most ill-adapted to its purpose in the world. I don't like this translation. I prefer it's sort of like, you know, it's put better elsewhere. But, okay, he says, for it is absurd to suppose that the endless affliction of which the world is everywhere full and which arises out of the need and distress pertaining essentially to life should be purposeless and purely accidental. accidental. Each individual misfortune, to be sure, seems an exceptional occurrence, but misfortune in general is the rule. Yes. And I think that's a powerful opening. Yeah. I think that, you know, and in there he talks about the human repensity to frustration,

because our wills will just keep desiring things. You know, if you achieve something, your will quiet down for a while, and it will trick you into thinking that you're now satisfied, then he'll find something else. And he also talks about the transparency of happiness, which is where it's very easy to miss when you're happy, because happiness is often. often manifested as an unfrustrated will, a sort of lack of friction between us and the world. Whereas misery or suffering manifests much more actively as active frustration. Yeah, and happiness is often the cessation of suffering. Exactly, yeah.

And vice versa, like, you know, the comfort of eating and sleeping and resting. They're all actually just cessation of suffering. There's also in, I guess, like, part four or chapter four of this essay, not the least of the torments. which plague our existence, is the constant pressure of time, which never lets us so much as draw breath, but pursues us all like a taskmaster with a whip. It ceases to persecute only him it has delivered over to boredom. And it's sort of this relentless, but quite like relatable outpouring of pessimism about the nature of the world. And yeah, I mean, He's got all kinds of essays.

I think I've read most of the ones he's written. One of my favorites is the art of being right, sometimes translises the art of controversy, where he just outlines very, it's kind of bitingly satirical. There's also noise or noise where he just complains about how noisy everything is and how, like, this is something we've bonded over in the past because I, it gives me, I get quite overwhelmed by lots and lots of auditory stuff going on, kind of makes me feel a bit stressed. Yeah, you're the same. You're getting overwhelmed right now with those headphones on with all of this shop and how pessimism.

Like, I wrote an essay recently about how people play music everywhere in bars and pubs. My least favorite thing about the modern world is the fact that you can walk into an Italian restaurant, beautifully decorated, exposed brick wall, tasteful Italian photography. And for some reason, they're playing fucking Duolipa or something. Like, I like Duolipa. I do. But not there. It's like every single place you go into, it's, it looks like a restaurant. front, but it sounds like a nightclub. And it's actually impossible to find, even like a pub. You go into a pub in central London, decked out in Victorian classical decor, beautiful, like ornate, amazing. And they're playing pop music, which just completely ruins the vibe. The amount of time and effort that went into designing every single inch of the furniture, the color scheme, you know, the layout, the which wood are we going to use in the bar? And probably the most important

vibe setter of the entire experience. Shoppingauer says it appeals directly to the will and the instinct. Yes, it's the music. That's the most influential thing. And how much thought has been put into that? Like, basically zero. As a fun little aside, the last time that I was with Alex, Alex just took me around to demonstrate this fact, took me around different pubs and restaurants

and just open the door, said, look what music they're playing. This is, it's, yeah. I make a point of it now, I boycott. If I walk into a restaurant, it's playing music. Because honestly, like half the time I'm going into a cafe or a pub or something, I'm going in because I want to get some work done, I do some reading or something. Look, fair enough. It obviously works for them. The problem is when a city gets busy enough, like in central London, you kind of don't need to tailor yourself to the clientele because every single pub is rammed. Everyone's just looking for somewhere to drink. So you can kind of get away with doing whatever you want. If there was more competition in that regard, I think people would almost always favour.

That's why Weather Spoons is so great. Oh, yeah. I love working. Weather Spoons. Doesn't play music. music and that might have something to do with um tim what's his chops the weatherspoons guy you know the i don't know he knows name alex pull it up jamie who's the CEO of weather spoons that guy he apparently i think was influenced by george orwell's essay the moon underwater which is orwell's depiction of the perfect fictional pub and one of the things about that that uh that fictional pub Who is it? I think it's Tim.

Tim Martin. And one of the things about... Lee's singer of Coldplay. Chris. Ah. Chris. Well, whoever the guy is, you know, fine. Maybe Chris, did Chris Martin found Weatherspins?

Good for him. He's got a lot on his plate. I think he reads this essay and Orwell talks about how one of the things about this ideal pub is there's no music. There's no jukebox. That's why there's quite often you find a weather spoon pub called the moon underwater. it's a George Orwell reference and they don't play music for that reason there are some Weathersons that sort of double as nightclubs

and have dance floors, they have music but otherwise you might not have noticed it before but if you ever thought why is it that Weatherspoons are always so like I was assumed it was a cost thing They're always such a good time yet so people say like because it's so inexpensive that that is true but even just the vibe There's something about being in a Weatherspoons

and you're like I just remember like I have great conversations to my friends, we're all laughing, we're talking Why is that? Might have something to do with the fact that there's no bloody Jewelieper maybe. I don't know. I'm not an expert. You're actually quite fond of Julie that you just hate her in this context. It's just like, why would you, it's like going to a nightclub and then playing like, you know, like smooth jazz. Some people might be into that.

But if they signed up to go for like a messy night out and they were playing classical music, you'd feel conned. And like if I book a restaurant and I sit down and like I've, you know, I'm like we went for a meal in an Italian place, right? Really nice Italian restaurant. And then they just started playing this godawful music. It was very beat heavy. And it sounds like, it sounds like we're just being like a bit ponzi or whatever, but it's just such an easy fix. Like just don't play like like thumping EDM. The thing about, you know, this actually illustrates Schopenhauer's point quite well.

You know, if we're going to analogize this to happiness, very easy to notice when the music is clashing with the setting that you're in. Yes. Whereas if they're in harmony, you don't notice. Exactly. It's just non-disruption. That's a lot of the time that Shopping has that we. I think that we, that what happiness is like, it manifests as non-destructive. It's the suffering, which is the proactive thing and happiness, which is the exception.

Yes, that's that Schopenhauer's perspective. And towards the end of that essay, I think, if I remember correctly, he talks about greeting one another as fellow sufferer and things like that. Right. Yeah. Because his, you know, we've talked about the two of the ways that he says that we should deal with the sufferings of the world, which is aesthetic appreciation and ascetic. life, an aesthetic lifestyle, but he also talks about compassion, the importance of an ethics

based on compassion. Not necessarily for the he doesn't have a systematic ethics in the vein of Kant or a utilitarian philosopher. Yeah. He is based on this idea that at a metaphysical level all is one raging will and so it actually under his metaphysics makes sense

to be compassionate since really he thinks that the distinction between people and people and objects are illusory. Yes. He's also got a pretty influential essay on suicide, which is again quite like empathetic. Hume has an essay on suicide. He does as well. Yeah, yeah. Hume's essay is much more, I guess, philosophical and it's about your right. And yeah, and sort of this whole thing about like, you know, extend if it's like about being God's will and how like, you know, if it's wrong to cut a life short because God should determine when it ends, then is it wrong to do medicine

because you're like extending the life from when God decided it should end. Like, what's the difference? Schopenhauer kind of builds on it and tries to sort of shift the dial from this being something immoral to something we should have empathy for. These days, it's totally normal if somebody, like, commits suicide to feel bad, to feel sorry for them. It was a time when it was normal to think that they'd done something horribly immoral, you know, where like in some societies, you know, their courts would be dragged through the street and they would be able to be buried within the confines of a church.

Yeah, no proper burial, inheritance. not given to the family because suicide was this evil. And nowadays we see it quite empathetically, reading Schopenhauer on suicide, you realize that he's writing for an audience that need to be convinced to have empathy for suicide victims. And that's quite sort of jarring to remember that that's who he was writing for. He does also have an essay on women, which...

