Welcome And Why Language Matters

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Hello everyone and welcoming again to another episode of Philosophy of Life Podcast. My name is Rezo Sanjide and I am here with my co-host Yalda Nazarian. Today's episode is very special to me because we have a guest whose work I truly admire. Our guest today is Steven Seidenberg, a writer, a thinker whose work lies somewhere between literature, philosophy, and personal reflection. Stephen is the author of several remarkable books, including The Architect of Silence, Pipelight Beline, Anon, Plainsight, Sito, Ich, and Gooda. I recently spent time reading one of his books, and I found out to be truly fascinating work. What fascinated me about Stephen's work is not only writing itself, but the way he sees the world. When I read his work, I feel that behind it there is very deep way of thinking, almost philosophical approach to outside world. His work makes me feel that writing at that level is not just telling the story. It became a way of exploring reality, questioning it, shaping it, and sometimes even reconstructing it. We will include Stephen's website and links to his books in the show notes so you can explore his works further. Stephen works is philosophy 101. Philosophy presented behind his writing in the way he's framing it and reflection. And this is exactly why conversation like this matter to this podcast. In the philosophy of life, we are not trying to talk about philosophy and something abstract, distance, something that belongs to other world and books. No, we want to bring it to us, to everyday person, and that is matter to me. For me, philosophy is something much more personal. It is how we see the world, it is how we interpret what happened to us, it is how we speak, how we think, and how we make decisions in our everyday. And one of the most important parts of that is language. The way we describe things, the way we choose, the way we frame our experiences, and all of that shape our reality. More than we realize. Language is not just a tool for communication, it is a tool for thinking. It's defined the boundaries of what we can understand and sometimes even what we believe is possible. And that to me is deeply philosophical because at the end of the day, our lives is shaped not only by what happened to us, but by how we interpret it. And that interpretation consciously or unconsciously is philosophy. So today I'm very honored to welcome him here to talk about his work, his book, his photography, and the idea behind him.

Becoming An Artist And Privilege

SPEAKER_01 3:36

Stephen, before we talk about your book and your photography, could you tell our audience a little about yourself? Where you come from, and how your journey led you to the work you are doing today.

SPEAKER_03 3:53

What what went wrong? Well, you know, I don't I don't know if there's any single thing that one can say for the uh generative character of an artist's life. You know, you uh uh I found myself compelled in these ways through various in through various influences, through uh some through um my own uh autodidacticism, some through uh teachers of mine, uh, and some merely through exposure and curiosity, I would say. Uh so uh always having been interested in art, always having been interested in forms of expression which are um divergent from and and in many ways uh contrary to or antithetical to uh commonplace modes of uh expression for the sake of uh or in it with a vision of clarity in mind. So one of the interesting things, of course, about poetic discourse, even fairly uh straightforward or simple-minded poetic discourse. I would say simple-minded, other people would say uh quite uh enjoyable uh uh mainstream uh poetry. Uh all poetry is uh is uh it transgresses the idea of meaning as a direct path. Um and so that is that sense of being able to mean more and more effectively by virtue of uh devices and tropes and characteristics of language that are not merely about direct reference, which is of course a version of of what language is that is is uh relatively um uh uh naive, I think. Um so yeah, I that's a beginning of an answer to your question. Uh it's not a full answer to your question, but uh there can be further uh further ways of talking about it if you want, or we can we or it will come up through other other questions, I suppose.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

So yeah, uh I I it's actually um interesting, I think to me, uh the way that you were just describing it. Um uh I think not a lot of people take the path that you have taken. I think, you know, we're not everyone um maybe gets the opportunity. I'm not sure. So I think what Reza was uh trying to get at is, you know, how did you come about this? Because I think not we just generally speaking, as we go through life, don't get the opportunities to take this sort of path. Or maybe we do and we don't see it, you know.

SPEAKER_03 6:42

So you know, I think people people it is true, uh opportunity is it is is hugely important, and I found uh, you know, through through various mechanisms, I found my way into the university system when I was here when I was very young. I found my way then from there to graduate school, and it all and and all of that uh I had uh uh I certainly didn't uh have uh grow up with with need. I grew up in a middle-class American family, so I I wasn't needing to worry about how food would would uh how I would be sustained on a basic bodily level. So, you know, certainly uh there is a lot to be said for the ways in which art practice is often uh facilitated by a certain at least minimum level of comfort. And of course, there there are there's a great deal of art practice that is uh is made possible by extraordinary wealth. Um that's that's that's one of the the secrets, the the hidden the hidden facts of the ways in which art practice happens is uh the having it's not uh it's not a sufficient condition, it's not even a necessary condition, but it can, if you are inclined towards art practice and you happen to have means, then uh you have the time to pursue it in ways that other people don't.

