In The East Wing

Abdullah Najjar 0:00
All right, so this is my conversation with Joseph CRI low. Joseph is a former Marines and a current professor at NC State University, where he teaches philosophy. He enlisted in the Marines back when he was in high school or after he graduated from high school, and then, after his military career, which was rather brief, relatively brief, he chose to pursue a career in philosophy. And this is our conversation together, where we talk about his history, his interests in philosophy, and how he became a professor of philosophy at NC State University. I'm glad to have Joe on the show. He's a good friend of mine, and I'm very happy that we managed to record this conversation together, and I'm glad to have him with me here in the studio in the east wing. So Joe, I think we should call this the official start to our conversation, right? I want to welcome you to the east wing.

Joe Krylow 1:05
Hey, glad to be here, sir. Yeah, absolutely. So I

Abdullah Najjar 1:10
honestly have been meaning to have this conversation with you on the show for a long time now, but I'm glad, I'm glad we managed to do it officially before, before I even begin, I do want to say that, first off, I truly appreciate the friendship that we have, like truly, you know, and I appreciate the effort that you've put in and trying to get to know students and, you know, trying to build relationships. That's, that's just very admirable. So thank you for that. It's

Joe Krylow 1:41
mutual. I was actually, I was telling my wife last night that I was coming to do this, and I was telling her about you. I was like, Don't worry, you'll meet him. It's mutual, and I'm glad fate brought us together that day when I was out on the green and I looked over the wall and saw you there, and we just struck up a conversation, right?

Abdullah Najjar 2:10
Yeah, and yeah, this awesome pipe man that's gone. Dolph lives type thing. But before you know, we, you know, cut to the chase of this conversation that we're having that's probably going to be very organic. I do want to maybe go back just a little bit to highlighting a few things about your background, and I I will definitely let you actually weigh in on a couple of these things that pertain to your background, and you know, your upbringing and things like that, but at the same time, just for the sake of sort of familiarizing the audience with who I'm talking to, can you tell us a little bit about what you did before becoming a philosophy professor Here at NC State. So

Joe Krylow 3:00
I had no interest in school when I was in high school, maybe as a younger kid in elementary school, the beginning part of middle school, I was studious and I I cared about my grades and was, you know, would always do my projects. And then kind of towards the end on middle school and high school, it was sports, like I was a soccer player, and on traveling soccer teams and my friends and girls and parties, and kind of didn't really care at all for school. I perceived it as a waste of time. There was one per one teacher that I had that stuck with me, and I'm still in contact with him, Sam Anderson. He I felt cared and he was inspiring, and he treated us as people. He would call us miss Mr. And you know, Mrs. Wow, you know, he would just show us respect and treat us as people, as opposed to like he's their babysitting us or something and that. And he made a mark on me, and he inspired me and some, some of my friends. But beyond him, I didn't really have anything of interest at school besides friends and parties and sports and and so, you know, I knew for me, college wasn't an option. Yeah, neither. My parents went to, went to, my mom did some community college. My dad, I think he dropped out of high school in 11th grade, and and, you know, he was a motorcycle mechanic, my my mom was, was a a secretary and a waitress, and did jobs like that. And so even if I had one, I didn't want to go to school. But even if I had wanted to go the school, I wouldn't have really had the means. Yeah, to go to school, right? And so, you know, I just was in that lifestyle of partying, and was going down some, some dark paths, and I knew the only way out for me was the military. And I had always, I had always, for a long time, I had wanted to be a Marine. I was always interested in, like warriors and and that kind of culture, and so just for, I don't even think I told my mom, but I was eight, I turned 18 in my senior year in high school in November, and somewhere along the line, you know, I'm 18, I can. I don't need a parent's permission. I went to the recruiter, talked to the recruiter, and he got me set up, and I went down, and I don't know, fill that paperwork. I forget if I took the oath at that point. But when I came back, like, on a weekend, I was like, Oh, I joined the Marine Corps. My god, wow. And so I didn't initially go in right after high school. I took the summer off, which I probably shouldn't, because there was plenty of opportunities to get into trouble, and, you know, cause a ruckus with with my friends. But somehow someone was looking out for me and and I, you know, escaped troubles and made it in, shipped into boot camp. It would have been the fall. It was November 9 of 1998 which was a couple days before my birthday, which is the 13th, and then the next day is the Marine Corps birthday, November 10. So by the time I actually got to the Marine Corps Base, it was the Marine Corps birthday to be there. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, I can't remember any of the jokes, but the drill instructors were, you know, it's like a happy birthday. It wasn't, it wasn't a warm birthday party. Stay there, but that's it. So I had, I wanted to be a sniper. That's what I had, had wanted to do. And, you know, when I grew up, you know, I'd seen Full Metal Jacket and Rambo, and, you know, those were my heroes, and Bruce Willis and Die Hard, yep. And, and so my my family had had my dad's side, my my grandparents, my only my grandmother was alive at the time, but they had, like, a little 35 acre hobby farm, and we would just, you know, we would shoot there on the on the weekends, when I'd go over there and I fancied myself a decent shot, and I I just was, I read books on Carlos. Half cock was a famous marine sniper, and I had some videos about him, and that was just my dream to be a Marine sniper. Good Lord. And so the recruiters like, well, the the fast track, way they become a sniper is to go recon. Oh, yeah. And so I signed up to be reconnaissance, and just didn't work out the way I wanted, you know, I, I wasn't able to pass the the in doc for it, and ended up becoming what's called open contract, yeah, and so because I essentially violated the terms of my contact contract by not being able to meet the requirements. And so, you know, they let me pick three other alternative jobs, and I got none of those. My goodness, when the, you know, it had come down to what I'm actually going to do, it was amphibious assault vehicle mechanic, and that was the rest of my life in the Marine Corps. And I meant a lot, you know, I ended up, I don't say I liked it, but it became more tolerable. And the the amtraks, you know, amphibious assault vehicles, they're a special part. There's a lot of pride amongst the trackers as as they're called, because that's what, you know, it's by means of the track that the Marines come off the ships and make it to the shore, right? And so it's an, it's a, it's a vital part of the Marine Corps and and that's where I ended up. And so I did that for, you know, three or three and a half years, or. So taking into account the different schools, and I meant lots of good friends along, and there was actually lots of recon wash out.

