Transcrição gerada automaticamente a partir do áudio, com revisão automatizada parcial. Os nomes dos interlocutores foram atribuídos automaticamente. Em caso de dúvida, o áudio do episódio prevalece.
Eron Falbo: [0:02] Hi.
Massimo Pigliucci: [0:04] Hi. How are you doing?
Eron Falbo: [0:07] I'm doing well. How are you?
Massimo Pigliucci: [0:09] Perfect. I can hear you very well. Thank you.
Eron Falbo: [0:12] Great, great. So maybe let's just give it a couple of seconds so people can join.
Massimo Pigliucci: [0:18] Absolutely.
Eron Falbo: [0:20] Usually people take a little bit longer. The way the algorithm works is that you start and then Instagram sees that you're for real, that you're not just playing around, and then it starts to show more and more people.
Massimo Pigliucci: [0:32] Are you sure you're for real? I mean, that's a deep philosophical question, you know?
Eron Falbo: [0:36] I know, but Instagram knows better than me.
Massimo Pigliucci: [0:40] I guess.
Eron Falbo: [0:43] Welcome, welcome to Instagram. You know, I know it's your first experience here. I hope, you know, other people invite you as well, and maybe one day you can have an account and have one more thing to worry about.
Massimo Pigliucci: [0:56] That's right. Yes. That's what I need.
Eron Falbo: [1:01] Good. It's a great pleasure. Soon I'm gonna, you know, do the proper introduction so we can have something to start with.
Massimo Pigliucci: [1:12] And I follow your advice. I do have wine here, so. Oh, yeah.
Eron Falbo: [1:17] Oh, great.
Massimo Pigliucci: [1:17] So I'm gonna pour myself some wine.
Eron Falbo: [1:20] You're Italian, so you know.
Massimo Pigliucci: [1:22] Exactly. Slightly on the early side in New York, but, you know, it's okay. We can make an exception.
Eron Falbo: [1:31] Great. So you're in New York?
Massimo Pigliucci: [1:34] Yes, I'm in Brooklyn. Right at the entrance of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Eron Falbo: [1:42] I went to boarding school in Dobbs Ferry, near Queens, you know.
Massimo Pigliucci: [1:48] Yeah, yeah, yeah. What did you study there? Just...
Eron Falbo: [1:53] Just high school. I was in high school.
Massimo Pigliucci: [1:55] Okay.
Eron Falbo: [1:56] 11th grade.
Massimo Pigliucci: [1:57] Yeah.
Eron Falbo: [1:59] All right. Okay, so I'm gonna... Some people arriving. We got 179 people already, so... Hello, everybody. I'm gonna speak a little bit of Portuguese.
Massimo Pigliucci: [2:08] Just.
Eron Falbo: [2:08] There's a lot of people who speak Portuguese.
Massimo Pigliucci: [2:10] Go for it.
Eron Falbo: [2:26] Welcome, friends. We're here today with Dr. Massimo Pigliucci, one of the world's foremost experts on stoicism, an active contributor to teaching it, practicing it, and divulging it. Dr. Pigliucci has an amazing academic record. He's a PhD in biology and genetics and evolutionary psychology and in philosophy. He's a professor at City College of New York, former host of the Rationally Speaking podcast, former editor of Scientia Salon magazine. He has authored many books and countless articles on all sorts of subjects. He was kind enough to grant me this amazing conversation we're about to have. So thank you, Massimo. You know, one of the first things that I wanted to mention to you is that I listen to Stoic Meditations, your podcast, pretty much every day in the morning. And it's because you, you know, you're kind enough to do so many of them that it's possible to listen to everything, and it really makes a difference. I'd really like to thank you. I mean, that's something. It makes a big difference, you know, listening to the words and wisdom of the Stoics with your kind and generous voice. And I'm glad to hear.
Massimo Pigliucci: [3:36] Indeed, folks, I'm happy to be here. You know, that podcast actually started out because I do that exercise for myself every day, pretty much. I start my day by trying to focus on a particular stoic quote that I pick pretty much at random from my collection. And then I take a few minutes to reflect on it and see how it applies to my life. And after a while of doing that, I figured, you know, maybe other people might actually, you know, find that useful. And so I started the podcast, and literally, I know now it's got almost 5 million downloads, so it's like, wow, really? Yeah, apparently people do enjoy it.
Eron Falbo: [4:16] That's a lot.
Massimo Pigliucci: [4:16] Wow.
Eron Falbo: [4:17] Five million. I actually tried to look that up before we started this, but I couldn't find where that marker is. You know, where, you see, that must be in your platform thing.
Massimo Pigliucci: [4:32] Yeah, yeah, the podcast is put out on the Anchor FM platform, which gives me the statistics, but it's also available pretty much on all the major platforms, including Spotify and Apple, etc. Yeah. Oh, wait, is this...
Eron Falbo: [4:52] Yeah, I think this is Marcus Aurelius.
Massimo Pigliucci: [4:56] Yeah, looks like Marcus.
Eron Falbo: [4:59] I actually forgot I had him here.
Massimo Pigliucci: [5:00] There he goes.
Eron Falbo: [5:03] I'm actually wearing... also, I don't know if you've heard of this, it's a cufflink with Marcus Aurelius's coin from...
Massimo Pigliucci: [5:10] Nice.
Eron Falbo: [5:11] Have you seen this before? It's amazing.
Massimo Pigliucci: [5:16] But I think I can do you one better. Let's see, where is it?
Eron Falbo: [5:21] Okay.
Massimo Pigliucci: [5:24] This... I don't know if you can see it. This is an actual Marcus Aurelius coin.
Eron Falbo: [5:29] Oh, that's amazing.
Massimo Pigliucci: [5:32] This is from the year 180, when Marcus died. I have a little small collection of Roman antiquities here. You see all that stuff there? It's actually Roman stuff. And this is my... let's see if I can show you. There, right? This one is a lamp. It's a Roman lamp, an oil lamp.
Eron Falbo: [5:52] Sure.
Massimo Pigliucci: [5:52] Yeah. And it's from... I should probably hold it like this. And it is from the same period as Epictetus, the early 2nd century Stoic philosopher. And the reason I got it is because there is a famous story about Epictetus's lamp that he talks about in his Discourses. So he says, you know, last night I heard a sound in the other room, and I woke up and I went there, and my lamp was gone. You know, a thief just stole it. And then he thought about it and he said, well, you know, I only lost the lamp, and tomorrow morning I can go to the market and get another one, a cheaper one, so that it's not that expensive. But the thief actually lost his own integrity in doing so. He thinks he came out ahead by taking the lamp, but he actually lost in the bargain. So when I heard that story, there is a dealer of Roman and Greek antiquities here in New York that I had bought a few things from before, like some of the coins and stuff like that. And so I went there and said, hey, you don't happen to have a second century Roman lamp, do you? And he said, yes, absolutely. So I call that my Epictetus lamp.
