Love. Time. Freedom. Truth. Perhaps, even our very own existence. These things matter to us -- they are things that we hold close to our hearts.
In "Philosophy & What Matters", we deal with things that matter from a philosophical point of view.
You would have been vacationing right now had it not been for the pandemic. I would have been doing something as well had it not been for the current strict lockdowns. But what does this mean? What does it mean when we imagine a what-if scenario? In entertaining what-if scenarios, we are engaging in what philosophers have called counterfactual thinking.
In today’s Philosophy and What Matters, Professor Alan Hájek of the Australian National University will introduce us to the philosophy of counterfactuals and why it matters. In particular, he will introduce us to two theories of the nature of counterfactuals: viz., Robert Stalnaker's, and David Lewis's. He will also show us why he thinks that most counterfactuals are false.
We all know that Donald Trump exists. Thus, we could say that there is at least one thing that exists; namely, Donald Trump. Some of us know that the mathematician, Nicholas Bourbaki doesn’t really exist. The name “Bourbaki” is only a pseudonym used by a group of French mathematicians in the 1930s. Thus, we could say that there’s at least one thing that does not exist. But what does it mean for something to exist or not to exist? And why does this question matter?
In today's Philosophy and What Matters, Professor Greg Restall of the University of Melbourne will help us understand the philosophical question about the concept of existence. He will guide us through two sorts of answers to this question; viz., the deep jungles of Alexius Meinong and the desert landscapes of Bertrand Russell and W. V. Quine.
Today’s topic is the problem of persistence: the problem of explaining how things persist. Here’s one way of wrapping our heads around the problem. I’ve been driving the same car for the last seven years. Given that the car has seen many changes over the years, is it still true to say that it is the same car? Come to think of it, is it true to say that I am still the same person I was seven years ago? Why does this question even matter?
To guide us through this conundrum and why it matters, we are joined by Kristie Miller, an ARC Fellow, and an Associate Professor of Philosophy and the Joint Director of the University of Sydney's Centre for Time.
The great English philosopher, Freddie Mercury once said, “Time waits for nobody”. Well, he’s not really a philosopher, but many of us would still share his sentiment. Time seems to flow at a steady pace from the past, to the present, and into the future, and it is indifferent to whatever our hopes and dreams might be. But what’s the underlying philosophical idea behind this sentiment? And is this the “right” view to take? Why does it even matter to think about the nature of time in the first place?
To guide us through the philosophy of time, we are joined by Graeme A. Forbes, Head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Kent.
Our guest for this episode needs no introduction. His views on the nature of mind and consciousness, on language and representation, and on the grounds of morality have set the agenda for many academic philosophers today. In the philosophy of mind, his “what Mary didn’t know” argument provides one of the clearest formulations of the knowledge argument against physicalism -- the view that everything, even our consciousness, could be explained in physical terms. In the philosophy of language, he revived a kind of description view of language where words are our main source of information about the world. Finally, in metaethics, he puts forward the realist view of moral functionalism -- the view that moral properties not only supervene on descriptive, natural properties, they are also identical with them.
To share his philosophical views on things that truly matter, let us all welcome Frank Jackson, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the Australian National University.
It’s true that 2 + 2 = 4. It’s also true that we are now in a philosophy interview. But what makes these things true? According to the Australian philosopher David Armstrong, truths are made true by truthmakers. But what are these truthmaker and why do they matter?
In today’s episode, we are privileged to have James Franklin, one of David Armstrong’s most brilliant students. Professor Franklin is an honorary professor at the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of New South Wales.
For some philosophers, truth is a substantial property. When I say that “It is true that Paris is in France”, the “it is true” part adds something to the sentence, “Paris is in France”. This added feature might be the sentence corresponding to facts, or cohering to other beliefs, or being empirically or formally provable, or even being a useful belief to have. Other philosophers, however, deny this. For this latter group of philosophers, truth is transparent and does not add anything to the sentence. They argue that in non-opaque contexts, there’s nothing substantially different in uttering the sentence, “It is true that Paris is in France” from simply stating that Paris is in France.
So who is right here? What is the nature of truth? Whatever the right theory may turn out to be, however, it would have to come to terms with the liar paradox, the problem of ascertaining the truth of the sentence: “This very sentence I’m uttering now is false”.
To guide us through the philosophical “spandrels of truth” and why it matters, we have Jc Beall, O'Neill Family Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame.
We have different ways of categorising things. We categorise non-living things in terms of their type, or in terms of their shape, size, and colour, and so on. On the other hand, we categorise living things in terms of their biological families. We have general categories of microbes, plants, insects, and animals, and we have specific species under these categories as well. Some philosophers think that these categories are natural and objective features of reality. But what of us? How should we categorise ourselves?
