American Socrates
Think Deeper. Live Better.
Most podcasts give you answers. American Socrates gives you better questions.
Host Matt Rupert — Professional Philosopher, Part-time Podcaster — applies the lost art of Socratic thinking to the decisions, relationships, and cultural debates shaping everyday American life. This is not a philosophy class. It's not another self-help podcast. Just rigorous, honest thinking that helps you sift through the rhetoric and live more deliberately.
New episodes every Wednesday. Check your assumptions at the door.
Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and everywhere you listen.
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American Socrates
What is a Good Life?
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Most people hear “hedonism” and think excess, but this episode revisits Epicurus to recover a very different account of the good life and its ethics. Rather than maximizing pleasure, Epicurus argued for minimizing misery—freedom from physical pain (aponia) and mental disturbance (ataraxia)—through simple living, disciplined desire, and durable friendship. By distinguishing between natural and necessary desires and the endless cravings for wealth, status, and power, he reframes ethics as the art of wanting less so we can fear less. The result is a vision of the good life grounded not in consumption, but in sufficiency and freedom from anxiety.
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