Tuesday Jan 13, 2026
Getting Old
Is old age just a time of hopelessness, struggle, and decline? Are there any virtues (such as wonder and gratitude) at home in that phase of life? How to combine forward-looking engagement with the world, a degree of longing for fulfillment in the here and now, a minimum of self-estrangement, an honest recognition that one’s body and powers are not what they were, an unblinkered recognition that one’s life is coming to a close, and a decent level of tranquility? In old age you are likely off the public stage, and in that sense you turn inward rather than outward. Is it possible to turn inward—to “live within” yourself—while also remaining open to the world?
Mulling over the virtues of old age (as I term it) that might help us to meet the challenges of that phase of life, I ponder whether those virtues harmonize with a cosmology that doesn’t posit a divine guiding hand.
So many questions, so much to contemplate! In a dictum inspired by Hippocrates: life is short, the quest for understanding is long … but step by step, we are on the way. That remains my hope in these ruminations and conversations.
After a short prologue, this episode is divided into three parts separated from one another by brief interludes of flamenco music.
Show notes
[1] At the start of this episode I refer to Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness (Ballantine Books [Random House], 1968), p. 208.
[2] The passages I quote from Aristotle are from his Rhetoric, Book II, ch. 13 (1389b13-1390a27), trans. by W. Rhys Roberts, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. J. Barnes, vol. II (Princeton University Press, 1995), p. 2214. Ryan Hanley suggests reading, in this connection, part III of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels on the endless old age of the “Struldbruggs.”
[3] I quote from Stanley Kunitz’ poem “The Layers.” See https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/54897/the-layers
[4] My reference to Simone de Beauvoir is to her The Coming of Age, trans. by Patrick O’Brian (W. W. Norton & Co., 1972), p. 488 (I mention her report of research that some older folks “no longer defined themselves by their social function,” and “now they are really themselves”).
[5] On the notions of living “within” (or, “in”) rather than “outside” oneself see Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin and the Foundations of Inequality among Men and elsewhere. For the passages and discussion, see ch. 4 of my Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith: a Philosophical Encounter (Routledge, 2018).
[6] I refer to Martha Nussbaum’s “Living the Past Forward: The Present and Future Value of Backward-Looking Emotions” and to Saul Levmore’s “No Regrets, and a Cheer for Retirement Communities," both of which are to be found in Nussbaum and Levmore, Aging Thoughtfully: Conversations about Retirement, Romance, Wrinkles, and Regret (Oxford University Press, 2020), pp. 125-143 and pp. 144-149 respectively. Levmore takes issue with Nussbaum’s critique of “presentism.”
[7] On the critique of travel, I refer to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance,” in Essays and Lectures, ed. J. Porte (Literary Classics of the United States, Inc. (Library of America), 1983), pp. 277-78; and Agnes Callard, “The Case Against Travel,” The New Yorker, June 24, 2023 (available at www.newyorker.com).
[8] I quote from and advert to Kieran Setiya, Midlife: A Philosophical Guide (Princeton University Press, 2017), pp. 106-110, 125, 133-35, 140-41, 148, 153, 159.
[9] On the tranquility that the materialistic Epicurean view of the cosmos purports to bring, I have in mind Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, translated with an Introduction and notes by Martin F. Smith (Hackett, 2001), Book 2, lines 1090-1174 (to the end of Bk. 2); Book 3, lines 978-1094 (to the end of Bk. 3); and Book 5, lines 1193-1240; as well as Epicurus’ Letter to Menoeceus (see notes 13 and 14 below).
[10] I refer to Drew Hyland’s notion of the “stance” of “responsive openness”; see his The Virtue of Philosophy: An Interpretation of Plato’s Charmides (Ohio University Press, 1981), pp. 10-17. See also my conversation with Hyland on this podcast.
[11] When speaking of gratitude I cite (with permission) Mitchell Miller's email to me of June 12, 2017. Check out Miller’s guest presentation on this podcast.
