Sean Kelly: Existentialism, Nihilism, and the Search for Meaning | Lex Fridman Podcast #227

1. 0:00 – 0:19

   Introduction

   1. LFLex Fridman0:00

      The following is a conversation with Sean Kelly, a philosopher at Harvard, specializing in existentialism and the philosophy of mind. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, here's my conversation with Sean Kelly.

2. 0:19 – 20:27

   Existentialism

   1. LFLex Fridman0:20

      Your interests are in post-continent European philosophy, especially phenomenology and existentialism. So let me ask, what to you is existentialism?

   2. SKSean Kelly0:34

      So it's a hard question. I'm teaching a course on existentialism right now.

   3. LFLex Fridman0:38

      You are?

   4. SKSean Kelly0:39

      I am, yeah. Existentialism in literature and film, which is fun. Uh, I mean, the traditional thing to say about what existentialism is, is that it's a movement in mid-20th century, mostly French, some German philosophy, and some of the major figures associated with it are people like Jean-Paul Sartre and Camus, um, Simone de Beauvoir, maybe Martin Heidegger. But that's a weird thing to say about it, because most of those people denied that they were-

   5. LFLex Fridman1:11

      (laughs)

   6. SKSean Kelly1:11

      ... existentialists.

   7. LFLex Fridman1:13

      Yeah.

   8. SKSean Kelly1:13

      And, um, and in fact, I- I think of it as a- a movement that has a- a much longer history. So when I try to describe what the core idea of existentialism is, it's an idea that you find expressed in different ways in a bunch of these people. One of the ways that it's expressed is that Sartre will say that existentialism is the view that there is no God, and at least his form of existentialism, he calls it atheistic existentialism. There is no God, and since there's no God, there must be some other being around who does something like what God does. Otherwise, there wouldn't be any possibility for significance in life, and that being is us, and the feature of us, according to Sartre and the other existentialists, that puts us in the position to be able to play that role is that we're the beings for whom, as Sartre says it, "Existence precedes essence." That's- that's the catchphrase for existentialism, and then you have to try to figure out what it means.

   9. LFLex Fridman2:22

      Mm-hmm. What is existence, what is presence, and what does precedes mean?

   10. SKSean Kelly2:26

       Yeah, exactly. What is existence-

   11. LFLex Fridman2:28

       (laughs)

   12. SKSean Kelly2:28

       ... what is essence, and what is precedes? And in fact, precedes is Sartre's way of talking about it, and other people will talk about it differently. But here's a way of, here's the way Sartre thinks about it. This is not, I think, the most interesting way to think about it, but it gets you started. Sartre says there's nothing true about what it is to be you until you start existing, until you, till you start living. And for Sartre, the core feature of what it is to be existing the way we do is to be making decisions, to be making choices in your life, to be, uh, sort of taking a stand on what it is to be you by deciding to do this or that.

   13. LFLex Fridman3:10

       Mm-hmm.

   14. SKSean Kelly3:11

       And the key feature of how to do that right for Sartre is to do it in the full recognition of the fact that when you make that choice, nobody is responsible for it other than you. So you don't make the choice because God tells you to. You don't make the choice because some utilitarian calculus about what- what it's right to do tells you to do. You don't make the choice because some other philosophical theory tells you to do it. There's literally nothing on the basis of which you make the choice, other than the fact that in that moment, you're- you're the one making it. (laughs)

   15. LFLex Fridman3:50

       You are a conscious, thinking being that made a decision. So all of the questions about physics and free will are- are out the window.

   16. SKSean Kelly3:59

       Yeah, that's right. If you were a determinist about the mind, if you were a physicalist about the mind, if you thought there was nothing to your choices other than the activity of the brain, um, that's governed by physical laws, then there's some sense in which it would seem, at- at any rate, like, um, you're not the ground of that choice. The ground of that choice was the physical universe and the laws that govern it, and then you'd have no responsibility. And so Sartre's view is that the thing that's special about us, used to be special about God, is that we're responsible for becoming the being that makes the choices that we do. And Sartre thinks that that simultaneously empowering, I mean, it practically puts us in the place of God.

