Into the COLAverse – Episode 8: David Sosa

[00:00:00] Intro: Welcome to Into the Colaverse, a podcast that takes us on the unique journeys of faculty in the College of Liberal Arts at UT Austin. Join me your host, Frederick Luis Aldama as we learn of the many ways that our faculty and their cutting edge work is transforming the world today.

[00:00:26] Frederick: It is my great honor to have the Luann and Larry Temple professorship in the humanities and professor philosophy and chair of the Department of Philosophy. David Sosa with me here today. Welcome, David. Thank you. It’s great to be here. Gosh, there’s just so much about your work that is got my brain going all over the place.

[00:00:49] Frederick: Um, but before we get into. Some more nitty gritty stuff of analytic philosophy. The, all of the questions you’ve been asking and looking for answers to, uh, in ethics, in, you know, all of these areas, metaphysics, epistemology that you’re interested in. Let me ask you, gosh, I, you have. I mean, just looking from outside of your life’s real, like a real story to tell here.

[00:01:22] Frederick: You know, your, your dad was a philosopher at Rutgers and before that at Brown, uh, from Cuba. Um, you went to Brown, uh, went to Princeton. All these amazing things, but yeah, I, I guess, you know, maybe we can start somewhere in there.

[00:01:41] David: Okay. Yeah, sure. If you wanna hear a little bit, I’m happy to, to share, you know, my parents.

[00:01:46] David: Came over from Cuba, pre-revolution, uh, in search of a better life. Um, Batista was still, you know, in charge. Uh, some were another member of that family, uh, as they often were over there and, um, settled eventually in Miami as so many did. Um, my dad actually had done a detour through El Paso cuz my grandfather, paternal grandfather was a Presbyterian minister.

[00:02:09] David: Strangely, um, had been discovered in Cuba. By, um, missionaries brought over to Georgia, um, that’s way back, you know, that we’re talking twenties and, uh, but anyway, so they, he had gone to El Paso, uh, on behalf of the church, and so they had spent time in El Paso, but they ended up in Miami. And met at church in Miami.

[00:02:29] David: And um, so that’s where it started, you know. And then, uh, he went to, you know, he was at the University of Miami studying, ended up studying philosophy, went to grad school and then eventually got a job at Brown. So I was born in Providence and, uh, the son of a philosopher. And, uh, so it’s sort of the family business and, um, and you know, it, it’s a strange thing for a couple of young Cubans to be in Providence, Rhode Island.

[00:02:56] David: You know, in the early sixties, but there they were. Uh, and so, you know, they adjusted and um, and we got lucky. You know, the fact is a lot of it is dumb luck. You know, various things happened that in some sense there was no reason, uh, for them to happen. But, um, I’m grateful for their, having taken advantage of things the way they did and for giving me the opportunities they did.

[00:03:16] David: I know that was, you know, that’s very much the immigrant mentality of giving opportunities to your children, um, that you didn’t have. And they. Um, they did a lot of that to both me and my brother, and, um, so we’re grateful for that. That’s, that’s a bit of backstory.

[00:03:28] Frederick: Really wonderful. David, I don’t wanna put you on the spot, but I’m going to, um, how, how did you experience as well?

[00:03:37] Frederick: Yeah. As the son of Cuban Ires. You know, Latina, that or Latinoness or did you, was it something? Cause sometimes we, you know, when our parents are kind of fleeing a bad situation. Yeah. Sometimes they, you know, try to distance themselves from that and, you know, see that opportunities for the next generation comes with, um, You know, really kind of severing that, but tell me your experience.

[00:04:09] Frederick: Right.

[00:04:09] David: It, it was, it, there was bit of that in a way it’s complicated. You know, I think neither of my parents. Especially sort of political animals in an important sense. And so, but you know, there are very much family animals and so what ended up happening was given the academic calendar, we would summer in Miami every summer, so end of, you know, graduation day at Brown end of May, we’d get in the station wagon.

[00:04:34] David: It’s kind of like, you know, Chevy Chase, you know, and we, we get in the station wagon with, you know, the side, you know, the fake wood panels on this ltd. Drive down to Miami all along I 95, and then I’d spend three months in Miami with the family and, you know, Gotto and, you know, Bon Goana and the whole, the full Cuban bigness, you know, that Miami offered you and you know, can you sing it everything And then, Come the end of the summer, it’s time to drive up to Providence, Rhode Island of all places where I went to a private school, which just had no idea.

