In my live Philosophy in Action Webcast on Sunday morning, I’ll answer questions on rationality in face of overwheming emotions, the value of reading literature, balancing introspection and productive work, optimism or pessimism about the future, and more. Please join us for this hour of lively discussion, where we’ll apply rational principles to the challenges of living virtuous and happy lives!

This will be the last webcast of 2012!

• What: Live Philosophy in Action Webcast
• Who: Diana Hsieh (Ph.D, Philosophy) and Greg Perkins
• When: Sunday, 18 December 2011 at 8 am PT / 9 am MT / 10 am CT / 11 am ET
• Where: www.PhilosophyInAction.com

Here are the questions that I’ll answer this week:

• Question 1: Rationality in Face of Overwheming Emotions: How can a person regain his rationality in the face of overwhelming emotions? On occasion, I find my rational judgment swamped by strong emotions like anger and anxiety. In such cases, my thinking seems distorted by my emotions. While in the grip of such emotions, what can I do to re-establish my powers of rational thought? Also, how can I prevent myself from saying or doing things that I’ll later regret?
• Question 2: The Value of Reading Literature: What value do you gain from reading literature? I’ve never much connected with literature, particularly not the classics. I know that you read them routinely. What value do you find in them? Or, what am I missing?
• Question 3: Balancing Introspection and Productive Work: How can I achieve a better balance between introspection and productive work? Particularly I’ve made some mistake, I’ll get wrapped up in the process of introspection until I get the problem sorted out. However, that consumes time – and often my projects suffer and I miss deadlines. How can I find a better balance between these two important activities?
• Question 4: Optimism or Pessimism about the Future: Should we be optimistic or pessimistic about the future of the culture? What do you think will happen to the culture in the next 20 to 50 years? Are you optimistic or pessimistic – and why? What do you think the value and certainty of such predictions based on philosophy are?

After that, we’ll do a round of totally impromptu “Rapid Fire Questions.”

If you can’t attend the live webcast, you can listen to these webcasts later as audio-only podcasts by subscribing to the NoodleCast RSS feed:

• Enhanced M4A Feed: Subscribe in iTunes or your RSS reader
• Standard MP3 Feed: Subscribe in iTunes or your RSS reader

You can also listen to full episodes or just selected questions from any past episode in the Webcast Archive. Also, don’t forget to submit and vote on the questions that you’d most like me to answer from the ongoing Question Queue.

I hope to see you on Sunday morning!