SPEAKER_02 8:16

That's right, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:17

And so, you know, I don't I certainly in no way um uh want to diminish the privilege of opportunity that I've had. Uh and that's a privilege that comes to me in in many ways, both from having uh a background that on a global level is certainly a background of means, and and in in the US is one of at least of not having to think about uh uh of daily needs when I was a kid, uh in the way that that you know, of course, many people do. Um and also being a white man. Being a white man is very helpful if you want to, if you if you want to move through the world, obviously. In America, it makes it it makes it much easier. We we know that it's absolutely the case. Um there uh I and there there is no way as a white man to not benefit from that privilege. Um and so you know uh I I certainly have. That said, lots of white men and lots of people from the middle class or even very wealthy backgrounds don't become artists and don't become poets and other things. So it's it's a it's a combination of things, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:37

I mean, it's like you said, I don't I don't think it's just one one thing that happens and then you kind of fall into this this path. I think, like you said, it's a combination of things, and all these things that you've mentioned obviously uh play a big

Learning Photography Before Smartphones

SPEAKER_00 9:50

role. Um do you um when did you begin to realize though that like photography was not just about like images for you, for example, uh and also but could also be like a maybe a way of exploring ideas and or observations about life.

SPEAKER_03 10:08

Sure. You know, I mean it's interesting because uh the an earlier time frame, the before the digital camera and digital imaging uh and cell phones in particular, the photograph or photography practice was a much more complicated matter. Even with instant cameras and things like that, you still had to have your film developed, you still had to think about processes that extended beyond merely taking uh you know, pulling out your phone and and pressing a button. Um and so so that's become so you obviously everyone carries a camera, or most people carry a camera with them at all times, and they often use it. Um they use it in ways that I'm not interested in using in a camera, and in fact, I don't use my cell phone to image things much at all. So from uh an early age, I for instance, uh uh in I was lucky enough to have an uncle who was a photographer and who introduced me to the dark room when I was young. And so that was my first exposure to photography as something that was not that was a process and that involved choices and significant choices. So I learned how to use a camera, I learned the parameters that made using a camera expressive. Uh, and I never looked at photographs as uh as mere acts of imaging the way that people do. It always seemed like uh it could be uh coextensive with as I learned about and and started to appreciate painting and other forms of art uh and other form other kinds of art practice. It's a different kind, it's a different art practice in many ways, and and does involve a certain what there's that there's a philosopher named Wilhelm Flusser, who wrote a book called Towards Philosophy of Photography, which you all might be interested in at some point, I would imagine, uh in which he describes the the intervention of the camera. The camera as this apparatus that in a sense changes the way in which art practice happens, all art practice happens. Uh he thinks it he thinks it's all uniformly problematic. I think there are you can there are, and for reasons I won't go into uh deep detail about now. Um but you know you don't you don't learn to use the camera the way you learn to draw. It's obviously you are able to immediately limb uh a scene, as it were, or what you are trying to do in some respects with extraordinary accuracy, without the same kind of necessary skill. Nonetheless, there are extraordinary skills and skills is the wrong way to put it, uh there are ex there are choices that determine what a photograph is and whether or not it is expressive in certain ways. And um so later on, my uh my exposure to photography happened in college with a photographer named Stephen Shore, great photographer, one of the great living photographers, uh who is uh uh uh much celebrated uh and was at my I went to Bard College uh in in upstate New York, and uh he still teaches there. Uh and so uh that I had that exposure there. Um I was not someone who was there to study photography, though. I was there, I was someone who at an early age very clearly, and this perhaps uh speaks to part of the reason I'm on this program, was was focused on philosophy and philosophical literature. And so uh photography seemed to me a way photography and other literary mechanisms uh that I pursue all seemed of a piece with uh philosophical literature, in the history of philosophical literature, as well as the history of uh poetic discourse in English, in any case.

Fine Art Photos With Ideas

SPEAKER_00 14:22

So in in that, do you see yourself then more as like a journalist or a philosopher?