Eron Falbo: [7:07] Who doesn't have a 2nd century Roman lamp? That's the most normal thing in the world. It's...
Massimo Pigliucci: [7:14] So...
Eron Falbo: [7:15] So, as we were saying before, you're in New York and you're a professor at City College. How long have you been in New York?
Massimo Pigliucci: [7:24] Let's see. I moved to New York in 2006. I had already been in the United States for a while, I came to the United States in 1990. So I've been here about 30 years. But I moved to New York in 2006, and I was hired at the City University of New York three years later. And ever since I've been at CUNY, in two different colleges. Right now I'm at City College teaching philosophy, mostly philosophy of science, because my field is actually philosophy of science. But I also teach, like next semester, for instance, I'm teaching a course on practical ancient philosophy, where we're going to talk about Stoicism and Epicureanism and things like that.
Eron Falbo: [8:06] Which is just really philosophy, right? Because they just changed it. Practical ancient philosophy is what philosophy really is.
Massimo Pigliucci: [8:13] That's right. Most of ancient philosophy was in fact practical, although to be fair, not all of it, right? I mean, if you go back to the pre-Socratic philosophers, people like Heraclitus, Anaximander, and so on, they were actually interested in what we would today call natural science and metaphysics.
Eron Falbo: [8:32] Yeah, but at the same time, we know, at least from what we hear from Diogenes Laërtius, things like that, that they were at the same time always practical philosophers. They were always interested in... you know, they were part of, they had cults, and, you know, people with diets and...
Massimo Pigliucci: [8:53] That's right, that's right. Pythagoras was the head of... oops, sorry, was the head of a cult, really, that had also dietary restrictions. Yeah, they were vegetarian. You know, the reason that the Pythagoreans were vegetarian is because they believed in reincarnation. And they thought if you eat an animal, you're possibly eating your own grandfather or something like that. You know, that's not a good idea.
Eron Falbo: [9:19] That's pretty superstitious, you know.
Massimo Pigliucci: [9:21] Yeah, a little bit on the superstitious side of things.
Eron Falbo: [9:23] But who knows? Maybe they knew more, you know, maybe they were right.
Massimo Pigliucci: [9:27] I mean, who knows?
Eron Falbo: [9:29] So, since you got your wine there, let's do a cheers. Thanks a lot, thanks a lot for accepting our invitation.
Massimo Pigliucci: [9:38] And it's a pleasure to be here.
Eron Falbo: [9:40] To life. To Zeus.
Massimo Pigliucci: [9:45] Indeed.
Eron Falbo: [9:48] So, in the beginning of Symposium, they choose how much they're gonna mix the wine with water. So I mixed a little bit here because it's too early, you know, forgetting.
Massimo Pigliucci: [10:03] Yeah, I'm drinking some Vermentino from Sardinia. It's a fairly light wine, so it doesn't matter, but...
Eron Falbo: [10:14] Great, great. So let me see here. I don't know where to start, to be honest. You have so many, you know, things, whatever you like, that we... so many rabbit holes that we can go into here. So, all right, start with, like, personal questions. How about, why did you leave Italy? You know, did you feel like going back there at any point?
Massimo Pigliucci: [10:37] Yeah. Well, I've been back to Italy every year, sometimes twice a year, since I moved to the United States. But the reason I left was to pursue my academic career, because Italy, especially at the time, but even today, frankly, wasn't exactly conducive to an academic career. Yes, we have universities, of course. In fact, technically, we have the oldest university in the world. The University of Bologna was established more than 900 years ago, before Oxford and Paris. But it is difficult to get into an academic career in Italy, especially at the time, because I started out as a biologist and not as a philosopher, as you mentioned earlier, and positions in biology departments at universities in Italy were very few and far between. And besides, I figured that I really needed some kind of international experience, so I applied for a grant and I moved to the United States. I went to the University of Connecticut, and that's where I did my PhD in evolutionary biology. So that was the original, you know, reason for moving. Initially, the idea wasn't necessarily to stay permanently, but yeah, then one thing leads to another and here we are.
Eron Falbo: [11:50] So you began in a sort of, like, straight, more exact sciences, and then you started slowly getting interested... well, evolutionary psychology was a gateway drug, you know, probably to harder things, right? Afterwards you got interested in philosophy. I heard you say in an interview that you started getting interested in virtue ethics because... you were going, as you know, my father passed away quite recently, and I heard, thank you, thank you. I heard that when you started getting into virtue ethics, it was because your own father had passed away and he felt sort of a guide.
Massimo Pigliucci: [12:32] That's right, that's correct. I mean, I had already shifted academic fields. I was already studying philosophy and getting my PhD in philosophy. And then, you know, midlife crisis hit, and midlife crisis wasn't anything unusual. It happens to a lot of people. But a number of unusual things did happen all at the same time. So my father died of cancer, and my wife at the time divorced me unexpectedly. I didn't see it coming. You know, typically people expect that kind of stuff.
Eron Falbo: [13:06] But by the way, I actually got divorced this year as well. So, so we're...
Massimo Pigliucci: [13:13] And then I also changed jobs, moved to a different city, had to buy a new house, and all that sort of stuff. Now, any psychologist would tell you that one or two of those things are sufficiently stressful. If four or five happen at the same time, they're like, oh, okay, come on, now the universe is going to...
Eron Falbo: [13:29] Tell me something. You won't believe this, but the same, exactly. Until the end of last year, I was living in Israel. So I spent three years living in Israel, and I had two children there, and I moved to Brazil at the end of last year with my family. And then I got divorced, and then I left... well, I joined a company from Israel that, when I came back here, I was part of, and I left that in February this year. So basically the same story. I changed my job, I moved countries, I lost my father, I lost my wife while I got divorced. Does that cover all the boxes?
Massimo Pigliucci: [14:17] That pretty much covers it. Yeah, that pretty much covers it. Right. So you know what I'm talking about. When you're in that kind of situation, it's a little bit of a crisis. It's kind of inevitable.
Eron Falbo: [14:27] You need something to guide you.
Massimo Pigliucci: [14:29] Right, to hold on to. Yeah, exactly. You need some kind of framework. And interestingly, I thought I had a framework, but it turns out it wasn't particularly useful. So let me go back for a second here. When I was younger, I grew up in Italy, in Rome, and naturally I was Catholic, because that's what happens if you live...