   17. LFLex Fridman4:45

       Mm-hmm.

   18. SKSean Kelly4:46

       And also terrifying, because what responsibility? How can you possibly take on that responsibility? And he thinks it's worse than that. He thinks that it's always happening. Everything that you do, uh, is the result of some choice that you've made. The posture that you sit in.

   19. LFLex Fridman5:06

       Mm-hmm.

   20. SKSean Kelly5:06

       The way you hold someone's gaze when you're having a conversation with them or not.

   21. LFLex Fridman5:11

       Mm-hmm.

   22. SKSean Kelly5:11

       The choice to make a note (laughs) when someone says something, uh, or not make a note. Uh, everything that you do presents you as a being who makes decisions, and you're responsible for all of them. So-

   23. LFLex Fridman5:24

       Mm-hmm.

   24. SKSean Kelly5:25

       ... it's constantly happening, and furthermore, there's no fact about you independent of the choices and actions you've performed. So you don't get to say, it's a hard example, "I really am a great writer, I just haven't written my great book yet."

   25. LFLex Fridman5:42

       Mm-hmm.

   26. SKSean Kelly5:43

       If you haven't written your great book, you're not a great writer. And so it's- it's terrifying, it puts a huge burden on us, and, um, and that's why Sartre says on his view of existentialism, "Human beings are the beings that are condemned to be free." Our freedom consists in our ability and our-... responsibility to, to make these choices and to become someone through making them, and we can't get, we can't get away from that.

   27. LFLex Fridman6:08

       But to him, it's terrifying, not liberating in the positive meaning of the word liberating.

   28. SKSean Kelly6:14

       Well, so he, he thinks it should be liberating, but he thinks that it takes a very courageous individual to be liberated by it.

   29. LFLex Fridman6:22

       Mm-hmm.

   30. SKSean Kelly6:22

       Um, Nietzsche, I think, thought something similar. I think Sartre is r- really coming out of a Nietzschean sort of tradition. But what's liberating about it, if it is, is also terrifying, because it means, in a certain way, you're the ground of your own being. You become what you do through, through existing. So, that's one form of existentialism. That's a stark, atheistic version of it. There's lots of other versions. But it's somehow, um, organized around the idea that it's through living your life that you become who you are. It's not facts that are sort of true about you independent of your living your life.
3. 20:27 – 38:03

   Nietzsche and nihilism

   1. SKSean Kelly20:27

   2. LFLex Fridman20:27

      So, can you maybe comment on what is nihilism, and is it at all a useful other sort of group of ideas that you resist against in defining ex- existentialism?

   3. SKSean Kelly20:37

      Yes, good. Excellent. So nihilism, the, the philosopher who made the term popular, although it was used before him, is Nietzsche. Nietzsche's writing at the end of the 19th century, in various places where he, he published things, but largely in his unpublished works he identifies the condition of the modern world as nihilistic, and that's a descriptive claim. He's looking around him, trying to figure out what it's like to be us now...

   4. LFLex Fridman21:12

      Mm-hmm.

   5. SKSean Kelly21:13

      ...and he says it's a lot different from what it was like to be human in 1300 or in the fifth century BCE. In 1300, like, what people believed, what they, the, the way they lived their lives was in the understanding that to be human was to be created in the image and likeness of God. That's the way they understood themselves, and also to be created sinful because of, you know, Adam and Eve's transgression in the Garden of Eden, and to have the project of trying to understand how, as a sinful being, you could nevertheless live a life, a virtuous life. How could you do that?

   6. LFLex Fridman21:57

      Mm-hmm.

   7. SKSean Kelly21:57

      And it had to do with, for them, getting in the right relation to God. Nietzsche says, "We, we, we, that doesn't make sense to us anymore," in the end of the 19th century. "God is dead," says Nietzsche famously. And what does that mean? Well, it means something like the role that God used to play in our understanding of ourselves as a culture isn't a role that, that God can play anymore. And so Nietzsche says, "The role that God used to play was the role of grounding our existence. He was what it is in virtue of which we are who we are." And Nietzsche says, "The idea that there is a being that makes us what we are doesn't make sense anymore." That's like Sartre's atheism. Sartre is taking that from Nietzsche. And so the question is, what does ground our existence? And the answer is nihil, nothing.

