A Baggini lecture

Harmony-LISTEN (Up@dawn). WATCH (please pardon the abrupt phone interruption at the end). Baggini lecturing in The Netherlands last Fall, I suggest we all (in #10-11) take a look at it in preparation for Tuesday's look back at the reading we've not much discussed yet in How the World Thinks, as Don says it's insightful on differences between eastern and western ideas about things like "harmony" (as we'll read in a later chapter):

 

My latest video, on Harmony...

Why is the West more individualistic than the East? And why does secularism have less influence in the Islamic world than in Europe? According to British philosopher Julian Baggini, we do not differ from each other as much as we think. All around the world, people grapple with the same moral questions. Individual autonomy versus collective good. The social demand for a clear truth versus the awareness that everything is subjective. The different ways of thinking are found in the answers... YouT

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Previous questions from How the World Thinks-

• Do you enjoy encountering new (to you) ideas, philosophies, religions, traditions etc., and comparing them to your own? Do you find value in that? Do you think most people do? (HWT p.xiv)
• "...harmony, freedom, and karma play very different roles in different parts of the world." (xvi) Would there be less conflict in the world, do you think, if we all paid more attention to other cultures' predominant values and ideas?
• Do you agree that we cannot understand ourselves if we do not understand others? (xviii)
• Do you value reason and rationality, and generally the notion that we all have an obligation to base our ideas on defensible reasons? (xxiv)
• Are multi-cultural, multi-lingual persons and societies more creative and insightful? (xxxii)
• "No questions were taken" at the Indian philosophy conference (HWT p.6), in sharp contrast to what typically goes on at American/academic philosophical conferences. Which do you think you'd find more enlightening, and why?
• Do you think enlightenment and insight into genuine reality is more a matter of "seeing" and "meditating" in the Indian style (HWT p.9), or cogitating, conversing, and analyzing as western philosophers are more prone to do? Or is it best to combine both approaches?
• What do you think of the idea that students should ALWAYS defer to their teachers, even when they're wrong? (HWT p.11)
• Do you agree or disagree with Nishida's statement that "It is the artist, not the scholar, who arrives at the true nature of reality." (HWT p.21)
• Is it good that western philosophy has distanced itself from the idea of philosopher -as-sage or guru? (HWT p.24)
• "Doctrines are less important [in Buddhism etc.] than they are in Western Christianity in part because it is believed that the purest knowledge of reality comes from direct experience..." (HWT p.26) So... it's a belief about the relative un-importance of belief that makes belief less important? Does that strike you as maybe a little bit inconsistent?
• "To know that one does not know is best..." (HWT p.27) -- That's Daoism, but it sounds like Socrates. Are these traditions really so different, where it counts?
• "This is why we need poetry: to give us some sense of what we cannot precisely capture in language." (HWT p.29) Do you agree? Do you have a favorite poet/poem?
• What do you think of Immanuel Kant's distinction between the world as it is and the world as we perceive it, and the claim that we can never entirely transcend the limits of our own perceptions? Or in other words, that we can know phenomena (appearances) but not noumena (reality in itself)? (HWT p.33)
• Are you surprised that John Locke, champion of tolerance and individual liberty, said we should not tolerate atheists because they can't be trusted to keep promises etc.? (HWT p.41)
• Under what conditions can philosophy and religion peaceably coexist?
• If climate change renders life as we've known it unsustainable, will that be primarily the fault of western civilization? Will more traditional societies (including Islamic states) be vindicated? (HWT  p.45)
• Do religion and philosophy "stem from the same roots"? (HWT p.50)
• "The stress on logic has been the most distinctive feature of Western philosophy... Aristotle first set out the basic principles" (HWT 54) -- Do you think it's important to be "logical," or rational, in constructing your worldview? Do you try to avoid holding logically inconsistent or incompatible beliefs?
• Is our culture too "dualistic," allowing only for "true or false, winner and loser"? 59
• "We are intuitive, emotional and heavily influenced by others and our environment" (68)... so, can we be rational?
• "The human mind works without supernatural assistance" (70) -- Does secular reason, built on logic and curiosity, suffice for human conduct and aspiration?
• Would a "theory of everything" reveal, as Stephen Hawking said, "the mind of God"?  (71) Or might it reveal the irrelevance of a god to explicate the workings of the physical universe as we know it?
• "Science... is not a teacher of morals," William Jennings Bryan complained at the Scopes "Monkey Trial" (78)... But should we all take scientific conclusions into account, in articulating our moral views? 

