Emily Thomas, "The Meaning of Travel: Philosophers Abroad" (Oxford UP, 2020)
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What is Emily Thomas’s new book “The Meaning of Travel” about and why does it matter?
Hello, thank you for joining us for this episode of New Books in Philosophy, which is part of the New Books Network. I'm Robert Talise, I'm professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt University. I co-host the program with Carrie Figder, Alexis McLeod, and Sarah Tyson. My guest today is Emily Thomas. Emily is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Durham University in the UK. She works primarily in the philosophy of space and time, the history of early modern philosophy, and the history of metaphysics. But Emily has just published a new book that, at least at first glance, appears to mark a departure from the topics at the core of her philosophical research. Пата з а эспекта с то всі на курс о конверсія.
That appearance is deceptive. In any case, Emily's new book is titled The Meaning of Travel. Philosophers Abroad, it's published by Oxford University Press. When you think about it, travel. Its significance and its hazards has been a topic lurking in the background, at least, of a lot of philosophy. Socrates was keen to remind his jury as well as his interlocutor Phaedrus that he spent nearly his entire life within the walls of the city Athens. For another example, Descartes saw fit to take the intellectual journey of his meditations from a room in a foreign country. But that's not all. Many great philosophical works comment on the value of travel. Here you might think of the reflections that close Rousseau's emile.
In the meaning of travel, Emily Thomas picks up this long standing Though now generally overlooked philosophical concern with travel. This is a fascinating book. Надо рефлекс о фолософой трав. But is also a philosophical travelogue in its own right. There's a lot to talk about here. But let's begin as we normally do, with our guest, the author. Hello Emily.
Hi, Barbara.
How are you today?
Very well, thanks. Hope you're good too.
Uh yeah, doing doing pretty well under the circumstances. Um, you know, why don't you um start us off with by telling us a little bit uh about yourself.
Thanks. So I was born in the UK and I studied at UK universities at Birmingham for my undergraduate and then Cambridge for my PhD. Um after that I moved to the Netherlands for three years. And actually the book was mostly written while I was living i in the Netherlands. Yeah um it's a really wonderful place, one that I miss. Yeah, um and after that I moved back to the UK. So I am now very much in Durham, not going anywhere for the foreseeable future. Just here.
That's fabulous. And so d uh did you w you your your previous work is in this sort of um some technical areas of philosophy, am I right? The the sort of the history of the philosophy of space and time?
Yeah, I think technical is a good word to describe it, actually. I say previously um I worked on space and time theories from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, I'm always interested in origin stories. So how theories were invented and developed, how they were critiqued and how they changed. Um but it is fairly it technical. It's the kind of work you really do have to sit down and explain very slowly to people outside my area.
Well, so g this is uh th then th in in at least this respect, um uh the new book, The Meaning of Travel, um, is a departure in that regard, uh, because this is a um for a philosophically rich uh and engaging uh book, um, this is uh the kind of work that can be uh picked up by just about anyone uh and and and read in a way, I should say, um, you know, I found myself thinking um that uh I might be able to um give give your book to um uh to a particular friend who um very proudly likes to remind me how uh he does not like to read philosophy books. And might trick him into reading a philosophy.
I trick him into reading one? Yes. It was very much written to be read by non-philosophers, which is a huge departure actually. And and learning to write in a non-technical way when that's what you've been doing for years and years was really hard. And it's a really good exercise though.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is Emily Thomas’s new book “The Meaning of Travel” about and why does it matter?
0:07–7:44
2
How did Emily’s own life‑experience of living in the Netherlands and traveling to Alaska shape the book?
7:44–15:31
3
Why did Thomas write a philosophical travelogue for a non‑technical audience?
15:31–23:03
4
How does the book combine a personal Alaska travel log with historical reflections on travel?
23:03–31:04
5
What philosophical traditions (Bacon, Locke, Cavendish, etc.) does the book engage with and how?
31:04–37:51
6
How does the book explain the shift in attitudes toward mountains and the sublime?
37:51–47:01
7
What are “cabin porn” and “doom tourism” and why are they philosophically significant?
47:01–55:05
8
How might future space travel change our philosophical understanding of travel and the Earth?
55:05–1:03:15
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