Interviewed by IVY: The Social University, about the value of philosophy (Spring 2016)
Transcript
00:01
[Music]
00:17
well as president if I had to do it I
00:20
would be really interested primarily in
00:23
education equal opportunity for
00:25
education at virtually every level and
00:28
high quality education and I would work
00:30
on policies that made that possible and
00:33
made that happen and the second point I
00:35
would make about the content of that
00:37
education especially at the college and
00:39
university level is that I think it has
00:41
to include a strong liberal arts
00:43
component including philosophy
00:50
the problem is they don't understand the
00:53
value the lasting value of the liberal
00:55
arts it gives people certain kinds of
00:57
skills intellectual skills for reading
01:00
making arguments understanding new ideas
01:03
that you can't get from any other kind
01:06
of educational institution and I think
01:09
the challenges people want a short term
01:12
outcome and don't understand that the
01:14
liberal arts show their value most fully
01:16
over time over the course of a person's
01:18
life and their career
01:25
oh my gosh I'm not sure that I know what
01:27
the meaning of life is I know that the
01:30
most important way to lead your life is
01:32
by being willing to subject that your
01:34
beliefs and your understanding of what
01:36
matters in the world took constant
01:38
critical scrutiny some things you have
01:40
to take for granted but there's an awful
01:42
lot that you don't and we need to be
01:44
more open to the idea of
01:45
self-examination in the examined life
01:53
one of the things we need to do to
01:55
become better able to scrutinize our
01:57
beliefs is to find more opportunities
01:59
more forums for talking with people who
02:02
don't agree with us reading what they
02:04
believe
02:04
listening to them really listening to
02:07
them and I think you know we need to
02:08
help bring back you know the the real
02:11
news paper that actually claims to
02:13
address everybody in a city or a state
02:15
or a country we need to encourage the
02:18
development of Internet resources that
02:20
don't just let people talk only to those
02:22
who think like them
02:24
and in general we just need lots of ways
02:26
of encouraging more dialogue sometimes
02:28
in unexpected places not just the places
02:31
we choose to have the dialogue
02:38
two key lessons that I've taken from my
02:40
study and research in philosophy over 32
02:44
years are first that the unexamined life
02:46
really is not worth living it may be
02:49
that other things are worthwhile too but
02:51
the unexamined life is not a is not a
02:54
good one the examined life is the one we
02:55
ought to lead but then the second one is
02:57
that I think we can learn in in the
03:01
course of life in a political society
03:03
that we don't have to think of our our
03:05
well-being and our ability to do well in
03:08
the world is always requiring putting
03:10
the other person down is always
03:12
requiring it's somehow a zero-sum game
03:16
and that's the second for me most
03:19
important thing that I've learned from
03:20
from I think the best political
03:21
philosophy that it's just a
03:23
misconception that you only do well when
03:25
somebody else loses out
03:31
in light of the two lessons about the
03:34
selfic the importance of
03:35
self-examination and the importance of
03:38
recognizing that you can do well in life
03:41
without having to put the other person
03:42
down I think it actually might be Plato
03:45
but also I would add Rousseau is another
03:49
very important thinker and John Rawls
03:51
the the twentieth century political
03:53
philosopher actually with whom I studied
03:55
in graduate school
04:01
the question of whether we can program
04:03
machines to feel emotions in particular
04:05
things like empathy I think is one of
04:07
the single most difficult challenges
04:08
that we face I believe deep learning in
04:12
some of the advances that AI has made in
04:15
this area is going to show that machines
04:17
can do an awful lot that human beings do
04:19
I'm not yet convinced that they can feel
04:22
every emotion we feel some emotions
04:24
involve beliefs and you can give them
04:26
ways of learning how to manipulate those
04:29
beliefs but I'm not entirely confident
04:32
that the things that require responses
04:34
that are not just about perception but
04:37
they're that about in some way
04:38
recognizing the presence of another