SPEAKER_03 14:28

Since you I definitely don't see myself as a journalist in any way. Uh and I I see myself as an artist, not I don't so I don't see the photography, my photography practice as journalistic, though it has documentary characteristics. It's fine art photography, it's meant to be seen as photographs, as prints. Uh it's not uh it's not content creation for websites or anything like that. I I have I want shows and I want to show the work and I want it to be in books and things like that. Uh so it's uh though these things can be coextensive, one can have work that is, and I think this is an important thing about photography, and important way in which I understand my photographic practice, is that it has uh it's a conceptual practice that uh has ideological, it makes ideological claims and political claims and claims about history and claims about the world in a certain respect. Uh and uh I I'm quite self-conscious about that, and I structured uh the series around that. At the same time, they are photographs that are meant to be provocative, to be uh uh to involve uh to to in a sense provoke uh the experience of sublimity or other similar kinds of aesthetic experiences. Um and so uh I I do see them as things to be seen as prints um rather than merely as images on a screen.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:02

Uh and so and and then I I I see uh that work as having like any kind of conceptual art practice, there is uh uh a philosophical element to that practice. So yeah.

Reading As The Engine Of Writing

SPEAKER_03 16:20

If that answers your question.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

Yeah. Stephen, you wrote many books, but uh God, so maybe I pronounced it not correctly. Go da, did you print it?

SPEAKER_03 16:31

That's correct. That's uh that's how you pronounce it, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

So um I read that book and on at least half of it. Is I thought it should be simple because it's a small book, but it was heavy, it was difficult, and uh it was very a lot of information in it. So what would you how would you come with that to writing that book? What was the experience you you go through that you thought maybe I have to write that book?

SPEAKER_00 16:58

What was the inspiration?

SPEAKER_03 17:00

Yeah, it's that these are difficult things to say, you know. Uh uh I I'm I'm curious, can I uh before I answer that question, I'll ask you all the question and if you don't mind. I mean, if that's so what what are some things that could be an inspiration for writing a book? In in like, I don't know, if you ask other people this question, what uh for instance, or what what kind I so I I it's always an interesting question for me because I think that the way I I'm inclined to answer it is actually not answering the question that people are asking.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

So I've no, I think I think usually, I mean, at least for me, because I've I've thought a lot about possibly not necessarily writing a book, but maybe expressing myself uh through something that tells about something, right? So, like usually I feel like it comes from either an inexperience or a curio curiosity. So either it's something that I've experienced that I want to write about or I look into or you know, something like that, or it's because I'm curious about something, and then I go into researching it or looking into it, and it it sparks an inspiration.

unknown 18:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

For me, it's a little bit different and always um see when it's when it's a gap, when is there is something missing that has to be filled out, and I try to go see how I'm gonna address that. And then it's a lot of investigation, a lot of work. I write many articles for a lot of people, and I think to address that particular gap. Now, with your book, is I think it's more like an inspiring moment of your life. Well, I I you know you, correct? If you come up with a plan.

