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Life Is Hard: Kieran Setiya on Philosophy & Hope
In this interview, I speak to Kieran Setiya, Professor of Philosophy at MIT on how philosophy can help us cope with the challenges life will throw at us, and how we can…
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2 interviews · 4 quotes
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Philosophy is not an anaesthetic, like it's just going to make the pain go away. But there is great solace in really understanding why chronic pain is difficult. Understanding those things can be consoling in itself, in part because it overcomes the isolation of illness.
— Kieran SetiyaHarvard philosophy professor specializing in ethics and meaning
The unintelligibility of suffering adds insult to injury. I don't think we can have reassurance that 'it's always for the best', but I think we can understand what's going on. The craving for understanding for many of us is deep, and philosophy can help us overcome that frustration.
— Kieran SetiyaHarvard philosophy professor specializing in ethics and meaning
We flee from affliction the way an animal flees from death. There's a sense in which it's perfectly natural that our response to difficulty in life is aversive. We're only going to be able to live well with the difficulties of life if we face up to them, because they're difficult.
— Kieran SetiyaHarvard philosophy professor specializing in ethics and meaning
We have to live in the world as it is, not the world as we wish it would be, is something that we misunderstand. If we are realistic those ideals are usually out of reach, and in fact thinking about them and dreaming about them is a way to punish ourselves for the fact our lives are never going to match up to those ideals.
— Kieran SetiyaHarvard philosophy professor specializing in ethics and meaning
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