Oh, infamous essay on women. Yeah. I mean, Schopenhauer was notoriously unsuccessful with women, with women, and sort of romance in general. And the resentment really does bleed through. It is like, yeah, it is like, if we talked about Descartes as the founder of modern philosophy, Kirkagard as the founder of Christian existentialism, I think Schopenhauer might be the sort of foundational in-cell. I mean, Nietzsche has quite similar, well, Nietzsche also heavily influenced by Schopenhauer,

though I don't know whether this is where it comes from. Nietzsche also romantically unsuccessful and also not a looker. Well, I mean, I don't know. The massage is pretty cool. But the, you would know about cool mustache. I would. I would never think not too about that. But Nietzsche also has some pretty, pretty unsavory things to write about it.

Shop and Howe was definitely not a looker. God bless him. No. But apparently also a bit of a womanizer at the same time as not being very romantically successful. Really? Yeah. See, I heard that because I, I'd heard that he like got, you know, he was really unsuccessful with women. And then somebody told me that he was actually a womanizer.

And I think we placed a bet on it and I lost. Oh, right. So I think Chopinhaus has like a complicated relationship with women. But the, but yeah, it's not. I mean, one only needs to, I'm quoting here, by the way, for reference. Oh, this is so going to get clits out of context. One needs only to see the way she is built to realize that woman is not intended for great mental or physical labor. She expiates the guilt of life not through activity, but through suffering, through the pains of childbirth, caring for the child, and subjection to the man to whom she should be a patient and cheering companion.

Great suffering, joy, exertion is not for her. life should flow by more quietly, trivially, gently than the man's without being essentially happier or unhappier. It is kind of an insane read. In fact, I think that I've got a version, I've got a collection of Schopenhauer's essays where in the

introduction, the editor says, by the way, the essay on women isn't a joke. He's not being sarcastic. He did actually think this. And also, to be fair, because a lot of his essays are jokes. So it does make sense to clarify from context. For instance, you know, it's very easy to read the art of being right and think that, oh yeah,

He just wants you to kind of throw out loads of fallacious reasoning when you're having a debate. But actually, you know, he's kind of satirizing. So I think for a lot of people, that's going to knock Schopenhauer down a peg or two in their estimation. But, okay, we've sort of given a lot of time to summarizing and expiating the guilts of Arthur Schopenhauer. We're pitting him against Fjorda Dostoevsky. Yes. Quite a formidable opponent. Who is Dostoevsky?

again I don't know where to start Dostoevsky is a Russian writer and I would say philosopher Do you think he would? It's difficult to say I don't know Oh they would now of course

Well yeah it doesn't It's been notorious to quiet He was nearly killed By the Russian state He was He had his head on the gallows As in like he was literally He had his head like on the plate basically

I don't know exactly where he was But I know that the rider then came through with the pardoned from the Zah, well, not pardoned. Yeah, at the very last minute, it was commuted. The Tsar commuted, at the very last minute, he was literally about to have his head chopped off. And one of my favorite stories, I don't know how apocryphal of this is, but apparently he turns to the atheist Speshnev, who's next to him and says, soon we will be with God. And Spechnev says, dust and ashes, as if to say, yes, yes, soon will be with God. Oh, no, I think he says, like, soon will be with Jesus. So Dostoevsky says to him, soon will be with Christ, soon will be with Jesus.

And Speschenev essentially says, yeah, we'll be with Christ, like, six feet in the ground, rotting away. Oh, I don't know, he's, in a way, that's quite, it's quite a horrible thing for an atheist to say to a person. Like, I hope you, I hope you, I hope you'll be with Christ soon. Like, I hope you'll just be, like, dead in the ground. The, you know, he's arrested for being part of, I think, I think, I hope you'll be, you know, The pronunciation I'm going to butcher, but I'll give it a go anyway. The Petroshevsky Circle. That sounded pretty good.

Better than your pronunciation of pronunciation, which you also butcher. You said pronunciation. Oh, not pronunciation. Which is my favorite, favorite irony in the world is when somebody says pronunciation. It's just golden. But yeah, so he's arrested in connection with this circle, which was thought to be plotting against the Tsar. And I think that there are two circles at play here. He's kind of loosely a member of a more radical one.

But it's important to note that when reflecting on this, Dostoevsky denies ever being an atheist. But some people have accused him of being an atheist in this time period. By the way, he gets sent to a Siberian prison for four years and then does some military service for a few more years before he is readmitted into kind of the Russian intelligentsia society. And in that time, his views undergo pretty substantial transformation. He becomes much more faith-based.

He kind of devours the New Testament in prison over and over and over again. And in his sort of semi-fictional memoirs about his time in prison called Notes from a Dead House or the House of the Dead, which he places in the mouth of a fictional character, but it's very clearly based on his own experiences. He, which incidentally was Tolstoy's favorite work of Dostoevsky. He talks about what he saw as the transformative power of, religion and religious rituals on convicts, how it gave them hope, and sort of re-humanize them a little bit. It's a very interesting read, The House of the Dead, and quite underrated. It's not got the same kind of plot as most of Dostoevsky's other works, because it is just, it's almost like

a just a series of events, and then he leaves. I've not read it. I'd like to now. It's really cool. I would genuinely recommend it. And because it's so heavily based on his own personal experience, also makes an illuminating read for what's going on behind, you know, what's, what's making him tick. He's also later in life after all of this, you know, rush with death business that he writes his great novels. Yes. So the period,

Joseph Frank, his sort of most famous biographer, I think calls these the miracle years. Yeah. Which is a few years after he's released from prison, where he writes in like, you know, in terms of lifespan in pretty quick succession.

Crime and Punishment, the idiot, demons and the brothers Karamazov. And I don't have forgot that, well, I don't have forgot those exactly in the right sort. But, and here he puts forward sort of a mature, his mature philosophy, which is often, again, often caricatured. So he's very big on the role of faith in solving existential despair and being a transformative psychological phenomenon.

He has an interesting view on the relationship between God and truth. In one of his letters, he says he would rather be with Christ than with the truth. Yes, he says if I discovered that all of the facts lay outside of. Christ. I would sooner reject the facts and throw myself in with Christ than reject Christ Christ and throw myself in with the facts. Yes, exactly. So we have a little bit of, a little bit of Kierkegaard knocking on Dostoevsky's daughter. That's also true. Yeah. And in fact, when Dostoevsky wrote notes from the underground and other more famous of his novellas, I guess you would maybe. Yeah, I called it a novella. There was originally a chapter

which demonstrated the necessity of the Christian faith, but it was censored by the Russian state. and we know that it existed but it got taken out there was originally a chapter which basically the sort of I didn't know this offered a solution to his condition

which was Christianity we don't know exactly what format took but I think it's in one of his letters or something he's writing about it and talks about how this chapter about Christianity being a solution was taken out only because of course

he's writing within the context of Russia being an Orthodox Christian nation yeah but for some reason whatever he said was removed I actually don't know the details of that but I remember that fact of jumping out at me when I read something about it. I think we know about it from his letters or something.

