Philosophy for Human Flourishing (Eudaimonism as Metaphilosophy) w/Dr. Aaron Preston

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[@ReverendDr.Thomas]

😇 May God Bless You Always! 😇

[@JohnnyHofmann]

As someone who engages more in the analytic tradition, I find these discussions very refreshing. Awesome podcast!

So glad you liked it bro!

[@joelsmith6524]

Wow! I gotta check this podcast out later today after I get my assignments complete. Weird thing is I just sent an Instagram direct message asking questions related to this topic

The other day right?

[@seekingwisdomandmentors6864]

Can you do a book review on The Book of Pook by Pook[ great philosophical written style] Euclid Elements by Euclid [The book that Abraham Lincoln taught him about Law and philosophy despite being a math book ] George Koukl Tactics [ a book on Evangelism using Logic and Reasoning]

[@eriklondon2946]

I recently read Ted Kaczynksi's manifesto... and have noticed a few flaws in his logic. But thinking on his "anti-tech" line of thinking, as tech will enable the elite to rule us all and do things (like ask questions on KZbin instead of pursuing actual goals....lol (There's truth in it for sure)). But the question I was asking ChatGPT which gave me an answer of (Eudaimonism) that led me here is: What is the end goal of humanity's drive to improve things technologically? Will we ever sit back in 1,000 years in multiple worlds/galaxies of peace and expansionism (with robot armies attending to our every desire) and realize that there is nothing else to improve? Will we live the life of the fat people in the movie Wall-E(before they land on Earth)? Nothing else to work on as humanity? I suppose the real question, is what is the purpose of existence if we have everything solved in life? Thoughts?

[@christiansmith-of7dt]

3 mile above the ground island

[@afdulmitdemklappstuhl9607]

I had an Idea while listining that i wanted to share: Is every systematic pursuit of human flourishing automatically philosophical or are there unphilosophical forms of pursuing human flourishing? Could you reach flourishing without doing philosophy? If i remember correctly preston said that the tackling of philosiphical issues is to some extend part of the pursuit of flourishing but the whole cake. But is philosophizing really necessary for flourishing. Religion for example is also concernd with human flourishing and similar question as philosophy but tackles them, as i would argue, in an unphilosophical way. Does this mean that the religious way to flourishing is an alternative way to the philosophical way or that it is deficient way to flourishing because you have to tackle these questions philosophically?

[@AP-vg3nr]

Hi, this is Aaron Preston replying. If we understand "flourishing" as a state in which our distinctive, human capacities are highly/fully actualized, as the fulfillment of our nature, then the kind of rational thinking characteristic of philosophy is going to have to be a part of it. I don't see religion - understood broadly as what one does to maintain a proper relationship to God - as an alternative to philosophy, but as another important ingredient in flourishing. However, I think religion has to be rationally integrated into one's life if it is going to contribute to flourishing. Arational and irrational (dogmatic, fanatical, etc.) approaches to religion are detrimental to human flourishing. So, as I see it, one must be rational/philosophical in their religious life, if it's to contribute to flourishing. Of course this is a generalzation that may need to be qualified when applied to particular cases.

[@justinsankar1164]

Are there any videos on Christian virtue ethics? Great video as always

[@wilkielai]

If being a philosopher requires one to be eudaimonistic, then I guess I am not and don't want to be a philosopher in that sense. I like the idea that philosophy is a tool--it can be a tool for eudaimonistic endeavors, or it can be a tool for "useless" speculative interests. History is also a tool. Historical philosophy is a tool. None of which are on par with wisdom, or our seeking of it. Wisdom, whether one wants to contend only comes from theology or not, is not necessarily accessible by the project of (ancient Greek type) philosophy. People should do eudaimonistic philosophy because human flourishing is important. However, I don't think it is the most important. I like to think philosophy is bigger than that.

[@martinfranek7747]

hi, loved the video, helped me a lot. I hovwever noticed, thet you slightly mispronounced the surname of Slavoj Žižek, so I will now give you a bit of unsolicited advice on how to pronounce slavic names correctly. I don´t really think that this will be that useful to you or anyone reading this, however I have too much free time and it´s something I want to tell here to you. the way you pronouced it was as if he was named Žyžek with a y instead of i. There is a slight difference between the two sounds (y is called the hard "i" in slovak and i is called soft "i"). It would be better, if you pronounced it, as if you would try to smile a bit while saing the I in Žižek. (the diffeerence between them is, that y is an i sound, but closer to u, and i is closer to j, however, neither are so close to the other sounds, that they could be thought as halfway letters such as ä, ü and the like) Props for the ž, you pronounced that much better than englishspeakers usually do. Love this channel and fully agree with you on the point that the public failde philosophy and you.

[@christiansmith-of7dt]

Adontunp