I did that. I, Dan Levesque, have now officially launched a podcast into the void of the internet.
But why?
I think our culture right now is depraved of wisdom. Sure we've got a lot of media, but we don't have a lot of discourse. Too much of our knowledge about the world comes from reading headlines or watching short clips. The skill of critical thinking is at risk of becoming lost. And that's a problem.
The goal
I don't know how much of an impact a single person launching a podcast on the internet can have to help improve the critical thinking capacity of society, but it's worth a shot. I'm hoping this project can at least help start some discussions around the place of philosophy in the modern world.
Why Bad Philosopher?
Bad, as in not good. I'm self-proclaiming myself as a bad philosopher, because I'm a long way off from being a good one. It's also a good place to start: being humble. If we all think we're more intelligent than everyone else, then it's hard to have a genuine discussion. I also think it's a fact of human existence that by virtue of being alive, all of us are, by default, bad philosophers.
In the days when anyone can be anything, I can call myself a philosopher if I want (there aren't any formal credentials required, after all). And I'll humbly self-report that I'm a bad one.
So that's it. Sort of reminds me of the ending of The Dark Knight, when Detective Gordon says of Batman: 'he's not the hero we need, but the hero we deserve'. That's me, sort of like the Batman of philosophy. Only instead of fighting baddies with my fists, I'm fighting bad ideas with a microphone and the internet.
In conclusion, not only am I a philosopher, I'm also a hero in this story. I mean, heck, check out this picture of me climbing a mountain without a rope:
How much more heroic can a philosopher get?