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"Confucius and Lao Tzu agreed on their overall emphasis on harmony as the ideal state of both society and the individual, and they insisted on an all- encompassing or "holistic" conception of human life that emphasizes a person's place in a larger context. For both Confucianism and Taoism, the development of personal character is the main goal in life, but the personal is not to be defined in individualistic terms. For the Confucian, the personal is the social. For the Taoist, the personal is the relation to nature ...[they] were in considerable agreement on the necessity of harmony in human life and a larger sense of the "person" than the mere individual." Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen Higgins, A Passion for Wisdom: A Very Brief History of Philosophy

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From my blog Up@dawn:

...we take up Julian Baggini's How the World Thinks: A Global History of Philosophy as a needed complement to Nigel Warburton's Little History of (Western) Philosophy. I'm sure he must be right, bi- and multi-cultural people do indeed "score higher on creativity," not to mention empathy, insight, and wisdom. They, sadly unlike most people historically and in some places regionally, enjoy encountering new ideas, philosophies, religions, traditions etc., and assimilating what's distinctive in each.

Writing that last line, I realize it sounds a lot like Captain Picard's nemesis the Borg, a monolithic aggressor that robs individuals of their autonomy while muttering the mantra that "resistance is futile." Nothing could actually be further from the cosmopolitan ideal of genuine global citizenship. I like that Baggini mentions Kwame Anthony Appiah, The Ethicist, in making the point that cultural identity can be a complex thing and we ought to embrace our diversity, not shrink from it.

I also like Baggini's citation of neo-pragmatist Richard Rorty's repudiation of "the philosophers' own scholastic little definitions of 'philosophy'...intended to exclude" other traditions and cultures from the conversation of humankind. The pluralistic form of philosophy requires many voices and visions, multiple perspectives, endless points of view. (Aug.26)

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...In Baggini's How the World Thinks we'll go with him to the Indian philosophy conference, where "no questions were taken"... in sharp contrast to what typically goes on at American academic philosophical conferences. That seems very strange, to those of us who've attended more western philosophy conferences than we can count. Is it an error? Or just an alternative approach? Both east and west are smitten with the metaphor of "seeing," but mustn't we also analyze, cogitate, interrogate, and converse about our different perspectives, in order to figure things out?

One thing I do find appealing (but finally not defensible) in the Indian approach to pedagogy: students are supposed ALWAYS to defer to their teachers, even when they're wrong. 

Wonder what that's like.

The Japanese philosopher Nishida said "It is the artist, not the scholar, who arrives at the true nature of reality." But he was a scholar. What did he know?

My view is that western philosophy is right to distance itself from the idea of philosopher -as-sage or guru. But, a little more artistry in our discourse and our publications would be welcome. (Aug.31)

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"Doctrines are less important [in Buddhism etc.] than they are in Western Christianity in part because it is believed that the purest knowledge of reality comes from direct experience..." (26) A belief about the relative un-importance of belief makes belief less important, "if (as so many students like to punctuate and safeguard even their safest assertions) that makes sense." I don't think it makes much.

"To know that one does not know is best..." (27) -- That's Daoism, but it's also Socrates. These traditions, superficially so different, converge at the source.

"This is why we need poetry: to give us some sense of what we cannot precisely capture in language." (29) Actually I think poetry sometimes does that, evocatively and subtly, but other times it gives us precision in language that we otherwise cannot fully capture in feeling. 

Consider, on September 1, 2020, Auden's poem September 1, 1939: "The unmentionable odor of death/Offends the September night." Toward the end of the poem, he says, "We must love one another or die." (WA) That's precision in language, aligning with an inchoate feeling of outrage and futility as street violence in places like Portland spirals beyond control.

John Locke, vaunted champion of tolerance and individual liberty, said we should not tolerate atheists because they can't be trusted to keep promises. (41) What would he think of the fastest-growing belief being non-belief? He might just have to write a poem. (Sep.1)