That's very interesting. There's a chapter that was censored from demons because it was, it's really horrible, actually. It's so horrible that I couldn't tell you about it on YouTube without getting this video, not even demonetized, maybe just taken down. It's really unsafe, really, I mean, obviously, Doste EFSI is not supporting the stuff that's narrated, but it's meant to be a critique, but the mere depiction of it was considered pretty, and would still be considered pretty heavy stuff. it's not um it would still be quite shocking yeah but anyway his his mature philosophy is very much more nuances often given credit for i say it's very big on the role of faith he's um uh very big on christianity and orthodox christianity in particular he's very critical of catholicism because he feels like it's his uh he has this been the brothers

karamazov where he basically expresses that catholicism has turned the church into a state and his ultimate goal is for politics to eventually become a church, which he's quite careful to clarify. He doesn't mean a theocracy. He means that eventually the transformative power of faith will allow mankind to live in this kind of Christian brotherhood harmony. It's kind of a utopian vision. This is from Joseph Frank's biography of Dostoevsky. chapter 10 of notes from the underground poses a special problem because it was so badly mutilated by censorship by the censorship. In this chapter, as we know, Dostoevsky claimed to have

expressed, quote, the essential idea of his work, which he defined as, quote, the necessity of faith and Christ. But the passages in which he did so were suppressed and never restored in later reprintings. He talks about a crystal palace of some kind. I remember this. But yeah, it's got something to do with the necessity. As Dostoevsky describes, it himself. I didn't realize you put it in such strong terms, like the essential point of the book, the necessity of faith and Christ. And it's just mutilated. And you suddenly, you suddenly get the, um, what he considers to be the drawbacks of a purely naturalistic worldview and notes from underground. He's sort of, you know, really goes to town on this idea that, uh, you can live conceiving of mankind as mechanistic and of, you know, there's a lot of critique of determinism in there. Yeah, the famous materialism in there. Sort of free will stuff. The piano key. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's. It's, it's, it's, it's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's I like, it's a different angle, right? He's not saying as a modern analytic philosopher might, you know, Richard Holton is a modern analytic philosopher who defends free will, as an emergent property of, you know, our kind

of biological makeup. Dostoevsky is saying that it's unlivable. It's a very different kind of argument. But again, I think it's important not to caricature him in the other direction. He has a very nuanced view of Christianity. So he thinks that, again, he criticises Catholicism, and he criticises quite a lot of orthodoxy. In the Brothers Karamazov, he has this contrast between two different characters. There's the Elder Zossamer, and there's another elder or father of the monastery, and his name has escapes me now.

But the Elder Zossamer represents Vodostoevsky a kind of earthy Christianity. The kind of what Christianity? Earthy Christianity. So it's not just spiritual belief, it's, it's, it's, is practiced in active love. And actually, in one passage, he goes, the elders Osama goes so far as to say that too actively love will eventually lead you to God. He thinks these are, these are almost two sides of the same coin. And, um, on the other hand, this other elder or father, again, kicking myself, I can't remember the name, but, um, is much more concerned with private spiritual practice and, uh, be kind of, kind of, of doing everything to the letter of what a good Christian would do within the confines of the monastery. He spends a lot of time fasting, a lot of time in prayer. And Dostoevsky is sort of satirizing that approach to Christianity. He thinks that it's too detached, too detached from the physical world around us, essentially. You know, Dostoevsky is, again, he has a very

nuanced view of Christianity. And he spends quite a lot of time. criticizing Christians that he thinks don't live up to their Christianity and also ways of approaching Christianity that is too that he sees as too legalistic and he's very, very keen on this universal active love that is probably the

cornerstone of his theology in a lot of ways. It keeps cropping up over and over again. He also love forgiveness, taking on other people suffering. This is kind of it's a theology expressed so much through practice.

that at points you know I mean he's you know he believes obviously that Christ is God but at points it almost seems like it doesn't matter so much he also wrote the archetypal novel fictional exploration

of guilt in crime and punishment yes and so we're looking at a giant here crime and punishment brothers Karamazov demons notes from the underground he's got a fascinating biography as well, all of these ideas

packed in, versus Arthur Schopenhauer, who is a fantastic polemicist, an entertaining writer and does have a really interesting body of, like, philosophical and philosophical works. Very, very influential and interesting, systematic metaphysicalism. And is more of a philosopher proper than Dostoevsky, the novelist, but

who wins out? Let's put it this way. Who would we have been better off having never written anything? If you put it like that, I think Dostoevsky's got to win. I'm torn to be honest Arthur Schopenhauer also has an interesting

essay on religion where he talks about almost from more cynical perspective it's a necessity for the management of a of a successful society despite him being an atheist it's almost like if you imagine Dostoevsky is really bitter you get that essay

I don't know In Schopenhauer his pessimism is so useful he's like the only guy I can think of that really embodies that yeah and you know very influential to think of a thing like Philip Mainland and stuff like that. But then some of Dostoevsky's characters do embody that kind of pessimism

and are sort of tested in real time. Yeah, I'm very biased. Dostoevsky is my, is also, I'm so emotionally swayed because the brothers Karamazov is my comfort read. Whenever I went through a phase, like last year, because, you know, YouTube thing had taken off. I was feeling very grateful, but also very overwhelmed of having these days that I would just spend in crippling anxiety, basically.

And I just pace around my flat and I just kind of not, I would both struggle to do anything and also struggle to rest. Yeah. And the only thing that would calm me down was reading a chapter of the Brothers Karamazov. I would quite often read it aloud to myself pacing around my room. And so I, for purely personal reasons, I'm biased towards Dostoevsky does more for people in that way. You reckon? I think so.

I think Schopenhauer is a better philosopher, but I think that Dostoevsky is probably right. For my personal vibe-based ranking, on almost purely an irrational emotional basis, I want Dostoevsky to win her. I find it extremely difficult because on the next round, whoever wins here is going against Peterson as well, which either at least is interesting. Dostoevsky v. Peterson or Schopenhauer and Peterson both care about suffering, but one of them takes a hold of the suffering, one of them rebels against the suffering, and that's what they think life is all about. pitting Peterson against Dostoevsky is his favorite author it's difficult to say but who really wins here like we might be strict because we said that like yeah in terms of contribution to philosophy yeah we said singer is a better philosopher

than Dawkins we said that Peterson is a better philosopher yeah I suppose then we'd have to go to Schopenhauer a better philosopher is he actually a better philosopher is it more systematic he's a more systematic yeah maybe perhaps I'm placing too much emphasis on the systematization here but also Schopenhauer I'm thinking about introducing um aspects of vedic and buddhist philosophy to western philosophy yeah like that's huge it is but again as i say i'm so i i would i would defer to you on this because i'm so emotionally biased in favor of dostoevsky uh for reasons that i cannot defend i find this one really really difficult because i probably got more out of shop and house essays

not in terms of not in the way that you get something out of it like emotionally i just mean like I've found more like interesting thoughts to play with the idea of what suffering actually is and which is the proactive, the suffering or the, or the, or the, or the, or the, or the, or the, or the, or the, or the, or the, or the, it's, it's so impossible to say because so much of that just is present in Dostoevsky's works. I'm, I just, like, I really think that. Again, Dostoevsky comes up more. his themes are discussed more I think I'm kind of happy to give it to Dostoevsky

okay I will defer to you as I say I'm too biased I think I'm happy to give it to Dostoevsky because for me the thing I really like about Schopenhauer is like him as a polemicist I guess I like him as a pessimist but then again I also think that you know people my favorite pessimist is and I always miss Prantz's name Emil Emil Kioram but it's not that's not how you say it

but I absolutely love his writing I think, you know, I think because we're doing this together as a collective enterprise and because I'm torn, you've got an emotional bias towards Dostoevsky. I think let's give it to stop there. I realize that we're, you know, I'm probably treating this with far more seriousness. Yeah, it probably doesn't really matter. You know, if we did this real quick, it would probably be more enchaining for everyone. This is just our preference.

Dostoevsky. There it is. Oh, sorry, Arthur. Right, we've got. You are brilliant. Bye, Arthur. We've got one more. Oh, now this, this is an absolute clash of the titan.

This is a belter. We have St. Thomas Aquinas versus one Jesus of Nazareth. I mean, the real question is, which was more influential in Christian? Yeah. And you know what? It's a toss-up. And who do Catholics read more? Who are they more?