Eron Falbo: [14:47] That's what you do there. Yeah.
Massimo Pigliucci: [14:49] If you live literally next to the Pope, then, like, you know, that's the thing. But I left the church when I was a teenager because, frankly, there were a lot of things that didn't make a lot of sense to me. I mean, like, for instance, I still remember having a conversation with my priest one day, and it was about the Catholic dogma of transubstantiation. So this notion that when you take communion, right, you literally drink the blood of Christ and literally eat the flesh of Christ. And I said, you don't mean literally, do you? I mean, you mean metaphorically. Sure, I can understand the symbolism, but you don't actually mean literally. And then the guy said, no, no, I mean literally. It's a miracle. It's like a metaphysical... And I said, no, no, it isn't. That's not gonna... that's not happening. So that, and a lot of other things, didn't make any sense. And so I said, okay, fine. When I left the church, because people, frankly, do need some kind of framework. They do need some kind of general overview of life, you know, some kind of guidance. Yes, some system. Then when you leave religion, you look for something else. And in my case, I adopted the philosophy of secular humanism. And secular humanism is fairly popular across the world. I had read about it. I started, okay, this sounds good. It has a lot of ideas that I enjoy. Like, you know, secular humanists support the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. You know, it's all about justice, and okay, I'm good. However, when the crisis hit, turns out that secular humanism was pretty much useless, because believing in human rights doesn't actually help you getting through a divorce. Right, right, you know, believing something more external. Right, yeah, yeah. Believing that justice is important, which it is, still doesn't actually help you with grief when your father is dying, and, you know, that sort of stuff. So that's what I actually started looking more, in a more concerted way, in a more focused way, about a possible philosophy of life. And yeah, you're right that almost immediately I hit on virtue ethics. Before I got to virtue ethics, actually, I tried Buddhism for a little bit, and I read a little bit about Buddhism. You know, I tried meditation, that sort of stuff. Meditation was actually helpful. It was calming, and it was like an interesting way to center yourself. The problem is that Buddhism didn't speak to me, for one thing, because the language is not the one that I'm used to. Culturally, it's not the one that I'm used to. And so that's my limitation, of course, not Buddhism's problem. But the other thing is the metaphysics was not exactly...
Eron Falbo: [17:43] Yeah, I find a lot of problems as well with Buddhism, because the practice, especially in Zen Buddhism, is much more stoic, much more rational, much more relaxed. But in general, if you look back at the Dhammapada, the original text and stuff, there is a lot... it's actually quite similar to Christianity, to be honest. There's a lot of, you know, suddenly you have to fast, and you have to, you know, there's certain things that you're obliged to do, and there's no actual explanation for it other than that, that's what you do, and that's what the Buddha is subscribing to.
Massimo Pigliucci: [18:20] Right. And the metaphysics certainly did not agree with me. I mean, you know, if we're talking about karma and reincarnation and things like that, I said, oh, wait a minute, I left the Catholic Church precisely for that kind of stuff. So I'm not going to go back to it. So it struck me that virtue ethics, which is a general approach developed in ancient Greece and Rome, is focused more on character development, on becoming a better person by practicing a better character. So, in other words, by mindfully engaging in positive actions that, little by little, change your entire persona in a sense. So I said, okay, that sounds good. The first stop, if you get into virtue ethics, then, is usually Aristotle. So I started studying Aristotle. The problem with Aristotle was that the guy was really an aristocrat. I mean, not surprisingly, because he grew up... his father was the personal physician of the King of Macedon. You know, he eventually became the advisor and mentor of Alexander the Great. So, yeah, the guy literally was an aristocrat. Now, that's not necessarily a problem, unless it makes it so that your entire philosophy becomes aristocratic. For instance, Aristotle said that in life it's important to work on your character, to develop, you know, to practice virtue.
Eron Falbo: [19:43] That.
Massimo Pigliucci: [19:43] That's... I'm on board with that. But then he also said you also need, in order to have a good life, you know, life flourishing, you also need a little bit of education. You need health. You need a little bit of wealth. You also need good looks. And I said, okay, that's it, I'm done. I can't do with that sort of stuff. And that definition of the good life basically excludes a lot of people, either because they don't have the good looks, or because they're not wealthy, or because they're not educated.
Eron Falbo: [20:16] Although, I mean, in their defense, when they say good looks, I don't think they mean what we tend to, you know, think of as good looks. I think it's a healthy body sort of, you know, presenting externally. That's my take, I don't know. Obviously, you're the one.
Massimo Pigliucci: [20:33] But then again, you know, Socrates, for instance, would hardly qualify. He literally had bulgy eyes and a big nose. He was well known for being ugly.
Eron Falbo: [20:45] Let's explore that further, because, you know, Aristotle, the Corpus Aristotelicum, or however you say it, is such a vast encyclopedia of works that I tend to believe the Lyceum was something that happened over a few generations, with students, and, like, we see in any corpus of a sect or school or religion, or something like that, it, you know, as leadership changes, people add to it. And so I don't quite, you know, like, when they say Aristotle, I don't think of a guy, you know, I think of a school of thought. No, you're right.
Massimo Pigliucci: [21:35] It was a school of thought, and absolutely, different people, different students of Aristotle, had different opinions about things, just like in Stoicism. And Stoicism is not just Zeno of Citium, who's the guy that established the thing. It's a bunch of different people with different ideas. However, I actually read the Nicomachean Ethics, which is Aristotle, and so I said, okay, well, that's an interesting thing, but it's not going to be for me. So then the next stop was Epicurus, because Epicureanism also is a type of virtue ethics. Now, Epicureans, as you probably know, have a bit of a bad reputation, right? They're supposed to be the sex, drugs, and rock and roll of philosophy, but in fact, they were not. Epicurus thought that the kind of pleasure he was talking about was very simple pleasures. There was an emphasis on simple food and simple living, and also an emphasis on friendship. I said, okay, well, I'm on board with that one, that's fine. He was also very open to women. You know, he was one of the few ancient philosophers that allowed women in his school.
Eron Falbo: [22:38] I see them as like a sort of Woodstock sort of guys. There is sex, drugs and rock and roll, but not necessarily. There were a lot of, you know, people who lived out in the woods and woke up early on Sundays, and, you know.
