Hello and welcome to Overthink.

The podcast where your two favorite philosophy professors take you along the road less traveled.

I am David Peña-Gusman.

And I'm Ellie Anderson.

There's a common misconception that philosophers don't travel. Many think that we're sort of

up in our ivory tower, armchair thinking about abstract ideas with no real connection to the

real world. And in one of the books that I really enjoyed reading in preparation for this episode,

it's called Philosophers Abroad, The Meaning of Travel by Emily Thomas. Thomas points out that this misconception

is likely due to two figures. Kant, who famously barely ever traveled outside of Koenigsberg

where he lived in spite of writing an entire text on anthropology, in which he

speculated about different races. And second, Socrates, who never actually set foot outside of the

city walls of Athens. Yeah. I mean, fair point. If you're trying to paint a picture of the

traditional philosopher by the standards of Socrates and the magician from

Kuninsberg, you're going to get a very reclusive image of who we are and what we do.

Although I think this also raises a question of what we mean by travel, because although

neither Socrates nor Kant ever really left their hometown, I mean, they kind of traveled within their hometown because both of them

love to go on walks. I mean, Socrates is a peripatetic philosopher, engaging people in the

Agora. And Kant was famous for going on these walks that were super regular to the point that

some of his neighbors and other locals would tell what time of the day it was by seeing the philosopher walking around.

So it's a kind of like local travel, I would say.

Okay, David. So you're absolutely right that what we mean by travel is an open question.

And that's something we'll be really getting into in the episode. Like,

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