He is, as he once described the 10th-century Islamic scholar Al-Fārābī, “a peacemaker between different time periods.” All the episodes display the qualities that make West so compelling: unpretentious erudition, folksy delivery, subtle wit, and respect for a job well done.

Despite the volume of his recorded output, West has basically no digital footprint, which is one of the reasons I was so drawn to meet him.

He never did get that high-school degree—let alone attend a doctoral program in philosophy.

His layman’s approach to serious thinking has left him untainted by the self-regard that so often attaches to expertise.

He guided all of us through the insights of Plato, Epictetus, Maimonides, and so many more of the “friends” he would pull from the shelves to commune with.

But it was in that cramped room that I first witnessed the socially transformative power of “wanting to know more today than you did yesterday,” as West has frequently described his own mission.

To my amazement, I counted just six books on a shelf next to a pair of orange dumbbells: The Complete Essays of Montaigne; The Creative Act, by Rick Rubin; Richard Harland’s Literary Theory From Plato to Barthes; an anthology of feminist theory; And Yet, by Christopher Hitchens; and Foucault’s The Order of Things.

The rest of his reading material lives on a Kindle.

“If you look at the desktop of my computer, it’ll be a ton of tabs open,” he said, laughing.

“Maybe it’s the clutter you’d be expecting.”