[00:05:11] David: I mean, it just, it, it was as, it just didn’t figure on their radar. I was just a kid who was a little bit too loud, a little bit too arrogant, a little bit off, you know, hadn’t gone to the right schools before that school. And so it was a little bit of a pain and, um, but, and you know, and I definitely felt a bit of a misfit, although, you know, you sort of learn how to.

[00:05:32] David: Um, but it was just a complete, there was no Cuban in Providence and you know, with my parents it was more about, you know, we, we spoke in English and yeah, my mom made, you know, you know, she made Cuban food all the time, Caritas and all that kind of stuff. So we ate still, uh, but we also, you know, ordered pizza and, you know, we just became American in Providence and then we drove down to Miami and resumed our Cuban experience.

[00:05:56] David: So it was sort of living two worlds, I guess would be the way to put it. We didn’t completely. Separate off, but we kind of com I guess we’d say compartmentalize, I guess would be the way to describe it. Wow.

[00:06:07] Frederick: Yeah, really interest. Really amazing. Um, and important. Um, tell me, you got on the track, of course, um, dad being an important philosopher and a following in, in those footsteps.

[00:06:20] Frederick: Um, and let me ask you this for listeners who might not be familiar. Um, in a nutshell, what you kind of fell into analytic philosophy and not continental philosophy. Um, what are, you know, what are these two branches? Yeah.

[00:06:43] David: You know, it’s, it, it sounds like a, um, it’s a good question and it sounds like a, not that complicated question, but actually it is a complicated question cuz the question of what makes for that distinction really?

[00:06:56] David: You know, it’s fraught and it’s controversial. Um, I think, um, you know, some of it consists in who counts as the heroes of, you know, who, who you take as the model for how you do philosophy, the way you do it, the questions you engage, um, what you’re looking for in doing philosophy. So sort of where the methodology is, you know, what it’s oriented towards.

[00:07:22] David: Um, those are some of the things and, and, but to give it more content. Um, you know, there’s a kind of Anglo, uh, Ang. Anglo oriented aspect to analytic philosophy, whereas continental philosophy, it’s there in the name is more oriented toward the continent, more oriented toward France and Germany. I think the distinction only really makes sense after con, basically after Manuel Con.

[00:07:49] David: So after 1800, you only start to see the division. Um, and, and then it, it sort of accelerates, you know, in the 20th century, in the 19 hundreds and start with, so I think Berran Russell. Would be a key figure in sort of accelerating the distinction. So if you do philosophy sort of in the tradition that goes through Ber and Russell and then kind of skips Hael and goes back to K and then everyone gets back together again, you know, we’re all together around Decar and you know, Barky and Spinoza and Lock and Hume and, and then you know, further back into, you know, Aristotle and Plato.

[00:08:26] David: Um, and you know, I skipped a lot of things obviously, but you know, those are some of the big names and in that kind of history we’re all together. But after, you know, with Hael, you start to see a movement in the continent toward what ends up getting con continental philosophy. Whereas later, you know, with certain idealists and then post idealist, uh, British philosophy, you get the kind of beginning of what you might call the analytic tradition.

[00:08:51] David: And um, so that’s a kind of, so people say, Well, you know, um, covenant philosophy is more literary, it’s more interested in style, it’s more interested in a synthesis. Um, it’s more continuous with literature itself, you know, it, it seeks to be excellent literature in its product. Um, whereas analytic philosophy is more, well, it’s more analytic.

[00:09:12] David: It looks to break things down more than it looks to synthesize. Um, it’s, has tends to take up narrower foci. You know, it focuses on smaller issues in a way rather than kind of continuing with the big questions directly. Um, these, these are. You know, sort of broad overgeneralizations, but they’re sort of useful to kind of get you into the, the spirit of the distinction.

[00:09:35] David: Um, one characteristic is that analytic philosophy wants to use formal tools, um, often, you know, wants to use logic and. Elements of the, that have been, you know, tools that have been developed in the philosophy of language. Language is an important aspect of doing analytic philosophy. Some people think, in fact there was what people call a linguistic turn, which then sort of left its stamp on analytic philosophy.

