Re-run: Episode 48 - Crime and Punishment with Thomas Hibbs

We come back to Episode 48, where I speak with Thomas Hibbs about Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, in our second re-run for the summer!

In this episode, I speak with philosopher Thomas Hibbs (Baylor) about Dostoevsky's famous novel, Crime and Punishment. We discuss how Raskolnikov gets trapped in various philosophical theories he has embraced, and what might help him go from theory to authentic human life again. Along the way, we discuss the limitations of philosophy, the importance of literature as an antidote to modern moral theorizing, and the genre of confessions. And, of course, we talk about suffering, and why Raskolnikov needs to embrace it.

Thomas Hibbs is currently J. Newton Rayzor Sr. Professor of Philosophy at Baylor where he is also Dean Emeritus, having served 16 years as Dean of the Honors College and Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Culture. Hibbs has a Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame and served as a tutor at Thomas Aquinas College, Full Professor and Department Chair of Philosophy at Boston College, and President of the University of Dallas. Hibbs has published more than thirty scholarly articles and seven books, the most recent of which is Wagering on an Ironic God: Pascal on Philosophy and Faith (Baylor University Press, 2017). He is currently working on a book on Catholic aesthetics that is under contract with the University of Notre Dame Press. Hibbs is a Fellow of the Institute of Human Ecology at Catholic University, where he had a sabbatical in the Fall of 2018.

Jennifer Frey is the incoming inaugural dean of the Honors College at the University of Tulsa. Through Spring of 2023, she served as Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Carolina and as a fellow of the Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America. She also previously served as a Collegiate Assistant Professor of Humanities at the University of Chicago, where she was a member of the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts and an affiliated faculty in the philosophy department. Frey holds a PhD from the University of Pittsburgh and a B.A. from Indiana University-Bloomington. She has published widely on action, virtue, practical reason, and meta-ethics, and has recently co-edited an interdisciplinary volume, Self-Transcendence and Virtue: Perspectives from Philosophy, Theology, and Psychology (Routledge, 2018). Her writing has also been featured in First Things, Fare Forward, Image, Law and Liberty, Plough, The Point, and USA Today. You can follow her on Twitter ⁠@jennfrey⁠.

Sacred and Profane Love is a podcast in which philosophers, theologians, and literary critics discuss some of their favorite works of literature, and how these works have shaped their own ideas about love, happiness, and meaning in human life. Host Jennifer A. Frey is incoming inaugural dean of the Honors College at the University of Tulsa. The podcast is generously supported by The Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America and produced by Catholics for Hire.