SPEAKER_03 18:46

Yeah, you know, I think different from those kinds of works that you're describing, um when one is interested in so any art practice, I would say, and I would include literary practice in this regard, as opposed to say you want to write a book, uh, you're you're you're interested in some topic and you think I have a unique perspective on that topic, so I will write about it, and I'll do some research and you know, a journalistic approach or a historical approach in that way. Um a literary approach, I would say the the thing that uh the thing that inspires writing is reading. The thing that makes writing is reading. So uh there isn't that's the stuff that is recapitulated in the work, the stuff that and you're writing towards a tradition and towards a set of traditions, a set of linguistic traditions. I mean, this is not exclusively the case, like, but at least in part, the character of the work, and certainly for me, the character of the writing, word by word, phrase by phrase, sentence by sentence, in my case, because I do write in sentences rather than lineated uh poems, uh uh, as it were, or in in code, for instance, uh, I'm not writing lineated poems. Um, so it's not uh an inspiration to act towards uh a revelation of a particular kind of information. It's not an informational project, it's an artistic project, which is to say it is meant to uh, in a sense, reciprocally provide or reciprocally make the kind of work that I have found most moving and important in my own reading. I think it's a difficult thing for people nowadays. Um they want to write, but they don't want to read. They say, I want to be a poet. Well, let's start writing poems. No, that's it's irrelevant. Writing poems is not relevant. Reading poems is the first, is the only thing to do. And writing poems is a way of reading poems in a sense. It's a way of expressing what you've read. Uh and it's the same thing in philosophical literature, it's the same thing in all literary production. I mean, this is uh a point that I could uh describe through the mechanisms of literary theory, for instance, and the ways in which some uh theorists might think about the history of literature. Harold Bloom, for instance, in The Anxiety of Influence, or Derrida in some other ways. Or, you know, these other there are ways of thinking, or uh Wolfgang Isser in other ways in in his work, the act of reading. Um so the i i i in a sense uh you you could say that uh uh writing in this way is a kind of it's a kind of breathing. And writing is breathing out, and you have to breathe in in order to breathe out, and breathing in is reading. So uh that so in that sense I could say that. There are a series of literary works that inspire and my work, Coda, for instance, or other works of mine. There's a sort of general, I guess, uh group of works that I come back to over and over again because of the role that they played in my structuring my thinking and my uh ways of understanding what literature is. Uh I'll I'll I'll there there's a quote from Saul Bello, who's a writer I don't particularly care about, but uh nonetheless has uh said uh uh uh that uh uh an a writer is a reader moved to emulation. And in some sense that's true. I think what he gets wrong is it's not merely emulation. If you have the if you have the right, and it this says this in part speaks to why I I I don't particularly like Bello as a writer, uh, but uh and certainly as a thinker, that uh he thinks it's uh he thinks that one is moved to remul emulation, and I think one is moved to reciprocity. That is to say, you have an experience that and you want to give that same experience to others. You want to give something that is uh similar or even more delightful or provocative or uh you know disturbing or uh or or questioning uh to others. So I mean that's a that is a very brief answer, but I could say if you want it, a brief but long, a long brief answer. I could speak to those literary influences like if you wanted me to. I could say the books that are elusively and uh uh and otherwise, but specifically say the the the works that are particularly quoted in Coda, for instance, and that I'm moving off of. Uh and I'm happy to do that if you want, but also happy to nod if you don't want.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

Let's say I'll stay on track.

Where His Language Comes From

SPEAKER_01 24:07

So I want um a little bit more. Although you you brought the language, basically explore the language in the book. And I I think the language for you must must be very, very important.

SPEAKER_03 24:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

And then where do you get it from? Although did you get it from just philosophy or it just coming from your personal experience?

SPEAKER_03 24:28

Both, uh certainly personal experience, uh from philosophical literature and from other kinds of literature. So uh a lot of it, and so in a way, this uh uh this this it does lead us back into the what I was suggesting a moment ago about the the books that that are led to this particular kind of writing. So for instance, I I have a great love of medieval narrative, and there's a lot of medieval art narrative in this book. So it's Rabelais and and Chaucer and uh and Dante and Um uh Robert Burton, the Anatomy of Melancholy, as well as things like Cervantes and Lawrence Stern and Tristram Shandy, these books are uh and and then they though this is that's a time in literary history where uh really before what we understand to be the the the novel as as it is broadly practiced today, not exclusively but broadly practiced today, uh where plot and uh and character and things like that were considerably less were not important things. They were they were incidental. And the what was important was language, it was humor, it was philosophical insight and uh and and inquisition uh against narrative.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

And and the languages in these um the works that you're you're mentioning, they're they're very different. They're would you agree that um language shapes the way we experience the world? And um, or do you think it's just simply uh something to describe something that already exists, for example?

SPEAKER_03 26:19

Certainly it it it definitively shapes how we experience the world. And uh and and it uh uh I I I would I would go as far as to say that we we can't if we want to describe what exists uh outside of language, we can't. There is no outside of language for us once we're in language. That may be true for other animals as well. We don't know. Uh we we used to like to think, people used to like to think that that humans were the only uh uh species with language, and that's clearly false. Uh we're also not the only species with culture uh even we know. So uh in any case though, uh the the idea of reaching a world that is pre-language isn't is uh is beyond us. So um it's certainly how though that's part of why it's so effective to to be a writer and to be someone who makes language in a way that is inventive, that is uh novel. You are changing, radically changing the way in which people experience the world if they uh surrender to your to your wiles, as it were.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

I agree. Also, language for me is also very important. A few years back, I was um I I was thinking that's language, the philosophy of language just shapes our thought, and that's what a lot of people are saying too. Then it changes. I I I I think still language is the the biggest influential of our thought, but not the only one. Sure.