04:40
being like us or another being that
04:42
feels I'm not sure I know what it would
04:45
mean to program that into into an
04:47
artificial being
04:53
if if machines could
04:56
learn to feel emotions or somehow be
04:58
programmed to feel that I actually think
04:59
it would be a wonderful thing if you
05:01
have a car that's a self-driving you
05:03
know automated entity out on the road
05:06
and choices have to be made about the
05:08
safety of human beings I would really
05:10
prefer that those choices are made by
05:13
any entity that has the capacity to feel
05:15
to feel pain to understand the value and
05:18
importance of suffering and so forth so
05:20
I think it could be a good thing I just
05:22
hope that it's that we don't end up
05:23
programming the emotions that are only
05:26
the bad ones like hate and resentment
05:28
and anger if we're going to put some in
05:30
I hope we're able to manufacture them
05:32
all
05:37
well the question of whether or not we
05:40
are somehow sim simulator blazei
05:45
Shenzhen seems to me not to be a
05:46
question that I fully understand because
05:48
human beings even as they make progress
05:50
in some ways in other ways don't ever
05:53
really progress at all we are there are
05:56
sort of questions and concerns that are
05:59
universal and that are timeless and that
06:02
don't alter or change with time perhaps
06:05
our ability to articulate those
06:07
challenges changes but I'm not confident
06:09
that our ability to respond to them does
06:11
so the idea that advances in
06:13
civilization somehow would be explained
06:16
by advances in what human beings are I'm
06:18
not sure I understand that so I you know
06:21
I I think what musk is doing is is
06:23
wonderful and interesting but I'm not
06:25
sure that it applies to human to human
06:27
life in human beings
06:33
I hope philosophy has helped me need a
06:36
better life I hope it's made me a person
06:38
more willing to scrutinize the things I
06:40
take for granted less prone to bias more
06:43
willing to listen to what other people
06:45
have to say in the very sick
06:48
that learning is a process that takes
06:50
more than one person it's dialectic I'm
06:52
not entirely sure that I can guarantee
06:54
I'm a better person than I would have
06:56
been without it but I think I am and I
06:58
certainly hope that my life has shown
07:00
that over time
07:06
so philosophy is in fact a form of
07:09
inquiry that every human being naturally
07:12
engages in some people are more prone to
07:15
do it more of the time than others some
07:17
are more prone to take their engagement
07:20
with philosophy to more abstract levels
07:22
but the things that philosophers do in
07:24
even the most abstruse texts are
07:26
actually just species of the genus of
07:30
inquiry that every human being is prone
07:33
to that's what I think is critical and
07:36
valuable about the best philosophy it
07:38
recognizes that even when it's building
07:41
on the tendency to engage in inquiry in
07:44
ways that in fact are very abstract
07:50
philosophy has certainly had an impact
07:53
in the world I'm going to take two
07:55
examples that are more recent in the
07:57
scope of human history not going back
07:59
all the way to the Greeks but the first
08:01
is the the origin of the of the United
08:03
States it was very fully rooted in
08:06
ideals and principles of the importance
08:08
of equality of Liberty the value of
08:12
certain kinds of political institutions
08:14
for protecting human wellbeing and
08:16
secondly when America kind of
08:19
reconstituted itself as a people that
08:22
that refused to engage in discrimination
08:24
during the civil rights movement in the
08:26
1960s 1950s and 1960s I see that as
08:30
another very important moment when the
08:33
philosophy of non-violence and the idea
08:35
of non-cooperation with injustice that
08:38
Martin Luther King for instance
08:40
developed has sway in the world took a
08:43
long time but without philosophy I think
08:45
those are two places where human life
08:48
would not have in fact developed in the
08:50
way that I believe was a good way for us
08:52
to vet to develop
08:58
philosophers can certainly be wrong I
09:00
think most of the time they're never a
09:02
hundred percent wrong in some regards
09:05
I'm very hey Gillian about this I think
09:07
there's probably always a little bit of
09:09
the truth even in the philosophy we
09:11
encountered that looks like it has none
09:13
of it the challenge is always trying to