Who do they refer to more? I don't know. I mean, I love St. Thomas Aquinas. W. W.T. do, do, as the Catholics would say. Look, this is of, like, obviously, obviously, any Christian is, like, committed to saying that Jesus is better. But is Christ a better philosopher. Well, no, as in, I think that Thomas Aquinas. I think that St. Thomas Aquinas, I mean, partly he's a more, he's a better, a better classic philosopher because so many of the innovations we have. have in terms of how to write philosophy are just him. Like, he's truly a giant. I mean, his, I mean, the summer theologica, I wish I'd read all of it. I've not.

Well, he didn't even write all of it. It's not finished. Well, no, as in, you know, the bit, wait, he abandoned it after a religious experience, didn't he say it? It was all straw. Yeah, which says something. I mean, by Thomas's own admission, his writing is all bollocks. And to be fair, well, the, um, and to be fair, uh, St. Thomas Quinas had always said that revealed theology could trump natural theology.

Yeah. So it makes sense. You know, in some ways, he's not going against his own word. But who has actually been more influential in, let's say, the philosophy of Christianity? Because it turns what you mean by the philosophy of Christianity. Like, if you mean like it's ethical maxims and stuff, then of course, Christ is your bigger. Natural law. Natural law theory is Thomas Aquinas.

And then like the proofs of God's existence, the contingency arguments, motion arguments. The integration of Aristotle with Christianity, that's from a philosophical. perspective. If somebody, if you were speaking to, like a philosopher, and they said, you know, prove to me that Christianity is true, you wouldn't turn to the Gospels. You would turn to someone like Aquinas. And so in a way, he's a better philosopher in that respect. But then there's the question of what philosophy is supposed to be about. Thomas Aquinas has a religious experience, realizes that his writings are all straw, as if to say, like, you know, I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm just saying that it means nothing compared to the experience of Jesus. And so if what philosophy is supposed to be about is about sort of unity with the good, then Jesus Christ has to win out. I think it would be like absolutely ludicrous to put Thomas Aquinas above Jesus Christ. I'll say for the outset, you know, I think that he would come down

from the heavenly choir of box our ears. I think Jesus is probably winning this one. But it is worth pointing out that we're not just talking about who's the better person. We're talking about who's the better philosopher. And it's controversial whether Christ could best be considered as a philosopher. There are, I suppose, there are elements where he uses classic philosophical reasoning. I mean, let he without sin throw the first stone is,

in a sense exposing a contradiction which unfortunately Jesus of Nazareth probably never actually said I know you told me this and it was just like it was a horrible discovery

I love that story it is not in our earliest manuscript of John's gospel unfortunately it seems to have been a later interpolation as well most scholars believe but then who are we measuring Thomas Aquinas against

Jesus of history or Jesus of faith well I mean if you think that Jesus is God then I mean he kind of he automatically wins I don't even think that Jesus thought Jesus was God, so I don't think we have to do that.

That's another point of contention. But yeah, I mean, but then does God win? Is God a philosopher? I guess he is a lot of love and knows all things. But then if you know all things, you have no need for philosophy. So you're not a philosophize. It's just philosophers sort of use argument and reason and try to uncover truth. That's not something that an omniscient being can even do.

That's true. It's almost though. Even if God exists, he would be the precondition for philosophy. But he would also, he would sort of be the worst philosopher in the world because he can't philosophize. because you just know everything, I suppose. Yeah, so I don't know what we would count there. But also Jesus Christ, in his earthly form, as Jesus, the human being, rather than just the son of the Trinity, is a human being who people have different ideas on his relationship to God while he was walking the planet. But, you know, an idea like conosis, the idea that he sort of, which is to empty oneself, that he emptied himself of his divine powers and just became human would mean that, at least in human form, he was, he was.

was not omniscient in the same way, you know, when he says that no one knows the hour, not even the sun, nor the angels in heaven, but only the father seems to imply that he was not omniscient all on earth. So he could probably do some philosophizing, but it is very like, I don't know, like what makes for good philosophy? Is it, is it that kind of confronting demonstration of how to live? Or is it the contingency argument? That's, you know, St. Thomas Aquinas is much more, again, use the word systematic thinker. He's more of a philosopher. Jesus Christ, just interpreted by the reports of the gospel.

It's almost a bit of a mystic. Yes, yeah. But what is philosophy? Philosophy is the love of wisdom, literally. And I think Jesus brings wisdom in a way that Thomas brings knowledge. I've been interested to see, because I say I'm kind of broadly, like I like St. Thomas Aquinas. but I'd be interested to see if anyone comes away like any Christians in the audience come away

like with the same kind of fire in their belly that I hear a lot of Christians report after reading scripture I know it'd be interesting because it's just because I know a few Catholics and non-Catholics who are pretty fired up about Thomas I mean but also St Thomas Aquinas is a beautifully clear thinker to read you know objection objection to reply Just, you know.

There is part of me which wants to put Thomas ahead as a philosopher, but I mean, surely we can't knock out Jesus in the first round. We've knocked out so many amazing thinkers in the first round. Because again, if you're talking about influence, I think. Yeah, I think we will have to. We'll have on like a data also because we're talking as if like the only influence philosophers have is over like academic philosophy. If you think about like the average person who never thinks about philosophy, who's been more influential philosophically. Yeah. And I suppose because Shop and Howard is more influential on academic philosophy than.

Dostoevsky. But Dostoevsky's a more influential. I think we have a tendency to think about influential philosophers in terms of, you know, the papers that are being written and the discussions that we have on podcast and stuff. But if you think about the person who lives their life, who isn't super into philosophy, like Alex over here, you know, I don't know if Alex, do you think Thomas Aquinas or Jesus has had more of an effect on your life? Do you know who Thomas Aquinas is? You had him? Through me? You know, like, I don't know if, like, Thomas Aquinas is, like, done much for you. But, you know, you've probably thought about Jesus once or twice in your life. I feel, I feel like for most people, it's kind of like that, right?

Like, Jesus Christ does, is. Yeah, I mean, what the hell are we even talking about? Yeah, I mean, of course. Yeah, yeah. Okay, I'm just going to put Jesus. I'm just going to put Jesus. Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. Uh, jeep.

Christ. Of course, to even call him Christ is already an assumption of a particular theology, because that is just the Greek term meaning anointed one. Is that a deliberate pun on assumption? It is, it is, it is just the same word as Messiah. It is the Greek version of the Hebrew word Messiah, which just means anointed one. Same route for the chrism oil, which is rubbed on King Charles's chest during the coronation. So, to call him Jesus Christ, is already sort of an admission of the, of the one, fundamental Christian principle, but I'll allow it. Okay. Round two. Joseph, we have made it to round two. And we'd better bust through these.

So we've already explained a lot of these people. Yeah, so I think we were able to. So we should be able to just sort of pit them against each other a little bit. Let's start with Judith Jarvis Thompson versus Peter Singer. Trolley problem violinist analogy on one side. animal liberation, the life you can save on the other. Intuitively, I'm tempted to say Peter Singer. Peter Singer is certainly a bigger name.

