#98 John Vervaeke on Love, Attention and Meaning with Darius Parvizi Wayne (and Iris Murdoch)

Send a love message This is a coversation between John Vervaeke and Darius Parvizi-Wayne introduced by Andrea Hiott. On Love, Attention, and the Good: Cognitive scientist John Vervaeke (University of Toronto) and philosopher Darius Parvizi-Wayne (Macquarie University) talk about love as a way of paying attention, starting from Iris Murdoch’s The Sovereignty of Good. They discuss John’s idea that getting out of the meaning crisis means “falling in love with being again,” Murdoch’s famous M and D example, what “unselfing” really means, Simone Weil, Heidegger, the Kyoto School, and pilgrimage as a way of knowing. They end with a personal conversation about mentorship, vocation and the love of wisdom. Introduced by Andrea Hiott from the Philosophers’ Way in Heidelberg. CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction from the Philosophers’ Way, Heidelberg 02:30 Darius and John introduce themselves 07:00 “Falling in love with being again” 12:00 Love as volitional necessity 17:00 Murdoch’s The Sovereignty of Good 27:00 The M and D example 37:00 Can cognitive science explain loving attention? 43:00 Unselfing: Murdoch vs. Simone Weil 46:30 The Kyoto School: self-power and other-power 52:00 The two-worlds mythology and nihilism 1:08:00 Nishitani and absolute nothingness 1:20:30 Place, basho, and the sacred 1:23:30 Pilgrimage and theoria 1:27:30 Darius’s story 1:32:30 Mentorship, vocation, and the love of wisdom 1:38:00 Closing: dialogos and Middlemarch MENTIONED Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good · Harry Frankfurt, The Reasons of Love · Mark Wynn, Renewing the Senses and Faith and Place · Silvia Caprioglio Panizza, The Ethics of Attention · Taliaferro & Evans, Iris Murdoch and the Transcendent · Jeff Malpas, Heidegger’s Topology · Robert E. Carter, The Nothingness Beyond God · John Vervaeke, Awakening from the Meaning Crisis John Vervaeke and Darius Parvizi-Wayne How preferences enslave attention (Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences) What active inference still can’t do (Philosophy and the Mind Sciences) Iris Murdoch – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Lawrence Blum) Iris Murdoch and the Transcendent – Taliaferro & Evans Support the show Buy Holding Paradox: The Navigational Approach to Mind and Consciousness by Andrea Hiott Sign up for Making Ways newsletter and projects. Please rate and review with love. YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Substack.