Of course, we belong to the biological category of homo sapiens, but we also have a gender, we belong to a certain class and race. Some philosophers have labelled these as socially constructed categories. But what kind of thing is a social category? And why does thinking about these things matter?
My co-host for this episode is Hazel T. Biana and our guide through the conundrum is Sally Haslanger, Ford Professor of Philosophy and Women’s & Gender Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Are minds brains? Do we have free will? Is happiness just a state of mind? These are just some of the questions that philosophers have asked since there were philosophers. But has any progress been made on these philosophical topics? Have philosophers today more or less answered the questions that philosophers in the past have raised? And why does progress in philosophy matter in the first place?
To share his thoughts on these questions, we have Daniel Stoljar, Professor of Philosophy at the Australian National University and the author of Philosophical Progress: In Defence of a Reasonable Optimism.
The 21st saw the boom of a new approach in doing philosophy that aims to answer philosophical questions using the methods of the sciences, esp. the social sciences. This approach has a cool sounding name: “xphi”, which is short for experimental philosophy.
One field that has benefited from the xphi approach is logic. To share his thoughts on experimental philosophical logic and why it matters, we have Dave Ripley, a philosopher and logician from Monash University.
According to the American philosopher, John Dewey, “Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” This, perhaps, echoes Aristotle’s idea that a well-educated person is someone who has practical wisdom; someone who, from a wealth of life-experiences, is able to discern the right sort of things from the wrong ones. In short, education is lifelong learning; it is a continuous, on-going process.
The idea of lifelong learning has caught on in different educational institutions in the world. In particular, this has been explored in the US, UK, Asia, Southeast Asia and here in the Philippines as well. But what is this idea all about? How does philosophy figure in this picture? And why does viewing philosophy as lifelong learning matter?
To discuss these questions with us, we are joined by Professor Marianne Talbot, Director of Studies in Philosophy at the University of Oxford’s Department for Continuing Education.
A typical undergraduate philosophy programme offers a philosophy of religion course. Here, the students will learn about arguments for the existence of God, the problem of evil, and perhaps some aspects of philosophical theology. Part of the syllabus, of course, is an inquiry into the relationship between science and religion.
The rise of science has paved the way to a naturalistic philosophy -- a viewpoint that seems to be at odds with religion. But is this opposition a contradictory one? That is, does the truth of naturalistic philosophy imply the rejection of religious doctrines or does its falsity imply the acceptance of those doctrines? Why do these questions matter anyway?
To share his thoughts on these questions, we have Graham Oppy, Professor of Philosophy at Monash University, former CEO of the Australasian Association of Philosophy, and the author of Naturalism and Religion: A Contemporary Philosophical Investigation.
Some of us know how to ride a bike, others know how to play chess. Many of us know basic mathematical truths, and almost everyone knows that Paris is in France. We also know that this pandemic will end. In fact, we know a lot of things, but what does it mean to say that we know such and such? That is, what is the nature of knowledge itself and why does it matter to ask such a question
Philosophers have been dabbling with these questions ever since, and among them is our guest: the certified epistemologist, Stephen Hetherington, Professor of Philosophy at the University of New South Wales, the Editor-in-Chief of the Australasian Journal of Philosophy, and the general editor of a recently published four-volume work: The Philosophy of Knowledge: A History.
We believe that we act freely most of the time. When we decide the person to love, the career to pursue, and how to live our lives, we have a sense that we are doing all these things freely and voluntarily. Since the beginning of philosophy, however, our notion of free will has been called into question.
On the one hand, if everything is a matter of fate, as in F-A-T-E, then how can we be free? Likewise, how can we be free if everything is determined by the history of the universe and the laws of nature? Our notion of free will implies other concepts that matter to us: e.g. the concepts of moral responsibility and legal accountability. What happens to those things if we don’t have free will?
Joining us to discuss the nature of free will is my dearest friend, Brian Garrett, Professor of Philosophy at the Australian National University, and the author of my favourite metaphysics book, What is this thing called metaphysics?
In philosophy, we study metaphysics (the nature of reality), epistemology (the nature and limits of human knowledge, and ethics (the nature of morality), and we learn what the “great” philosophers have said about these matters. We read the works of Plato and Aristotle; Augustine, Anselm, and Thomas Aquinas; Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant; and everyone who came after Hegel.
The canon of philosophy, however, is dominated by philosophers from the “West”. But what of the works by the Taoists, the Confucians, the Hindus, and the Buddhists? What could these “philosophies” found in Asia offer us and would they even matter?