However, I have been intimately connected to animal ethics. I am sort of not entirely convinced by the life you can save stuff, but I find it incredibly confronting and I think about it all the time. Thompson's got the trolley problem which is one of the most useful ways to discover what you actually think about ethics and of course the violinist analogy is so iconic within a particular area of philosophy

whereas Thompson is like I don't know if like Singer isn't just famous for a particular example within that's animal ethics. He is the guy who put on the table modern utilitarianism. That's also true. He's probably the most famous living academic philosopher who isn't like a Jordan Peterson or someone

and but maybe it's for our sins that he's more influential than Thompson is maybe it well Thompson is is as I say incredibly under-raced I think Singer has a bit more like I don't know singer has more things that he just unapologetically says like are the case and this is my worldview and this is what it leads to and and it's a very simple like test case like like what would Peter Singer say about this and that's your utilitarian idea Thompson changed her mind about the trolley problem in 2008. So you said earlier, I didn't know this. So initially she held that the person could pull the lever and redirect the trolley to the one person,

but that you couldn't, you know, the fat man. The portly gentleman off the bridge to stop the train. Yeah. But she later changed her mind. She thought that she came to see, she becomes much more rights focused in her later work. Right. Interesting. And so, and she thinks that pulling the lever is more akin to creating a threat than redirecting one. She thinks it is a conscious decision to end a life.

And so she says it's impermissible. Okay. So who wins? I would have to go with Singer. I think, like Singer, like you say, he's the face of utilitarianism. Given that utilitarianism is oftentimes just the assumed ethical principle that people live by without realizing it. It's certainly I find, the way that I tend to describe utilitarianism in practice is like it's often people's first layer. Like it's what people go for, you know, if they're not kind of a divine law theorist.

Yeah. It's what they kind of think ethics is about. Yes, until they hit an edge case. And then they tend to revise. And given that that is so popular and that every single first year undergraduate philosophy studies utilitarianism to some degree and Singer is the face of it. yeah i think we'll have to i think single i think he has to win who's the guy who's the utilitarian thinker that isn't john stuart mill who came before singer who really influenced him i'm blanking on his name like not i mean well bentham's before john no yeah yeah bentham was before mill there

there was there was somebody else but i can't remember his name Alex, can you chat GPT name five influential utilitarian thinkers Peter Singer is going to win Yes, yeah I'm going to put him up on here Utilitarian thinkers

Thinkers Tell us what comes up Sorry, yeah, I mean Yeah, I'd like to read more Singer actually because I feel like I to my shame, just did not do much ethical philosophy at university. I kind of, I did it in first year, I dropped it in favour of philosophy of science, and then I did that for three years and that's a lot.

As I say, he's confronting, is probably the word. Yeah. What came up? Jeremy Bentham. John Stuart Mill, Harriet Taylor Mill. Taylor Mill. Oh, that's John Stuart Mill. Well, John Stuart Mill wrote so much of his philosophy with his wife.

Right. And oftentimes, she's basically a co-author. Yeah. Interesting. I didn't know that. Who else? Henry Sidgwick. Oh, yes, of course. Henry Sidgwick. And Singer's metarethics is quite similar to Sidgwick. Yeah, I was, because Sidgwick was a massive influence over Singer, and I was blanking on his name. But yes, I almost thought that he should make the list. But I don't actually know a ton about his work. And Singer would maybe beat him in terms of influence. But anyway, okay, we have our first semi-finalist. Peter Singer has made it. Yes, Peter Singer has made it. He's in, what was the X-Factual analogy? The judges houses. He's built out. He's beat out.

Zeno Thompson, Judas, Jarvis Thompson, that is Richard Dawkins. Good for him. Okay. Next. We've got Jordan Peterson versus Fjorda Dostoevsky.

I think this is pretty cut and dry. Yeah, I mean, I don't think. Jordan is obviously the better. No, no offense, Jordan. Again, if you're watching. I love the thought of Jordan Peterson sitting at home watching. our tier list essentially of philosophers.

So if you are watching, Jordan, take no offense. I think if there's one person he would be happy to lose to, it would be Dostoevsky. But I think Dostoevsky probably comes out on top there. Oh, yeah, I think so. Any objections to consider? There is the sense in which Peterson is more a philosopher than a novelist. I suppose, again, this is the thing that I, again, the thing that I likes about we who wrestle with God was the toying with the pragmatist definition of truth. And you don't get the pragmatist definition of truth from Dostevsky.

you just get the idea that Christ is more important in truth. And Peterson has also kind of gone a bit off the rails and some of his views in my view of late. Again, I don't, I say, I don't really know what. He's kind of tied up in the culture war and all that kind of stuff.

And it just kind of mars for me his ability to move up the ranking in terms of our philosophical. No, I suppose. Doftery absolutely is very involved in the culture war of his day. If we somehow ended up with like Peterson versus Jesus Christ, I think that would just be like No, I think, no, I think evidently Dostoevsky wins out.

So I think Dostoevsky is going to win out here. See, I told you, we'd blast through this when we got to this round. But I think it's nice to play devil's advocate that. For sure. That's what we're here for. Dostoevsky, I'd better not try and write and speak at the same time. Okay, top right. Descartes versus Nietzsche.

A little bit more tricky. Oh, yeah. For me, it's Descartes. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know if you'll agree with that because you don't like Descartes as much as I like day cart. I like Descartes and a whole host of ways. But again, a lot of the stuff that I really like about Descartes is non-philosophical.

It's his maths and his... Yeah, but he's got all of that going for him. Yeah. And in a way, maths is like a branch of philosophy, man. You know, like, it's a way of doing... Look at the way that we answered Zeno's paradoxes using a mathematical concept. Like, Descartes has so much named after him. Also, in the way that I like the word Aristotelian, I also really like the name, like the word Cartesian.

Yes. I think that's really fun. You're not such fan of Nietzschean. No, it's so clunky. It's like, no one even needs to pronounce it. You know people who say Nietzsche? That really gets on my nerves. Oh, who says?

That might be more correct, but lots of people say Nietzsche. Really? Yeah, they call them Nietzsche. And it really gets on my nerves. Is that just, is that a kind of? I don't know, man. I don't know where that comes from, but a lot of people say it and I'm not into it. So on aesthetic grounds.

It makes it sound too cute. I'm big on Descartes. Yeah, I know. Oh, I don't know, man. René Descartes. I think I think I would go for Nieto of a day cart. I think, therefore. I am, man.

God is dead and we have killed. Yeah, okay, okay, okay. But also, I don't know, but I think that also Nietzsche does a lot of a lot of undermining from the inside the kind of Cartesian project of certainty. Descartes probably did assume too much, but then he was the guy

who sort of set it off. Like, he's just like sat around and he just thinks up this stuff. Like so much of, that's why he's the father of the Western philosophical tradition, because so many people engage with these ideas and respond to them and stuff, but Descartes just thought it up. father of modern western philosophy He decided to just sit down and decided one day

that he wanted to figure out what can be known without doubt. The father of modern Western philosophy versus the sort of arch-critic of Western philosophy up to that point. Sort of similar vibe to Descartes versus Hume in that respect. It's sort of like but I think a

slightly more difficult difficult thing to... Well again I always think that I'm human or too human to the gay science is actually a relatively humian project in a weird way. It's kind of undermining things from the inside by using Enlightenment principles. That kind of free spirit work section I was talking about earlier

is in some ways sort of undermining of enlightenment principles from the inside. Oh, sorry, the free spirit works from human or to human all the way to the gay science. That's just sometimes is occasionally why modern pragmatist thinkers compared with Davey. Do you really put Nietzsche? I would. And I would say

it's largely vibe-based. I mean, to what extent can you compare Nietzsche's philosophies with Descartes? I mean, they're addressing such different questions. You can't like pit them against one another in quite the same way. Who do you think is more influential today? Oh I don't know it will be it's almost it's difficult to say I mean well I mean well coordinate geometry so day cart I mean as in as an yeah that coordinate geometry is almost as influential as Jesus that's I mean I don't I don't I don't even know what the world would look like without coordinate that's such a bugger because but again it's but again I feel like

if we're separating off the kind of pure mathematical side of daycart I I feel like, in terms of philosophy, I would put Nietzsche above Descartes in this kind of battle context. But again, it's largely a vibes thing for me. Because we would end up with a pretty, it's interesting, because we've got singer and Dostoevsky. We've got quite analytic and quite sort of like right-brained. The semifinals, you know, if we put Nietzsche, we're getting a bit sort of existentialist for our final. That's true. So actually, we end up with Nietzsche and Dostoevsky.