[00:09:57] David: So you do, you engage questions by en engage questions about reality by engaging questions about language. Um, some people say that’s characteristic. I actually think that’s kind of a mistake myself. But, so, you know, any, any aspect of these ways of characterizing. The distinction can be challenged. You know, they can, you can, you know, they, they get to be complex.

[00:10:18] David: Um, but I think they give you a bit of the flavor of the distinction. You,

[00:10:24] Frederick: you brought up some really interesting points, um, and I’m gonna ask you, In a minute to say why you think, um, language might not be the avenue necessarily to pursue questions of say reality. Yeah. Um, but let me ask you this, You did work under Mark Johnston and at Princeton, and um, of

[00:10:47] David: course,

[00:10:48] Frederick: Interest in cognitive science, as you mentioned, these sort of analytic tools, um, what, you know, where is kind of, where is something like cognitive science coming into analytic philosophy?

[00:11:01] Frederick: Yeah,

[00:11:02] David: so, um, that’s one of these places where the nature of analytic philosophies itself, you know, in dispute and, um, and problematic. There is a big, um, there’s kind of a, a movement within, or anyway, a swath. Or a group or a, a part of analytic philosophy that’s very interested in being continuous with science.

[00:11:24] David: Um, views analytic philosophy as in a way at least cooperating with science, maybe even in the service of science. Um, and so, um, there is the part of the philosophy of mind specifically, which sees itself as having to be, um, responding to integrated. Um, and involved with cognitive science, with the scientific study of, of, um, the intellect of the mind of the brain, uh, if those are different and in, in a way tends to want to minimize, um, though it doesn’t necessarily even cognitive science doesn’t necessarily eliminate, but does wanna minimize 10 to minimize the distinction between, let’s say the mind and the brain, for example.

[00:12:10] David: And so, um, there’s, you know, one confronts the question when one goes into the philosophy of mind, you know, eventually, or implicitly or sometimes right away and explicitly whether one is a cognitive scientist, um, in some sense, as much as one is a flosser of mind, but there’s also other views. You know, people, people also think, No, no, that’s a huge mistake actually.

[00:12:31] David: Um, uh, there’s no question that, you know, there’s still dualistic. What we call dualistic elements, who think that, um, who think that now this study of, of mind can only be conducted, uh, in a way that’s ultimately fundamentally discontinuous from the ways we can study, um, the brain. And so, yeah. Um, you know, don’t, you know, should note that Mark Johnson that I study with at Princeton is not the metaphor guy.

[00:13:02] David: Um, fy you know, he’s also very much a boss, her mind and, you know, would study, you know, but, um, but he is, he was sort of a meta physician, very interested in, um, the identity of, uh, very interest, the question of identity. And so, you know, he’s certainly interested in the relation between the mind and the brain.

[00:13:21] David: That was a big part of our work together. Um, but I think that’s it, you know, it’s worth knowing that, um, I wasn’t, you know, I didn’t work with someone who was. You know, into metaphor in the way that Mark Johnson is, uh, for better, for worse, . Yeah,

[00:13:36] Frederick: no, I’m glad you made that important distinction. Um, And of course, you, you, you are your own person and your own, you know, mind, brain, um, asking your own questions.

[00:13:46] Frederick: Um, it is interesting you mentioned, you know, Ber and Russell because of course, you know, his, his, you know, his on several occasions. Talks about the constant movement of themes and subjects from philosophy to science as knowledge develops and becomes more solid. So it’s not surprising that this is, you know, something that is, that you brought up in its central concern.

[00:14:08] Frederick: Right? For sure. Um, so, you know, you’ve got these, uh, you know, incredibly, this vast, um, number of, um, articles, this, uh, these incredible courses that I, I would love to take. Um, But let me ask you a couple of things. Um, ethics, you know, gosh, I mean, I know ethics is just huge, you know, and we can go everywhere and anywhere with that.

[00:14:33] Frederick: But let me ask you a simple question, um, both as someone who has raised kids and also who works on this professionally, um, is ethics, I mean, is this a kind of growing of mind? Is this a. Is this an education? Say if we want to bring in Ber and Russel again, um, or even Aristotle. Um, and how, I mean, in a way, I don’t know if it’s, I guess how can we ground that question in everyday practices?