Abdullah Najjar 10:07
Oh, god that. So they made it to your unit. Yes,

Joe Krylow 10:11
we got a lot of us got put as amphibious this up, because no one wanted to sign up for that MOS, for that specialty. And so there was a pool of of a couple, a couple of us that that had had similar stories and but, but, I mean, that was good, because we were of the similar mindsets and and stuff, and had the similar dreams, and we were able to ponder watching those dreams wash away. And so I ended up I got out in August of 2002 and they let me get out a few months early, because I shouldn't have got out till November, but they gave me what was called a school cut, oh, to where my command granted me about you can get up to three months, and they don't do it for everyone. You know, you're very special. They liked me. I don't mean to put it that way, but you know, I did. You know, I was a sergeant. I made it to Sergeant, and I had a good reputation, and especially amongst the, you know, amongst everyone. But yeah, the some officers that appreciated me and and they were looking out for me and set it up so that I could get out early, because with the school cut, if I got in November, I would miss the whole fall. Got out in November, I would have missed the whole fall semester. And by letting me get out in August, I could start school, right? And so, you know, I told you I had no interest in school before. And so I was after I had been through the Marine Corps. And, you know, going through all that, that I thought, You know what? Maybe schools. So now I had the money, yeah, because I had the GI Bill, Okay, nice, and I had the discipline. I had the discipline to do it. I had I didn't have that younger self of me in elementary school and middle school was lost, that that cared about that was discipline and did my my work that was lost. And you know, I attribute the Marine Corps with helping me refine that part of my myself, and instilling in me the the discipline that really when I got out, I felt like I could do whatever I wanted, because I just was, I really became a master of myself, you know, and in there, I had the discipline to learn guitar and and, and really That's the biggest thing that I got, I think, from the Marine Corps, was discipline, the ability to set a goal and to keep yourself on track to attaining that goal by minimizing distractions, whatever that me that may be coming, just putting your freaking head down and driving forward and driving on. And that was the attitude at which I hit college, this little community college in northeast Maryland called Cecil college. And college, okay, that's right. So I don't know if I'm going into too much detail here. If you want me to keep going, this is very

Abdullah Najjar 13:39
good. I really before you even keep going, I think there would be a few things I would love to maybe unpack with you here that I think would be worth highlighting, especially for our audience. If rather, when you left, like you spent approximately four years in the military. So that's like, that's like wrapping up, for all intents and purposes, wrapping up one's college journey, undergraduate journey, so that in those four years so much can happen, right? Like, you experience a lot of change. You learn a lot about yourself. There's a lot of growth, and you start to realize that you know there are things you learn about yourself that you could adjust, maybe you can tweak, or there are areas where you can improve. And I'm wondering during those four years, how much of a shift was it for you to transition from a kid who was perhaps very much interested in partying and like being wild, and then finding yourself in a place that is all about instilling discipline and wanting you to be the best version of yourself, you know, and I might even add, I think in the Marines, you're not always very well resourced, right? You're expected, perhaps, to do a lot. For less, you know, you have to sort of overcompensate, yeah? So, how difficult was it for you to get into that mindset? You know, after realizing that for the longest time, maybe you were more inclined into adopting a, you know, a party like lifestyle, yeah? Not

Joe Krylow 15:19
hard at all, sir. Goodness, it's the culture shot. It's like, Yes, sir. When to do this? Yes, sir, yes, sir. You know, that was my experience. I, you know I'm I'm a tall person. I'm six with four. I'm skinny, but still, it's like, usually bigger than everyone and semi athletic and but it's a whole nother crop of human beings in the Marine Corps, both in terms of the people that you're around, and in the terms of like the other recruits or the other Marines and the actual drill, I mean, they're top notch physical fitness. And so you just get humbled. Really quick, really quick. I did anyway. And so it was all, it was all a haze, you know? It's just I had, I had set myself. I guess another part of it too Abdullah is that I didn't want to. There was no this would have been pride too. There was no way in Fucking hell. Yeah, that I was gonna not make it through boot camp? Yeah, there was no way I would return back home. You know, I'm going to be a Marine. I'm gonna be this and that and not do it right. And so it wasn't an option not to conform and throw down with this is the life I've committed to, and this is what I'm seeing for it. I feel like I I, I snapped in, into conformity pretty quick. Oh yeah, you know, out of fear, out of pride and out of having the these goals that I sought to attain. Of you know, ultimately, because it didn't work out, it didn't fully work out. But, you know, I sometimes think because it was very devastating to me when I failed the the to meet the standards for for recon. And I remember on the bus ride home,