09:15
find where the truth lies which
09:19
philosophers do I think have not been
09:21
always on the right side one of them I
09:23
would think for me is Nietzsche
09:25
I think there's a kind of resistance to
09:28
ethical reflection that takes equality
09:31
seriously that cares about justice that
09:33
celebrates pity and compassion as much
09:36
as I love to read Nietzsche I think in
09:38
those ways he was wrong he brilliant and
09:42
engaging in provocative but on the
09:45
question of what matters morally and
09:48
what kind of ethical life we ought to
09:50
lead I think he made a mistake
09:57
it is a very interesting question
09:58
whether philosophers are in fact often
10:01
very unhappy people Nietzsche was one of
10:04
those people who in fact decried the
10:06
fact that philosophy didn't seem to have
10:07
a lot of jokes and maybe there were
10:09
Socrates was probably the one person he
10:12
thought knew how to make a good joke and
10:13
philosophy whether that means that
10:15
philosophers are unhappy the fact that
10:18
they're not light-hearted I'm not sure
10:20
I'm ready to say they are very serious
10:23
they do get troubled and deeply troubled
10:26
sometimes by the imperfections in the
10:29
world and that can also be a flaw and a
10:31
failing so I think it's more a sense of
10:34
being puzzled by how to make the world a
10:37
better place that accounts for
10:39
philosophers sometimes seeming unhappy
10:41
but one last point on that I also think
10:43
philosophers are the one group of people
10:45
in the world who are not afraid to
10:47
indulge a kind of childlike wonder and
10:49
puzzlement and curiosity in the world
10:52
and the the challenge is always how to
10:54
balance that sense of wonder with
10:56
concern about the world being allegedly
10:59
or in some way imperfect
11:05
the one message I'd like the audience
11:07
this evening to walk away with is going
11:09
to be the remembering the importance of
11:11
hope and I will call it infinite hope in
11:15
growing at an idea that Martin Luther
11:18
King developed but that's also been
11:19
articulated by a number of other
11:21
traditions both in and outside of
11:23
philosophy it's about never giving up
11:25
hope even when the world looks as though
11:27
it's just about extinguished all the
11:30
good there is just a little glimmer of
11:32
hope that somehow some measure of
11:35
goodness remains and you can draw on
11:37
that goodness with your activity in the
11:40
world to make a difference I think
11:42
that's motivated so many people
11:43
throughout history
11:49
failure and challenge are part of every
11:52
human life and I actually think it's a
11:54
good thing that they are I've sometimes
11:57
failed when I've taken on a
11:59
responsibility and a job that was a
12:02
responsibility I've fully thought I was
12:05
prepared to take on and to meet but it
12:08
turned out that the either the culture
12:10
of the place or certain assumptions
12:12
about the role that I as a woman or a
12:14
person of color might play were in play
12:17
and I didn't realize it and what you
12:19
have to understand is that sometimes
12:20
it's not the right time for you to be
12:23
able to make something happen sometimes
12:25
you might make mistakes for reasons that
12:28
are rooted in your character and then
12:29
you have to stop and ask us or something
12:31
about me that I might be able to alter
12:33
and sometimes you just have to say the
12:35
world just doesn't go the way you hoped
12:37
it would and you've got to pick yourself
12:40
up and find some new way some new avenue
12:44
through which you might be able to to
12:47
accomplish something important in the
12:49
world but I think failure actually is
12:51
good for us as long as it doesn't
12:53
totally destroy us
12:59
I am grateful for Ivy's willingness to
13:02
introduce people in the in the world of
13:05
work people who are newly starting in
13:07
their careers to the importance of
13:09
philosophical thought and of ideas that
13:11
require a little bit of time to process
13:13
and think about and you can assist I
13:16
think not just me but all philosophers
13:18
by holding on to that message that even
13:20
though there's a time for action and
13:22
there's a time to carry out your
13:23
practice there's a time for thinking and
13:26
for reflecting on practice and it's just
13:29
a wonderful thing to know that there's a
13:30
group of people who are dedicated to
13:32
reminding even the young people in the
13:35