[00:15:06] Frederick: Yeah. Yeah. I

[00:15:07] David: think it’s hard. I’d be honest with you. I think, um, if anything, Um, we should be more hesitant even than we are in, um, presupposing that ethical questions are sort of revealed, um, in ordinary, practical circumstance. I think in a way the ethics of any ordinary, practical circumstance is actually invested into it, um, by the mind’s confrontation with it and, um, it’s not revealed within it, in it.

[00:15:41] David: It’s sort of immediate natural form. Um, and so, yeah, so that’s just a general thought. I mean, I think it’s very hard. I mean, I think it’s, um, I, myself, I feel like there’s a lot of something like arrogance about ethics in the sense that, um, I think we should all be a little hesitant to make claims, ethical claims.

[00:16:06] David: Um, I think we should maybe rest a bit earlier with something like, The expression of the finding of something as ethically relevant. Um, finding one itself moved ethically by a certain consideration. I mean, I think even that, even that can be questioned. But, um, that’s a slightly safer. I say, Look, I’m, I’m moved by this.

[00:16:28] David: I find this to be very powerful. Um, but I think one should be hesitant to then, uh, move from that. From the fact that there’s this ethical consideration, which is very significant, which weighs with one, two, a judgment to say, well therefore this is what’s right. Um, and that’s wrong. And, and find it cuz there’s just, it’s, you know, it’s so subtle the way in which considerations can interact with each other in the determination of the ethical status of an action or a behavior of a principle to a practice.

[00:16:59] David: Um, there’s just a very complex structure of considerations. and, um, often one needs to just, uh, I think be honest with oneself and others that one is sort of taking a shot in something like the dark, you know, whether under very limited light levels of clarity. Um, one saying, Well, look, I’m just, I’m thinking this is wrong and I, lemme tell you what is really moving me.

[00:17:23] David: It’s this sort of consideration. This is what’s got me going, this is why I think that’s wrong. You know, I get it. That consideration weighs the other way. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t treat that consideration as, no. Um, ultimately, um, you know, I think this consideration weighs more heavily. I’m, I’m moved by that more so, but I appreciate that, that, that would weigh in the opposite direction.

[00:17:45] David: But people are very, I think one is very, one wants simplicity, one wants clarity. Uh, it’s hard to maintain opposing, uh, views, um, or at least you know, opposing. Considerations and, and it’s not like I’m saying, Oh, people are bad, you know, I’m just saying this is hard. And so we all confront it and, um, and so I’m just, but I’m, I’m, I’m feeling like we need to try to be honest about the fact that ethics is really hard and it’s ultimately a matter of the weighing of reasons or something like that.

[00:18:15] David: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:16] Frederick: there, uh, you know, I, I speak. Prob, You know, correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like there are three main threads when we asked that question. And you published consequences of consequentialism, Consequentialism being one of those, and then the deontological, right, The eye for the eye type thing, and then the, the, of course virtue ethics, but so, If I’m hearing you right, um, those are useful conceptually, but in, in practice we see a whole tangle of of them.

[00:18:53] Frederick: But is

[00:18:54] David: that what I’m hearing? I think that’s, that’s, that’s definitely right. How exactly to use one of those, That’s called a method en normative ethical theories, um, how to deploy them in an actual circumstance. Um, even leading aside the question of how to choose among them, you know, so let’s leave them all sort of pending.

[00:19:11] David: I don’t know which one is the right nor to theory one of them or other, or maybe some mix of some of it. But anyway, um, look, I have to decide what to give these, you know, a hundred dollars to this philanthropic, or I need to know whether to say to my kid, Yeah, go ahead and stay out with your friends later.

[00:19:27] David: Or I have to say, you know, choose this or rather than that, or, Um, and how do I now confront, you know, in a detailed way, the reality, you know, contextually resolved, set of circumstances. Um, it’s, it’s massively subtle and, um, and, but the people just think, Oh, that would be wrong. And I think, well, you know, that’s, I think there’s a lot of something like arrogance, um, that I, I think a, a slightly more.

[00:19:55] David: Um, something, you know, an old fashioned skeptical in an old fashioned sense that is, uh, a point of view from which one is hesitant, um, to make judgment, um, where one maintains a certain level of suspension of belief about a lot of things is advisable. David, you know,

[00:20:14] Frederick: my advice? Yeah, no, it’s, I’m with you completely.