SPEAKER_03 28:04

Sure, not the only one. I would say that too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

So you I came up when I read your book, um very similar to the philosophy of language and express expression of how stuff works together in the language world. Um did you inspired by the particular philosopher, or it just was uh few of them altogether?

Philosophers As Experimental Writers

SPEAKER_03 28:35

I think uh many different philosophers, including I would count, so I I would say that I don't I mean, if you mean there are two two different ways of being inspired by by these writers, uh by these philosophers. Uh one is by the language that they use and the kind of uh their, as it were, uh stylistic conceits or the ways in which they write, and the other is by the doctrine, if you will, that they seem to be arguing in the argument arguments that they're making. And so I would say that I experience these things uh I experienced or I am influenced by uh uh thinkers on both levels. I understand a continuum of writers. So if I'm talking about Rabelais, for instance, or or uh or Stern, these are not technically philosophers, but there is extraordinarily philosophical uh uh or extraordinary philosophical reasoning in their work. Uh and there are philosophical claims, if you will, and arguments being made in those works, even though they are seemingly works of poetry or works of of uh prose, narrative, that sort of thing. Um at the same time, I read Kant and I read Hegel and uh and among others, but say Kant and Hegel, who are significant influences for me. Let's do let's throw something else in there. Kant and Hegel and Wittgenstein. Let's those those are three those are three philosophers who are significantly represented by illusion in the in Coda. Uh, there are passages there that are meant to parody, specifically parody, and for those who there may be a few readers along the way who recognize, oh, this is a this is a slight shift from uh from a passage in Hegel or or Kant or uh uh a proposition in Wittgenstein. Um and I see understand those writers as experimental stylists in prose. They are writers. They're not they're not sort of it, you can't you don't get Kant by summarizing Kant. You don't get Kant by saying this is what the transcendental deduction is, or what have you, or by saying this is what this is the shift that happens in the third critique, right? Those are interesting topics of conversation, certainly, but they that's not what Kant is. Kant is a writer. We're we're all just all the the philosophical the this Western philosophical canon and philosophical canons in other in other cultures as well, Japanese philosophical canon, the Indian philosophical canon, Chinese philosophical canon, all of these are uh definitively uh literary canons. They they even and of course there are other kinds of literary works that are outside of the canon that are also extremely interesting, but they move through different forms of literary expression. And one of the things that's interesting about many of these uh these, even though they seem canonical, they are radically experimental as literary enterprises. So, you know, you if you if you look at uh Descartes, the the foundation of a of the of Western modernism in a certain way, it's an extr the the Meditations is a an extraordinarily strange book. Something that uh is difficult really to find uh any other real exemplification of in any literature. It's it's a first and only. And then Spinoza is a first and only, and Leibniz is a first and only, and Kant is a first and only. These are not the no one really writes like Kant. Maybe nobody wants to write like Kant. People think that Kant is a terrible writer. I love the way that Kant writes. I love the way that Kant writes in certain English translations and in German. It's fantastic, he's a fantastically interesting and strange writer. And so some of that you might notice in some of the syntactical complexity in a book like Coda has to do with recognizing how effective it is in Kant to for this circuitous and meandering uh sentence structure that really has to be unpacked in and has to be almost diagrammed to figure out what's going on in a sentence. And I love that in Kant. I find it really an amazing fact about that work and an amazing experience to read the word. And it was one of the uh earliest philosophical texts that I encountered, was the critique of pure reason.

What Translation Loses And Adds

SPEAKER_00 33:39

Do you think that reading these books in their original language uh versus a translation that that there's something lost in that translation, or do you think that it it is the same? Do you think reading the original is the same as reading a, for example, English translation? You're speaking about Kant, for example, the German, you know, we know the German language is a very difficult language, uh, but also a thorough, more thorough language, I would say, maybe in comparison to, for example, English. Do you think that there something gets lost there?