Joining us to discuss the Philosophies of the East is Graham Priest, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
Our guest today is one of the leading philosophers of this generation. Many of us know him as the co-creator (with the late Ken Taylor) of Philosophy Talk. A pioneering philosophy podcasting program, which questions everything except your intelligence. I reckon that many people -- myself included -- were introduced to the fun and beauty of philosophical thinking through this program. He’s also known for his book, The Art of Procrastination, which offers a more positive, more structured way of putting off things you have to do in order to do other more productive things.
The philosophically-initiated among us may know him through his contributions in various areas of philosophy. His ideas on situation semantics (developed with Jon Barwise) introduces an alternative formal account of explaining how meaning and information-processing work. His defence of Hume’s “Wretched Subterfuge”, a broadly compatibilist view of free will and determinism, has gained some traction as well. Arguably, his lasting legacy is his Frege-influenced views on self-knowledge, which demystified the notion of the self.
To talk about his views on things that matter, we have the philosopher extraordinaire, John Perry, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy in both UC Riverside and Stanford University.
In 1999, the US Department of Justice sued several tobacco companies for having misled the public about the risks of smoking. The outcome of this landmark case? In 2006, the US Court of Appeals found Big Tobacco liable for fraudulently covering up the health risks associated with smoking and for marketing their products to children.
One thing to think about this litigation is the parties involved in it and their actions. You have the US DOJ suing and holding Big Tobacco culpable for misleading the public about the hazards of smoking. But how can the US DOJ and Big Tobacco do such intentional actions? Are they even capable of doing anything -- let alone be culpable or responsible for any action?
To talk about the ontological status of these collective agents and why it matters, we have Holly Lawford-Smith, Senior Lecturer of Political Philosophy at the University of Melbourne, and the author of Not In Their Name: Are Citizens Culpable for Their States’ Actions?
According to the standard possible worlds analysis of modal sentences, the sentence ‘Possibly, donkeys talk’ is true iff there is at least one possible world where donkeys do talk. On the other hand, the sentence, ‘Necessarily, 2 + 2 = 4’ is true iff 2 + 2 = 4 holds in all possible worlds.
The possible worlds semantics relies on the existence of the domain of possible worlds, but what are these possible worlds? Are they the same as our actual world? And how do we know them?
To guide us through the philosophy of possible worlds and why it matters, we have Daniel Nolan, McMahon-Hank Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, and the author of Topics in the Philosophy of Possible Worlds.
Bertrand Russell once said that "Probability is the most important concept in modern science, especially as nobody has the slightest notion what it means." Claims like “There’s a 30% chance of rain”, “Trump will likely win this election”, and “There’s a million to one odds that you’ll win the lottery” all carry probability information. But what do they really mean? Are probabilities something out there in the world? Or do they only measure our degree of confidence that some event will happen?
Joining us to discuss the philosophy of probability and why it matters, we have Branden Fitelson, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Northeastern University.
People are often grouped in terms of their race and ethnicity. For example, people are classified as being of European, African, and Asian descent since they exhibit features typical of Europeans, Africans, and Asians. This way of classifying people, however, invites metaphysical and ethical questions. On the metaphysics side, we may ask whether race and ethnicity are real categories out there in the world or whether they are categories that we ourselves have constructed. On the ethics side, we may wonder whether the oppressions that racial distinctions bring about could ever be morally justified.
Joining us to discuss the philosophy of race and why it matters, we have Lucius Outlaw, Jr., W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University, the author of On Race and Philosophy, and one of the recognised pioneers of Africana Philosophy.
Contemporary Western philosophy is often divided into two main traditions. On the one hand, we have the Anglo-Analytic tradition, which is characterized as the more science-leaning way of doing philosophy. On the other hand, we have the Continental tradition, which emphasizes the more “human way” of doing philosophy. Compared to analytic philosophers, however, Continental philosophers are caricatured as obscure, unsystematic, and unrigorous in their way of philosophizing. But is this characterisation justified? Does the analytic/continental divide even make sense
To discuss what “Continental Philosophy” is and why it matters, we have Paul R. Patton, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of New South Wales, Professor of Philosophy at Wuhan University and Flinders University.
We all have some notion of what romantic love is. Our guides perhaps are the romance novels of Jane Austen or the latest RomCom flick in NetFlix. These guides give us a heterosexual and monogamous picture of romantic love -- a happily ever after with a singular partner of the opposite sex who we will love and cherish for the rest of our lives.
The mores, however, are changing. We are no longer in the time of strict monogamous, heterosexual partnerships that Bertrand Russell’s Marriage and Morals have put into question. Heck! even the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis has opened the discussions on non-hetero partnerships. But how should we think philosophically about these changing norms about romantic love?
Joining us to discuss this new kind of philosophy of love and why it matters, we have Carrie Jenkins, Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia and the author of What Love is and What it Could Be.