world of business of the importance of
13:37
that idea
13:40
you
[Music]
00:17
well as president if I had to do it I
00:20
would be really interested primarily in
00:23
education equal opportunity for
00:25
education at virtually every level and
00:28
high quality education and I would work
00:30
on policies that made that possible and
00:33
made that happen and the second point I
00:35
would make about the content of that
00:37
education especially at the college and
00:39
university level is that I think it has
00:41
to include a strong liberal arts
00:43
component including philosophy
00:50
the problem is they don't understand the
00:53
value the lasting value of the liberal
00:55
arts it gives people certain kinds of
00:57
skills intellectual skills for reading
01:00
making arguments understanding new ideas
01:03
that you can't get from any other kind
01:06
of educational institution and I think
01:09
the challenges people want a short term
01:12
outcome and don't understand that the
01:14
liberal arts show their value most fully
01:16
over time over the course of a person's
01:18
life and their career
01:25
oh my gosh I'm not sure that I know what
01:27
the meaning of life is I know that the
01:30
most important way to lead your life is
01:32
by being willing to subject that your
01:34
beliefs and your understanding of what
01:36
matters in the world took constant
01:38
critical scrutiny some things you have
01:40
to take for granted but there's an awful
01:42
lot that you don't and we need to be
01:44
more open to the idea of
01:45
self-examination in the examined life
01:53
one of the things we need to do to
01:55
become better able to scrutinize our
01:57
beliefs is to find more opportunities
01:59
more forums for talking with people who
02:02
don't agree with us reading what they
02:04
believe
02:04
listening to them really listening to
02:07
them and I think you know we need to
02:08
help bring back you know the the real
02:11
news paper that actually claims to
02:13
address everybody in a city or a state
02:15
or a country we need to encourage the
02:18
development of Internet resources that
02:20
don't just let people talk only to those
02:22
who think like them
02:24
and in general we just need lots of ways
02:26
of encouraging more dialogue sometimes
02:28
in unexpected places not just the places
02:31
we choose to have the dialogue
02:38
two key lessons that I've taken from my
02:40
study and research in philosophy over 32
02:44
years are first that the unexamined life
02:46
really is not worth living it may be
02:49
that other things are worthwhile too but
02:51
the unexamined life is not a is not a
02:54
good one the examined life is the one we
02:55
ought to lead but then the second one is
02:57
that I think we can learn in in the
03:01
course of life in a political society
03:03
that we don't have to think of our our
03:05
well-being and our ability to do well in
03:08
the world is always requiring putting
03:10
the other person down is always
03:12
requiring it's somehow a zero-sum game
03:16
and that's the second for me most
03:19
important thing that I've learned from
03:20
from I think the best political
03:21
philosophy that it's just a
03:23
misconception that you only do well when
03:25
somebody else loses out
03:31
in light of the two lessons about the
03:34
selfic the importance of
03:35
self-examination and the importance of
03:38
recognizing that you can do well in life
03:41
without having to put the other person
03:42
down I think it actually might be Plato
03:45
but also I would add Rousseau is another
03:49
very important thinker and John Rawls
03:51
the the twentieth century political
03:53
philosopher actually with whom I studied
03:55
in graduate school
04:01
the question of whether we can program
04:03
machines to feel emotions in particular
04:05
things like empathy I think is one of
04:07
the single most difficult challenges
04:08
that we face I believe deep learning in
04:12
some of the advances that AI has made in
04:15
this area is going to show that machines
04:17
can do an awful lot that human beings do
04:19
I'm not yet convinced that they can feel
04:22
every emotion we feel some emotions
04:24
involve beliefs and you can give them
04:26
ways of learning how to manipulate those
04:29
beliefs but I'm not entirely confident
04:32
that the things that require responses
04:34
that are not just about perception but
04:37
they're that about in some way
04:38
recognizing the presence of another
04:40
being like us or another being that
04:42
