Rationally Speaking #48 - Philosophical Counseling

Rationally Speaking Podcast

New York City Skeptics

Society & Culture, Skepticism, Science, Philosophy

4.6 • 787 Ratings

🗓️ 20 November 2011

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Our guest Lou Marinoff joins us to discuss philosophical counceling, a recent trend to use philosophy as a type of talk therapy. Now, despite the provocative title of his best-selling book, “Plato, Not Prozac!: Applying Eternal Wisdom to Everyday Problems,” the idea is actually not to replace psychiatric medications with chats about the ancient Greeks. Rather, as he puts it in the introduction to the volume, you should take your medications if you really need them, but once your brain is back to a normal functionality you will likely still be faced with the same existential problems that plague most human beings. And that’s where philosophy might help.

Lou Marinoff is the Chair of the Department of Philosophy at The City College of New York and a founder of the American Philosophical Practitioners Association. His other books include "The Middle Way: Finding Happiness in a World of Extremes" and "Therapy for the Sane."

Transcript

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0:00.0	Rationally speaking is a presentation of New York City skeptics dedicated to promoting critical thinking, skeptical inquiry, and science education.
0:22.6	For more information, please visit us at NYCCEceptics.org.
0:31.6	Welcome to rationally speaking, the podcast where we explore the borderlands between reason and nonsense.
0:41.2	I'm your host, Massimo Pilducci, and with me, as always, is my co-host, Julia Galev.
0:45.8	Julia, what are we going to talk about today?
0:48.0	Massimo, today we are lucky enough to have a special guest with us in studio.
0:52.2	Lou Marinoff is professor and chair of philosophy at the
0:55.0	City College of New York. He is the founding president of the American Philosophical Practitioners
1:00.3	Association and also editor of their scholarly journal Philosophical Practice. Lou has authored two
1:05.9	international bestsellers, Plato Not Prozac, and Therapy for for the sane, both of which apply philosophy,
1:12.0	Asian and Western schools alike, to the resolution of everyday problems.
1:15.5	Most recently, he's published The Middle Way, which applies virtue ethics of Aristotle,
1:19.8	Buddha, and Confucius to moderating extremes of many kinds.
1:23.8	And in 2004, the New York Times Weekend magazine called him, quote,
1:30.8	the world's most successful marketer of philosophical counseling.
1:32.9	Lou, welcome. It's a pleasure to have you.
1:35.5	Thank you very much, Julia and Massimo. It's great to be here.
1:39.6	And of course, we should disclose it. Actually, Lou and I are colleagues at CUNY.
1:41.5	I mean, he's a city college and I'm at Lehman College.
1:43.6	So the entire show is fixed, in other words. It's pretty much fixed, yes.
1:46.1	Okay, Lou, so I actually read a number of years ago now the Plato not Prozac.
1:51.1	And I still remember very clearly, I hope I remember very clearly, that writing the introduction, you actually say, well, it's not really Plato and no Prozac.
	...

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