Midterm Isaiah Bryanton #12

 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?

During a break session Kurt Anderson, Nigel Warburton, Julian Baggini, and I sat down over some refreshments and discussed our views on philosophy and how it really just shaped us as people. 

Isaiah: Mr. Warburton do you think that with how society has progressed that we can reject our falsehoods, acts of selfishness, and mutual hostility?

Warburton: Yes, but only to an extent the basic human is born good but envy and greed were the result of living together in cities. When humans were living alone, they were strong and above all free. It wasn’t until civilization that it seemed to corrupt human beings.

“Left to our own devices, living in a forest, we wouldn’t cause many problems. But takes us out of this state of nature and puts us in cities and things start to go wrong. We become obsessed with trying to dominate other people, and with getting other people’s attention. This competitive approach to life has terrible psychological effects and the invention of money just makes it all far worse.” (LH106)

Isaiah: So do you feel like teaching philosophy would help society?

Warburton: Yes and that is the extent because philosophy thrives on debate. “This is people taking positions against each other and arguing, using logic and evidence.” (LH225)

Isaiah: Well in that case Mr. Baggini do you feel that we can use philosophy to respect each other’s differences to further evolve?

  Baggini: Well we can and we have if you look back on the past. “One of the greatest unexplained wonders of human history is that written philosophy first flowered entirely separately in different parts of the globe at more or less the same time.”(HWT116) “With assumptions about the nature of self, ethics, sources of knowledge, the goals of life, are deeply embedded in our cultures and frame our thinking without our being aware of them.”(HWT116) The result of the world will solely be based on mankind’s ability to understand how other think.

Isaiah: Have you in any way learned from people with different views than you?

Baggini: Yes, actually when I attended a Philosophical conference in India in which “there was a strong current of animosity towards western culture and philosophy, directed at both its manifest failings and its condescending sense of superiority to Indian culture, something I fear my sceptical comments might suggest I am guilty of,” (HWT31). It was also interesting to learn from Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan when he said “The worlds of reason and religion do not turn in different orbits,” and “Indian thought is firm in its conviction that religious propositions should be grounded in reason.”(HWT738)  I learned that the way we think is different but it still deserves the same amount of respect. 

Isaiah: Okay that’s actually really cool I never knew that India really was that strict with their faith and way of life. Well Mr. Anderson you’ve been awfully quiet how do you feel about everything?  

Anderson: Honestly I feel as though it’s at the heart of our community. Like I said in my book “Individual freedom of thought in early America was specifically about the freedom to believe whatever supernaturalism you wished. Four centuries later that has been a freedom, revived and unfettered and run amok, driving America’s transformation.”(FL747) But Isaiah since you're so    nosey on our theories answer William James's vital question for us all: “What is this world going to be? What is life eventually to make of itself?”

Isaiah: Definitely I can see that. I think if we don’t see change eventually we are just going to get worse. Everyone wants a purpose and the greed that comes with that makes some people lose focus of their morals leading to people fake caring ending in a cycle of social disparities. If we can’t come together and unify we will be our own destruction.