Wesley Hopper- Midterm Post

 Hello, my name is Wesley Hopper and I am joined here by Julian Baggini, Kurt Andersen, and Nigel Warburton. We will be have a quick little discussion/ debate over our special guest favorite topic: Philosophy.  I will ask one question in the beginning and one additional question afterward and our guests will present their ideas on the question given.

The first question we will talk about is: 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?

(First Off, here is a vid that I found interesting that shows Baggini's idea of how Philosophy helps Society.

Julian Baggini: I will go first if the other guests do not mind. This is a great question and I am excited to answer it! I am the author of How The World Thinks and in the book we can see how I travel the world to help my studies in Philosophy. I travel the world to look at how different culture are affected by the way they think and how that approach the idea of Philosophy in different ways to create some of the morals that they follow today. In regard to your question, I do believe Philosophy can help people learn in these ways because if you look at it like I did, a view all the different cultures with their different races, religion,  beliefs, etc. If we can compare some of these other Philosophies of the east to Philosophies of the west we can take a look at the different values that they include in their morals and see whether or not we need to look into these ideas more or less than we already do already. "As babies, we are the centre of the universe of the universe and we don't and we don't under stand that others have different perspectives." (HWT pg.36) If we look at philosophy this way and start to explore all these different perspectives that form around the world on these different morals we can develop and grow with all these ideas in mind to help form this more knowing "baby" that we are today.

Kurt Anderson: I enjoy your response and I do find it very helpful to refer to, but my book Fantasyland my focus is mainly on America and how the minds of people have created these individual "Fantasylands." America was built by these people that did not like the morals and ideas that were not agreed upon by these "dreamers" that wanted things different. So I believe that America is built by the people that did not like the philosophies of the east and believed they could come to America to build the life of their dreams and they could have full control of their future. The big idea of it all is "I believe, therefore I am right." (FL Ch. 2)  This would make it where many Americans build strong opinions that appear facts to them just because they believe it is correct no matter the other perspectives that have formed. I do agree with Julian because if Americans were to get out of their head and look at these other perspectives and look at the world around them, then we might see some change in ideas and peoples response to certain morals. Philosophy can help uncover the opinions formed in the "Fantasyland" the is built in American's heads and open their eyes to see truth and shut out the falsehood built from avoiding other perspectives.

(Video on Nigel explaining the "right" ethics.)

Nigel Warburton: Those are both very interesting ways to look at this question! In my book, "A Little History of Philosophy," you can see that I enjoy taking philosophy from the "roots" of thinking with people like Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates and how they developed this "love of wisdom" and ways of thinking. We can see in the book that people like Socrates and Aristotle grew about asking questions like these and many more in order to build their ideas on what life really was. With that being said, my response to the question would be that we need Philosophy to reassure that we are doing the right thing because Philosophy has been growing since the ages of Socrates and if we continue to expand on these ideas of other, we can truly see what the purpose of life is and uncover the right ethics to follow while studying other morals and cultures.

Me: Those we great responses! I have one last question for our guests. What is the world going to be?What is life eventually to make of itself?

Kurt Anderson: I would like to go first on this one. If we look at the world growing like how America has taken the approach to life then I believe we are in for a long, falling further. If we continue to grow these strong and so different opinions built on the idea that we are all right in our own ways then life will then grow to be a huge maze for society with no direction.

Julian Baggini: Kurt's approach is very interesting; however, I wanna look at it differently. I believe if philosophy grows to look at many different cultures and their ideas and moral around the subject of life then I believe everyone can grow together and life around us will become more understanding when we look at all the perspectives around the world.

Nigel Warburton: If we look at the foundation of philosophy and continue to ask question that help us find this "love for wisdom" then I believe the future and bright and that life itself will come as a positive reinforcement to our gaining knowledge with the advancement of our questions to life.