[00:20:18] Frederick: Um, Important to make conceptual distinctions and yet also important for us to be reminded constantly of the kind of messiness of life. Um, you teach a course, the varieties of meaning, which sounds absolutely fascinating. Um, and you know, you look at the nature of communication, um,

[00:20:43] David: and.

[00:20:47] Frederick: You know, communication, uh, it seems like that’s maybe one of the heart of the problems that we’re facing today. Yeah. The kind of Wolf Pack Twitter spheres and the tribalism and all that stuff feels like you find your spot and. You send your messages knowing that you’re gonna get your echo board sounding board back.

[00:21:11] Frederick: Um, but tell me, tell me, you know, what you, where your students go with you in this, in this, something like this.

[00:21:21] David: Yeah. So, you know, um, what I hope to, what I hope to accomplish with the students in the seminar is to gain some understanding of the relationship between, uh, thought. and, um, you know, let’s call it embodied communication.

[00:21:38] David: So actually like talking to each other, like really, you know, like the way we are having a discussion. Um, or, but, and the examples you gave are also examples, so, um, you know, um, what is the relationship between those two things? And I think there’s, there has been in philosophy, um, forever. Something like a presupposition, that there’s a very close relationship between those things.

[00:22:01] David: That in a way what what we do when we have a discussion, um, or when we post, you know, on Twitter or when we tweet or we, we post something on Facebook or something, there’s a kind of expression of our thought. There’s a kind of putting your thought into words. Ideally, at least there’s that ideal, there’s that possibility that that’s sort of.

[00:22:21] David: The instrument of language is for, it’s to enable the expression of thought. And, um, so the mechanisms that are involved in meaningfulness, uh, for thought, the way of thought is meaningful and the way language is meaningful, they’re gonna be very intimately related. There’s not gonna be really two questions of meaningfulness.

[00:22:41] David: There’s not gonna be two ways in which a thing can be meaningful, and that’s gonna, you know, that encourages a certain kind of ambition and optimism, which is a sort of unified. Of meaningfulness, the very idea of meaningfulness, the phenomenon of meaningfulness for language and thought. And in a way, what that seminar was dedicated to, what a lot of my work lately has been oriented toward is toward, um, uh, enabling an alternative perspective on that, where we don’t presuppose that these are intimately related phenomena that really the meaningfulness of language, language use.

[00:23:17] David: The kind of phenomena you were talking about is fundamentally different and kind independent actually, ultimately there’s not even a real continuity between it and the way in which thoughts are meaningful. And, um, this creates a kind of, you know, disconnect. A kind of duality, a kind of divergence. And um, you know, that’s troubling cuz we want unity and you know, understanding is sometimes encouraged by unity cuz we can bring together, Um, but the view I’m interested in developing is one where there’s an important distinction and, um, and then, you know, and we can go into details about how and why, but basically I think there’s a ton of philosophical virtue to that distinction.

[00:23:57] David: It enables us to make sense of a bunch of things that are hard to make sense of otherwise. Do we, can

[00:24:03] Frederick: we, do we think then without language or. Outside of language. Yeah,

[00:24:11] David: yeah. So that, that’s right. So that’s a good question. Cause that, that sort of gets to the heart of it. I mean, you know, you say, you know, in way what you’re telling me is you say they’re independent, so then either is possible without the other.

[00:24:21] David: And, um, you know, this isn’t a philosophy class, so I’ll just take the bait. Yes. I think thought is possible without language, and language is possible without thought. You know, I think there’s some sense in which, you know, the bees communicate. They, they have something like a language, the dance. Is meaningful, it represents the way, um, even tempted, you know, these, these sort of metaphorical claims about, you know, the language of nature, the language of, you know, there, there’s a kind of lang, you know, there’s something linguistic about the way fire is represented by smoke.

[00:24:53] David: You know, when people say smoke means fire or, you know, those, those spots mean measles, you know, um, I in a way kind of take that literally, I think No, that’s right. Those, those spots do mean measles and it’s that kind of way of being meaningful that I think ultimately language is, I think the way spots mean measles is the way a Twitter, you know, a tweet is meaningful.

