Ethics Untangled
Ethics Untangled is a series of conversations about the ethical issues that affect all of us, with academics who have spent some time thinking about them.
Ethics Untangled is also the long-form online presence of IDEA, edited by Danielle Bromwich and Luke Brunning, where we make room for longer interviews, staff and student profiles, articles and other forms of content.
Both are brought to you by IDEA, the Ethics Centre, a specialist unit for teaching, research, training and consultancy in Applied Ethics at the University of Leeds. IDEA offers Masters programmes in Healthcare Ethics and Applied and Professional Ethics, research degrees and consultancy services.
The Ethics Untangled podcast is edited by Mark Smith at Leeds Media Services.
Music is by Kate Wood.
Ethics Untangled
20. What's the meaning of life? With Predrag Cicovacki
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Never let it be said that we don't tackle the big questions on this podcast. This week we're discussing no less a subject than the meaning of life, with Predrag Cicovacki.
Predrag is Professor of Philosophy at the College of the Holy Cross (USA), where he has been teaching since 1991. He has served as a visiting professor in Germany, Russia, Luxembourg, Serbia, France, and India. He's interested in problems of good and evil, violence and nonviolence, philosophy of war and peace, and ethics.
In 2021, in the midst of very difficult personal circumstances and a global pandemic, Predrag set to work on a book called The Meaning of Life: a Quick Immersion. It's a great book: very clear, heartfelt, personal and full of insights. I hugely enjoyed reading it, and enjoyed even more the opportunity to talk to Predrag about it.
You can find out more about Predrag here:
https://www.holycross.edu/academics/programs/philosophy/faculty/predrag-cicovacki
A few places you can buy The Meaning of Life: A Quick Immersion:
https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-meaning-of-life-a-quick-immersion-predrag-cicovacki/17413009?ean=9781949845280
https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/THE-MEANING-OF-LIFE-A-Quick-Immersion-by-Cicovacki-Predrag/9781949845280
https://www.amazon.co.uk/MEANING-LIFE-Quick-Immersion-Immersions/dp/1949845281
I asked Predrag to recommend some further reading and, in line with the general vibe of this episode, he suggested that you might like to reconnect with a book that meant a lot to you in childhood or adolescence. For Predrag, it's The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse. The first one that came to mind for me was The Old Man and The Sea by Ernest Hemingway. What about you?
Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds.
As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA.
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