   8. LFLex Fridman22:48

      Mm-hmm.

   9. SKSean Kelly22:49

      And so nihilism is the idea that there's nothing outside of us that grounds our existence. And then Nietzsche asks the question, "Well, what are we supposed to do about that? How do we live?" (laughs) And I, I, you know, I think Nietzsche has a different story than Sartre about that. Nietzsche doesn't say, doesn't emphasize this notion of radical freedom. Uh, Nietzsche emphasizes something else. He says, "We're artists of life," and artists are interesting because the natural way of thinking about artists is that they're responding to something. They find themselves in a situation and they say, "This is what's gonna make sense of the situ- this is what I have to write. This is the way I have to dance. This is the way I've gotta play the music." And Nietzsche says we should live like that. There are constraints, but, like, understanding what they are is a complicated aspect of, of, of living itself.

   10. LFLex Fridman23:49

       Mm-hmm.

   11. SKSean Kelly23:50

       And there's a great story, uh, I think, uh, from music, that maybe helps to understand this. Uh, I think Nietzsche... Of course, jazz didn't exist when Nietzsche was writing.

   12. LFLex Fridman24:01

       (laughs)

   13. SKSean Kelly24:01

       But I think Nietzsche really thin- is thinking of something like jazz improvisation. I mean, he, he, he talks about improvisation. There's classical improvisation. Niche was, by the way, a, um, a musician. I mean, he was a composer and a pianist. Not a great one, really, (laughs) uh, to be fair, but, but he loved music. And Herbie Hancock, who's a pianist, a jazz pianist, uh...... who played with Miles Davis for quite a while in the '60s, tells this kind of incredible story that I think exemplifies Nietzsche's view about the way in which we bear some responsibility for being creative, and that gives us a certain kind of freedom. But we don't have the, the radical respon- the radical freedom that Sartre thinks. So, what's the story? Uh, Herbie Hancock says, there, there they... I think they were in Stuttgart, he says, (laughs) playing a, playing a, a show, and things were great, he says. I'm, I'm pla- he's the young pianist, and Miles Davis is the master. (laughs) And he says, "I'm, I'm playing the... I'm back in the, the solo and I, I'm playing these chords," and he says, "I played this chord, and it was the wrong chord."

   14. LFLex Fridman25:20

       (laughs)

   15. SKSean Kelly25:22

       (laughs) He's like, "It just..." Like, that's what you gotta say. "It didn't work right there. And I thought, 'Holy mackerel, I screwed up.' You know? I screwed up. We were tight, everything was working, and I blew it for Miles, who's doing his solo." And he said, "Miles, uh, paused for a moment, and then all of a sudden, he went on in a way that made my chord right." (laughs) And I think that idea that like, you could be an artist who responds to what's thrown at you-

   16. LFLex Fridman25:57

       Mm-hmm.

   17. SKSean Kelly25:58

       ... in such a way as to make it right, by what measure? Everyone could hear it, is all you can say.

   18. LFLex Fridman26:07

       Yeah.

   19. SKSean Kelly26:07

       Right? Everyone knew, wow, that really works. And I think that's not... Like, there are constraints, not anything would have worked there. He couldn't have just played anything. Most of what anyone would have played would have sounded terrible. But the constraints aren't like, preexisting. They're sort of what's happening now in the moment for these listeners and these performers. And I think that's what Nietzsche thinks the right response to nihilism is. We're involved, but we're not radically free to make any choice and just stand behind it, the way Sartre thinks. Our choices have to be responsive to our situation, and they have to make the situation work. They have to make it right. In-

   20. LFLex Fridman26:50

       And there's, there's something about music too. So, you basically have to make music of all the moments of life. And there is something about musi- why is music so compelling? And when you listen to it, something about certain kinds of music, it connects with you. It doesn't make any sense, but in that same way, for Nietzsche, you should be a creative force that creates a musical masterpiece.