I just was like, my life is is over. But, you know, my dreams were gone. Those things were washed away. However,

who knows? Who knows, I could have been re recon, and, you know what, if I ended up being recon, you and I wouldn't be here together, I wouldn't be married to the woman that I'm married to. I wouldn't anyway, the chant, it's still probably possible, but it's highly unlikely that my life would have panned out in the way that it has, and I like that I'm right here talking to you my brother, and I love that. I love my family, and I wouldn't trade them for anyone and the friends that I have. So yeah, it was, it was through that, that I'd eventually get here. So yeah, the trend, the transition, wasn't, I mean, I just, it was survival, yeah, for me, no,

Abdullah Najjar 18:44
that's, that's, I love that there's, there's always, you know, it's never, you always have to look at things from maybe a 361 80 perspective. You can have a path or a goal in life, but you have to also be prepared for the moment when that might not work out, and there's, you know, there might be something else that's open for you. And so

Joe Krylow 19:09
this is some with some of the philosophers that have inspired me. And then I that I teach, yeah, and I think this is bound up with Buddhist teachings too. When you love things that are changeable or you're you're acquiring them requires resources and things to be happening in the external world, besides just your own mind, you're binding yourself to suffering because you may have the things that you seek and lose them right? And what is it to suffer but to lose what you love? And so I had, I had wedded myself to a certain dream of something that I, you know, I wanted to be, but there was no guarantee. And I in me having that. All it was, was a dream, but, but in, you know, I wasn't thinking like that. I was thinking, I'm gonna, you know, I, I didn't consider that possibility. Maybe you have to do, have to be like that, to try to do something like that. But it's through that and other experiences. It's, um, made me aware how lucky we are when things do go our way in this in this world, and to be prepared and to learn how to handle and move through when they don't. Yeah,

Abdullah Najjar 20:31
you know, I'm also very impressed with the way you found another purpose in life, in addition to perhaps a worldly purpose, you know, maybe your worldly purpose is to make, to make good connections with people, to build relationships, and perhaps to spread some level of positivity. And maybe you're out worldly, if that that's a word, a worldly purpose is to, you know, have, maybe eternal life, if that makes sense, so that you know you've maybe during the time when you were applying to become a recon officer. I don't know if that's

Joe Krylow 21:15
I was enlisted, yeah. So I was enlisted the fancy officer. Yeah, all the love to the officers out there, but you know, you got to get the college education first to be the officer. Yeah, but, I

Abdullah Najjar 21:30
mean, it's, it's interesting, because I'm sure during that time, you didn't have as nuanced the perspective as you do right now about your guess, I guess purpose, and what is, what is it meaning of it all? And, yeah,

Joe Krylow 21:42
no, it was to glorify myself. That's I wanted to be this, you know, that to me, was the coolest thing. And I wanted to do that for myself, yeah, you know. And so that certainly changed. And now I think, you know, I conceive of my purpose is, is ultimately, to help others become their best self, yeah, you know, and to come closer to the good and the true in their own lives. That's, that's my mission, yeah, to make, you know, the way I frame it is to make soldiers for God, so, so wanting to be a soldier for, you know, man. To put it that way, I think there's a greater kind of soldier one can be, and that can be a soldier for the good and the true, yeah, and that's what I think a philosopher is, ultimately, is a soldier for the good and good and true and what, what's the greatest I don't want, I think about it. To me, the greatest thing that we can attain is helping our brothers, you know, helping our brothers and sisters become better. And that's not to say I'm complete in any way. I'm flawed, but but to like, recognize that you're on this journey towards coming closer to the the higher and the most important, the most important things, and, you know, finding others to inspire and to help inspire you and work together towards that goal as one platoon moving, you know, moving towards making their way closer to to the to the good. You know, that's, that's what it's about. And that's, that's how I conceive of my role as a as a philosophy professor. I take it very seriously. It's a, it's a kind of religious duty, yeah,

Abdullah Najjar 23:54
yeah. And how does one? When is it? I let me see if I can phrase that right. When did you arrive at the conclusion that this was your purpose in life? Or did you or was it a gradual process where you you know, you were immersed in the world of philosophy, you were learning, you were adapting, and then over time, you realize that, okay, I think this is, this is actually what I really want to do. This is my purpose. So let me

