#974 - Joe Folley - Existential Philosophy, Nietzsche, Suffering & Self-Awareness

Modern Wisdom

Chris Williamson

Society & Culture, Health & Fitness

4.7 • 4.6K Ratings

🗓️ 31 July 2025

⏱️ 86 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Joe Folley is a philosopher, writer, and host of the Unsolicited Advice YouTube channel. Philosophy has a way of finding us in one form or another, sometimes in a book, sometimes in a moment of crisis. Thinkers like Nietzsche and Camus have helped shape how we see life, death, and everything in between. But can these ideas truly help us live better, or are we just dressing up our confusion in big words? Expect to learn why so many people are attracted to the idea of existential philosophy and why its so seductive and alluring, why we have an obsession with the idea of authenticity, the ideas and works of Nietzsche and his philosophy, if existentialism aligns with religion or if it is anti-God in nature, what the great philosophers like Camus believe about romance, if there is such a thing as too much reflection, and much more… Sponsors: See me on tour in America: ⁠https://chriswilliamson.live⁠ See discounts for all the products I use and recommend: https://chriswillx.com/deals Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period from Shopify at https://shopify.com/modernwisdom Get up to $50 off the RP Hypertrophy App at https://rpstrength.com/modernwisdom Get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN at https://surfshark.com/modernwisdom Timestamps: (0:00) The Mind is a Collection of Modules (7:03) Why is Existential Philosophy So Alluring? (16:50) Why are Resentment and Resistance So Important? (22:47) Looking for Joy When Overcoming Resistance (35:27) What is the Role of the Ubermensch? (37:01) Learning Lessons from Classic Fiction (46:06) What is the Danger of Hyperconsciousness? (52:34) Is Existentialism Intellectualised Depression? (54:48) Why Wasn't Camus an Existentialist? (01:04:39) Walking the Line Between Meaningfulness and Meaninglessness (01:09:53) How to Keep Philosophy Down to Earth (01:14:17) Is There Such a Thing as Too Much Reflection? (01:21:36) Find Out More About Joe Extra Stuff: Get my free reading list of 100 books to read before you die: https://chriswillx.com/books Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic: https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom Episodes You Might Enjoy: #577 - David Goggins - This Is How To Master Your Life: https://tinyurl.com/43hv6y59 #712 - Dr Jordan Peterson - How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs: https://tinyurl.com/2rtz7avf #700 - Dr Andrew Huberman - The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain: https://tinyurl.com/3ccn5vkp - Get In Touch: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	So one of the things that in some ways, Nietzsche really comes up with a very naturalistic view of what it means to be a human, which I think kind of jives relatively well with the kind of spirit of a lot of modern empirical research into, well, into psychology.
0:17.7	I mean, Nietzsche is considered by people like, he was a huge influence of people like Freud and Jung and stuff like that. I mean, Nietzsche is considered by people like, he was a huge influence of people of people like Freud and Jung and stuff like that. I mean, I wouldn't go so far as said that Nietzsche was an evolutionary psychologist, but I think that he might be worth reading if you're interested in evolutionary psychology. It's kind of a very different perspective. The thing that Nietzsche has, as I say, a kind of picture of the human, which ends up really
0:37.7	influencing the psychologist immediately after him, but also just kind of, it's still a broad
0:42.7	view of the human that still is around today, is that Nietzsche conceives of the mind as
0:49.3	basically a collection of drives, or the will as basically a collection of drives. And so it's, as opposed to a lot of
0:56.3	thinkers before him, who sort of conceived of the will as like one object. So the kind of, I know,
1:02.0	if you want an image, it's like the little man driving our bodies, if that makes sense.
1:06.1	Nietzsche kind of throws out this picture and he says, no, that kind of, if I think about how a human being works,
1:12.4	they tend not to work quite like that. I tend to think, okay, I've got this kind of quite chaotic
1:16.6	series of drives and it's very difficult to pinpoint exactly what the me drive is in there. And so he
1:23.7	comes up with this image of human psychology, which is of we all have, our mind just is a series of drives.
1:32.0	And some people have those drives kind of roughly pointing in one direction.
1:35.1	Other people are kind of completely scattered to the four winds.
1:38.0	And, you know, the drives are pulling them this way and that way.
1:40.2	And they can't act.
1:41.5	They can't get anything done.
1:42.3	They can't prioritize.
1:43.5	And so this is kind of
1:44.3	the view of the mind that I would say is kind of then ends up in a lot of, in a lot of late 19th
1:50.8	century and right through the 20th century in terms of psychological ideas and theorizing and research.
1:56.5	Because, you know, if you think about how a therapist might conceive of the human will today,
2:03.0	they tend to talk roughly in terms of different drives, different facets of the mind,
	...

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