   21. SKSean Kelly27:14

       Exactly. And I, I think what's interesting is the question, what does it mean to be a creative force there? There's a traditional notion of creation that we associate with Go- with God.

   22. LFLex Fridman27:25

       Mm-hmm.

   23. SKSean Kelly27:26

       God creates ex nihilo, out of nothing.

   24. LFLex Fridman27:29

       Mm-hmm.

   25. SKSean Kelly27:30

       And you might think that nihilism thinks that we should do that, create ex nihilo, (laughs) 'cause it's about how there's nothing at our ground. But I think the right way to read Nietzsche is to recognize that we don't create out of nothing. Miles Davis, it wasn't nothing. That situation preexisted him. It was given to him. Maybe by accident, maybe it was a mistake, whatever. But he was responding to that situation in a way that made it right.

   26. LFLex Fridman27:57

       Mm-hmm.

   27. SKSean Kelly27:57

       He wasn't just creating out of nothing. He was creating out of what was already there.

   28. LFLex Fridman28:01

       So, that makes that first date with the clammy hand even more complicated, 'cause you're given a clammy hand, you're gonna have to make art and music out of that.

   29. SKSean Kelly28:10

       Exactly. (laughs)

   30. LFLex Fridman28:11

       And that's the responsibility for both, for both of them. Wow, that's a lot of responsibility for a first date 'cause you have to-
4. 38:03 – 53:30

   Dostoevsky

   1. LFLex Fridman38:03

      You know what? Let's go to Dostoevsky.

   2. SKSean Kelly38:05

      All right, okay, let's do it.

   3. LFLex Fridman38:07

      So my favorite novel of his is, uh, The Idiot. First of all, I see myself as the idiot and an idiot, and I, I love the optimism and the love he, the main character has for the world. So that just deeply connects with me as a novel, uh, Notes from Underground as well, but what ideas of Dostoevsky's do you think are existentialist? What ideas are formative to the whole existentialist movement?

   4. SKSean Kelly38:36

      Excellent. So let me talk about The Brothers Karamazov.

   5. LFLex Fridman38:39

      Yes.

   6. SKSean Kelly38:40

      Partly because that's the last novel that Dostoevsky wrote. I think it's certainly one of the greatest novels of the 19th century, uh, maybe the best, and I'm about to teach it in a few weeks, so I'm super excited about it. But what's, what is The Brothers Karamazov about? I mean, without, you know, without spoiling the ending for anyone.

   7. LFLex Fridman38:58

      (laughs) Spoiler alert.

   8. SKSean Kelly38:59

      Yeah. I mean, look, it's, it's a murder mystery, right?

   9. LFLex Fridman39:02

      Yeah.

   10. SKSean Kelly39:03

       I mean, the father gets murdered. (laughs)

   11. LFLex Fridman39:06

       Yeah.

   12. SKSean Kelly39:06

       And the question is, who did it? Who's responsible for it? So there's, there's a notion of responsibility here, like in Sartre, but it's responsibility for a murder, that's what we're talking about. And there's a bunch of brothers, each of whom (laughs) has pretty good motivation for having murdered the father. The father's a jerk. I mean, he's... You know? If anybody is w- worthy of being murdered, he's the guy. He's, he's, he's a force of chaos and he's nasty in all sorts of ways, but still, it's not, not good to murder people. (laughs)

   13. LFLex Fridman39:43

       (laughs)

   14. SKSean Kelly39:43

       So, so what's the, what's the view of Dostoevsky... I mean, it's this intense exploration of what it means to be involved in various ways with an activity that everyone can recognize is atrocious, and what the right way is to take responsibility for that, what the right way is to relate to others in the face of it, and how, even through this kind of action, you can achieve some kind of salvation. That's Dostoevsky's word for it. You can li- And, but salvation here and now, not like you live some afterlife where you're, you know, paradise for eternity. "Who cares about that?" says one of the characters. (laughs) "That doesn't make my life now any good, and it doesn't justify any of the bad things that happen in my life now." What matters is, can we live well in the face of these things that we do and have to take responsibility for? So it's this intense exploration of notions and gradations of guilt and responsibility and the possibility of love and salvation in the face of those. It is an incredibly human work. And he- but I think Dostoevsky is the opposite of Sartre.