That's a pretty interesting battle. Oh, I think Aristotle will win. Descartes with, Descartes with, man, I mean, I, I,

I'm struggling here, man. It's a real kind of, was it, what's that phrase they're using for authors? Like, kill your darlings.

Yeah, yeah, because ultimately we've, for a lot of these, we've got, we've had conflicts between two absolutely phenomenal thinkers. Yeah.

And just had to, had to pick one. Descartes, like, started it, you know? But then he doesn't, I mean,

I think we can overstate just how much. I think he assumes too much, and he plausibly argues in a circle, the famous Cartesian circle, and he's probably a bit too confident. Nietzsche is very careful, very sort of in depth. I mean, to a certain extent, Nietzsche decides either. He goes through periods of being very careful and then goes through periods of saying, I don't care about being careful. I'm going to say just bombastic. It's also very original, you know, the slave morality stuff, the historical ideas about the experience. But the other thing is I think that I agree with Descartes more than I agree with Nietzsche.

Yeah. I mean, but like I think therefore I am. It's just so iconic. It's like the found out, like how often does it come up when you're talking about this or that? And you say like, well, that leads to skepticism. Oh, then like the, and I think therefore I am. It's like, oh, I think I can know that. Like it comes.

It's like it's a touchstone. It's a, it's like a grounding for so much of, at least in practice, what we just allow ourselves to assume when we're having philosophical discussions. And Descartes is a starting point. Nietzsche only comes up when he comes up, you know. I'm struggling. I'm struggling. I wish we were going to live so we could just like get people to vote.

Yes, that would be great. Because as I say, all of these are becoming very torturous. Torturous decisions. Okay, scrap this. Let's redo this. Same time tomorrow. We'll start again. And we'll do it live.

Just delete the three hour recording. Yeah, let's just get rid of it. Let's just delete it and try again. Man. I guess, I guess, again, if I'm, like, super torn and you're, like, pretty strong on Nietzsche. I don't know, but now you've convinced me a bit round to Descartes. And again, coordinate geometry. But then again, is that...

But are we going to spend the rest of this episode where we've pit Descartes against someone and then I go, well, Descartes did coordinate geometry and that's just such a useful tool. But it's in the same way that if Jesus was God, you'd be like, look, he's God. And although that's not a very interesting bout, it's like, if it's just true, then it's true, isn't it? I mean, Descartes did all of that. Is there anything we're missing from Descartes? Oh, yeah, we've taught, like, he has the distinction between, you know, matter and immaterial stuff in terms of extended, like, extension, which is, I think even, you know, even though we tend to not use it, not use his substance dualism as much, I still think that's quite an innovative distinction. When I sat down in read Nietzsche and I've sat down and read Descartes, I found Descartes more like philosophically engaging, more like, I'm actually, I feel like I'm sat down with ideas and I'm thinking about ideas, you know.

Nietzsche, it's sort of like, it's a bit of history, it's a bit of this, it's a bit of this, it's a bit of. that sort of you know again again it's a highly original method from nietzsche as well yeah it depends how much you weight originality i don't know man i'm team day cart i think your team nietzsche just about yeah i don't know how to sell this you flip a coin yeah all right uh griff have we got have we got a coin somewhere or can you do it virtually you got a coin in your pocket I might have I got a coin? I don't really Oh I think I've got a coin

Oh I think I've got a coin No I haven't got a coin Right hold on hold that thought Okay I have here Okay 50 English

Pence of the realm I think Hed has to go to Descartes Yeah heads day cart Mind or body? Well, that's not a bad distinction in Nietzsche's coordination of the instincts and stuff like that. Mind is Descartes. Mm-hmm.

Body is Nietzsche. Happy for me to flip? Fair? Yeah. It's Descartes. Okay. Let's have Descartes up there. Descartes wins out.

And given that he's the one that believes in divine providence. I suppose it would have been better to go to the other. Although Nietzsche would say that, of course, eventually this will all happen over. over and over again, eternally, in a recurrent fashion. I'm already beginning to feel like that, so let's try and get through this. That's the worst handwriting. If I ever become a doctor of philosophy, I might be able to live up to the doctor title with that handwriting. Aristotle versus Christ versus Jesus of Nazareth.

Look, there is an undertone here because of what a lot of people think, Christ is, whereby if we don't just sort of just bump them up to the top by default, people are going to be upset. But you have to understand, we're considering Jesus as a philosopher. Yeah, his written writings as a philosophical corpus. In many ways, also considering the historical aspects of what he actually said and what he didn't, Thomas Jefferson's life and morals of Jesus of Nazareth might be a good touch point here, a sort of Jefferson creates his own Bible.

It's often painted as him like cutting out all of the miraculous. bits. You know about this? I've heard of it, but I think I've heard of it from you. It's not exactly him just cutting out the miraculous bits. He sort of puts together his sort of understanding of the life of Jesus. It's kind of here and it's physically clipped out and you can see all of the original markings. I have a copy laying around somewhere. I'll show you, show you later. It's really, in fact, it might be right there. I enjoy how much sort of getting up to get stuff we've done on this. It's great, man.

It's nice to be sort of, you know, we're keeping it real. We're keeping it real. The life and morals of Jesus of Nazareth extracted textually from the Gospels in Greek, Latin, French, and English by Thomas Jefferson. This edition is like a physical printing of what it actually looked like. And what you can see is he's got the Greek, the Latin, the French and the English, literally, like, all written out next to each other. Wow. And it's, he's sort of cut bits out of a razor.

And if you look at, like, the references on the English version, the numbers are kind of random because he's been taking it from, like, different Gospels and try to, like, put it in order. Right. It's okay. So you can kind of see where he got it from. This isn't in the order of the gospels in the new test. It's in the rough order of the stories, but as in he'll take a bit from. Oh, right.

So I'll have sort of feeding of the 5,000 from. I haven't actually read it, so I don't know how he orders it, but for example, John's Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels have the timing of, you know, when Jesus flips the tables at the temple? They have that at different times, that like one happens at the beginning. I think, which way around is it? John, in John's Gospel, it happens at the beginning, and the Synoptic Gospels, it happens at the end. it's unclear exactly why this is the case it might be because John wants to have the raising of Lazarus as the reason for Jesus's arrest

so it places that like later on and has the temple in the beginning it's all a bit weird but but Jefferson will probably I would assume if I read this like move that story to either the end or the beginning and sort of just make a decision as to where it should go but kind of interesting right yeah and laid out with the with the Greek I wish I spoke any Greek at all. Yeah, knew any biblical Greek. Yes, it's a funny thing to get your head around.

I find it difficult to pronounce Greek words. It's kind of annoying when I'm trying to talk about the Gospels, and I know what the Greek terms mean, but I can never pronounce them, you know, like Arche, Eugelion, Jesu-Christu. How do you say the word son? It's like U-E-U or something, O-E-U, Theon, Son of God. I don't know. It's a little bit tricky to pronounce.

But yes, that is the life of the moral of Jesus of Nazareth. So that is kind of the kind of Jesus that I'm imagining when we're doing this. So for those who think Jesus is God, bear in mind that if you're going to be, if you're going to sort of dial that hill, then this whole thing would be trivial because he would just go to the middle. So I mean, I'm going to go to back for Aristotle over Christ. How can I as a philosopher? I think, again, Aristotle's so prolific. He writes in so many different areas.

