Eli Ownby: Hello all and thank you for meeting with me on such short notice. Being philosophers, authors, speakers, and more, I can assume you’re quite busy men. Anyway, I would like to ask you your opinions on the following questions: “Do you think philosophy can help people learn to respect truth, facts, reality, and one another, and to reject falsehood, superstition, selfishness, polarization, partisanship, and mutual hostility based on differences of race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, belief, etc.? If so, how? If not, why not?
Julian Baggini: Absolutely. Obviously, there are countless factors that must be in play for this to become a reality, but I believe the first step toward this goal would be social harmony. “Social harmony is for us the summum bonum – the greatest good. Harmony is linked with the value of ubuntu, which emphasizes the bonds of humanity between us.” (HTWT 246) As we all know, social harmony has been on the rocks in the U.S. lately due to politics, COVID-19, police brutality, etc. Without social harmony, it’s quite obvious a chaotic war would ensue between the people and nothing progressive could be done. COVID-19 has also been a great reminder that “rules are readily discarded if they are seen to create more problems than they solve.” (HTWT 246) With that being said, the greatest power we can acquire is knowledge through each other.
Eli Ownby: I had never thought about it like that, but I completely agree. Without social harmony, nothing can be done to improve things among the people! I believe the Pandemic has brought about plenty of reminders that always circle back to philosophy. Fake news, False pandemic numbers, and a new disease are just a few from the never-ending list of corruption in the United States.
Kurt Andersen: Bouncing off of what Eli said, in America, people tend to believe things strictly based off controversy, popularity, or just because they can with no visible negative effects. “Dedicated to blurring the lines between the fictional and the real, people in the living history world became focused on what they called the authenticity of their simulations” (FL 224) The answer to the question for me is, absolutely. “We are freer than ever to custom-make reality, to believe whatever or to pretend to be whomever we wish. Which makes all the lines between actual and fictional blur and disappear more easily.” (FL10) Meaning that our “custom made” reality inevitably will suffer from consequences.
Nigel Warburton: To answer the question we must first define philosopher. "The word “philosopher” comes from the Greek words meaning ‘love of wisdom'," (ALHP 3) If everyone were to think like a philosopher, I think the world would be a better place. By thinking like a philosopher, you put yourself in an unbiased position where you can maintain your own personal opinions, but also consider other beliefs just as equally. This would lead to greater peace, more civilized discussions, effective problem solving, and the list goes on and on.
Eli Ownby: I see what you’re saying; basically, if we were to think like philosophers, a snowball effect of positivity would occur. A very interesting point that sadly, we may never be able to accomplish. The last question I would like to ask you is: What is this world going to be? What is life eventually to make of itself?"
Julian: I believe your answer is as good as mine. We will never know until we “seek views from everywhere.” (HTWT 338)
Kurt: I believe the world will be exactly as we make it. Like I said in my book, we literally are allowed to custom make our reality. As for life itself, we can only assume it will continue as it has throughout history.
Nigel: I agree completely with Kurt. We are in charge of the future of the world and the morals that they carry.
Eli Ownby: Thank you all for your time! Being famous philosophers taking time to talk to an average college student shows your character. I have taken a lot away from this conversation and fully intend on applying the things we talked about to my daily life.
Is "thinking like a philosopher" really "unbiased"? Do philosophers really "consider other beliefs just as equally" as their own? The most even-handed and open-minded of philosophers try to do that, but how representative are they?
ReplyDelete"we literally are allowed to custom make our reality" - Andersen does not endorse this, he simply observes that Americans in "Fantasyland" think they can do it.