   15. LFLex Fridman41:02

       Mm-hmm.

   16. SKSean Kelly41:03

       And let me just... I think it's so fascinating, I don't know anybody else who notices this, but Sartre, in... Sartre actually quotes a passage from Dostoevsky when he's developing his view.

   17. LFLex Fridman41:13

       Mm-hmm.

   18. SKSean Kelly41:14

       It, it's close to a passage, it doesn't appear quite in this way, but the passage that Sartre quotes is, is this. It's, it's in the form of an argument, Sartre puts it in the form of an argument. He says, um, "Look, there's a... A conditional statement is true. If there is no God, then everything is permitted."

   19. LFLex Fridman41:32

       Mm-hmm.

   20. SKSean Kelly41:33

       "And then there's a second premise. There is no God." That's Sartre's view. I mean, he's an atheist. "There is no God. Conclusion, everything is permitted." (laughs) And that's Sartre's radical freedom, and if you think about the structure of The Brothers Karamazov, I think Dostoevsky, though he never says it this way, would run the argument differently. It's a modus tollens instead of a modus ponens. The argument for, for Dostoevsky would go like this, "Yeah, conditional statement, 'If there is no God, then everything is permitted,' but look at your life."... not everything is permitted. (laughs) You do horrible, atrocious things, like be involved in the death of your father, and there is a price to pay. That's not a livable moment. You, to take, to have to take responsibility, to have to recognize that you're at fault, or you're somehow guilty for having been involved in whatever way you were in letting that happen, or bringing it about that it does happen, is to pay a price. So we're not beings that are constituted in such a way (laughs) that everything is permitted. Look at the facts of your existence. So not everything is permitted, therefore there is a God. (laughs)

   21. LFLex Fridman42:53

       (laughs)

   22. SKSean Kelly42:54

       That's... Uh, and, and, and, and the, and the, and the presence of a God for Dostoevsky, I think is just found in this fact that when we do bad things, we feel guilty for them. We, that we find ourselves to be responsible for things, even when we didn't intend to do them, but we just allowed ourselves to be involved in them.

   23. LFLex Fridman43:10

       And the nature of God for Dostoevsky is, I mean, unclear. (laughs) I mean, it's a very-

   24. SKSean Kelly43:15

       Yeah.

   25. LFLex Fridman43:15

       ... complex exploration in itself. And he, basically God speaks through several of his characters in, in complicated ways.

   26. SKSean Kelly43:22

       Yeah.

   27. LFLex Fridman43:22

       So it's not like a trivial, uh, version of God.

   28. SKSean Kelly43:26

       It's totally not trivial. It's totally not trivial, and it's not a, a being that exists outside of time, and-

   29. LFLex Fridman43:31

       Right.

   30. SKSean Kelly43:31

       None of that is sort of relevant for Dostoevsky. For him, it's a question about how we live our lives. Do we live our lives in the mood that Christianity says it makes available to us, which is the mood of joy?
5. 53:30 – 1:12:00

   Camus and suicide

   1. LFLex Fridman53:30

      so okay, we talked about Dostoevsky and, uh, the use of murder to explore human nature. Let's go to Camus, who is maybe less concerned with murder and more concerned with suicide... (laughs)

   2. SKSean Kelly53:42

      Yeah.

   3. LFLex Fridman53:42

      ... as a way to explore human nature. So he is, uh, probably my favorite existentialist, and probably one of the more accessible existentialists. And like you said, o- one of the people who didn't like to call himself an existentialist. So, what are your thoughts about Camus? What role does he play in the story of existentialism?

   4. SKSean Kelly54:03

      So, I find Camus totally fascinating. I re- I really do. And for years, I didn't teach Camus, because the famous thing that you're referring to, The Myth of Sisyphus...

   5. LFLex Fridman54:15

      Yeah.

