Episode 1: Agnes Callard discusses desire and satisfaction
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What is the philosophical definition of “satisfaction” that the guests use?
Hello and welcome to Elucidations, a philosophy podcast recorded at the University of Chicago. I'm Matt Tikman.
And I'm Mark Hopwood.
With us today is Agnes Callard, Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Chicago, and she's here to talk to us about desire and satisfaction. Agnes Callard, welcome.
Thank you.
So satisfaction sounds kind of like the feeling you get when you're satisfied. Is that what we're talking about here or is it are we using the term in some other more specific technical sense?
We are using the word in a different way. I don't think it's more technical, but it's different. There's a sense that your desire is satisfied when you get what you want, when you get the thing that you wanted, regardless of how you feel about it. In the feeling sense Getting what you want might not be so satisfying, but I would still count it as satisfaction in my getting what you want sense. Now there's a further way that we might make the idea of getting what you want more precise. And it's a way that philosophers have done, and it's something I call the philosopher's theory of satisfaction, which is that your desire is satisfied when it comes true. That is when the thing that you wanted becomes a way that the world is.
So say I want to get something to eat, right? Then what I want is not a way that the world is yet. I don't have food right now.
How does the philosopher’s theory of satisfaction define a desire as “coming true”?
But when I have food then the way that the world is matches what I wanted. So what I wanted comes true. That's the philosopher's theory. The satisfaction of a desire is the truth of the thought that you had when you had the desire.
That's helpful in setting up what we're talking about. Now you have a story that you tell to pose a problem about satisfaction in this sense. And it's a story about what happens when we arrive late for our train. So maybe you could tell us about that.
Right. So I'm imagining someone running to catch a train. Let's say the person is he's really desperate to catch this train. He really wants to get to New York. And so he's pushing people aside. He has his eye on the train and he finally, just at the last moment, gets on the train. And as the train starts to leave the station, he hears the announcement that it's the train to Chicago, not the train to New York. And the question that I want to ask about this case is, is his desire satisfied? Now the first thing we have to do is we have to say which desire, because it seems like he had a couple different desires. The one I wanna ask about is the desire to catch this train, right? The train standing on the platform.
I wanna ask, is that desire satisfied? And it seems like there are two possible answers, right? You can say it was satisfied and you can say it wasn't satisfied. So let's look at what it is to say that the desire wasn't satisfied. Okay? You might say, look, he didn't get what he wanted, right? Because he only wanted to get on the train because he wanted to get to New York. And so when he got on the train, he didn't get anything that he wanted. He's not going to say to himself, Well, too bad it's not the train to New York, but at least I caught the train. There's no at least about it. There's nothing that he got that he wanted. So his desire wasn't satisfied. But now if we think what the philosopher thinks about satisfaction, namely that any time you desire something and that thing happens, your desire is satisfied, we're gonna be forced to say that he didn't really want to get on this train.
And maybe that's not the wrong thing to say. Maybe what he we want to say is look. What he really wanted wasn't to get on this train, but it was to get to New York. That's what he really wanted. Okay? So that's one option. One option is to say the desire wasn't satisfied, and it follows from that that he didn't really want to get on the train. That's one picture. Another picture is it was satisfied, okay? So here's the idea. Look. He wanted to get on this train and he got on this train. His desire was satisfied. He may not have felt very good about it, but we said from the start that satisfaction wasn't going to be about how you feel.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the philosophical definition of “satisfaction” that the guests use?
0:19–1:47
2
How does the philosopher’s theory of satisfaction define a desire as “coming true”?
1:47–5:30
3
Why does the train‑catching scenario illustrate two possible answers to whether a desire is satisfied?
5:30–8:03
4
What are the “eliminativist” and “separatist” accounts of desire, and why does the host find them unappealing?
8:03–11:39
5
How does Agnes Callard’s bipartite model of desire (object + aim) resolve the train‑story problem?
11:39–14:43
6
Why does the direction‑of‑fit between belief and desire matter for understanding satisfaction?
14:43–18:59
7
What are the broader implications of this view of desire for economics and social policy?
18:59–22:29
8
How does the discussion challenge the idea that we are “slaves to our desires”?
22:29–25:55
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