Joe Krylow 24:29
gonna take a minute. Yeah, no, so hash it out. So let me go back to when I get out, and I start at the community college. So when I was in. We were out at 29 pal Palms, California, at this doing this joint exercise. It's called CAX combard and combined arms exercises. And now I think they call it like Mojave Viper that I don't know it's a different name, but when I was in, it was just referred to. CACs. And so I was out there with the the tracks, and we're in the desert, living in these big tents, or living in the tracks and doing exercises, driving through the desert. There's various ranges and just working with with different units. And there was this calm guy, communications guy on the on the tracks, and his his name was Ryan Dupree, and he and I used to play chess like we brought a chess board out in the desert, and we would be playing chess anyway. We're out there. It's a couple months. We're out there training, and I wanted something to read, and I knew Ryan had books, and so Ryan had, he had this, I'd see he walk around in his in his hip pocket of his camouflage utilities, he'd have a book, like, sticking out, like he opened the flap and stuck a book in there. Like, Hey, man, I want to want a book. What do you got there? He's like, Oh, I got some books, but this is Play Doh, and you're not ready. You're not ready for Play Doh. Joe, so he get, he ended up giving me another book to read, which was a fantasy book. And I don't, not, didn't think I was into that was about this. It was called weave world. It's about this world that was weaved into the carpet, and people were fighting over this carpet, when you took strands out, the things that were weaved into the carpet would manifest themselves in reality. And there was just this, like, you know, war going on over this carpet, but it was a larger, you know, it symbolizes a larger war, anyway. So I was thinking that sounded a bitch, Ryan say, I'm not ready. I knew he was, he was taking, while we were in he had, he had took, you know, when he got time on base, I think, a course in philosophy. And so, you know, that had been stuck in my like, what is and it just sounded cool to me, like, what is this? Guy's saying I can't read it. And so the when it always stuck in my mind, and Plato this idea. And so when I got out and I started going to this community college, I had some friends that were still in the area, because the college was in my hometown, and they were going to this college. And they're like, You got to take a class with Dr Bauer, Dr Bauer, Dr Bauer, this, Dr Bauer, that. And then so I looked up what Dr Bauer was teaching in the spring, and I saw philosophy, nice 101, and I thought, there you go. I get to take everyone's telling me, you know, he's like a local, local legend, and very influential to and beloved by by his students. And so I signed up for this class in the spring, and it was probably the first or second class of listening to him talk and just being blown away by the ideas, not not just the ideas of the philosophers, but like his room generalship, like his marshaling of the students, and the passion with with which he taught. Yeah, I said to myself, I want to do this. This. This is what I want to do, yeah, now. And so I told him, as I got to know him. I told him, yeah, he was another one like Sam Anderson, my my English teacher that was personable, would treat us like like persons and what in in, in the class, he was a marathoner. So he would run marathon, whoa. And he would tell us, tell us about, you know, the races he's gonna run, and this and this and that. And he would dog us. He'd say, you know, he was in his 60s, like you young punks, I run y'all under the table. He's like, I'm running a 5k this weekend, if anyone wants to run with me, you know. And he's like, anyone think they can keep up with me? And I raised my hand. He's like, all right, krylo, you know, come out. And so I started running these races with him, and struck up a friendship with him. And it was, you know, after that that, I said, Paul, this is, you know, Dr Bowers, what I what I would call him at that time. This is what I want to do. And he said, All right, I'm gonna help you. And so he bought me books. I asked him, I said, What are the most 10, the 10 most important books I need to read, and among them was Plato's Republic. He gave me a list with 10 books, and he's like, I'll buy them for you. And he bought me the books, and I started reading through them, and I started taking, you know, he taught ethic. He taught everything, ethics, anthropology. Psychology, but I took all his philosophy courses, and it further solidified to me that this is what I want, want to do, and now I know I'm going somewhere with this. Abdullah, what was the final thing where we were headed? What was it that you're the question was,

Abdullah Najjar 30:19
it was the realization, you know, when you realize that this is,

Joe Krylow 30:25
yeah, this is, we've, we've hit it. It was Paul Bauer, man, Dr Bauer, who inspired me through his teachings. And again, it was, it was, it was early. I'm talking second or third class. Oh, wow, where I thought this guy is special. This topic is special, and I want to, this is what I want to do. It was that

Abdullah Najjar 30:51
man. So I want to hear, maybe touch on something that I think is very you might, I'm sure is near and dear to your heart. Yeah, and I want to see how much of it can be, how much of it you can find, and some of the philosophical ideas that you're exposed to. So give me, give me a minute here to sort of unpack this, and then I want to hear your thoughts so you have started. You said you realize that this is what you want to do early on, maybe two or three classes in that community college with Dr Bowers, right? So I'm sure during that time, maybe you didn't even know what PhD students do, or what it's like to be on a PhD program. Maybe these things you weren't very much aware. I

Joe Krylow 31:47
didn't, yeah, no clue what that meant, all right, I didn't know what grad school was. That's right, yeah. So

Abdullah Najjar 31:54
I reckon during that time, your interest far outweighed the ambiguity of the process. You know, like you were way interested in the ideas and how the process looks like of getting into, like a PhD program. You were like, I'm really invested, and here, I would be interested to hear your thoughts on some of the ideas that you were exposed to that may have inspired your faith journey, or how maybe your faith journey inspired your gravitation towards certain philosophical ideas? Yeah,