SPEAKER_03 34:18

It's different. It doesn't something gets lost, but something gets added. You know, we can decide to prioritize the original, and for scholarly purposes and historical purposes, obviously that can have some importance, some particular importance. There are great translations and great translators, and sometimes great translators add things that are are quite interesting to the work. So, yeah, there's an old quip about Kant in particular, that uh that German students of philosophy learn English so they could read Kant in English and actually understand it. So uh because it can be very it's much because of the structure of German, it you you can go through two or you know a couple of pages in without really figuring out what the subject of the sentence is. And uh that doesn't ha English is not as flexible in that way. So uh there are other writers, uh I so it's not that I think that Kant is not interesting and in some respects more interesting to read in German, but there are other writers like say let's say Heidegger, uh, where there is a different kind of emphasis on how one makes German neologisms. So Heidegger is constantly inventing words in German, and the best we can do in English is odd hyphenations and and and and um and approximations that don't really seem like single words. But German is more inflected than than English and allows for these creation of creations of long, complex words. Uh so that makes it it just makes it it makes it a different experience. It doesn't make it uh an experience that isn't valuable, uh, but uh both are valuable experiences and and you know in many ways I would say uh it's it's uh for my purposes, it's more important to read Heidegger in German than it is to read Kant in German. Um but but good to be able to do to you always want to ideally one would be able to check, always check the relationship to the language of origin. Of course, uh there are many important works to me that uh there's just no chance I'm going to uh uh you know, there are many important works to me in Japanese and in Chinese and in Sanskrit. You know, I'm not going I won't know those languages soon or ancient Greek. I'm not going to know ancient Greek in a way that is uh is useful enough to to really gauge how how much I like a translation, let alone things like Portuguese and and uh and Spanish and many many much more uh straightforward pathways to learning.

Book Titles And Creative Constraints

SPEAKER_03 37:06

I'm just not going to have the time to learn all those languages, probably in a competent way.

SPEAKER_01 37:12

So, Stephen, you wrote many books. Which one do you like the most?

SPEAKER_03 37:18

Always the last one. So uh the most recent one. That's how it goes. You know, I I think I it's sort of impossible. Uh I don't think it's actually true that I like it the most, but I think that right now, uh, since I just kicked it out the door, I'm I'm most concerned about it and it is most on my mind, coda. But I I I I love them all. Uh and uh uh it's interesting as you get further away from a book you uh and from its publication, uh which is in a sense the its publication is when you stop working on it, right? So uh you you you continue working on it until you can't anymore, at least I do. Um and some things are out of print, and someday I hope they come back in print, and when they do, I'll I'll I'll certainly rewrite large portions of them. So that's my hope. My first book, Itch, is the public, you know, uh in this small press world that that one is in if one is a poet or uh or uh writes anything that is roughly speaking avant-garde in or uh in in English, mostly you're going to be in this small press world, and small presses co go out of business sometimes. So and the books are out of print. But you know, what are you gonna do? It's sad. Well, you know, it's just how it goes. And then you you you you hope that somebody else picks it up sometime down the line.

SPEAKER_01 38:50

So the naming convention, I'm just asking what happens and wh why you are choosing those names. So for example, here the Architect of Silence. So it's an amazing name.

SPEAKER_03 39:04

Uh-huh. Yeah. In a way, that that the the photo books, so those are in a way, there's no real naming content convention for those books. I mean, there's much more of a naming convention in my literary work, you may notice that I have uh, you know, uh what is it, four books that are uh uh four letter names, Ich, Situ, Anand, and and Coda, right? So of my uh uh uh my my with respect to the you're talking about the architecture of silence, uh with the subtitle the abandoned lives, uh, abandoned lives of the Italian South, that is uh um, you know, it's a a poetic phrase that I liked, and I thought this is a this captures this sense of uh the project and of the the world in which uh these images are set, in a sense, the world these images come from. Uh and same true, same was true with my uh my photo book, Pipe Valve Berlin. It's very kind of uh very, very uh much uh a Berlin book. And then I have another photo book that's coming out in the fall called Kanazawa Vacancy, which is based in a series that happened that uh of of photos uh from Kanazawa, Japan over a number of years. Um so the that's uh uh uh and those are often in conversation with publishers, the those titles, or with my collaborator Carolyn White, who uh who has essays in all of those books, and so she'll uh have opinions about what the books should be named, uh the photo books. But yeah, it's a different thing with the literary work and the and the photography work.

SPEAKER_01 40:54

So, Yalda, do you have any other questions questions?