   6. SKSean Kelly54:15

      ... which is a, a sort of essay, it's published as a book. Super accessible, really fascinating, he's a great writer, really engaging. The opening line is something like, "There is but one truly significant philosophical question."

   7. LFLex Fridman54:31

      Yes.

   8. SKSean Kelly54:31

      And that is the question of suicide.

   9. LFLex Fridman54:33

      Yeah.

   10. SKSean Kelly54:34

       And I thought, "I can't teach my poor-"

   11. LFLex Fridman54:35

       (laughs)

   12. SKSean Kelly54:35

       "... 18-year-olds of..." You know, like how... (laughs)

   13. LFLex Fridman54:38

       Yeah. (laughs)

   14. SKSean Kelly54:39

       I, I, I just thought, "That's terrible." Like, "How can I..." I mean, it's not wrong. I, like, that's a th- but do I want to bring that into the classroom?

   15. LFLex Fridman54:47

       Yeah.

   16. SKSean Kelly54:47

       And I, and, and so I read it. I read the, uh, the essay. I, I avoided it for a long time because, just because of that line, and I thought, "I'm not gonna be able to make sense of this in a way that will be helpful for anyone." But finally, one year, maybe seven or eight years ago, I, I sat down to read it. I thought, "I've, I've got to really confront it." And I read it, and it's incredibly engaging. I mean, it's really, really beautiful, and, and Camus is against suicide, which is, turns out to be good. (laughs) You know? Like, uh, I was happy about that. But he, he has a, a bit of a bleak understanding of what human existence amounts to. And so, uh, in the end, he thinks that human existence is absurd, and, uh, it's being a... Absurd is a kind of technical term for him.

   17. LFLex Fridman55:36

       Mm-hmm.

   18. SKSean Kelly55:36

       And it means that the episodes in your life, and your life as a whole, presents itself to you as if it's got a meaning.

   19. LFLex Fridman55:48

       Mm-hmm.

   20. SKSean Kelly55:49

       But really, it doesn't. (sighs) So there's this tension between the way things seem to be on their s- surface, and what really turns out to be true about them. And, and he gives these great examples. Uh, like, you probably remember these. He says, um, there you are, you're walking, uh, along this, the street, and you, there's a plate glass window in a building, and through the window, uh, you, you see somebody talking on a telephone.

   21. LFLex Fridman56:18

       Mm-hmm.

   22. SKSean Kelly56:18

       I mean, we, I imagine it as a phone, but Camus-

   23. LFLex Fridman56:21

       Right.

   24. SKSean Kelly56:21

       (laughs) ... for, didn't. (laughs) Uh, but you see somebody talking on a cellphone, and, and he's animated. He's talking, uh, a lot, as if things really meant something.

   25. LFLex Fridman56:31

       Mm-hmm.

   26. SKSean Kelly56:31

       And yet, Camus says, "It's a dumb show."

   27. LFLex Fridman56:35

       (laughs)

   28. SKSean Kelly56:35

       (laughs) And it's not dumb in the sense, just in the sense that it's stupid. It's dumb in the sense that it's silent. It presents itself as if it's got some significance, and yet its significance is withheld from you. And he says, "That's what our lives are like. Everything in our lives presents themselves to us as if it's got a significance, but it doesn't. It's absurd." Uh, and, and then he says, "Really, what our lives are like are like, they're like the lives of Sisyphus." Just day after day, you do the same thing. You know, you wake up at a certain time. You get on the bus. You go to work. You take your lunch break. You get off. My, I have a colleague who once said to me something like this. It, it was ab- about October or so in the fall semester. I said, "How's, how's it going, Dick?" He said, "Well, you know how it is. I got on the conveyor belt at the beginning of (laughs) the semester, and I'm just going through, and that's, that's the way my life is." And Camus thinks that, that experience, which you can sometimes have, reveals something true about what human lives are like.

   29. LFLex Fridman57:41

       Mm-hmm.

