Episode 214: Anthony Kronman
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Spiritual Enlightenment and Solace in an Age of Disenchantment
It’s remarkable,how driven we are to set goals for ourselves that we're incapable of attaining. But we're not doomed to be disenchanted; Instead, we can make some incremental and meaningful progress toward their attainment.
Anthony Kronman is Sterling Professor of Law at Yale Law School. A former Dean of Yale Law School, Professor Kronman teaches in the areas of contracts, bankruptcy, jurisprudence, social theory, and professional responsibility.
Among his books are Education’s End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life, Max Weber, Contracts: Cases and Materials (with F. Kessler and G. Gilmore), Lost Lawyer, Confessions of a Born-Again Pagan, and After Disbelief: On Disenchantment, Disappointment, Eternity, and Joy.
Greg and Tony talk about parallels between science, philosophy and literature, the search for an understanding of the nature and amplitude of substance and how to re-enchant the world.
Episode Quotes:
What causes some people to view lawyers negatively?
45:10: People often have a pretty low opinion of lawyers because they meet lawyers when they need them, and they need them when they find themselves in the jaws of the law, and that is formidable. And many people experience it as an unpleasant, if not destructive power. And the lawyers who inhabit the precincts of the law so comfortably are just inevitably associated in people's minds with the awfulness of law itself.
Two remarkable things about humans
31:02: Here are two remarkable things about us: We set goals we can never reach, one. And two, that even though we can't reach them, we can make some incremental and meaningful progress.
On illustrating progress
34:52: Learning new things, adding to the stockpile of your knowledge or expertise. That is one familiar way of illustrating progress in an enterprise or a discipline.
Making progress in sensibility
35:51: Developing capacity to recognize and appreciate what is distinctive and worth observation and, perhaps, even close study in another human being—who you may not like all that much or feel an immediate personal rapport for, but who you can see as an individual of a striking and interesting to be able to do that more regularly, more emphatically, and with a greater investment of curiosity and patience. And even at the end of the day of fellowship or fellow feeling, that is making progress in sensibility.
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Recommended Resources:
“Democracy in America” by Alexis de Tocqueville
Guest Profile:
Faculty Profile at Yale University
Contributor’s Profile on The Federalist Society