20. What's the Meaning of Life? With Predrag Cicovacki

Ethics Untangled

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 the IDEA Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds.
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