SPEAKER_00 40:57

Yes, I do

Algorithms, Verification, And Truth Claims

SPEAKER_00 40:58

actually. Um uh as you know uh on this podcast, uh the topic is often how uh something philosophical um connects to like everyday life. And I think more and more people are um concerned, particularly about the newer generations and um and how how they're dealing with things and how you know how I guess how would I say how things are going for them and how maybe they're not particularly going into uh the right direction when it comes to you know constant information, digital environments, uh, you know, the shifting of of uh ideas of truth, maybe, because you you do uh touch on that, I think, uh a lot also, truth and what truth is. Um do you think uh they are developing a deeper understanding of reality or a more fragmented one? And the reason I say deeper is because they have access to so much information, right? Uh or do you think it's a lot more fragmented?

SPEAKER_03 42:10

I I mean I I'll try I can try to answer this question. I I am wary of old people, which I am, uh, and you are not. Uh I yeah, I'm weary of I'm wary of old people saying things about deciding what like the what the interior lives of young people are. You know, I remember when I was young and people uh were saying about whatever, Gen X or whatever the heck I am, um, that it was uh that there were you know the the the the panic and the sense of what of character the of maybe some of those characteristics characterizations are accurate and maybe they're not. Um I do think that I can say what my experience is of the ways in which digital media uh uh sends information in my direction and how I need to uh shift away from that uh that reception or that characteristic reception. And also I can so and and I can generalize from that to what other people are doing. I mean, I it doesn't I I I feel somehow like I wish uh young people I knew I know uh were were read more broadly and more generally. But you know, whatever. Yeah, that's that's a kind of intrinsic uh cultural conservatism of the old uh and of every generation thinks that, right? And so uh what I can say is I feel like the way in which work is received is in a sense, uh you're you're describing having access to more, but actually what that amounts to is Access to considerably less because the access in infinite access uh requires choice. Right? So, and since there are things and and that choice those choices are primarily farmed out, so to speak. People allow algorithm, the algorithms that companies who want to sell you things uh make to decide what is most relevant for you to see and to consume culturally. So you are constantly going to be fed information that you are that those companies whose interests are absolutely destructive and horrifying and uh will will uh will have already ruined the lives of of of countless millions and will will will continue to do so. Um those companies are deciding uh what will least cause you to change the channel, as it were. And that's not what is important in culture. What's important is for you to be challenged by the things, the work that comes in your direction, not that to be confirmed in what you already think, which uh is often false. We all often think things that are wrong about the world. And so having no criteria for uh verification, so to speak, you know, the the different let's from a philosophical perspective, what what a truth claim is only uh is only an actual uh uh or a statement is only a truth claim if it implies or provides the grounds of its falsification, I would argue. If it doesn't, if it can't be falsified, then you're not saying something about the world. You're saying something about the discourse, but not about the discourse in which the world participates.

SPEAKER_00 45:56

Right. And it all it's almost as if there are um multiple truths, if that makes sense. And then which one is really the truth, right? So uh we almost end up further away from it.

SPEAKER_03 46:08

Um there there are there uh that that's and of course uh in some ways it's true that there are multiple truths, and in other ways that's uh totally false. That it is absolutely and and nobody believes that. Uh right. There there are there are multiple truths in some circumstances. And then, you know, I find it difficult when people uh on the left say, which I certainly am, per uh when people on the left make stupid, unverifiable claims about things, and then they want to they get uh uh uh pissed off because of climate change deniers. And you know, you it's you can't have it both ways. You you want people to bel you want people to accept certain modes of verification in some circumstances. Uh those same modes of verification have to be acceptable in all circumstances, uh at least all circumstances that are within the purview of those of those modes of verification, right?

SPEAKER_00 47:09

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:11

So I'm not sure if that answers your question.

SPEAKER_00 47:13

No, it absolutely does. It it's um yeah, I'm I'm with you. I'm I'm definitely with you. Yeah, I agree. Um, I think um unfortunately, you know, I we're uh at a place in um in time that um it's it's very difficult to kind of like say, okay, this is a cut and dry, but sometimes I kind of feel like it is. Like like you said, in most cases, I do feel like there is just one truth now. Um, but however, do we base uh people's beliefs on the truth based on what they believe? Um, you know, or uh, you know, do we do we not? So it's um yeah, it makes things very complicated, but also I sometimes to me it's actually not it's very simple. Uh but you know, then I also have to ask myself, am I the one that's trying to force my truth upon other people?

SPEAKER_02 48:10

Right.

