))
Under Pressure. Week 33: Descartes' Discourse on the Method, Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Spinoza's Ethics.
Manage episode 518964204 series 3577554
Kandungan disediakan oleh Cheryl Drury. Semua kandungan podcast termasuk episod, grafik dan perihalan podcast dimuat naik dan disediakan terus oleh Cheryl Drury atau rakan kongsi platform podcast mereka. Jika anda percaya seseorang menggunakan karya berhak cipta anda tanpa kebenaran anda, anda boleh mengikuti proses yang digariskan di sini https://ms.player.fm/legal.
Ted Gioia warned this would be a tough week—and he wasn’t kidding. Week 33 of the Immersive Humanities Project had me wrestling with three giants of philosophy: Descartes, Kant, and Spinoza. I started with Descartes’ Discourse on the Method, where his famous “I think, therefore I am” felt surprisingly direct and human. His four rules for reasoning—question, divide, simplify, and review—made him seem less like an abstract philosopher and more like a kind, curious friend.
Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals was another story. Dense and demanding, it centers on the “Categorical Imperative”: act only according to principles you’d accept as universal law. It’s a moral system built purely on duty, not emotion.
Then came Spinoza’s Ethics, written like a geometry proof. His radical idea—that God and Nature are one—left little room for the supernatural or free will.
When reading failed, I turned to the 1987 Great Philosophers series with Brian Magee, which unlocked everything. These thinkers—Continental Rationalists all—believed reason alone could uncover truth, unlike the British Empiricists who demanded evidence. It was a mentally exhausting but fascinating stretch, and next week I’m relieved to return to fiction with Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther.
LINK
Ted Gioia/The Honest Broker’s 12-Month Immersive Humanities Course (paywalled!)
My Amazon Book List (NOT an affiliate link)
CONNECT
The complete list of Crack the Book Episodes: https://cheryldrury.substack.com/p/crack-the-book-start-here?r=u3t2r
To read more of my writing, visit my Substack - https://www.cheryldrury.substack.com.
Follow me on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/cldrury/
LISTEN
Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5GpySInw1e8IqNQvXow7Lv?si=9ebd5508daa245bd
Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crack-the-book/id1749793321
Captivate - https://crackthebook.captivate.fm
70 episod
Kongsi