feels I'm not sure I know what it would
04:45
mean to program that into into an
04:47
artificial being
04:53
if if machines could
04:56
learn to feel emotions or somehow be
04:58
programmed to feel that I actually think
04:59
it would be a wonderful thing if you
05:01
have a car that's a self-driving you
05:03
know automated entity out on the road
05:06
and choices have to be made about the
05:08
safety of human beings I would really
05:10
prefer that those choices are made by
05:13
any entity that has the capacity to feel
05:15
to feel pain to understand the value and
05:18
importance of suffering and so forth so
05:20
I think it could be a good thing I just
05:22
hope that it's that we don't end up
05:23
programming the emotions that are only
05:26
the bad ones like hate and resentment
05:28
and anger if we're going to put some in
05:30
I hope we're able to manufacture them
05:32
all
05:37
well the question of whether or not we
05:40
are somehow sim simulator blazei
05:45
Shenzhen seems to me not to be a
05:46
question that I fully understand because
05:48
human beings even as they make progress
05:50
in some ways in other ways don't ever
05:53
really progress at all we are there are
05:56
sort of questions and concerns that are
05:59
universal and that are timeless and that
06:02
don't alter or change with time perhaps
06:05
our ability to articulate those
06:07
challenges changes but I'm not confident
06:09
that our ability to respond to them does
06:11
so the idea that advances in
06:13
civilization somehow would be explained
06:16
by advances in what human beings are I'm
06:18
not sure I understand that so I you know
06:21
I I think what musk is doing is is
06:23
wonderful and interesting but I'm not
06:25
sure that it applies to human to human
06:27
life in human beings
06:33
I hope philosophy has helped me need a
06:36
better life I hope it's made me a person
06:38
more willing to scrutinize the things I
06:40
take for granted less prone to bias more
06:43
willing to listen to what other people
06:45
have to say in the very sick
06:48
that learning is a process that takes
06:50
more than one person it's dialectic I'm
06:52
not entirely sure that I can guarantee
06:54
I'm a better person than I would have
06:56
been without it but I think I am and I
06:58
certainly hope that my life has shown
07:00
that over time
07:06
so philosophy is in fact a form of
07:09
inquiry that every human being naturally
07:12
engages in some people are more prone to
07:15
do it more of the time than others some
07:17
are more prone to take their engagement
07:20
with philosophy to more abstract levels
07:22
but the things that philosophers do in
07:24
even the most abstruse texts are
07:26
actually just species of the genus of
07:30
inquiry that every human being is prone
07:33
to that's what I think is critical and
07:36
valuable about the best philosophy it
07:38
recognizes that even when it's building
07:41
on the tendency to engage in inquiry in
07:44
ways that in fact are very abstract
07:50
philosophy has certainly had an impact
07:53
in the world I'm going to take two
07:55
examples that are more recent in the
07:57
scope of human history not going back
07:59
all the way to the Greeks but the first
08:01
is the the origin of the of the United
08:03
States it was very fully rooted in
08:06
ideals and principles of the importance
08:08
of equality of Liberty the value of
08:12
certain kinds of political institutions
08:14
for protecting human wellbeing and
08:16
secondly when America kind of
08:19
reconstituted itself as a people that
08:22
that refused to engage in discrimination
08:24
during the civil rights movement in the
08:26
1960s 1950s and 1960s I see that as
08:30
another very important moment when the
08:33
philosophy of non-violence and the idea
08:35
of non-cooperation with injustice that
08:38
Martin Luther King for instance
08:40
developed has sway in the world took a
08:43
long time but without philosophy I think
08:45
those are two places where human life
08:48
would not have in fact developed in the
08:50
way that I believe was a good way for us
08:52
to vet to develop
08:58
philosophers can certainly be wrong I
09:00
think most of the time they're never a
09:02
hundred percent wrong in some regards
09:05
I'm very hey Gillian about this I think
09:07
there's probably always a little bit of
09:09
the truth even in the philosophy we
09:11
encountered that looks like it has none
09:13
of it the challenge is always trying to
09:15
find where the truth lies which
09:19
