Quite some time ago while I was tending bar and I had a fascinating conversation with a man who works in the publishing industry, specifically he is and editor and publicist for an author of New-Age literature. After some idle chatter about the weather I prodded him to describe his New-Age view of the world, as I was interested what that entailed exactly.
He started by telling me that god is everything and everything is god, we are all manifestations of the same type of thing, he explained. The details are blurry now but when he was finished I said, "Sounds like Spinoza." In truth, what he described was a brand of Spinozism; I explained to him what that was, he shrugged and went on.
We continued and he went on to describe the human soul and reincarnation. He said he believes that being born is the most traumatic experience a soul can have and that we all tend to be certain ways because our soul is remembering the past lives it has had, I understood immediately, "That's Plato!" I said. I got an emphatic "No way!" as a response. I explained the Platonic concept of anamnesis. As the conversation went on we got into Hume's problem of induction and Kantian ethics, there were many tangents, all in all the conversation was very entertaining.
When he had finished eating and drinking he had a whole lot of reading he wanted to do. I have had many conversations like this one but what he said before he left stuck with me: "I would never have thought that philosophy was interesting." In truth, I never would have thought talking about somebodies New-Age views would be interesting.
Another reason why this conversation has stuck with me is because all the philosophy i had studied became a frame of reference for this man's description of his own philosophical views. Mind you, he would probably not describe his views a philosophical ones, but in truth that's what they are.
Next up: Philosophy 101 - What is a Philosophical question?
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