Could a 16th-century Frenchman who spent two decades in a tower library be the first blogger? And could economist Tyler Cowen achieve immortality not through his books but because AI has digested everything he’s ever said? Cowen joins EconTalk's Russ Roberts to explore the essays of Michel de Montaigne. They discuss what Montaigne got right about education (hire a tutor with a well-formed, not a well-filled, brain) and what he maybe got wrong about material progress and growth. Along the way: Larry David, Torah study, kidney stones, Cowen’s odds of living to 120, why you should befriend people ten years younger, and Montaigne’s deceptively simple wisdom: when I dance, I dance.
Listen to the episode here.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Tyler Cowen is the Holbert L. Harris Chair of Economics at George Mason University and serves as chairman and faculty director of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He is co-author of the popular economics blog Marginal Revolution, co-founder of the online educational platform Marginal Revolution University, and host of Conversations with Tyler, a popular podcast series featuring today's most underrated thinkers in wide-ranging explorations of their work, the world, and everything in between.
A dedicated writer and communicator of economic ideas, Cowen is the author of several bestselling books and is widely published in academic journals and the popular media. Cowen’s latest project is a generative book, The Marginal Revolution: Rise and Decline, and the Pending AI Revolution.
In 2022, Cowen and co-author Daniel Gross published the book Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World. He writes a column for The Free Press and is the founder of Emergent Ventures, an incubator, fellowship, and grant program for social entrepreneurs with highly scalable ideas for meaningfully improving society.
RELATED SOURCES
- Tyler Cowen's Website
- Tyler Cowen on X
- Tyler Cowen's EconTalk Episode
- Conversations with Tyler Podcast
- "Montaigne" biography by Stefan Zweig, translated by Will Stone on Pushkin Press
- Michel de Montaigne - The Complete Essays translated by M.A. Screech on Penguin Random House
- Aleph Beta, founded by Rabbi David Fohrman
- "Of Experience" essay by Michel de Montaigne on Project Gutenberg
- "Of The Education of Children" essay by Michel de Montaigne on Project Gutenberg
- Plutarch's Lives Volume 1 translated by John Dryden on Penguin Classics
- "The Education of Children" essay attributed to Plutarch
- The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig, translated by Anthea Bell on University of Nebraska Press
- A Chess Story by Stefan Zweig, translated by Alexander Starritt on Penguin Random House
- "That We Laugh and Cry for the Same Thing" essay by Michel de Montaigne on Project Gutenberg
- "Life is Beautiful" film on IMBd
- "On the Inconstancy of Our Actions" essay by Michel de Montaigne on Project Gutenberg
