Ted Audio Collective

Hey everyone, it's Adam Grant.

Welcome back to Rethinking, my podcast on the science of what makes us tick.

I'm an organizational psychologist, and I'm taking you inside the minds of fascinating

people to explore new thoughts and new ways of thinking.

My guest today is Agnes Callard, a philosopher at the University of Chicago.

She's known for hosting public debates on anything and everything.

It has a podcast, minds almost meeting, with economist Robin Hanson.

Agnes was recently profiled in the New Yorker for her radical openness to rethinking her

life.

I'm especially fascinated by her work on ambition versus aspiration, which challenges

how many of us think about our goals.

We're going to do a deep dive into what drives us.

But don't worry, we're also going to talk about board games.

I've been fascinated by your work for a long time, and I would love to start by asking

how you became a philosopher.

I was a high school debater, and in order to try to improve my pretty abysmal track

record of mostly losing every debate I was in, I did a summer program of like high school

debate training, and there I learned there was such a thing called philosophy.

And I felt very exciting, and I thought maybe if I put some of this into my speeches,

I'll start winning debates.

So I went to Barnes & Noble, and I got one of each book from the philosophy shelf.

...