[[{“value”:”About ninety minutes, transcript only, almost entirely fresh material. Lots of philosophy. Here is one excerpt: Tyler Cowen: I think when you read [John] Gray on many people, you get quite a bit of Gray. That’s not a complaint. I love reading John. I like him. I like talking to him a great deal. But I
The post My dialogue with Aashish Reddy appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.”}]]
About ninety minutes, transcript only, almost entirely fresh material. Lots of philosophy. Here is one excerpt:
Tyler Cowen: I think when you read [John] Gray on many people, you get quite a bit of Gray. That’s not a complaint. I love reading John. I like him. I like talking to him a great deal. But I agree with your points.
But what I find more compelling in Mill than Sidgwick is, Mill understood the importance of his intellectual venture in the broader sweep of history in a way where there’s not clear evidence that Sidgwick ever really did. So the Hegelian in me, you could say, becomes much more sympathetic to Mill. You read something like Subjection of Women, which is a philosophical work, though it’s not foundationally philosophical. And I can’t imagine Sidgwick having produced such a work, and that’s why I’m going to elevate Mill over Sidgwick.
Aashish Reddy: I haven’t read much Sidgwick, personally –
Tyler Cowen: A lot of it’s boring! I mean, Methods of Ethics is the go-to place.
Aashish Reddy: – Yeah, I’ve mostly encountered him in the Keynes biography, by Skidelsky. Tangentially, Gray’s book on Hayek contains a funny throwaway line, where he mentions “G.E. Moore’s unfortunate influence on the history of ideas.” Do you agree that Moore has had an unfortunate influence on the history of ideas, especially as it relates to Keynes?
Tyler Cowen: Well, I would say that the much later John Gray has become considerably more Moorean –
Aashish Reddy: Agree, and I think this is bad!
Tyler Cowen: Eh! I don’t know, you have to deal with questions of the aesthetic in some manner, and it’s never going to be quite comfortable because making the aesthetic compatible with liberalism always will be tricky. There’s something quite elitist about the notion of the aesthetic, maybe inescapably so.
Moore has never influenced me. The book bored me. I think a lot of his influence was his physical presence and his roles in Cambridge, member of the Apostles Society, and the like. So I’m not a Moore fan, but so many very, very smart people thought so highly of him, I’m a little reluctant to just dismiss it.
Keynes himself took the aesthetic route. It didn’t make him illiberal, but it gave him some illiberal tendencies.
Aashish Reddy: You think the elitist kind of aestheticism influenced Keynes’ economics in a way that’s unfortunate?
Tyler Cowen: In my opinion. But again, it’s easy to dismiss Moore without specifying, well, how am I going to incorporate aesthetics into my philosophy in a way that’s any better? So that would be my indirect, roundabout defence of Moore.
Interesting throughout, including the Peter Thiel bits at two different parts. Plus I say what I really think about Chomsky, my Bayesian update on God, and who on the internet is a really good writer, among other topics. He and I will be doing a follow-up dialog later in the year.
The post My dialogue with Aashish Reddy appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
Philosophy, Uncategorized
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