Massimo Pigliucci: [22:52] Exactly. So it's like, okay, I'm bored so far. But then the problem is that according to Epicurus, the highest goal in life is to live a life without pain, not just physical pain, but emotional pain, mental pain. And because of that, he taught that you need to stay away from social and political involvement because, as we know, it's painful, right? I mean, just pay attention, just read the news these days, both in Brazil and the United States, and you'll see that it's pretty painful stuff going on. And I said, okay, well, but that's not going to do it for me because I don't think that I could live a good life as a human being if I did not have a significant degree of social and political involvement. So that was out. So here I was, right in the middle of my midlife crisis, looking around Buddhism, Aristotle, Epicureanism, blah, blah, blah. And one day on Twitter, of all places, I see this thing that says, help us celebrate Stoic Week. I said, what the hell is Stoic Week? And why would anybody want to celebrate the Stoics? Because at the time, my notion of stoicism was the typical view that people often have of Stoics, as people who live their life with a stiff upper lip, you know, enduring everything and suppressing emotions and things like that. So it's a little bit like Mr. Spock from Star Trek, right?
Eron Falbo: [24:25] Yeah, for sure. And the Samurai. Spartans, Stoics.
Massimo Pigliucci: [24:31] Samurai. So I thought, okay, well, as much as I like Spock as a character, I don't think I want to live my life like that. So it's like, weird. But then I thought about it for a second. I said, wait a minute, the Stoics, that's Marcus Aurelius. I actually read the Meditations when I was in college and I thought, okay, that was an interesting read. And then I remember the Stoics, it's also Seneca. I actually translated from Latin when I was in high school, and I found him an interesting, engaging writer. So I said, okay, well, maybe I should take a look at this Stoicism stuff before dismissing it. I should take a look.
Eron Falbo: [25:09] Did he write originally in Latin or in Greek?
Massimo Pigliucci: [25:13] Seneca wrote in Latin. Marcus Aurelius wrote in Greek and Epictetus wrote in Greek. But Seneca and Cicero, who also wrote a lot about Stoicism, they wrote in Latin. And I translated both of them as exercises in high school. All right, so I said, well, let's take a look. What the hell? I mean, how bad can it be? Just a week, right? So let me sign up for Stoic Week, which, by the way, is coming up again sometime in.
Eron Falbo: [25:40] Yeah, soon. The 17th.
Massimo Pigliucci: [25:43] The 17th of October, that's right. And so I signed up and I downloaded some material and I started reading and then practicing because they have some exercises. So the first thing that I thought was good, was that, oh good, the Stoics have exercises, right? They have types of meditations, they have stuff that they do, as I need something practical here. So that was welcome. And then the first guy that I read, the first ancient Stoic that I read in this sort of new phase, was Epictetus. And Epictetus was an early second century Stoic philosopher, late first century, early second century. He was a slave initially for part of his life. He was brought to Rome by the secretary to Emperor Nero. Then eventually, because he was a bright guy, he was allowed to study philosophy and he was freed. He was made a freedman, and he started his own school. He got himself into trouble by speaking truth to power, as we would say today, because he was critical of the Emperor Domitian. And so the emperor just sent him out into exile in northwestern Greece, in the city of Nicopolis. And Epictetus went there, re-established this school, and it became one of the most famous schools of antiquity. So I started reading Epictetus, right? And one of the first things that I read is this passage in the Discourses where he says, so we should give some thought about death and, you know, and how we're going to die and that sort of stuff. However, it doesn't look like I'm dying today. On the other hand, I'm hungry, and so I think we should think about lunch right now and not about dying. And I said, okay, this guy is funny. I like him. He's, you know, he's got a sense of humor, sometimes borderline sarcasm. He's very in your face. He's very practical.
Eron Falbo: [27:34] He's very, you know, and because he's a slave, he's like, he's so.
Massimo Pigliucci: [27:39] He's.
Eron Falbo: [27:40] He doesn't have anything to lose, and he has that spirit, right? Like, you know, I can take it all the way, but, you know, I can scold you as well, because, you know, like, you have it all and I have nothing. And actually, for myself as well, Epictetus was the first one that actually, well, you know, if you read Marcus Aurelius, if you read Seneca, you don't necessarily get a corpus of Stoicism. You get advice, and you see that. In other words, I think Epictetus is where you find all of it in one place.
Massimo Pigliucci: [28:14] Yeah, that's right, that's right. In the Discourses, especially. That's right.
Eron Falbo: [28:18] And speaking of which, you...
Massimo Pigliucci: [28:20] You.
Eron Falbo: [28:20] You're just, to take advantage of the fact that you're mentioning Epictetus, you're releasing a book. Have you released it yet? A Field Guide to a Happy Life.
Massimo Pigliucci: [28:31] Yes, it came out a couple of weeks ago.
Eron Falbo: [28:33] Oh, great. So I just want to say to everyone who's watching or listening, two things. First of all, please buy, download, whatever, A Guide to a Happy Life. No, A Field Guide to a Happy Life, by Massimo. It's available probably on Amazon, and all the good places.
Massimo Pigliucci: [28:58] All the major retailers, yes.
Eron Falbo: [29:00] Yeah, that's how you say it. Because I'm not used to doing this in English, by the way. This is the first time I'm doing it.
Massimo Pigliucci: [29:05] I believe it. I apologize, my Portuguese is really not that good.
Eron Falbo: [29:10] My Italian is only good when I drink the whole bottle of wine.
Massimo Pigliucci: [29:14] So it's not gonna work.
Eron Falbo: [29:16] But also, if anybody wants to ask questions, there's going to be a little question mark over here right next to the comments section. Because we have so many people, we can't really answer the questions that are on the feed, we have to answer the questions that are official. So please ask questions over there. So tell me about this, A Field Guide to a Happy Life. What's different between this book and How to Be a Stoic
Massimo Pigliucci: [29:52] And...
Eron Falbo: [29:52] A Handbook for New Stoics that you have?