Joe Krylow 32:35
it would have been the other way around. The other way around. Was it a former delight? I think that the the the philosophical ideas were major part of the faith journey. Oh, I

see. Okay, right, yeah, okay, so,

yeah, so I got the So, another way Paul helped me was he had contact with Freeman harbrowski, who's another great man, and was the President of University of Maryland, Baltimore County, which is where I ended up going after the community college. And Paul had met Dr harbrowski, or had listened to Dr harbrowski Speak, and wrote him afterwards about how inspirational his speech was. And Freeman wrote Paul back and and said, Look, I offer a transfer student scholarship. I respect you, and the the what you said about my let my speech and how it inspired you. Let's work together. Wow, let's work together. And so he said, you know, you can pick one student a year, and they have to meet these criteria, and I will give them a, basically a full ride to um UMBC. And so, Paul, you know, I did the things I had to do. I had to get the degree at the community college with a certain GPA, etc, etc. And so Paul wrote Freeman and said, Hey, got a got a guy for you. And Freeman said, you know, granted me the transfer student scholarship. And so I ended up going to to UMBC, and there I majored in philosophy, and actually most of my time was spent doing ancient Greek. Oh, okay, you know. And you have to learning more about what this is going to involve, right it? You know, you got to study a philosophical language, especially if you wanted to study Plato or, you know, the ancient philosophers, or the New Testament too, because ancient Greek, and exactly, and while I was there, I actually took a class. It's called coin a in coin a Greek, and when I was at UMBC, and so I met, you. Uh, lots of influential people there. Probably two of the most were, uh, Sue Dwyer, who's now at College Park. She was the chair of the department, taught ethics and taught me a lot, and Xena hits, who was the ancient philosopher there, and really inspired me and kept going that love for ancient philosophy. We read some Aristotle and Greek together. Now worked on some of that. And so around that time, I was graduating with the degree from UMBC, I married Paul's daughter, Dr Bowers daughter. Congratulations. Yeah, and, exactly, and, and who, who is, in many ways, in the background, and all that I do in helping me and keep me on the straight, straight path. And I can't thank her enough for all her support she's giving me on she's a big part of this journey, and the wonderful kids that we we've had together, and all the hard work she does. But I like

Abdullah Najjar 36:07
that shout out to defend

Joe Krylow 36:10
I love you, huh? And I love you, know, my sons, Joey and Emma and and so I get the the degree the undergrad, and I had just been married. I should be applying to grad schools. However, my wife had a good paying job at University of Delaware, and it was like, new job. So it was like, Okay, this is I'm gonna follow her. Yeah, follow her here. And she was at University of Delaware, and University of Delaware didn't have a philosophy graduate program. They had a really good under undergraduate program and but they don't have a grad program in philosophy. So I, I was like, What can I do here to keep furthering my my development and philosophy? And I figured the next best thing was this program they had in linguistics and cognitive science, wow, you know, there's philosophy of language and and philosophy of mind. You know, I still would have, and a lot of the cogs classes were cross listed with philosophy classes. And so thought this was way. And also sue Dwyer at at UMBC, who was influential on me. She got me interested in Chomsky. Oh no, Chomsky, that's right, not the political stuff, but like he, you know, he's a first rate linguist, and so she was basically trying to take some of his ideas about how we acquire language and apply them to how we acquire morality, right? So certain, this is kind of the the C plus version. But you know how we acquire. Come to know a grammar of a language by which we produce only in all grammatical sentences. There's what's called the linguistic analogy you can you can take this ideas that he has about language and what it is and how it's acquired, and put it in other domains, like ethics, like how do we acquire the principles by which we make moral decisions? Where do these come from? Are they innate? Are they extracted from the environment? Nothing's innate. It's at some combination. And so she had been working on that, and so I was to understand what she was trying to do. I was reading lots of Chomsky, and with my study of ancient Greek, I had picked up some some grammar, you know, understanding of grammar beyond just the grade school stuff. And so I thought, Well, I'm gonna go further into the linguistics, and then this cog size stuff, which overlaps with philosophy. And so I ended up doing the Masters in that. And while I was doing the Masters in in that, I was Paul had started slowly cutting back his classes. And as he would cut back his the classes that he was teaching, he would give them to me to teach. So the first one was a summer class in at the at the community college, and he said, you want to teach intro to philosophy this summer, and that was like, I had to put my money where my mouth was, because I was scared shitless. Honestly, I didn't feel that I was ready. But I I said, Let's do it. And so I started, I started teaching there, and as I was working on, on the Masters, and I had, you know. I got good reviews and ratings, and the administration liked me, and they're like, you know, you've taught a couple classes here. What is it you want to teach, right? What is it that you're interested in? Logic question, that's right. And I said philosophy of religion. Nice, not because I was a religious person, but because, quite the opposite, I would say I was pretty antagonistic to religion, and I wanted to give the religious people a hard time. So again, not the best intentions. And I say this tongue, I was interested, but I did genuinely oppose lots of the ideas. And so I thought, okay, I'd I'd like to, I wanted. They said, Okay, you teach philosophy religion. And then I thought, Well, shit, I'm never, you know, it's so hubristic of me. I'm just so vehemently opposed to religion. Thought they had it wrong. What did I know about religion? Nothing right. And so I thought, well, I guess I gotta, you know, audit a course in philosophy of religion at University of Delaware while I was at, you know, in the master's program. And so I ended up the philosophy religion course was full, but there's medieval philosophy that's interesting, exactly, and some of the people who knew me in the cog SCI program, they said, Oh, you know, and they knew my disposition to be anti religion and against religion. They said, Well, you don't want to take a class with the woman who teaches that that class. You know, she wears a little cross around her neck. She's very religious, you know, her name was Kate Rogers, and I don't really care. I just want to learn what the arguments were. And I knew enough to know that the medievals were very spiritually minded, and their philosophy was dominated by argument, you know, spiritual issues, okay? And so I take this audit, this medieval class with with Kate Rogers, Dr Rogers, in order to build my own philosophy of religion class. And from day one in Kate's class, I absolutely loved her me, and she loved me and and as I was listening to the arguments that were were being made, I thought, boy, I had no idea how sophisticated and subtle and beautiful and rigorous these arguments Were. You know, we were talking about those arguments, not just for the existence of God, but she was heavily engaged in what's called philosophical theology, or perfect being theology. The idea is, you know, this, this would be theology that is distinct, in a certain sense, from biblical theology. So you're trying to understand God not by going to the Bible or some holy text and seeing what it says about God, but by starting from the idea that God is a supremely perfect being, right, and working out what the implications must be, what other truths you can discover about God, given that you're starting with this definition of God as a supremely perfect being, so technically, you don't you didn't even have to Believe in God in order to engage in philosophical theology, you just had to understand that definition of God, and you had to be able to make so she could say, If God exists, this is what God's nature would be given that he's supremely perfect. So for example, you know, if something was supremely perfect, then it couldn't be corrupted, right? You couldn't destroy it, okay? And so you can deduce from that that therefore God is not a physical thing. Because if God was a physical thing, you could dice him up and blow him, you know, I'll just cut him up and stuff like that, corrupt him in a certain way. But that, given that God is supremely perfect, he wouldn't be corruptible in any way whatsoever, either physically or in your mind, you couldn't even pull him apart. So he had to be absolutely without body, right? And so at that point, doesn't commit you to believing there's such a being, but you're engaging in this meditation basically on what a supremely perfect being would would be like. And so I started, I was taken in by this way of coming at God and trying to understand God, and probably the majority of the great philosopher. Theologians in the like Augustine and on some minus maybe yes, would would take philosophical thought theology and biblical theology to be compatible, like the truths that come out of both, they would be consistent. But the point is, you're not starting from well, the text says this, Therefore this is what God's like. You're starting from the the idea of the perfect being. And so I thought that that was really beautiful and interesting. And Kate, the professor of this medieval class, had