   30. SKSean Kelly57:41

       Our lives really just are like the life of Sisyphus, who rolls this boulder up the hill from morning 'til night, and then at night, he gets to the top, and it rolls back down to the bottom. Over the course of the night, he walks back down, and then he starts it all over again.
6. 1:12:00 – 1:19:49

   The Big Lebowski

   1. SKSean Kelly1:12:00

   2. LFLex Fridman1:12:00

      Speaking of jokes-

   3. SKSean Kelly1:12:01

      Mm-hmm.

   4. LFLex Fridman1:12:02

      ... and speaking of, uh, you mentioned film and literature-

   5. SKSean Kelly1:12:05

      Mm-hmm.

   6. LFLex Fridman1:12:06

      So, existentialism in film and literature.

   7. SKSean Kelly1:12:08

      Yeah.

   8. LFLex Fridman1:12:09

      I think for, um, a lot of, uh, people, especially nihilism, was experienced in the great work of art, modern work of art called Big Lebowski. I don't know if you've ever seen that film.

   9. SKSean Kelly1:12:21

      (laughs)

   10. LFLex Fridman1:12:21

       But there's, uh, a, a group of nihilists in that, that film. They're just like, they don't care about anything. I think they happen to be German. At least they have-

   11. SKSean Kelly1:12:29

       Yeah.

   12. LFLex Fridman1:12:29

       ... German accents.

   13. SKSean Kelly1:12:30

       Uh-huh.

   14. LFLex Fridman1:12:31

       So, maybe can you talk about notable-... uh, appearances of existentialism in film. And if, if you at all ever bring up Big Lebowski, uh-

   15. SKSean Kelly1:12:42

       (laughs)

   16. LFLex Fridman1:12:42

       ... if, if that ever comes into play.

   17. SKSean Kelly1:12:45

       So, I know that people think about The Big Lebowski in this, in this context.

   18. LFLex Fridman1:12:48

       Yeah.

   19. SKSean Kelly1:12:48

       I, and I did actually rewatch it not so long ago. We have kids.

   20. LFLex Fridman1:12:52

       Mm-hmm.

   21. SKSean Kelly1:12:52

       And I thought, "Maybe it's time."

   22. LFLex Fridman1:12:54

       (laughs)

   23. SKSean Kelly1:12:54

       It just wasn't really time for (laughs) , for the 11-year-old.

   24. LFLex Fridman1:12:57

       No.

   25. SKSean Kelly1:12:57

       (laughs) So, somewhat inappropriate. But I, but I have never taught that film, so I'd have-

   26. LFLex Fridman1:13:02

       Yeah.

   27. SKSean Kelly1:13:02

       ... to think more. We could talk about it. I'd be happy-

   28. LFLex Fridman1:13:04

       Yeah.

   29. SKSean Kelly1:13:04

       ... to try to think on the fly about it.

   30. LFLex Fridman1:13:06

       Okay, so I would love to because there is a, feels like there's a philosophical depth to that film.
7. 1:19:49 – 1:29:57

   Ayn Rand

   1. LFLex Fridman1:19:49

      Let me ask about Ayn Rand.

   2. SKSean Kelly1:19:52

      Okay. (laughs)

   3. LFLex Fridman1:19:53

      So, it just so happens that I've gotten ... she's entered a, uh, a few conversations in this podcast, and just looking at academic philosophy or just philosophers in general, they seem to ignore Ayn Rand. Do you have a sense of why that is? Does she ever come into play, her ideas of, uh, objectivism come into play of discussions of, um, a good life, uh, from the perspective o- of, uh, existentialism, i- in how you teach it and how you think about it? Is she s- somebody who you find at all interesting?

   4. SKSean Kelly1:20:30

      So, no, I don't think she is. (laughs)

   5. LFLex Fridman1:20:34

      (laughs)

   6. SKSean Kelly1:20:34

      But it's been a long time since I've read her stuff. I read it in high school. I read The Fountainhead in high school and Atlas Shrugged, but that's, at this point, a very long time ago. I think I read something about objective epistemology or something too. So, you know, my, my view about her could be based on a total misunderstanding of, of what she's up to.

   7. LFLex Fridman1:20:53

      Mm-hmm.