[12] I refer to Pierre Hadot's view that the Epicureans claim "grateful astonishment" as a fruit of their philosophy, and his interpretation of their notion of living in the present. See his “ ‘Only the Present is our Happiness’: The Value of the Present Instant in Goethe and in Ancient Philosophy,” in Philosophy as a Way of Life, edited with an Introduction by Arnold I. Davidson (Blackwell Publishing, 1995), pp. 217-237 (my quote is from p. 225). My thanks to Ryan Hanley for pointing me to Hadot.
[13] On the Epicurean indifference to death, see Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus, in The Epicurus Reader, translated and edited by Brad Inwood and L. P. Gerson (with Introduction by D. S. Hutchinson (Hackett Press, 1994), 10.122-126 (pp. 28-29); and Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, Book 3, lines 830-1094.
[14] On Thomas Nagel’s response to the Epicureans on indifference to death, see his essay “Death,” in his Mortal Questions (Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 1-10, and the sources I mention in notes 9 and 13 above. I also referred in this connection to Setiya’s discussion of the fear of death in Midlife: A Philosophical Guide (see chapter 5).
[15] I am grateful to Kurt Blankschaen, Douglas Den Uyl, Steve Griswold, Caroline Griswold Short, Geoff Griswold Short, Ryan Hanley, Steve Karbank, Annice Kra, Marina McCoy, Mitchell Miller, Robin Reif, Lisa Griswold Robbins, David Roochnik, and Susanne Sreedhar for their comments on and discussion about this rumination on old age. Caroline and Geoff Griswold Short very helpfully suggested a reframing of my introductory remarks about the topic, and also the importance of distinguishing there between old age and old people. The photograph that serves as the image for this episode was taken by Steve Griswold as we stood on Dante’s Peak in Death Valley (2016); I thank him for permission to use it here.
The snippets of flamenco you hear throughout this and my podcast’s other episodes are inspired by, and draw on, not only traditional tropes of the art form but in particular the work of Diego del Gastor (my teacher), Paco de Lucia (everyone’s teacher in modern flamenco), and Luciano Ghosn.
For more information about where I am coming from in this podcast as a whole, as well as the General Acknowledgements and the Dedication, please see “Philosophy on the Way” at: https://griswoldphilosophy.podbean.com/
Further reading (and listening):
For a wide-ranging discussion of works in philosophy and literature that discuss old age, see Helen Small, The Long Life (Oxford University Press, 2007). See as well Marina McCoy’s splendid Wounded Heroes: Vulnerability as a Virtue in Ancient Greek Literature and Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2013), and Sally Gadow’s “Body and Self: A Dialectic,” in The Humanity of the Ill: Phenomenological Perspectives, ed. V. Kestenbaum (University of Tennessee Press, 1982), pp. 86-100. I also suggest listening to the Aug. 1, 2024 episode (entitled “Aging”) of the podcast Philosophical Currents with Jack Russell Weinstein (https://philosophyinpubliclife.org/pc40-aging/). Informative as well is the April 10, 2016 episode of Jack Weinstein’s podcast Why? Philosophical Discussions about Everyday Life. His guest is Sharona Hoffman and the episode is entitled “How to Think Philosophically about Aging” (https://philosophyinpubliclife.org/2016/04/10/how-to-think-philosophically-about-aging-with-sharona-hoffman/ ). I also recommend reading Henk bij de Weg’s remarks about aging and old age in his philosophy blog: https://philosophybytheway.blogspot.com/search?q=old+age. As I was finalizing this episode, Drs. Don Howard and Ioulia Howard kindly sent me their recent book The Art, Science, and Strategy of Longevity: An Expansive Exploration of Aging, Health, and Human Potential (Vibrant Ages Publishing, 2025). As is obvious even at first glance, it is an important work that is very pertinent to reflection on the topic of getting old. I look forward to reading it.
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