had, she knew that I eventually want, after I got the Masters, that I wanted to get the PhD in philosophy. And she says, Well, look, you're a great student. I love talking with me, with you, but, like, I've never seen any of your writing, but I want to help you get into grad school. So like, write something for me, so so that I can, you know, basically be one of your letters. I didn't even ask her, I didn't say anything about she just came to me like, look, I want to help you. I want to see how you can write, you know, I want to help you get into grad school, but I got to see how you can write. So write one of these essays that I've given to the students. She gave them a list of papers with possible essay topics, and she's Psyched pick one. You know, obviously I'm not getting a grade because I'm just auditing her course. I'm just basically sitting in and I thought, you know, this is, this is good. And so I read through the list, and I saw this question, and it said, What is Augustine's argument for the immortality of the soul. I thought, that's kind of, that's cool, yeah, you know, and, and so I thought, I'm gonna, I'm gonna write on that. And I just went deep into it. And I wrote this paper, you know, 2030, pages. I don't know how I did it, man, I think this is the beginning of some kind of grace or divine I've never been able to write like that before or since, and it just came together. Wow. And I, you know, I know Kate was praying for me now, but it came it came together, and I showed it to her, and she's like, You publish this. Wow. And that wasn't even on my radar. And I did American Catholic philosophical quarterly.

Abdullah Najjar 47:31
I gotta, I gotta look that up. Yeah,

Joe Krylow 47:33
exactly, and it's called, it doesn't concern you. Rejecting Augustine's argument for the immortality the soul, something like I wrote it back in 2013 or 2014 so it's over a decade ago. All right, okay, so, so now got published and and I just through reading Augustine and writing that paper and seeing him talk about, make these arguments that there are these eternal truths. See, I would have thought I was a full on physicalist at the time. All there is, is a sensory world. That's it, the physical world, yeah? This talk about, you know, these non physical things. It's like, Give me a break. That's kind of the stuff that was antagonistic to me, yeah, or to my disposition at the time, and so I, I,