[00:25:15] David: And I think that’s fundamentally different from the way thoughts are meaningful. Um, they are not meaningful that way. They have a different way of being meaningful. And, um, so yeah, and then so you can think and have a, have a meaningful thoughts, you know, be engaged in, in thinking with all that, that involves, um, without, um, being part in any sense of the word, of a linguistic practice without using language and vice versa.

[00:25:44] David: You can be, you know, using language and part of linguistic practice. Actually, I should be careful. It’s not really using language, it’s, you can be involved in a, in a linguistic practice. See, I think using language, again, introduced as the phenomenon of mind at work. And so then you’re back into the domain of intellectual activity of a certain distinctive sort.

[00:26:07] David: And so I don’t know that that bees are really using language. They’re involved in linguistic practices, but that involvement is not one of their, so to speak, exploiting language. It’s um, they’re just instantiating linguistic practices. They’re, their dancing is not something they undertake, but it is something they do.

[00:26:30] David: And in the doing of the dance, they communicate, but they don’t communicate intentionally. We do communicate intentionally, um, but that intentional communication involves. An attempt to exploit this tool, which has its features in by, in order to express this other phenomenon, which is thought. So there’s, there’s still the duality.

[00:26:53] Frederick: Yeah, no, that’s really, really important and. Exciting. Um, really important and exciting to, for, for these distinctions. Um, um, David, let me ask, uh, a last question about, you know, your teaching and then we’ll move into just, you know, what’s on your, kind of the proverbial nightstand, what are you reading that’s exciting for you?

[00:27:16] Frederick: Um, and it could be any, whatever it is, um, in your field, outside of your field. Okay. Um, So you do teach an environmental ethics course. Yeah. And that must be very exciting and surprising, even maybe for the students. Um,

[00:27:36] David: but wait, I gotta stop. I should, I should hold you up right away because I, I’ll be perfectly honest, um, I was, Um, I kind of super, I was in a supervisory role with that class.

[00:27:48] David: It, I was not the instructor. I was the instructor of record, and I had responsibility, ultimate responsibility for the class. Um, which I took seriously, but that was a very special circumstance and so I hesitate to, um, use that as a representative.

[00:28:04] Frederick: No, I’m glad you clarified. Let me ask you, just off the top though, given that in the end things are, are messier than.

[00:28:14] Frederick: Then they may seem, yeah. Um, maybe more simple, but then ultimately messier. Um, can we, You know, I mean, we do kind of at a certain moment have to kind of take a stand, like, you know, animal rights or, uh, you know, climate change. Yeah. Um, and, you know, let’s, let’s move this conversation outside of the classroom for a second and just, you know, as, I guess as a philosopher and as a human being, um, how do we, how do we articulate those kinds of PO positions, given that, on the one hand things.

[00:28:55] Frederick: I like the way you very clearly articulated a, an important distinction between, you know, thought and communication of thought, um, and language, but, And then, you know, we went back to ethics. What, what, where do we stand on this kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I

[00:29:13] David: I, I, I appreciate that. And I’m often like some, you know, my family, you know, they say, You’re so indecisive, and, and I, I get it.

[00:29:20] David: You’re right. We can’t, you know, in some sense, uh, Inion is a kind of action. And, um, you know, and, and you may say, No, look, I’m, I’m not acting, I’m still consider. They’ll say, Well, in the meantime, you know, stuff’s happening. And I, I do think there are these weird questions that I’m not entirely at peace with about, for example, temporal relations and relations of causation.

[00:29:42] David: I mean, causation is just happening anyway. You know, causes change is happening and forces are impinging, you know, are, are impinging on circumstances and you know, people are suffering and stuff’s happening. And in the meantime you’re sort of outside of time and. And causal reality contemplating and weighing considerations and weighing reasons.

[00:30:03] David: And in meantime, you know, Rome is burning. And, um, so I don’t know how to, I don’t know what to do because I feel like that that’s an important fact. And, um, ignoring it is, you know, is sort of at least tragic and maybe evil. And, um, so that’s no good. So, um, but on the other hand, I also am impressed by the fact that it’s very hard for.

[00:30:25] David: A rational being to move arbitrarily. And so when considerations are still in some sense, un indetermined, like I still can’t resolve it, I’m finding it hard and, and some questions are not hard. You know, I, I’m not in any doubt about, you know, climate change or, you know, so there are a lot of questions, you know, or, or other recent political issues that have arisen.

