Episode #219 ... Dostoevsky - Crime and Punishment

Philosophize This!

Stephen West

Education, Philosophy, Society & Culture

4.8 • 16.2K Ratings

🗓️ 23 December 2024

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today we talk about the philosophical themes that Dostoevsky had in mind when writing Crime and Punishment. We talk about Russian Nihilism and its consequences. Rational Utilitarianism and Egoism. A common misunderstanding of Raskolnikov as an embodiment of Nietzsche's work. Confession. Guilt. Affirming life through consent. And much more. Hope you love it! :) Sponsors: Nord VPN: https://nordvpn.com/philothis Thank you so much for listening! Could never do this without your help. Website: https://www.philosophizethis.org/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/philosophizethis Social: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/philosophizethispodcast X: https://twitter.com/iamstephenwest Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/philosophizethisshow

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, everyone. I'm Stephen West. This is Philosophies This. So today we're talking about Dostoevsky's
0:05.7	crime and punishment. And while there's no substitute for reading the actual book, you know,
0:09.8	sitting down, giving yourself the gift of feeling the characters, putting yourself in the experience
0:14.4	directly, being that this is a philosophy podcast, we can talk about some of the philosophical
0:19.6	themes Dostoevsky definitely had in mind as he was
0:21.8	writing this book. See, to know about the deepening of Russian nihilism at the time, the rise of what
0:27.5	you could call eventually the narcissism of modernity, to know about the crisis of faith that many
0:32.2	people are encountering across the world, well, this is some philosophical context that can be
0:36.1	easily missed if you were taking a purely literary approach to the book. And, you know, philosophical context that can be easily missed if you were taking a
0:37.5	purely literary approach to the book. And, you know, take it from me. The last thing you want to be
0:42.2	in this world is simply a librarian. You want to be a philosopher librarian. That's the life goal you
0:48.2	should be aiming for. Anyway, that said, the main character we're going to be talking about today
0:51.8	is one of the most memorable, relatable characters and maybe all of classic literature. It's a young man by the name of Rodion Raskolnikov,
0:59.4	or just Raskolnikov for short. Now, on the surface, the book kind of masquerades as being
1:04.3	about this guy Raskolnikov, where he takes an axe, murders two innocent people, and then deals with the personal and legal fallout of doing something
1:11.3	like that. That's what the book masquerades as. But part of what makes this book such a work of
1:16.1	brilliance from Dostoevsky is that the murder is actually a secondary thing to the main point
1:21.5	of the book for him. There's a sense in which the book could have been about a lot of different
1:25.2	things, but a double murder for Dostoevsky
1:27.7	is going to be an absolutely perfect sight to explore the contradictions of Russian nihilism
1:33.0	when taken to their natural ends as consequences in the real world. You know, it's been said
1:37.9	that the true drama of crime and punishment is actually the complexity of the internal
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