I came and trying to figure out his, his argument. I came. It was focused, in part, on the existence of these eternal truths. And I thought, You know what I can see these truths, like two plus two is four. That is not something that we make up. It's not something that we can change, and it can't go away. It's always been for. It is for, and it can't put p for. Now you may say, well, there wasn't always language, so it only came into being when the language came in. So maybe it was created when, you know when language, but I'm not talking about the thing, the low locution two plus two is four that you're hearing in your ears, that we write on the board, that's not the truth, that's a representation or a symbol of the truth. That truth has always been there, waiting to be articulated in written or spoken, spoken language. So I've, you know. And there were certain moral claims, which he said were eternal truths, you know, like it's better to be just than unjust. And there were logical truths. So if A is B and B is C, then A is C, that's always been true. Can't but be true. And. And you can't destroy that. Like, even if, I don't know, the whole physical world went up in ashes. Guess what? Two plus two would be four. And if a is b and b is C, then A is C, right? And it's better to be just than than unjust. And I thought, okay, if I could think of God as, like these eternal truths, maybe I could say I believe in God. So that was like the first, you know, one, one of the major steps along the way. I there's no way in heck at that point, I was ready to throw down anyway, with Christianity or any particular religion, it's just like, wait, I really okay. There are these eternal truths. There are these. There is an eternal realm. So there is and none of us are eternal. So they're not like mental things, you know. And all the physical world is changing and corrupt. So there's got to be this other reality that is not contingent upon human beings, and it's not physical. And so, you know, I ended up teaching the class and philosophy of religion and sharing these arguments with my it was, instead of being antagonistic, like I was brought in by a lot of aren't these cool? And it was, it was a great experience, but so the papers published Kate writes me the letter. She helps me get into Purdue, and they had a strong faculty member in medieval philosophy, and I get to Purdue, and I don't, you know, even though my the paper I submitted, and I kind of thought I was going the medieval philosophy route. When you get there, who knows what's going to happen? But it was really no question. I knew I wanted to stay in that route. And they're also very strong in philosophy, religion and so lots of excellent professors there shout out to Jeff Brower and Jan cover and Mike Bergman. And forgive me, I know I'm not mentioning everyone, but they were very influential on me, and so I ended up working with Jeff Bauer, and who was an Aquinas scholar, and I was writing my dissertation on Augustine. So the journey continued towards, I guess, full on, if you want to call what I am now full on religious another step in that journey was seeing, in addition to Kate, people who claim to be Christian then were super smart, because my experience with Christianity growing up was like the kids saying, though, if you don't believe in Jesus, you're going to hell, right? And I thought, I don't really have time for for that, you know? And that kind of pushed me towards, this is kind of, I don't know, just dumb, instead of being, being, you know, eloquent about it. That's that the time. That's how I thought about it. You know, I remember being on the playground in elementary school and kids saying, if you don't you know, do you know Jesus? And I was

like, No, I don't know Jesus, yeah.

Speaker 1 53:36
And I remember that day when I left school, I come home, and I was I don't believe in any of that. Yeah, that's probably when I became an atheist, probably around six, oh my goodness, you know, maybe a little older six, or between six and eight, anyways, in elementary school. But to get back on track here, when I got to Purdue, I was surrounded by people who were Christians, who were some of the smartest people I've ever met, and not just smart, but good, good men, yeah, and strong men. And I thought it just gave me a different image of what it was, what it was about. And so I continued with my studies of Augustine, and I ended up writing a dissertation. It was called rejecting physicalism,

Abdullah Najjar 54:36
a transition exactly a

Joe Krylow 54:39
causal analysis of Augustine's argument from presence to incorporeality. So basically, I was highlighting an argument that Augustine made for the reality of non physical objects and hence against physicalism, which is the position that says all that is. Is physical Wow, or depends on on the physical stuff. So you know, none of that that may may have, all those experiences of meeting those people and reading those works may have pushed me towards believing in God, but not yet in saying I'm a Christian, or, you know, at the time of, like, what's that got to do with Jesus? I gotta believe these eternal truths exist. What's that got to do with the Bible or any of that stuff, right? So it was only on the basis of, um, certain experiences along the way, yeah, that I ended up committing myself to, to Christ. I don't know if you want to go into

Abdullah Najjar 55:48
this. We might have some time to go over that. Actually, we have approximately 15 minutes.

Joe Krylow 55:55
But you want to or not, you want to go on. I would love to go on.

Abdullah Najjar 55:58
And maybe I'd ask you to highlight that experience just a little bit, you know, briefly, but I might have a few questions along the way before you highlight that experience, right? Or the few experiences that you went through. I remember just a just last week, actually attending an event here with someone who was previously on Sam Harris's podcast, and he's Indian, and he talked about, I think he talked about spirituality and things like that. And one of the things that he said that stood out to me was he said that religion is the quest for ultimate security. And I wonder how much of that statement sort of resonates with you. Is it that you find that that provides you with security, or is it that you're more attracted to the allure of the truth behind it so and you can tie that to your experience, the spiritual experience that you went through. So