A lot of the time, his argument. argumentation is incredibly thorough, you know, not always. I mean, he's mixing, he's kind of a, you know, he's mixing observation with, uh, kind of, um, airtight reasoning. So sometimes he's just making a generalization based on what he was, what he's observed. But other times, his reasoning just is, is incredibly, you know, sound and valid in the technical sense. Um, yeah, writes on an enormous amount of topics. I mean, there are various of other philosophers that write on natural science, physics, metaphysics, yeah, poetic. politics, and whose thoughts still shape how people conceive of those topics today, well, maybe with the exception of physics, conceive of those topics today. Obviously, Jesus is incredibly influential in that. Yes. When we were debating, when we were debating Jesus versus Thomas Aquinas, it wasn't entirely trivial because as a philosopher, you know, who sort of contributed more to this field.

And it's plausible that Thomas would win. And I think the reason that seemed so silly is because Thomas is a Christian. So his own philosophy seems to presuppose that Christ. Whereas I think that Aristotle is pre-Christian. And I think that just in terms of, in terms of, as a philosopher, I think Aristotle left. And obviously the way that we put, I mean, it's controversial to even put Jesus on there in the first place. But if you weren't already primed to be thinking about Jesus, if you looked up on Google and said, you know, top 10 most influential philosophers and the top ones were like Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, would a Christian be like offended that they hadn't put Jesus? Or would they understand that Jesus is the most important man that's ever lived?

But in terms of, like, is he the best philosopher? Like, is he good qua philosophy? It's kind of like, in a way, he should be the best at everything. But if we were looking for the best chefs in the world, Jesus isn't going to feature on that list. Jesus is a philosopher of a kind, but that wasn't like his project. His project wasn't to, like, come and use systematic methods to uncover, to uncover truths about the universe. He came to, like, you know, save us from our sins, which is a slightly different project. So it is no disparagement.

Yes, yes, to say that Aristotle beats him out in philosophical influence as a philosopher. I reserveedly, I'm happy to grant it to Aristotle because it's really difficult to be exactly quite quite pinned down what Christ's philosophical influence is and has been. Aristotle is more clear, so I'm happy to give it for that reason, but this has just got a lot to do with the fact that Jesus is probably best not thought of as a philosopher. It's nice to have him on there, though. But okay, with those commenters already down in the description, giving us an earful, I suppose it's good for engagement to give it to Aristotle, but bear in mind the context under which we're doing this. Yes, it's no shade on Jesus.

It's important to keep in mind, Arisdottel. Now, what I have realized is that I haven't done enough lines, because this is the semi-final and not the final. Oh, yes. But that's okay, no, because we'll have. have them now combating and then they'll

each go on either side of the of the middle one and then we can have the the Victor crowned

yeah so we kind of need to do like we need like a yeah we need like a line here for the where's the blue pen

anyway who have we got first should we do sing of us Dostoevsky first so these are philosophers

that you would never pit against one another apart from this incredibly contrived context, I love it.

I mean, and then we've got Aristotle versus Dacre on the other side, which is kind of interesting. But I kind of wish we'd have ended up with like, you know, Peter, Peter Singer versus Plato, because that's just quite funny. Yes. But we've got Peter Singer versus Dostoevsky. Thoughts? That's actually kind of tricky.

These philosophers are almost incomparable. Yeah. Again, Singer are much more systematic thinker. Significantly, you know, you know, singer is a, a, modern academic analytic philosopher and so in that using the criteria

of modern academic analytic philosophy he would win out but again in terms of influence yeah again it's almost like comparing apples to oranges

but I think that's probably part of the fun to who do you think wins who's a more important philosopher probably if he did because Singh is more recent as well like will he still be talked about in the same way in a hundred years. But then Dostoevsky isn't talked about so much

as a philosopher. Yeah. He's a novelist and that is a kind of philosophy in a way, but a bit like how we gave it to Aristotle over Christ. Yes, it might be, is it beholden for us to be consistent? Like it would be a bit unfair for us to say like, yeah, but Dostoevsky was such a good novelist and has such great themes. So he beat Singer, but then give it to Aristotle over Jesus Christ. Yes. I think for that reason, maybe Peter Singer has to get it. You're right. But then we've got Singer in the final. I mean, we've got names like... I know, that's so, that's, it's amazing. We've got Thomas Aquinas, Jesus Christ, Plato, Aristotle, David Hume.

And then Singer ends up in the final. And then Singer ends up in the final. In fairness, I do think this list is quite stacked to the right-hand side. Like, if you look on the left, we've got your sort of, they're all kind of a bit more modern, Dawkins, Hitchens, Peterson, you know, they're not going to win. Shop and Howard or St.S. We should really start from the beginning with a different. Yeah, we should have. But I thought that made the most sense to start with, but it does mean that on the left-hand side of our sort of slightly more modern thinkers, it makes sense for Singer to come out on top of that list.

On the right-hand side, we've got a bit more like historical and, I think, thick weight. I suppose, but this is also, this is how sports tournaments work, right? This is how qualifying for the World Cup sometimes. But I think, I think maybe Peter Singer is our first finalist. It seems almost really bizarre to say. That seems strange. No offense, Peter Singer. No, no, no, no.

But then does it seem less strange to say that Dostoevsky made it? that's the thing isn't it same it sounds very if that if that feels like it makes more sense that he ended in the final then does that just mean that he's a better better philosopher that's the thing as in as in i think that um yeah maybe i'm just getting by his remorse about arthur shopinhaar d'ostoevsky yeah because who would win out of singer and shopinhawer shopinhauer yeah hands down do you think yeah yeah it's then why is if singer beats dostoevsky is it is it this is clearly our ranking is not is not is not literally our ranking is not nearly ordered. This is not an exact

science. I mean, we could just put Shopin'Hour and final. I mean, yeah, we've got to a reductio ad absurdum of our original ranking. Okay, we've got to, look, it's got to be either Dostoevsky, Schopenhauer, singer, in the final. I would say Schopenhauer. You know, really, but like

Dostoevsky, man. Oh, yeah, but, yeah, but I I know, and I'm really biased towards Dostoevsky. But again, but it's because, again, it's because, I think that maybe we should give it to Jesus and Dostoevsky for the Semi's you know like if we if we reverse our policy and say that it's just about like general vibe and we put Jesus above Aristotle because it's because it's Jesus yeah yeah and then we put Dostoevsky up there and then we'll have Jesus versus Descart and Peter Singer versus I'd know it's going to be this sort of emotionally tumultuous when we started this I'm beginning to get get get rattled

what do you what do you think man oh i think we either give it to singer or we give it to dostoevsky but then we have to give the earlier bout to christ yeah yeah because we we have been i think which makes more sense i think you know i i think i think my my this is like this is in some ways a radical ad hoc decision i would replace dostoevsky with schopenhauer in hindsight why because i think that as we've gone on he's a better philosopher we seem to we seem to have co-heared on a policy that was much that's much more to do with who's a better philosopher and dostoevsky doesn't matter on that i think crime and punishment brothers carry on that stuff but yeah that's i could say like you know but but say the world as will and representation you could say

um i could say um i could say that like you know quinton tarrantino directed jango unchained but like Okay, that's a great movie, but he's not a philosopher. Like, he's a great book, but he's not a philosopher. Yeah, okay. No, I think. Okay, fine. I'm just going to look. I'm just going to do it.

I'm just going to do it. The rule book has been thrown out. Throne out, ladies and gentlemen, you are witnessing. That's thing, I think our criteria evolved to be more strictly philosophical over the course of this. So we are going to cross out Dorsayevsky and we're going to put Schopenhauer. I don't think that anyone would mind if we say that Schopenhauer would. And Schopenhauer then beats Peterson. Yeah, sure about that one?

