Sean Carroll

And I guess I have a mixed feeling about the whole story.

I mean, there's a kind of inspirational aspect of he was someone who apparently truly held the best kind of Enlightenment ideals, right?

He was for equality, but for real, like for people of other races also.

But at the same time, that was a very tiny minority view and he had to swim upstream a lot and it took quite a while for it to catch on.

And then you also have a book, Magnificent Rebels, about the Jena Circle, which you can tell us about.

But as a segue, is there a connection between Forster and the Jena Circle?

So who is in the Jaina circle, there's some recognizable names in there.

Would they have thought of themselves as opposing the Enlightenment or kind of developing it in a different way?

Of course.

And my impression is that a big emphasis was put on sort of a changing conception of the self as, you know, previously you would have thought of yourself in terms of what categories you belong to.

And you would try to be a good Catholic or baker or whatever.

And the romantics wanted you to sort of be yourself for yourself to express something more inward.

And I guess there, I don't want to be overly simplistic about it, but if we were to come down on, you know, did they win or lose the romantics?

Like this image of the self and free will and so forth, incredibly powerful and influential and lasting.

The aspirations to a unity of art and science may be less successful in terms of the modern world.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I like the word negotiation that you used.

I mean, the Enlightenment left us with this legacy that there are individuals and they are sort of the locus of freedom and responsibility.

But then there's also society, right?

That, you know, we do interact with other individuals.