Brian O’Connor, “Idleness: A Philosophical Essay” (Princeton UP, 2018)
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What cultural stereotypes about idleness are introduced at the start of the episode?
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Hello, thanks for joining us for this episode of New Books in Philosophy. I'm Robert Talise, I'm professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt University. I co host the program with Carrie Figder. Harry is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Iowa. My guest today is Brian O'Connor. Brian is Professor of Philosophy at University College Dublin. He works in social and political theory, with special emphasis on the idiom of critical theory that emerged from the Frankfurt School of Political Philosophy and Social Science. Today we'll be talking about Brian's latest book, which is titled Idleness. A philosophical essay. It's just been published with Princeton University Press. Now culturally, idleness is widely derided.
as laziness, uselessness, and sloth. Even within philosophy, the idol are criticised for being wasteful and freeloaders. Indeed, throughout the history of moral and political philosophy, it's frequently asserted, but not often argued. That humans must be perpetually active. Busy. And in a word Productive. But why? Is there really nothing to be said in favour of idling? In his new book, Brian O'Connor examines a range of anti idleness views and finds them lacking. He then proposes an alternative account of idleness, according to which it is a component of human freedom. Now as usual, there's a lot to talk about. But also as usual, we'll begin with our guest. Hi, Brian.
Hi Bob.
How are you today? Very well.
Very well. Nice to talk to you.
Oh, it's great to talk to you. Um, why don't you start us off uh by telling us a little bit about yourself?
Yeah, as you mentioned at the beginning, I work in Dublin. I'm also from Dublin's where I grew up. I did my undergraduate education at University College Dublin. Um went abroad to England to Oxford to work on my doctoral studies. My supervisor there was Michael Rosin is now at Harvard, and then just as I was winding up there. a job came up at my old university, so I've been there uh ever since. So my my story is pretty much that of a a Dubliner through and through.
Uh and y and y you can go home, apparently.
Exactly, exactly. Yeah. No, it's it's it's a fine place to live and uh I I have nothing but good memories of pretty much all of my life through uh to the present day living here. I I grew up uh Dublin's traditionally considered to be divided, at least in the past, into two halves, a north side and the south side. It's since acquired a west side, but uh I grew up on the north side, which was for a long time regarded as the less fashionable of of the two. But it was a wonderful place to grow up. Uh it was pretty unregulated. We had open fields, we We we I think I got my first real taste of uh of idleness then.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What cultural stereotypes about idleness are introduced at the start of the episode?
0:00–5:46
2
How does host Robert Talise introduce Brian O’Connor and frame the philosophical problem of idleness?
5:46–13:35
3
What personal background does Brian O’Connor share that shapes his interest in idleness?
13:35–25:17
4
How does the book ‘Idleness’ challenge traditional anti‑idleness arguments?
25:17–26:15
5
What is Kant’s stance on idleness and how does O’Connor reconstruct it?
26:15–1:00:21
Speakers
4 identifiedMore from New Books in Philosophy
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