I'm sure about that one? I'm sure about that. All right, so then Schopenhauer goes here. Okay, so our new revised semi-vinal... No, I feel more comfortable with this. Peter Singer versus Schopenhauer. I feel like now we've got a more consistent set of criteria. Who wins against Schopenhauer and singer on those grounds?

Schopenhauer. Are you sure? I'm pretty sure. Is Singer not more like influential as a philosopher these days? Like people are constantly... You know, Schopenhauer is... But then, well, Chopinhauer has been a round for longer. So I suppose he's got the advanced.

final. I think it makes more sense to have Peter Singer in the vinyl. Peter Singer is, as you say, the face of probably the most popular ethical philosophy in the world. Practical ethics. Still the introductory text on classical, on practical ethics. I think it goes to Singer, man. And that seems weird, but I think it's just because it's our competition stacked to the right hand side. Yeah, but Schopenhauer introducing, introducing, um, oh, yeah, the fundamental Eastern philosophy into, into the West. Like, yeah but I don't know I found it really really difficult Chopin'Hauer's just like I'm okay I'll have to back Schopenhauer

over Singer I think You have hasn't I My conscience is compelling me to Oh boy I think on the basis of Shop and Hauer In the final There are aspects of Shop and Hauer that I think I disagree with

But those are aspects of Singer that I disagree with in a way we could just pick one of the four as our winner straight up so no I think we need our runners up is our runner up going to be Schopenhauer really at the final Peter Singer man like he's a big hitter

he's a big hitter Alex based on what you've heard so far time is ticking in I've got a train he's got to get a train so he's okay that's all he cares about okay see practical practical ethics

practical ethics that's what people care about in the real world that's okay yeah they don't care about this world is schmilling whatever

okay fine singer practical no you don't feel very happy I know not look I think that I think that

this is my show I'm putting people exactly this is your show singing singer is going on okay four

Descartes Descartes Descartes Descartes it's got to be Arousotel it's got to be ours No, as in I think that there's no contest. Aristotle is...

I mean, Aristotle's the guy. Aristotle's the goat. Aristotle's Aristotle. I learned the phrase the goat the other day from my sister. The other day? Yeah, yeah. This is like, and I love it. I think it's great.

So now, you know, for anyone that watches my channel regularly, you're going to hear me using the phrase the goat quite a lot. You are something else. Aristotle is the goat, which means maybe he... I mean, basically whoever we... Yeah, I mean, Aristotle is going to win. are going to... Do you think Aristotle beats Descartes?

Yes, I would say so. I think so. And if Aristotle beats Descartes... Then I think... Aristotle... It's fairly obvious in our final. Aristotle versus Peter Singer is our final. That's our final.

I think that Aristotle would... I mean, yeah, obviously I think Aristotle. I don't think that Peter Singer would mind. I think that he would freely admit... I'm sure. Aristotle would trump him as a... It's like on Lent, where the last one's a different color.

Aristotle. I'm happy, I'm so happy with that as a winner, Aristotle. Is Aristotle? I think I would have predicted from the beginning that either Aristotle or maybe someone like Jesus or Descartes would have won. So I think we've done pretty well there. I think that was...

God, that was... Congratulations to be to sing it. I'm still not sure about the shop Dostoevsky business. I think it makes sense to put Schopenhauer up. I think we were right to change that, but I do still stand by Peter Singer beating out Schopenhauer. I think that's an

agree to disagree. And we end up with Peter, Peter Singer versus Aristotle. Difficult. Difficult doubt, but one that we finally have resolved. Everybody hates us now in the comments. Oh, yeah, yeah. We've probably managed to annoy everyone with any stake in any

of these things. Of course, there are other philosophers that we've mentioned, Sidgwick. We mentioned Philip afoot. We haven't even mentioned Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein was nearly on our list. Kant, but he wasn't on our... I mean, that's probably the main thing.

Where the hell is Kant? Yes, exactly. Not in my reading list, basically, is... is Kant. We probably should have included him. Yeah, we probably definitely should have included Kant. He might have actually just won. I mean, Kant could go toe to toe to toe with Aristotle, actually, I think, in a lot of ways.

Thing is... But hey, man, we... It's my show. Yeah, we've got the one of us that... And also, we'll do this again, I think, at some point. Episode 200. And I promise that we'll include Kant next time. Yes.

I think Vicenstein Russell. Was it a massive mistake to not include Kent? I don't know. Like people often say he is just like the best philosophy. But the other thing is that I feel like Kant. Kant is a little bit like Aristotle in that he would just beat out anyone. In some ways, I wonder whether we shouldn't have included Aristotle because I should have in hindsight it's so obviously he would have won. Who would have included count?

Who would have beat? Like, who would be? The only one that could hold a candle to Kant in this is Aristotle, I think. What about Plato? We should have included Kant. The final might have been Kant versus Aristotle. And who would have won? I was still say Aristotle.

But I would say so too. So we still get the same final and we just sort of. And I think basically, look, Kant could have made it to the final, but it would have been a less interesting bout because he would have just beat. I mean, if you put him anywhere on the left hand side, he's beating any of those people. On the right hand side, he's maybe being beat by Aristotle, maybe Plato, maybe Jesus. I think he would beat basically everyone in that list. list, hands, well, and a hands down is such, almost a violent expression. But, like, you know, that seems like I'm being too confident.

But I think he would definitely beat out pretty much everyone, apart from Aristotle, and maybe Plato. Yeah. And where's my black pen gone? Have you seen it? What do I do with black pen? Oh, it's here. I think what we might do is just put a sort of honorable mention. Honorable mention.

Because I love, because for somebody who wasn't on the list, we talked about Kant a lot. Sorry, Kant, we should have put you on the list. And to Emmanuel Kant's fans that we didn't even put them on the list, that's definitely one of my... Although our criteria for the list were thinkers that have been influential in the history of your channel. Actually, that's the thing, because this is, I forgot, this is like episode 100 was celebrating. It's supposed to be kind of be... We forgot in the midst of our emotional talk. That's kind of how we came up with this, is like, who've kind of been relevant in the history of the channel.

People like Jesus, Peter Singer, Richard Dawkins, and Kant just kind of never comes up. because I haven't read Kent because I'm like terrified to try it. Have you tried the critique of pure reason? I'm not sure if I've actually seriously tried to read it. It is but it feels like a shortcoming. Hard going. Yeah. But with a with a companion

like a kind of commentary or a companion by some secondary literature it's very extremely good. Yeah. So maybe one day. Episode 200 episode 200. And we can put it in there. That'll be fine. But for now at least at least we've I don't even know how long we

How long have you been going, Alex? Three hours, 20 minutes. Longest, well, actually, depending on how much we cut out, I think this is the longest episode of the podcast we've ever done. Sam Harris is three hours. This is probably the longest. I was kind of hoping that would happen since it is a special. I'm glad we didn't do the tier list because we'd only be halfway three.

Oh, we would, yeah. I mean, this was. Also, this was fun. This ended up with some quite, this ended up with some very difficult decision. I think so, too. We'll do this again. We'll do an existentialist showdown.

We'll do a philosophy of religion showdown. I think, to be honest, I think that might as well, we can then, we can then compare. them on the same issue as well. Exactly. And that would be, that would be better. I want to see Craig versus Plantinger. I want to see, you know, I want to see Sartre versus Camus. Camus wins that. I want to see Kirkagard versus Camus. More, who's more influential. You know, I'm sorry. Let's actually, let's not even think about it right now. Yeah, yeah. We'll be here to another time. Um, okay, that's it.