   8. SKSean Kelly1:20:53

      But sort of my, my caricature of her, and tell me if I've, I've got it wrong-

   9. LFLex Fridman1:20:58

      Mm-hmm.

   10. SKSean Kelly1:20:59

       ... is that she's sort of motivated by a kind of, I think it's maybe sometimes you call it libertarianism, but eco- like, uh, maybe let's, in the context of our discussion, um, tie it back to Sartre, a kind of view according to which we're the being who has to contend with the fact that we're radically free to do stuff, and we're just not being courageous or brave enough when we don't do that, and the people to admire are the people who make stuff out of nothing.

   11. LFLex Fridman1:21:32

       Mm-hmm.

   12. SKSean Kelly1:21:32

       Um, so maybe that's a bad caricature.

   13. LFLex Fridman1:21:34

       No, no, no. Uh, I, I think, uh, I ... uh, no, I think that's pretty accurate. I'm not, again, very knowledgeable about her, the full depth of her philosophy, but I think she takes a view of the world that's similar to Sartre in, in the conclusions, but makes stronger statements about epistemology, that first of all, everything is knowable-

   14. SKSean Kelly1:21:59

       Hm.

   15. LFLex Fridman1:21:59

       ... and there's some, you should always operate through reason.

   16. SKSean Kelly1:22:02

       Mm-hmm.

   17. LFLex Fridman1:22:03

       Like, reason is very important. Like, uh, it's like, uh, you start with a few axioms and you build on top of that, and, uh, uh, the axioms that everybody should operate on are the same. Ag- again, reality is objective, it's not subjective. And so from that, you can derive the entirety of how humans should behave at the individual level and at the societal level. And there's a few conclusions. Um, she would talk about virtue of selfishness, and sort of a lot of people use that to dismiss her, "Look, she's very selfish," and so on, but she m- actually meant something very different. It's like, it's, it's more like the Sartre thing, take responsibility for yourself, understand what, uh, forces you're operating under, and make the best of this life, and that's how you can be the best member of society is by making the best life you can.

   18. SKSean Kelly1:22:58

       Yeah.

   19. LFLex Fridman1:22:58

       And just focus on yourself, like fix your own problems first-

   20. SKSean Kelly1:23:01

       Yeah.

   21. LFLex Fridman1:23:01

       ... and then, uh, and that, that will make you the best, uh, member of society, of your family, of loved ones, of friends and so on. I think the reason she's disliked, uh, obviously on the philosophy side, she's disliked because, a little bit like Nietzsche, she's like, she's literary.

   22. SKSean Kelly1:23:20

       Mm-hmm.

   23. LFLex Fridman1:23:21

       Uh, I think and the reason she's publicly disliked, uh, in sort of public conversations is because of how sure she is of herself. So there, uh, which is ... some of the philosophers have been known to do, like make very strong statements, like, "Hell is other people," where she was making very strong statements about basically everything. And, but it, it's, uh, the, the reason I bring her up is, you know, she is an influential, uh, thinker that is not, for some reason, often brought up as such. It's not acknowledged how influential she is. You know, I w- I was recently looking at like, a list of the most important women of the 20th century, in terms of thought. Not science or any- but like, thought.

   24. SKSean Kelly1:24:09

       Hm.

   25. LFLex Fridman1:24:10

       And she wasn't in that list. And I just, I've seen this time and time again, and it doesn't make sense to me why she's so kind of dismissed, because clearly she's an author of some of the mo- most read books, like ever-

   26. SKSean Kelly1:24:25

       Mm-hmm.

   27. LFLex Fridman1:24:25

       ... and she clearly had very strong ideas that should be contended with, you know. Um, and that, that's why it kind of didn't make sense to me w-... because she's, uh, also a creature of her time, and an important one. Uh, uh, she's a creation of the Soviet Union.

   28. SKSean Kelly1:24:43

       Yeah.

   29. LFLex Fridman1:24:43

       Somebody who left because of that. And so, some of her- the strength of her ideas has to do with how much she dislikes that particular, uh-

   30. SKSean Kelly1:24:52

       Yeah.

Episode duration: 2:52:57