#295 — Philosophy and the Good Life
Making Sense with Sam Harris
Waking Up with Sam Harris
4.6 • 29.7K Ratings
🗓️ 9 September 2022
⏱️ 44 minutes
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Summary
Sam Harris speaks to Kieran Setiya about the relevance of philosophy to living a good life. They discuss the existence of objective moral truths, being happy vs living well, our response to grief, the difference between "telic" and "atelic" activities, the power of reframing, FOMO, bias toward the future, regret, the asymmetry between pain and pleasure, and other topics.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. |
| 0:09.1 | This is Sam Harris. |
| 0:11.3 | Just a note to say that if you're hearing this, you are not currently on our subscriber |
| 0:14.8 | feed and will only be hearing the first part of this conversation. |
| 0:18.6 | In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense Podcast, you'll need to subscribe |
| 0:22.5 | at samharis.org. |
| 0:24.5 | There you'll find our private RSS feed to add to your favorite pod catcher, along with |
| 0:28.3 | other subscriber-only content. |
| 0:30.7 | We don't run ads on the podcast, and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support |
| 0:34.6 | of our subscribers. |
| 0:36.0 | So if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming one. |
| 0:46.9 | Today I'm speaking with Kieran Setia. |
| 0:50.5 | Kieran is a professor of philosophy at MIT. |
| 0:54.0 | Kieran is the author of Midlife, a philosophical guide, as well as life is hard. |
| 1:00.1 | How philosophy can help us find our way. |
| 1:02.7 | His writing has also appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, |
| 1:08.2 | the London Review of Books, the New York Times, Aon, and the Yale Review. |
| 1:14.2 | In this conversation, we talk about the relevance of philosophy to the ongoing project of living |
| 1:20.6 | a good life. |
| 1:22.3 | We discuss the existence of objective moral truths, being happy versus living well, a response |
| 1:28.9 | to grief, meditation as a remedy for psychological suffering, how to understand the claim that |
| 1:35.0 | the self is an illusion, the difference between tealic and atelic activities, the power of |
... |
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