SPEAKER_00 48:11

You know, you gotta step outside. But no, you you definitely made uh some good points, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:16

I mean, I I will say this is it really is uh uh an easy litmus test in conversation if someone is making uh an absurd claim and this is happening all the time. You say, well, what how would you know if you were wrong? You know, how so how do you know that you're right? How would you know if you were wrong? What would be the evidence that you were wrong? And if they if there is no possible evidence that they're wrong, then they're not saying anything. They're saying something or they're not saying anything uh that that has the power of making a claim about the world. They're making a claim about some psychological state or some other kind of discursive set of discursive principles that that yield a particular proposition, but it isn't a truth claim.

SPEAKER_00 49:01

That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

Advice To His 18-Year-Old Self

SPEAKER_01 49:05

So my final question. So I asked all my guests. Okay. What would you recommend a Stephen today? What would you recommend to Stephen when he was 18 years old?

SPEAKER_03 49:28

Yeah. About anything or life decisions, or what?

SPEAKER_01 49:35

I would think you must though the eight you must remember what was the eight eighteen years old Stephen look like. I do. So what would you recommend it go to college, or would you recommend it not to go to college?

SPEAKER_03 49:49

Uh, for well, certainly uh go to college, and that would that that was uh that was a choice that was to I went to college when I was 16, in fact. Uh, and that was something that uh was necessary to happen for me. Um and was something that I would I would say it saved my life uh in many respects. Would I recommend going to graduate school and uh to get a PhD in philosophy, which I did? Uh I don't I don't know. I might I might say no to that. Uh or I probably would tell myself to go someplace different than I did and to to set the goal differently. Um and to uh and to think about, I mean, I was since I started college when I was 16, I was twenty and I went directly to graduate school. Uh so I went when I was 20. I just didn't, and it was a different time. I I didn't know how to figure out where I should go. And I went to one of the only places at the time where I could study the things I wanted to study, which were Kant and Hegel and Husserl, essentially. Um, and uh it was an okay decision, but uh I might have pursued uh uh a program that was or even a field that was more interested in the kinds of discursive innovation uh that I engage in now. Because I was always interested in that and I was always doing that, and it was always my intention. Uh I will say uh in this is a an odd conclusory, it may be a conclusory statement, in the in Anglophone philosophical life, uh people aren't really, in particular in the continentalist traditions of the Anglophone world as opposed to the Anglo-American traditions, uh people are not philosophers. They are scholars of philosophy. So in French philosophical life, for instance, or German philosophical life, you know, who think of the contemporary philosophers who, or the philosophers of the past 30 years of most significance, and the philosophers today, they are not exclusively, but largely French uh or German in within this continentalist tradition. Uh and even those in the Anglophone tradition uh who are writing philosophy of their own and innovative with through innovative language and innovative thinking are often not welcomed in philosophy departments. For example, Judith Butler is in the rhetoric department at Berkeley, not in the philosophy department. So uh it is a um a pathway to being a philosopher in the traditions of experimentation that I was describing earlier, uh, is not really through academic philosophy in the Anglophone world. And I would I I wish I'd known that at the time.

SPEAKER_01 52:54

So I mean to be honest.

Final Thoughts And Where To Look

SPEAKER_01 53:01

Stephen, thank you very much for taking the time to join us today. It was truly a pleasure speaking with you and learning more about your work, your book, and the idea behind them. And to our listeners, if you are interested to explore Steven Seidenberg works, we will include link to his book and the website in the show notes. Thank you for listening to another episode of Philosophy of Life Podcast. My name is Rezo Sanjide, and I hope to see you soon again to our next conversation.

SPEAKER_03 53:40

It's a pleasure talking to you and y'all the both. I appreciate it. And uh I hope I I hope it's of interest to you, you both, and to your listeners talking to me, and I hope that the people will will take a look at the work. Uh, it's uh uh yeah, that's yeah, I hope so too.

SPEAKER_00 53:57

I I definitely think uh they should. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:00

Okay, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 54:00

I I want to finish your book and then maybe I send you an email, maybe make another invitation that we can talk about uh go to the book.

SPEAKER_03 54:09

I would love to. Please, let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 54:11

Maybe a little bit more in detail, we can take a deep dive.

SPEAKER_03 54:13

I would like that. I would like that very much.

SPEAKER_00 54:15

Yeah, please.

SPEAKER_03 54:16

Thank you very much again. Okay, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 54:18

And thank you, Steven.