[00:30:48] David: You know, I find myself resolved on these, um, readily, but when there is a more difficult. Ethical or political question, and I’m finding it hard to resolve it. I’m also, and, and I, so I’m finding it hard to move on the question because considerations are still in a balance. Um, I’m also aware that, you know, stuff’s going down and, um, and so there’s that disconnect that basically I think what your question is, is pointed toward is, you know, how do you engage reality, you know, physical reality in all of its, all of its, you know, implications, causal implications from the point of view of.

[00:31:24] David: You know, weighing, you know, weighing reasons, being hesitant and cautious and humble about the ability to determine the ethical truth as it were in the face of all of these detailed, uh, considerations, circumstances. And I don’t really have a good answer carefully, you know, sensitively, uh, cautiously as best I can are the answers, um, you know, make the call.

[00:31:46] David: I can. Find one self, uh, forced to make a decision when one might not have because circumstances demand it. Um, mm-hmm. , those are, you know, those aren’t very good answers, but they’re the ones I’ve got. I mean, I just sort of, uh, wait for as long as I can and then call it as I see it as best I can cross my fingers.

[00:32:09] Frederick: No, they seem very rational, very human, uh, you know, answers. Um, what’s exciting to you? And, you know, you, what are you reading? Uh, where are you, where’s, where are your, where’s your mind go traveling these days?

[00:32:25] David: Well, let’s see. Um, I am sort of, um, Cut up with, uh, I mean, we could talk about our reading. You know, I say recent, you know, most favorite recent novel, Um, Lincoln in the Barto, uh, George Saunders.

[00:32:40] David: Um, great stuff, great author, exciting stuff. Wrote a great, um, kids book, Little known. Um, something about the gapper of rip, I think. Is the name of it, Strange name, same author. Um, that’s kind of how I got onto him, although then later a friend of mine, um, recommended him independently so that that worked out.

[00:32:58] David: Um, but, um, don’t do as much fiction reading as I used to or as I like to. Um, but what I’m excited, and maybe partly say I get distracted by philosophical questions, but, um, Uh, not that those are in any tension, uh, I’ll admit, but just I get distracted and so then I don’t do the reading that it would be fun to do what, what I’m in, what my, where my mind is these days, I guess.

[00:33:20] David: Yeah. One of the questions I’m interested these days is the relationship between, um, ethics and aesthetics. Um, they both seem like domains of, um, something like value or. You know, goodness and badness or goodness in the opposite of badness or, um, when things go well and when things are not going well, you know, when things, you know, so aesthetics, you know, they can be, things are ugly.

[00:33:48] David: Um, and things are beautiful. Things are, you know, um, evil or um, uh, virtuous. Um, so there are these distinctions we make in the two domains, and there’s a question. Whether the structure of those distinctions in the respective domains is analogous or whether they’re very different. And, um, I find myself, um, interested in a question.

[00:34:16] David: I find myself a bit troubled by it because on the one hand I tend to think that domains of, you know, that you’re obliged, like in ethics, I sort of feel like, you know, there are obligations you must do that you must not do that you, there’s something, um, Uh, Prohi, you know, prohibited impermissible about, for example, you know, being, viewing, let’s say the pain of another, as a reason for doing something.

[00:34:45] David: You know, that’s sort of, you know, that’s just evil. That’s, that’s, no, that’s not okay. You know, that, and I think of that as ethical. I think there’s a very deeply, you know, a deep ethical truth is that one must not. That, that, that someone would be hurt by something must not weigh with you as a reason in favor of doing that thing.

[00:35:03] David: That’s a very deep, you know, I, I can’t go much further than say that that’s where kind of reasoning ends. It’s just, There it is. And the question is whether in the aesthetic domain, whether there’s any, anything like a similar structure, whether there’s any obligations on us in respect of our aesthetic.

[00:35:22] David: You know, thinking where there are the way our intellect, I mean there’s already that question, what is the characteristic intellectual response to aesthetic excellence? So, you know, being impressed by the beauty of a thing. And, and I don’t just mean like, you know, paintings or I mean anything, I can even mean just somebody’s behavior.

