The Beauty in This Life (with Nick Riggle)

We didn’t choose to live this life. In its most difficult moments, it's all too natural to ask the question, “What makes life worth living?” This question, so central to philosophy since ancient times, is what we explore in this episode with Nick Riggle, a professor of philosophy at University of California, San Diego. Riggle is the author of several books, most recently 2022’s This Beauty: A Philosophy of Being Alive. Over the course of our conversation, we discuss aesthetics, which is the branch of philosophy concerned with beauty and art; the various ways that we, successfully or otherwise, have attempted to find meaning in life; why finding beauty and building an aesthetic community is so crucial to human well-being; and much more. In this episode, you’ll hear about: 2:29 - Nick’s path from being a pro-skater to becoming a philosophy professor and author 8:41 - How Nick approaches surveying philosophical thought through history10:22 - The importance that aesthetics and beauty play in Nick’s studies 19:13 - What motivated Nick to write his book This Beauty21:04 - How Nick conceptualized answering the central question of his book23:51 - The takeaways that Nick personally found for what makes life worth living 29:15 - What it means to pay attention to the beautiful things in life 32:18 - Are some kinds of beauty and art “better” than others? 34:47 - The value of creating an aesthetic community  39:12 - Living an aesthetic life when your physical or mental state is limitedNick Riggle is the author of multiple books and publications, including This Beauty: A Philosophy of Being Alive (2022), Aesthetic Life and Why it Matters (2022), and On Being Awesome: A Unified Theory on How Not to Suck (2017). Nick Riggle can be found on Instagram at @nickriggle.Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to [email protected] The Doctor’s Art Podcast 2024