Episode 6 - Philosophy, Death, and the Sacred with Gregory Fried

Philosophy of Health

Step into Plato's cave with Professor Gregory Fried as we discuss why we're no longer asking the original questions, why universities have failed us, and how we know experiences with ayahuasca are real. A self-described “Cambridge kid” who went from being a student at Harvard to becoming Chair of the “off-the-grid” Philosophy Department at Suffolk (and my professor at Boston University in between), Gregory Fried is a unique mind in academia and the current zeitgeist in general. Where some have seen Back to the Future or Titanic a million times, this guy has read and re-read Plato’s Republic and Heidegger’s Being and Time for decades. Unlike most academic philosophers, however, he is less interested in the pretension of clinging to this or that philosopher, and emphasizes rather the original questions, which point to the very mystery of Being and how we as humans can open ourselves to experience the wonder of the Ancients. He doesn’t shy away from the hard questions, and he is also very concerned with the practical. In this episode we ask: How does philosophy prepare us for Death? What connects philosophy with the sacred? Why isn’t anyone doing philosophy anymore? How do we make philosophy relevant to the public? Does philosophy even matter anymore now that we have science? What is up with all the Victorian pictures of dead people selfies with their loved ones? http://philoofhealth.org/2014/12/philosophy-death-sacred.html