Joe Krylow 57:05
there's some subtlety into how one can answer that, okay, um, in terms of your physical well being, I think as history proves, dedicating yourself to God does anything but give you physical security. People were crucified, subdued everything else. So whatever it is they were chasing. Maybe it's some kind of security, but it definitely wasn't a worldly, yeah, security and, um, let me think about it. Could there be some kind of spiritual security? So So Augustine and Plato, they would talk about, they have this, especially with Gustin uses this, this, this terminology. In particular, he talks about the unconquerable man. So the unconquerable man loves nothing that they can lose, nothing that they can lose. That's right. Yeah, so nothing physical, nothing, depending on the on the physical they the only thing. They may use physical stuff, or they may seek physical things towards serving the higher things. But they don't treat anything physical or changing or perishable as like they're an idol or something that they seek in itself. And so they only use this stuff as means to achieve higher objections. And so if they all the unconquerable man loves nothing that he can lose and only what's eternal. So God, truth, virtue, goodness itself. God's never gonna God being supremely perfect is uncorruptible, is imperishable. It's always gonna be there, right? Same thing with truth itself and and goodness itself, even if everyone stopped being moral and being loving to their brothers and sisters, there would still be goodness itself that they could turn back to right. Even if everything has gone bad, the good is still there waiting for us to come, come back to it so they're imperishable, they're uncaused, they're uncreated. They're always there, and by loving or essentially, this is the terminology they use, like enslaving yourself, being a servant of these things does give you a kind of mental security. Anxiety or a tranquility, because nothing that you truly love can be taken from you, and that affords yourself a kind of peace, even if your house is burning down. Well, just a house, it's not you had no illusions that it was some eternal thing, right? This is it. Get the teaching gets very hard, because other human beings are not eternal. They're perishable, right? So you can't, ultimately, if you organize your life around them and you make what you're living, and this is really hard teaching, because involves like your mother, your father, your spouse, sons, daughters, if you are making the idol of your life, the purpose of your life, serving them and being with them while you're setting yourself right, because we're all truth, yes, perishable, we're All going away. Yeah, okay, at least in our human humans are, maybe the spirit lives on. But human beings are physical, bodily things in part. And then, you know, the Platonists and the Augustinians think that there's the spiritual you know, your soul or your mind that's that's attached to it and interacts with it. So I think it's a real challenge. Not everyone. I think could be the uncomfortable man. This does not mean that you cannot love other human beings. In fact, if you truly love God, you would love other human beings, because that's what God wants you to do it. God. God is love itself. And so by loving others, you are serving God. However, when you make these, when you have some illusions that these others, when you organize your life around them, that's when you get set yourself up. Because, look, things bad, things are gonna happen, yeah, to us all. And so if someone who was truly, I mean, it made me, this may be monk level or Saint level, to actually become the unconquerable men, but there that would be full security. That would be full on security, yeah, you know, I'm no way unconquerable, but I'm aware of this. And every day, you know when I leave the house, or my wife gets in the car with with the kids, or, you know when they go somewhere, I feel, I feel worried, and just because you don't know, right? You know you don't know. But then I remind myself, you know what? This is, the situation we live in. Let's have no illusions on that. And one of, one of my, I think this might go back to Marcus Aurelius, but either him or one of his soldiers preparing for battle, you know, one of the, one of the, the other men said, you know how you doing? Are you in fear? And he said, I'm already dead. Oh my, I'm already dead. I got nothing to lose here, baby. I've already come to grips with I'm gonna die, and I've prepared myself for it, and I'm living my life as as if that's it. Oh, my goodness. And so, you know, again, this, this, this may sound cold or harsh, yeah, but it's the harsh truth. I think there's a kind of elevated way of just seeing this whole world as dead. And in that way, you steal yourself to what it's like, yeah, something bad happens, yeah? Well, that's the world we live in. I didn't have any illusions about that. Hurting on that with, you know, experiences of I've had and seen various, you know, children get sick and like really sick, you got to steal your your yourself to that by acknowledging, as the philosophers are always there to remind us of the truth and the truth is it's a changing, corruptible world. So if, if someone was actually able to see the world that way, which seemed and and love and and really aim to serve directly and make the height of what they organized their life around the eternal things, God, truth, virtue, one in the same thing. Really, it's another story. But I think that that could offer some security. Oh, man, but, but see the goal, kind of the way he puts it, it seems like it's maybe slander. Not the right way, but it's kind of like a dig or something. This sounds like something. Freud might Yeah, might say it's like, God is your daddy in the sky, and he's there to look out for your Okay, perhaps with some but to me, the security is not what drives it, the recognition that there's something greater than me, God, truth itself, virtue itself, is what makes me want to give myself over to that and say, I'm throwing down with this and I'm serving this, yeah. And as a side effect of doing that, you get the security. But it's not like, oh, I want to, you know, mentally protect myself, so I'm gonna believe him. No, you know, that's if that's the way that he meant it, and maybe he didn't then, then I, at least in my personal experience, that's not it. It's yeah, it's recognizing there's something greater than me and that I should serve the best as a side effect, you get security, given the features of the higher things, is eternal on incorruptible, imperishable, but it's not the driving thing, yeah. Well, what my my mic went out. Oh, alright, we got me back.

Abdullah Najjar 1:06:24
You got it? You might want to tweak it a little bit, right and left.

Joe Krylow 1:06:31
Check, check, check, check, check, check, all right, I'm back. Yeah, that's what I have to say. Yeah, well, that's,

Abdullah Najjar 1:06:42
I think that's one way to close this off, and I really wanted to, like, dive deeper into that, but I think part two might be on the horizon, and we would you know more about that in your experience as well. But yeah, I really appreciate your time, Joe. And this conversation that was just very insightful, and I can't wait for part two. I appreciate you,

Joe Krylow 1:07:04
brother. I look forward to it. Thank you so much. Yes, sir, you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai