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Home » Transcript of Jacob Howland’s Interview On The Dr. Jordan B. Peterson Podcast

Transcript of Jacob Howland’s Interview On The Dr. Jordan B. Peterson Podcast

Read the full transcript of philosopher Jacob Howland’s interview on The Dr. Jordan B. Peterson Podcast episode #536 titled “Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth”, [March 15th, 2025.]

The interview starts here:

Introduction with Dr. Jacob Howland

DR. JORDAN B. PETERSON: So I had the opportunity today to speak with Dr. Jacob Howland, and I wanted to speak with him for a variety of reasons. He’s a philosopher, longtime academic, integrally involved with the new University of Austin, which is one of a handful of institutions that are attempting to reorient, traditionally reorient, modern higher education. He’s also interested in the interface between modern technology, AI, for example, and philosophy, partly in an attempt to solve what’s started to become known as the alignment problem. How do we ensure that these autonomous intelligences, because that’s what they’re developing into, will have the well being of human beings, for example, as one of their priorities, or maybe their top priority, you might hope.

But what we really ended up talking about was the relationship between Athens and Jerusalem, philosophically and at a deeper level, less geographically centered, the relationship between rationality as such, the Enlightenment project in science, and the underlying metaphysical substrate. And it turned out that the conclusions that Dr. Howland had drawn seem to be very similar to the conclusions that I’ve been drawing along with people like John Vervaeke and Jonathan Pageau, for example, variety of the lectures that we have on Peterson Academy.

It does appear that something really quite revolutionary on the intellectual side is beginning to emerge because the flaws in the Enlightenment have become so structural that it’s clear that a new pathway forward not only has to be found, but is likely already upon us. And the appearance of new institutions like the University of Austin, like Peterson Academy, like Ralston, are an indication of that. And so we delve deep into the philosophical relationship between Enlightenment rationality and the underlying narrative substructure. That’s a good way of thinking about it. And we discussed that in terms of the relationship between Athens and Plato and the ancient religious texts of the Western world. So join us for that.

So, Dr. Howland, I wanted to talk to you today. Primarily. There’s a bunch of reasons. I think the main reason was that we have overlapping interests in new approaches to higher education and maybe education in general. And you’re involved with the University of Austin, and I’ve been involved in Peterson Academy and also Ralston College. And so I thought we could talk about that more narrowly. But we share philosophical interests. And I’m also curious about your take on new developments in AI, especially with regards to the large language models. That’ll be an interesting discussion because I’ve used them quite a bit now, and I have a colleague who’s helped me program a number of them, custom LLMs. And they’re uncanny machines, and I have no idea where they’re headed. Well, that doesn’t make me special. No one knows where they’re headed. And so that’s the broad landscape that I hope to traverse with you today. But I think we should start with. Let’s start with a little background about you so that people can situate you. You’re a philosophy professor, you’re an acclaimed educator. So fill us in on who you are.

Jacob Howland’s Background and Education

JACOB HOWLAND: First, let me say I appreciate your having me on your podcast. This is a great opportunity. So. How far back do you want me to start?

DR. JORDAN B. PETERSON: Back away? You can start with undergraduate if you want.

JACOB HOWLAND: Great. Sure. So. Well, I’ll start with my parents. My father was a biology professor at Cornell University. My mother was a writer. First nine, ten years of my life. I live with my mother. I have an older brother. My parents were divorced before I have any recollection of them being together, so I was just maybe a year old during that period. My mother was a struggling writer and lived in poverty, and we lived in Chicago. And I had the unfortunate experience of being in Chicago public schools in 1968-69. And a lot of tension. Things became very difficult because my mother was quite poor and couldn’t sort of make ends meet.

DR. JORDAN B. PETERSON: When were you born?

JACOB HOWLAND: I was born in 1959. End of 1959, yeah. So let’s see. My mother comes from a Jewish background. Her whole family was from Chicago, Blue Collar. My grandfather graduated from the 10th grade and worked with his hands making nuts and bolts in a big factory. And my father, who’s not Jewish. Actually, we’re descended from a John Howland who came over on the Mayflower. And his side of the family were all scientists. His father was an engineer at Purdue University who designed the sewer system of Lafayette, Indiana. His older brother was a genius who graduated from Purdue at the age of 17 and was an engineer, optical engineer. Just had 20 patents, and actually, both of those guys are still alive.

But in any case. So as a child, I had strong influences on my mother’s side, let’s say literary and cultural influences. One of my earliest memories was being in Iowa City when I was a kid. My mother was reading me a story by Tolstoy called “How Much Land Does a Man Need?” And my older brother got me up early in the morning. And I don’t know, I was probably 4 or 5. He was a couple years older, and he finished reading the story to me. So we always had. She always took us to, you know, see dance, you know, ballet and museums and things like this.

Anyway, fast forward. We moved in with my father. I graduated from Ithaca High School at the age of 16 because my dad said, well, I’m going to go on a Sabbatic leave, and I don’t want to take you with me.