Massimo Pigliucci: [29:55] Yeah, those are the two books that I wrote about stoicism so far. So How to Be a Stoic is the first one that came out back in 2017, and it's an overview of Stoic philosophy. It's like, if you don't know anything about Stoic philosophy, I think it's an introduction. It's a decent introduction that doesn't require any philosophical background. It also has a practical component, because each chapter is about different issues, such as death, for instance, or depression, or career, and things like that. So it's a fairly practical general introduction to stoicism. The second book, Handbook for New Stoics, I co-wrote with my friend Greg Lopez, and that one is a very, very practical guide. The emphasis there is definitely on the practice. In fact, it's essentially all exercises. It's 52 exercises that people can sample and see if Stoic practice is for them. They don't have to do a course of all 52 of them. In fact, with Greg, we provide a little bit of a shortcut. We say, you know, if you're just starting, these are the more fundamental exercises you want to try out and see if they make a difference. The publisher was actually very good there. They put together a book where you can literally write in your notes and make it sort of your companion while you're exploring stoicism. And if you bought the electronic version, the publisher actually makes available downloadable forms that you can use to actually work with the book. This new one, A Field Guide to a Happy Life, it's quite a different conception. So first of all, it's a very short book, as you probably noticed. And, you know, it's meant to be portable. I can show you the English, as in the UK edition. This is it. And as you can see, it's very, very thin. It's a very small book. And the notion there... it's an interesting project. It was an interesting project for me. So one of the early Stoic texts, one of the most important Stoic texts, was Epictetus' Enchiridion. Enchiridion just means manual. So it's a manual for a happy life, a manual for a good life. And the Enchiridion is essentially a little book that is divided into 53 sections. Each section is just a few sentences or a few paragraphs long. So it's very short, and it gives you practical advice on all sorts of different aspects of life according to Epictetus. Now, this book was really fundamental for a lot of people throughout the centuries. Not only Epictetus was very famous, of course, in antiquity, but during the Middle Ages, for instance, Christian monks used the Enchiridion as a training manual for their practices. So it was used throughout the Middle Ages. It was used throughout the Renaissance, and in early modern times, all of the founding fathers of the United States had a copy of the Enchiridion, like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, all of them had, you know, they carried it with them because it's a sort of very practical thing.
Eron Falbo: [33:19] I have all sorts of great leaders.
Massimo Pigliucci: [33:23] A lot of people have it now. The problem with the Enchiridion, however, is that it's a wonderful little book. However, it was, of course, written 18 centuries ago. So there are a few things that have changed in the meantime. You know, both science, in terms of understanding of the world, and philosophy, in terms of understanding of ethics, have made some progress in the meantime. So the idea of the Field Guide to a Happy Life is that, basically, I rewrote the Enchiridion, bringing it up to today, to the 21st century. So the language is modern, the examples are modern, some of the concepts are different. I tried, of course, to stick to, you know, Epictetus' original ideas, but I also modified and updated some of those.
Eron Falbo: [34:12] And that's part two, you mean? Right. But part one is more of an introduction to what it's like. Part two is the actual content, and part three is sort of an explanation of how we can take this further and live it in the present.
Massimo Pigliucci: [34:27] That's right. The book has a short introduction to stoicism, and for people who have no idea what stoicism is about, the bulk of the book, the central part, is essentially the rewriting of the Enchiridion updated to the 21st century. And then the last part details the differences between the original and my version, because I don't want to mislead people. I want people to understand what the differences are, and what it is that Epictetus said versus what it is that I'm saying. But this book also is supposed to be very practical. It is supposed to be the kind of thing that you bring with you. That's why it's so short and so little and portable. There is a lot of blank space after each section so that you can write your own notes there. Ideally, people would read it, not necessarily cover to cover. You can just open it at a random place and then start reading it, annotating it, say what you know, write down what you think, and then go back to it over and over.
Eron Falbo: [35:26] Well, I'm definitely going to buy a hard copy. As soon as I can, I'll order it. And, you know, if you could sign it for me, it would be amazing. I would. We can talk about that later. But, going further on the subject, you consider yourself not only a stoic, or at least. Well, I mean, that's one of the subjects, you know, a stoic, in my opinion, I think it's your opinion as well, because I think I heard you say this before. A stoic isn't a sage, right? So a stoic is somebody who is progressing, who is believing in progress every day. I mean, stoicism doesn't have a commitment to a certain behavior. A stoic has a commitment to constantly be improving. Right? It's not, you know, 'you should do X, Y, Z.' That's one of the problems I have with Buddhism. Or with any religion, you have certain prescriptions that are sort of universal. You have to do this and do that. And I think stoicism was more about becoming a better person. So whatever it is, you know, if it's journaling, meditation, whatever it is, that's a tool for you to arrive at becoming a better person.
Massimo Pigliucci: [36:44] Yeah, that's exactly right. So I still consider myself a stoic practitioner. Definitely not a sage. The sage is the perfect stoic, right? The person has a perfect understanding of virtue and a perfect practice of it. And even according to Seneca, sages are very rare. He said that there is one, pretty much every time that the Phoenix comes back to life. The Phoenix was this, you know, mythological bird that rises from its ashes. And according to Roman mythology, the Phoenix rises every 500 years. So this is one sage every 500 years. I'm certainly not a sage, but yes, we're all practitioners. We're all trying to do better. And there are no commandments, there are no injunctions in Stoicism. The only thing, as you just said, is so long as you're trying your best, you're good, right? So that's what you need to do, is to try your best to become a better person. Yeah, maybe that's right. Certainly. Be sincere. Make an effort. I don't know, maybe we can talk a little bit about what it means to be a better person from a Stoic perspective. There are a couple of different ways of going about it, but one of them is to keep in mind what the Stoics refer to as the four cardinal virtues. So the four virtues are practical wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance. And practical wisdom is the one that's a little bit more difficult to understand. But essentially, practical wisdom is the knowledge of what is really good for you and what is really not good for you.
Eron Falbo: [38:18] To me, I have a problem distinguishing between temperance and practical wisdom, because in a way, temperance is a form of practical wisdom.
Massimo Pigliucci: [38:30] Right. So let's try an example. So let's say that I go to work and I see one of my coworkers being harassed by my boss, okay? And so the question that I'm facing now is, well, should I say something or not? Should I intervene in this situation or not? So, as a Stoic, I consult my four virtues. The first one is practical wisdom, which is the knowledge of what is good for me and what is not good for me. And practical wisdom tells me, yes, you should intervene. It's good for your own character to step in, because you're doing the right thing. If you don't intervene, you undermine your own character. You become a worse person by not intervening in the situation. So practical wisdom says, yes, you should. Courage. Well, does it take courage to intervene in the situation? Yes, because my boss, and so I could face retaliation, right? I could, you know, get on his wrong side, or even possibly, you know, have my employment terminated. So, yes, it takes courage. What about justice? Well, justice for the Stoics is acting toward other people in a fair way, and in the way in which you would want them to act toward you. So if I were in the position of my coworker, would I want somebody to take my defense and, you know, step in? Of course I would. So the virtue of justice tells me, yes, you should intervene. Now, what about temperance? So temperance is the notion that you should be doing things in the right measure, neither too much nor too little.
Eron Falbo: [40:00] Right.
