From What We Gathered

To wrap up our series on The Good Life hosts, Dani Nelson and Kylie Shahar, look back on the various teachings throughout the episode to discuss the Good Life through the personal lens of individualism. Your flourishing is very unlikely to look exactly like mine and that is what makes humanity amazing, complex and frustrating in so many ways. Join us as we speculate over how one might live a life...

Can you increase your personal flourishing by recognizing your values and shaping your actions to fulfill those values? This episode we're discussing the work of Valarie Tiberius, a philosophy professor at the University of Minnesota. Big or small, Tiberius provides us with another tool to use to give our happiness structure with a filter to ensure what you do with your time aligns with your bigge...

Let's chew on a thought experiment when considering The Good Life! Robert Nozick asked us to consider the ultimate value of pleasure in contrast to experiencing reality. Would you choose to live in a simulation where your dreams come true but its not real life? Is reality worth pain and hardship? We'll talk about it together on From What We Gathered with Dani Nelson and Kylie Shahar.

Join From What We Gathered to discuss Albert Camus. The most famous Absurdist philosopher to date. Famous for novels, plays and his friendships with Existentialists, Camus thought The Good Life is something found in having a true human experience. Find out more with Dani & Kylie as we look more specifically at his work surrounding the Myth of Sisyphus.

You might be wondering what the king of cultural criticism might have to say about the The Good Life, and the answer is SO MUCH. Join us as we hit on just a couple of his ideas that even the biggest curmudgeons could consider on the road to the Good Life on From What We Gathered.

Are we capable of mind over matter? This discussion focuses on the famous letters between René Descartes and Princess Elisabeth of the Palatinate that influenced Descartes so much that he dedicated his publication of Principles of Philosophy to her. Can you create ailments in your body with your mind? Either on purpose or because of profound emotional experiences or are the body and mind separate...

The level of excitement I have over Émilie du Châtelet cannot be contained. This philosopher, mathematician and physicist may have been the coolest person to ever live. In this episode of From What We Gathered, we'll discuss her stance on the necessity of illusions when it comes to happiness. We'll also talk about how she used fencing as a means of avoiding marriage, because, why wouldn't we?

As we speculate over The Good Life in this series, we add education enthusiast, Denis Diderot to the conversation. We ask you to consider when education is part of your virtuous development and when it might become a burden, but mostly we talk about Diderot. Join us on From What we Gathered as we move into the Enlightenment.

Covering Catholic Philosopher Saint Thomas Aquinas, we'll discuss the addition of hope, faith and charity to the virtues that give us a shot at The Good Life. Famous for his mega publication, Summa Theologica, Aquinas brings Aristotle and Christian thought into alignment while clarifying and documenting Catholic doctrine. As promised, we made sure to find out where his girdle lives. In case you wa...

In this episode, we finish up our Hellenistic installment on The Good Life with Epicurus. A born Athenian whose ideas were shared at his own school, The Garden. We talk about when pleasure turns bad and the nothingness of death on From What We Gathered!

It's with great joy that I tell the story of Zeno's soup. Is soup a delicious portal to the good life? If you view healthy eating as part of the virtue of temperance, you bet it is! We'll also talk about what Stoicism has to say about intentionality in our lives. Below is the recipe for Zeno's lentil soup which we discuss for an indulgent amount of time at the beginning of the episode. Simple ingr...

Do you strive for excellence? Aristotle thinks you should if you are going to achieve eudaimonia. As we cover our second Hellenistic philosopher in our discussion of The Good Life, we describe Aristotle's view of honing your skills mental, physical, comical (in our case) to achieve virtuous balance.

Starting Series 2 where the focus is The Good Life, Dani and Kylie explain the four cardinal virtues beloved by Ancient Philosophy and introduce listeners to Diogenes, a hilarious Cynic who doesn't mind laying with the dogs. Flourishing can mean pure happiness but it can also be contentment with only a loin cloth to your name.

Kylie and Dani end the Friendship series with reflections and philosophies necessarily missing in the discussion in our initial go with this format. We know there are holes left to explore and we hope to build a community that helps us builds on these ideas. Hear more about what we're hoping you might get out of these episodes and From What We Gathered.

Communitarianism is fairly new in the philosophy world. Really getting going in the 1980's by political philosophers who view social development as a group work rather than an individual accomplishment. In Marilyn Friedman's article, "Feminism and Modern Friendship: Dislocating the Community', she discusses how our chosen communities, our friends, have taken the place of historic relationships tha...

Leap into the 20th century with us for coffee and metaphorical cigarettes as we explore the ideas and friendships of Existential philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. We'll attempt to be our most authentic selves as we look at the positives and negatives of trying to live life in a genuine way.

Mary Wollstonecraft was a British philosopher and feminist who lived her life as a testament to her ideas of equality. This included an abundance of friendships with men whether society was ready for such progress or not. Within these friendships, she discovers the only kind of marriage she might agree too, that of being wedded to a friend. Find out more on From What We've Gathered with Dani Nelso...

Episode 5 of From What We Gathered introduces the listeners to Mary Astell. A brilliant wit from the 17th century who is often viewed as England's first feminist. Her ideas presented women as capable of the deepest friendships because of shared experience, which could be greatly enriched by their mutual education and would be most beneficial in a monastery where student and teacher alike were fema...

Michele de Montaigne is added to the mix in Episode 4 of From What We Gathered. Montaigne gives us a perspective on why only men are capable of friendship...at least in the 16th century. To no ones' surprise, Kylie and I do not agree even if Montaigne seems witty, charming and super smart. He also takes a stance that true friendship is a bond akin to soulmates, stressing unconditional love. Have y...

From What We Gathered episode three has arrived! This round, we turn to ancient Eastern Philosophy to consider types of people who might be looking to befriend us. Confucius may have an approved list, but we're discussing those he explicitly says for us to avoid least we shame ourselves and everyone we know. Are you surrounded by two-faced flatterers looking to con you out of your virtue? You may...

On Episode 2 of From What We Gathered, we present the Stoic ideal of friendship through the teachings of Epictetus. In Stoicism, living a life of virtue means maintaining focus on wisdom, temperance, courage and justice at all times to live a life of true flourishing, whether this includes friends or not. We'll spend a good chunk of the episode contrasting Aristotle's teachings so you too can muse...

For the first series of From What We Gathered, we've picked friendship as our primary subject to massage our brains with philosophical consideration. Kicking off the whole thing is a discussion of Hellenistic powerhouse, Aristotle, and his friendship species. By identifying the types of friendships we invest our time in, we might be able to redirect our attentions to deeper and more fulfilling rel...