[00:35:39] David: You might find that behavior not only good, but also lovely or something. And so, you know, with a very broad conception of what is, can be aesthetically wonderful. I guess there’s something like awe in the face of, That’s another thing I’m sort of interested in, whether like religion might be a space of aesthetic expression that really what’s going on and a lot of what’s going on with religion is being AWS struck by certain things and some that maybe that’s a useful tool for understanding.

[00:36:06] David: But I’m really, it’s very early days. I gotta be honest with you. I got almost nothing, you know, right now it’s just like little baby steps. At the very beginning of an investigation that’s may take me the rest of my life for all, or, you know, may not, that may, may not be long enough anymore. Um, but anyway, if you ask me what, what’s got me going, um, that kind of thing has me going.

[00:36:24] David: I sort of feel, you know, I feel like passions, like when people get very passionate, that tends to be, I, I feel like that’s not so, I don’t know. The, the role I, I put those in, in ethics is very different from the role I wanna put them in. I, I sort of feel. Feeling really like having a very powerful emotional reaction to a beautiful thing that’s kind of just right.

[00:36:50] David: And, And some people think that’s just right for ethics too, and maybe it is, but I sort of feel like, But if you’re missing it, that’s okay. So long as you’re against it. So like, you know, some, somebody does some horrible, you see somebody getting niced or something, and. You know, if you’re just left cold by that, well that’s, you know, that’s kind of weird and I might be suspicious of that.

[00:37:05] David: If you’re not like turned, if you’re not grossed out by that, you don’t throw up after you see a knife thing, like what’s wrong with you. But if you’re not, if for whatever reason you’re like just an incredibly cold person, but you nevertheless view that as horrible, you know, you say, Yeah, that’s wrong, and, and you view that pain that the person who got nice suffered as, as a decisive reason against what those people did well then it may be that you’re still ethically okay.

[00:37:28] David: Even though you don’t feel like that, that lack of feeling may ultimately not be like constitutive of ethical excellence on your part. But I feel like in aesthetics, maybe it’s not, That’s not like that. That really is constitutive of, of aesthetic excellence. Like you, you just have to have the feelings.

[00:37:44] David: And if you’re cold, if you’re aesthetically cold, then you’re just not an aesthetic, aesthetic person. Whereas you can be ethically cold and be an ethical person still. Anyways, things like that. These are the kinds of things I. And I see all that. Maybe cuz like it, you may ask me a year from now and they say, no, that was all wrong.

[00:37:59] David: Actually, now that I’ve worked it all out, they actually have exactly analogous structures and I had to give all that up. And I, I don’t know, I, that’s kind of where I’m at now, but you know, I’ll have to read more and think more and we’ll see. Oh, actually, sorry. I think I’m, I’m seeing a mute.

[00:38:14] Frederick: I, I find it, I find what you just said.

[00:38:16] Frederick: Absolutely Fascinating. Uh, David, and, um, and yeah, I think potentially very generative, bringing the sort of these questions about ethics and aesthetics. Um, you know, into the same, into the same kind of vin diagram, Uhhuh, um, You know, I mean, yeah. This is wonderful, this, this very brief journey I’ve had with you and our listeners have had and really showing us, you know, the importance of your work.

[00:38:50] Frederick: Um, concept building and refining and rebuilding and revising, and also just your, you know, humility here. Uh, you know, saying, look, you know, maybe things. Today, the questions I’m asking today won’t be the ones tomorrow because of the work that I’m doing today. Um, but I, yeah, I just wanted to thank you, David, for sharing all of this.

[00:39:15] David: I on the contr, I thank you for, um, the fun we’ve had and the opportunity to, to share some of this thing with you and with your listeners. I, I really, you know, appreciate that, that platform and, and, uh, Yeah, I love this stuff, so I’m always happy to talk about it. And, um, and, you know, I have to say it’s, I’m not often, um, you know, as a Cuban, I’m not often called humble.

[00:39:36] David: Um, so I’ll, I’ll, I, I, you know, I very much accept and I’d like to re feature. I like to sort of repeat that to make sure that that lands, uh, you know, there was some humility shown. You know, most people know me would say, Wow, he pulled a fast one. Um, so I’ll. Wonderful. Thanks David. Uh, my pleasure. Thank you.

[00:39:57] Outro: Into The Colaverse is produced by the University of Texas at Austin’s College of Liberal Arts Sound Engineering by the Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services. You can find Into the Colaverse Podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher. Thanks for listening and see you next time.