Massimo Pigliucci: [40:01] So that means that, for instance, I shouldn't just mutter something under my breath like this so that my boss doesn't hear me, because that's too little. That's just not doing anything. But at the same time, I don't want to jump on my boss and start punching him in the nose, because that's too much. That's an overreaction. Right. So temperance tells me you have to do something in between. You have to speak calmly, firmly, you know, audibly, and so on and so forth. So that's how Stoics calibrate things. That's one way in which, at least, Stoics try to improve themselves. Every time you find yourself in a situation, small or big, you know, consequential or inconsequential, you consult the four virtues and say, okay, according to the four virtues, what should I do under these conditions?
Eron Falbo: [40:49] Right. So, Massimo, listen, I spent the last few days looking at your YouTube videos. By the way, I'd like to recommend, just put in Massimo Pigliucci on YouTube. There's a lot of very concise, very user-friendly, very modern explanations of stoicism. If you wouldn't mind, I would like to take the conversation in a direction. Let's say, what I try to do is like this. I try to watch everything that exists, but I didn't have time. You know, because of my circumstances today, I didn't watch every video on YouTube, but I watched a few. But what I try to do is I try to see what you've done, and I try to see what hasn't been shown yet. You know, how can we take this to a deeper level, in what I'm personally interested in? But I think, you know, other people will be interested as well. So if you don't mind, I'd like to ask you about this. You're an atheist. Yeah, you're an atheist, at least that's what it says on Wikipedia.
Massimo Pigliucci: [42:12] The only reason I'm demurring a little bit is because we need to qualify what that means. Go ahead, in general, and then I'll, at the same time...
Eron Falbo: [42:21] I mean, from the interviews that I've seen of you, you're not like, you know, in a Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins camp. You're more skeptical of scientism. Is that what we call it? So am I. And also, I'm a skeptic.
Massimo Pigliucci: [42:42] But...
Eron Falbo: [42:42] But I am also into Neoplatonism. I'm into, you know, studying different types of mysticism. And I personally think that there is value in that. So I think my question to you is like this. Let me try to word it the right way. So one day you talk about, like, pseudosciences, like alchemy and astrology, for example, which led to chemistry and astronomy, and the way that I think modern scientists look at that, and they think, like, these people were superstitious and they were alchemists, and they thought that certain things were true about metals, which weren't really true. You can't make lead into gold. You can't make lead become gold. But maybe that's true for a lot of alchemists. At the same time, there's another aspect of it, which is the virtue ethics aspect, and also the analogy aspect of it, because in the ancient world, I think we lost a lot of that. Are you familiar with Pierre Grimes?
Massimo Pigliucci: [43:50] Not a lot. So go ahead.
Eron Falbo: [43:52] Okay. Because I saw that you're part of the American Philosophical Practitioners Association. He was one of the founders of that as well. So I thought, anyway... yeah. But I don't know. Right. So he speaks a lot about analogy in ancient Greece, and it's something that I don't see almost anywhere else. So his lectures are quite interesting, and the importance of analogy in ancient Greece. So, in ancient Greece and Rome. So, for example, alchemy and astrology and all of that. Okay, fine. I mean, the astrology predicting the future, maybe that's like a silly superstition, or actually a little bit of a lack of humility, and not really understanding what you know and what you don't know. Right. But also, for example, in astrology, you know, the 12 signs of the zodiac and the interrelation between them, is also the forces of the psyche acting together. And each person has a little bit of that and a little bit of this. And we see that, you know, in psychology, especially Jungian psychology, we see a lot of that work going forward. And astrologers were looking at the stars, right? But they weren't looking at the stars for the same reason that astronomers are looking at the stars. They're trying to create a database of more and more information, and try to go further with that, and try to create a practical wisdom in terms of how you use that information. Whereas ancient astrologers... this is all my opinion, you tell me if I'm wrong. But ancient astrologers, to me, were looking at the stars in order to find analogies of these psychological forces, to improve themselves and learn about how they themselves worked. And so, to them, it was like, as above, so below. You know, it was like whatever we see in the stars, we see in ourselves, and we see in nature, and things like that. So my question to you is, you know, a long question. Also the same thing with alchemists, you know, turning lead into gold. You're trying to turn yourself into a sage, right? That's really the point of alchemy. Everything else is an experiment, but it's trying to be an analogy to get there. And of course, during that process, people stumbled upon real chemistry, real astronomy. So my question to you is, did we at least throw some of the baby out with the bathwater? You know, is there some of that? Did we, with astronomy and with chemistry, did we lose some of the analogy and some of the...
Massimo Pigliucci: [46:47] Oh, that's a good question. So let me start by going back to the beginning of your comment about, you know, I'm an atheist, and yet I'm not the Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins kind of atheist. So what does that mean? I take atheism in the original etymological sense of the word 'atheist'. Atheist means without a positive belief in God, right? So an atheist is not somebody who knows that there is no God, because nobody really knows, right? I mean, it's like, what do I know? Except for Richard Dawkins, right? But an atheist is somebody who says, look, I'm going to provisionally accept only things for which there is empirical evidence. And if there is no empirical evidence, I'm just going to say I don't believe it, for now, until, and if, the situation actually changes. So one analogy that I like to use often is, I'm an atheist in the same way in which I am a 'unicornist'. I don't believe in unicorns. Now, it's not that I don't believe in unicorns because I searched the entire universe and discovered that there are no unicorns. Right. It's possible that there are unicorns on a distant planet, on another galaxy, who knows? But so far as we know, there are no unicorns. And so right now, my thinking is, I'm not going to believe it. Should the situation change, should somebody present me with a unicorn, then I'll revise my opinion. That, I think, is a difference between my position and the so-called New Atheism. It's very brash, it's very self-assured. I'm not that self-assured. This is simply what I believe on the basis of my understanding of the situation and the facts and the arguments. But that situation can change. Also, unlike the New Atheists, I don't think that religion is the root of all evil, as is a famous phrase from Richard Dawkins.
Eron Falbo: [48:47] Right, right.
Massimo Pigliucci: [48:49] Religion certainly has been, and still is, the root of some evil for sure, but it's also the root of a lot of good. Right? I mean, for every Crusade and every Inquisition that we can bring up, there is also a lot of hospitals, charitable work, and, you know, people are helping other people. So I think that religion is a little bit more complicated than just a black or white situation. And therefore, if it works properly for some people, by all means. One of the reasons I like Stoicism, for instance, is because I do think of it as a big tent. From that perspective, if you're an atheist or an agnostic, you can be a Stoic.
Eron Falbo: [49:29] But if you are, it doesn't require religion, right? It doesn't require that. Right.
Massimo Pigliucci: [49:34] It doesn't require religion, but it also doesn't exclude it. So if you are a religious person, you can still be a Stoic. And I think that is, and in...
Eron Falbo: [49:41] My opinion, the Stoics were actually quite pious. You know, in general, they go out of their way to talk about the...
Massimo Pigliucci: [49:48] Gods... and absolutely, Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus in particular, they were definitely pious, although they believed in their own version of God. They were pantheists from a modern perspective, but nevertheless, so that's what I wanted to say about atheism. Now, about the other things that you brought up, look, did we throw the baby out with the bathwater? Perhaps the proof is in the pudding, as they say, right? So the question is this: modern science is working very well for what it tries to do. If the goal is to understand the natural world, then chemistry, biology, physics, astronomy, and all that sort of stuff, that's definitely the way to go. I mean, we've learned much more about how the world works through science than we've ever learned through any other approach or any other way of doing things. Now, people make an argument, however, that, yeah, but science doesn't give you spirituality. Science doesn't give you, you know, meaning, etc., etc. And that's true, but then again, I also think it's a little bit unfair to ask that of science. Science is not in the business of providing you spirituality and meaning. That is the business of philosophy.
Eron Falbo: [51:07] All right, but that's... that's virtue of meaning. But I'm actually speaking about the virtue ethics part of it. You know, if you look at the alchemist's work, and this was always the inner sense, you know, if you look at Paracelsus or something like that, if you look in between the lines, they're clearly speaking in terms of self-development and virtue ethics. And I'm not talking about spirituality. I mean, there is some spirituality as well. The thing is, in those days, things weren't divorced. You know, there wasn't... you're looking at the physical world. It's just about, like, what the purpose is. Why am I studying the physical world?
Massimo Pigliucci: [51:48] Right?
Eron Falbo: [51:49] So in Stoicism, we ask each other that question, right? So why am I looking at this microscope? And for an alchemist, he would be looking at it so that he could find an analogy for his soul, understand his soul better, and understand how to become a soul of gold, right? So nowadays, because we divorced that, people just look at a microscope, and that's my problem with it. I actually have a problem with that divorce. I understand that there was a lot of superstition, and there really was, but the center of it was the motivation behind it. The motivation was we're looking at the stars, we're looking at the microscope, because we're trying to become better human beings, and we stopped doing that.
Massimo Pigliucci: [52:37] Correct. However, there are different ways of trying to become a human being, right? One of which is the one you're talking about, for sure. And again, if it works for some people... I mean, you know, whatever works, especially when it comes to becoming a better person. If adopting analogies that come out of alchemy, or analogies that come out of Jungian psychology, is helpful to somebody, by all means, who am I to say no? However, there is a problem. The problem there is that people too often sort of miss the distinction between an analogy or a useful metaphor and a statement of fact. For instance, I know a number of people who are interested in Jungian psychology, just to give you an example, who actually think that the notion of archetype is a scientifically established notion. It isn't. So if thinking in terms of archetypes helps you, you know, with meaning in your life, and helps you, you know, become...
Eron Falbo: [53:43] It's just a way of looking at things, right?
Massimo Pigliucci: [53:45] That's right. If it is a way of looking at things, go for it. However, if you then, on top of that, say, oh, and by the way, we should base, you know, psychological science on the notion of archetypes, because that's a scientific fact, it's like, well, no, wait a minute, hold on. They are... actually, I'm not gonna follow you, because there is no empirical evidence that that is a reasonable notion. That's one way to look at it. The other way of looking at it, going back to virtue ethics, is that, sure, some people get to virtue ethics, or to improvement of character in general, by the kinds of ways that you're talking about, but some people don't. Like, for instance, as a Stoic, I don't need to take on board almost any of these kinds of pre-scientific notions. I just say, okay, whatever the ancients believed, whatever Epictetus believed, whatever Marcus Aurelius believed, etc., that was, you know, their best effort at the time, 2,000 years ago. Now we believe different things, but from a point of view of character, I can still use the Stoic approach to things. I can still use the four virtues. I can still use the way in which they were thinking about human improvement and human character, and it still works for me. So there are different ways. All I'm saying, I guess, is there are different ways to look at the problem, if the problem is how do I become a better human being.
Eron Falbo: [55:06] Right, right. Yeah, so I think, just to add to that, the thing is, like you also said in an interview, even with science nowadays, we know for sure that we're going to be wrong, you know, about most things, and in a few years we're gonna know something different, right? So Marcus Aurelius got certain things wrong, and Epictetus got certain things wrong, and that's all right, because, you know, he was living in that time and we discovered different things, and that's perfectly natural. That's part of the human experience and wisdom in general. I think what the main ingredient is, that I'm trying to say here, is that Marcus Aurelius, even though he was wrong, when he was wrong, he was trying to coincide, he was trying to integrate what he believed in, what he saw, and what he saw in the natural world, with a cosmic, fantastical, like, everything is connected sort of explanation. Which included his virtue ethics. So that's why you can derive from metals and the way that they transmute and this and that, what works in the soul, because you have a cosmic approach to life. Everything is the same, you know, everything is analogous, and that's how you arrive at things. I think nowadays, with science, what happened was that we created these branches, and we stopped looking at the world cosmically, you know.
Massimo Pigliucci: [56:38] And that's true. Yeah, that's true. That is a good point. I mean, but to some extent that was sort of inevitable, because the problem is, I can tell you this as both a professional scientist and a professional philosopher, right? So here's the thing. If you want to publish, if you want to have an academic career, you have to publish papers and books, technical papers and books, I'm talking, not for the general public, right? That means you have to come up with something new that nobody's ever said before, right? And after literally 2,400 years of philosophy, and after at least four or five centuries of science, it's kind of difficult to come up with something new to say. And so people become more and more specialized. People get to spend their entire career looking at very tiny little things, very tiny aspects of either biology or physics or even philosophy, for that matter, right? That's just the name of the game. That's just unavoidable as a side effect. Unfortunately, that does have the kind of side effect you're talking about, that is, people miss the big picture. In fact, one of my favorite quotes, or passages, is from Einstein, who wrote a letter to a friend of his back in the 1930s, I believe, where he said, look, the problem is, I see a lot of my colleagues, scientists who become so specialized, and they ignore the big picture. They ignore, in fact, philosophy. He was complaining about the fact that physicists were ignoring philosophy. And he said, what that turns them into is good practitioner, good technicians, but not good thinkers.
Eron Falbo: [58:19] Right, right.
Massimo Pigliucci: [58:20] Because they're missing the big picture. So there is something to be said for that, absolutely, which is why people need to step back from time to time and take a look at the big picture.
Eron Falbo: [58:29] Yeah, and that's what Stoicism prescribes. It says, like, before you're doing something, ask yourself, why are you doing it, right? So why the hell are you...
Massimo Pigliucci: [58:38] Looking at the stars?
Eron Falbo: [58:39] And why do we want to know, you know, there's a supernova somewhere in the galaxy? We have to ask ourselves that, you know. And if that doesn't connect to a higher purpose... and when I say higher purpose, it doesn't have to be God, it can be, like, you know, secular humanism, it can be anything... if it isn't something like that, then really, why are we doing it? And it became a sort of automatic, glory-seeking game, you know. You know, by the way, that's something I see that's very, very authentic in you. You know, you're, you know, knee-deep, or, you know, head-deep, into academia. Like, you know, you have a lot of PhDs, you're having a PhD collection, and yet you keep yourself very, very humble. And not only that, your main concern isn't actually Stoicism. And I can see that that's very honest, which isn't what you have a PhD in.
Massimo Pigliucci: [59:37] That's right, exactly. I mean, the funny thing in all this is that, you know, I've been publishing books and papers and articles and all that for literally decades, right? But I had fun doing that, it was interesting and all that sort of stuff. But since I got into Stoicism, actually, this is where I started making a difference in people's lives. So when I was writing about biology, or even pseudoscience for that matter, it was interesting, it was an interesting intellectual exercise, but, you know, I doubt that that's changed anybody's life. On the other hand, since I published How to Be a Stoic, and then, you know, a number of other books, as we were saying earlier, lots of articles, I did a little bit of accounting the other day, and by my rough estimate, if you go to my blogs, where you find, you know, sort of my free stuff, basically I wrote the equivalent of like 12 books in terms of word count over the last six years about Stoicism. And it was very rewarding. It has been very rewarding, because not only do I have fun, of course, doing it, that's if I love it, otherwise I wouldn't do it, right, number one, number two, it has changed my life. It has helped me through my midlife crisis that we were talking about at the beginning. It still helps me with my friends, with my wife. You might have seen her in the background going up and down, because dinner is almost ready, so she's taking a look at the pasta over here. So not only has it helped me personally, but I get constantly letters or emails from people who read my books or my articles or something, and they tell me, you know, this was really helpful. Sometimes this changed my life, you know, the big picture. In other cases, this was helpful. And it's very rewarding to see that something that you're doing, that you're writing, that you're putting out there, is actually genuinely helpful to people. You're making it possible for people to live a slightly better life, or slightly more conscious life, than they were before. And this is great. This is something for which I'm very grateful.
Eron Falbo: [1:01:46] And your fans are also very grateful. I'd like to say our time is up, I know your dinner is probably waiting for you there. And also, Instagram, I think, stopped saying that we're good enough for them, because a lot of people left. But I'd like to thank you again for participating. I don't think... I think we covered maybe two questions that I wrote here, but that's fine, there's maybe like 100 more, but let's end. I wanted to say a few things, just so people can have it registered for the podcast. So, you still have the Rationally Speaking podcast going on?
Massimo Pigliucci: [1:02:31] No, the Rationally Speaking podcast is going on, but I'm not a co-host.
Eron Falbo: [1:02:34] But you're not part of Julia.
Massimo Pigliucci: [1:02:36] Yeah, my friend Julia Gilliff is doing it. Actually, it's the one you mentioned in the beginning: Stoic Meditations.
Eron Falbo: [1:02:44] Okay, so everybody, listen to Stoic Medications. Medications.
Massimo Pigliucci: [1:02:50] They are kind of medication.
Eron Falbo: [1:02:54] So this is the Stoic Meditations. I do it every day in the morning, and it, like, truly helps. It's like a lesson, like five minutes long, something like that. It's something you take, and it's very quick. It's like an injection, you know. It starts the day and it's...
Massimo Pigliucci: [1:03:13] It's...
Eron Falbo: [1:03:14] It's also, I mean, it's not, what do you call it, sound superficial. You go, you know, you go into different works and different people, Musonius Rufus, you know, all sorts of... Is that right? Musonius Rufus, his name?
Massimo Pigliucci: [1:03:31] Yes, that's right, yes.
Eron Falbo: [1:03:33] So, also go check out Twitter, @MPigliucci. And that's your main social network, right, that you use.
Massimo Pigliucci: [1:03:44] That is my main social network. And then everything else that I do gets posted or linked to MassimoPigliucci.com.
Eron Falbo: [1:03:54] Okay, so that's it, www.massimopigliucci.com. And you also provide, like, apart from that, philosophical counseling. Are you still doing that?
Massimo Pigliucci: [1:04:05] Yes, I'm doing that. In fact, I've seen, since the beginning of the pandemic, an increase in the number of people that want some kind of philosophical counseling to deal with whatever situation they find themselves in right now.
Eron Falbo: [1:04:17] Great, so I definitely recommend that. I haven't done that myself, but let's talk about that. I feel that that would be an interesting approach.
Massimo Pigliucci: [1:04:28] Yeah, sorry, go ahead.
Eron Falbo: [1:04:29] I'm sorry, no, please tell me.
Massimo Pigliucci: [1:04:31] Oh, I was going to say I think it is an interesting approach. A colleague of mine refers to it as "therapy for the sane," meaning that if you have a mental issue, a serious issue, like clinical depression or bipolar disorder or something like that, you don't go to a philosopher, you go to a psychologist, obviously, or to a psychiatrist. But the thing is, even after you take a pill or do therapy and that sort of thing, and you come back to some kind of normal life, you still have life problems. You still have issues about career, relationships, friendship, and all that sort of stuff. And those are, in fact, philosophical issues. And that's where philosophical counseling comes in.
Eron Falbo: [1:05:14] Right, all right. So check all of that out. I think the most important one is MassimoPigliucci.com. That's where you can find links to everything else.
Massimo Pigliucci: [1:05:22] Yes.
Eron Falbo: [1:05:23] Thank you, thank you so much, Massimo. It's a great pleasure to be with you, and I hope we can do this again sometime and go deeper into different subjects. It'll be great.
Massimo Pigliucci: [1:05:39] Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.
Eron Falbo: [1:05:41] All the best. Bye-bye. Enjoy your food.
Massimo Pigliucci: [1:05:44] Thanks. Bye.
No Alvo com Eron Falbo · episódio #18 · todos os episódios