philosophers do I think have not been
09:21
always on the right side one of them I
09:23
would think for me is Nietzsche
09:25
I think there's a kind of resistance to
09:28
ethical reflection that takes equality
09:31
seriously that cares about justice that
09:33
celebrates pity and compassion as much
09:36
as I love to read Nietzsche I think in
09:38
those ways he was wrong he brilliant and
09:42
engaging in provocative but on the
09:45
question of what matters morally and
09:48
what kind of ethical life we ought to
09:50
lead I think he made a mistake
09:57
it is a very interesting question
09:58
whether philosophers are in fact often
10:01
very unhappy people Nietzsche was one of
10:04
those people who in fact decried the
10:06
fact that philosophy didn't seem to have
10:07
a lot of jokes and maybe there were
10:09
Socrates was probably the one person he
10:12
thought knew how to make a good joke and
10:13
philosophy whether that means that
10:15
philosophers are unhappy the fact that
10:18
they're not light-hearted I'm not sure
10:20
I'm ready to say they are very serious
10:23
they do get troubled and deeply troubled
10:26
sometimes by the imperfections in the
10:29
world and that can also be a flaw and a
10:31
failing so I think it's more a sense of
10:34
being puzzled by how to make the world a
10:37
better place that accounts for
10:39
philosophers sometimes seeming unhappy
10:41
but one last point on that I also think
10:43
philosophers are the one group of people
10:45
in the world who are not afraid to
10:47
indulge a kind of childlike wonder and
10:49
puzzlement and curiosity in the world
10:52
and the the challenge is always how to
10:54
balance that sense of wonder with
10:56
concern about the world being allegedly
10:59
or in some way imperfect
11:05
the one message I'd like the audience
11:07
this evening to walk away with is going
11:09
to be the remembering the importance of
11:11
hope and I will call it infinite hope in
11:15
growing at an idea that Martin Luther
11:18
King developed but that's also been
11:19
articulated by a number of other
11:21
traditions both in and outside of
11:23
philosophy it's about never giving up
11:25
hope even when the world looks as though
11:27
it's just about extinguished all the
11:30
good there is just a little glimmer of
11:32
hope that somehow some measure of
11:35
goodness remains and you can draw on
11:37
that goodness with your activity in the
11:40
world to make a difference I think
11:42
that's motivated so many people
11:43
throughout history
11:49
failure and challenge are part of every
11:52
human life and I actually think it's a
11:54
good thing that they are I've sometimes
11:57
failed when I've taken on a
11:59
responsibility and a job that was a
12:02
responsibility I've fully thought I was
12:05
prepared to take on and to meet but it
12:08
turned out that the either the culture
12:10
of the place or certain assumptions
12:12
about the role that I as a woman or a
12:14
person of color might play were in play
12:17
and I didn't realize it and what you
12:19
have to understand is that sometimes
12:20
it's not the right time for you to be
12:23
able to make something happen sometimes
12:25
you might make mistakes for reasons that
12:28
are rooted in your character and then
12:29
you have to stop and ask us or something
12:31
about me that I might be able to alter
12:33
and sometimes you just have to say the
12:35
world just doesn't go the way you hoped
12:37
it would and you've got to pick yourself
12:40
up and find some new way some new avenue
12:44
through which you might be able to to
12:47
accomplish something important in the
12:49
world but I think failure actually is
12:51
good for us as long as it doesn't
12:53
totally destroy us
12:59
I am grateful for Ivy's willingness to
13:02
introduce people in the in the world of
13:05
work people who are newly starting in
13:07
their careers to the importance of
13:09
philosophical thought and of ideas that
13:11
require a little bit of time to process
13:13
and think about and you can assist I
13:16
think not just me but all philosophers
13:18
by holding on to that message that even
13:20
though there's a time for action and
13:22
there's a time to carry out your
13:23
practice there's a time for thinking and
13:26
for reflecting on practice and it's just
13:29
a wonderful thing to know that there's a
13:30
group of people who are dedicated to
13:32
reminding even the young people in the
13:35
world of business of the importance of
13:37
that idea
13:40
you