Metaphysics is described as the philosophical study of the fundamental structure of reality. Traditionally, it is first philosophy, the science of things that do not change, and the science of first principles and ultimate causes of things. But how should we conduct such a study? Could we really arrive at the fundamental structure of reality? Asking these questions will lead us to metametaphysics -- a brewing philosophical industry that tackles the epistemic and methodological questions about doing metaphysics.
Joining me in this episode is Martin Vacek, Chair of Analytic Philosophy at the Slovak Academy of Sciences, and guiding us in learning about metametaphysics and why it matters is Jonathan Schaffer, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University.
Gottlob Frege is recognized as one of the founders of Analytic Philosophy. His contributions range from logic to the philosophy of mathematics and the philosophy of language.
Guiding us through the philosophical legacy of Frege and why it matters is Patricia Blanchette, McMahon-Hank Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and the author of Frege’s Conception of Logic.
Simon Blackburn is one of the leading philosophers of this generation. His penetrating ideas about the nature of truth and the ultimate goal of morality are perhaps his lasting philosophical legacy. Professional philosophers know Professor Blackburn as the leading proponent of quasi-realism, a variant of moral expressivism, which provides a non-realist account of our moral discourses and practices. Non-professionals know him for his popular philosophy books such as Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy, Ethics: A Very Short Introduction, Being Good: An Introduction to Ethics, and his most recent book, Truth, which focuses on ideas like, ‘post-truth’ and ‘fake news’.
To discuss his ideas on the true and the good, and why they matter, let us welcome Simon Blackburn -- Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, Research Professor at the UNC-Chapel Hill, and Professor at the New College of the Humanities.
Thailand is the land of the ‘free’ and it’s the only country in Southeast Asia that has not been colonized by a Western power. It was established as the Kingdom of Siam in 1238 CE. It’s known for its culture, tourist attractions, and, of course, its excellent cuisines. But what of its philosophy? What sorts of philosophical ideas are found in Thailand?
To discuss philosophy in Thailand, we have Soraj Hongladarom, Professor of Philosophy and the Director of the Centre for Science, Technology, and Society at Chulalongkorn University. Professor Soraj is also the present president of the Philosophy and Religion Society of Thailand.
Logic is often thought of as a male-dominated field, with the likes of Aristotle, Boole, Peirce, Frege, Russell and Whitehead as acknowledged founders of this area of inquiry. But, as our guest in this episode suggests, we should also acknowledge the contributions of women in the development of modern logic.
To celebrate these contributions and why they matter, we have Sara Uckelman, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Durham University. She’s also the Associate Editor of the Journal of Logic, Language, and Information, and the resident Doctor of Logic on YouTube.
This very sentence I’m uttering now is false. Is it true? If it is, then what it says holds. Since it says that it is false, it follows that if it is true, it is false. But if it is false, then what it says does not hold. Since it says that it is false, it follows that if it is false, it is true. So, the sentence I’ve uttered is true just in case it is false; false just in case it’s true. This is the classic liar paradox -- a semantic paradox in philosophy that involves the notions of truth and falsity, and the inconsistency that they may bring. One way to ‘defuse’ this paradox (and avoid logical explosion), says our guest, is to convert it to a ‘hypodox’, which makes the conundrum consistent but its truth is still underdetermined.
To discuss paradoxes and hypodoxes, and why they matter, we have Peter Eldridge-Smith, a Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University and, along with his daughter Veronique, the co-inventor of the Pinocchio paradox.
Philosophical questions and insights are often thought of as universal and culturally-invariant. What European philosophers have thought about are something that philosophers from Africa and Asia have also thought about. Recent work in cross-cultural philosophy, however, suggests that philosophy is more culturally nuanced than that.
To discuss cross-cultural philosophy and why it matters, we have Masaharu Mizumoto, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the School of Knowledge Sciences in the Japan Advanced Institute for Science and Technology, and a co-editor of Epistemology for the Rest of the World.
We experience events in time in two different ways. On the one hand, we experience them flowing from past, present, to future. In 2019, the coronavirus pandemic is still in the future. Now, in 2020, we are experiencing it. In a few months, hopefully, it will be in the past. On the other hand, we also experience events in time as succeeding one another, or simultaneous with each other. The 2020 pandemic happened before the 2020 US election. The death of Sean Connery happened after the March 2020 lockdowns. Biden winning the election is simultaneous with Trump losing it. But what do philosophers have to say about these two ways of experiencing time? Is one more fundamental than the other?
Guiding us through the philosophy of time and why it matters is L. Nathan Oaklander, David M. French Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Michigan-Flint.
According to the so-called Anselmian thesis, if God exists, then this God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. But the existence of God has been challenged by the existence of evil since if God has all those omni-properties, then there should be no evil. But since evil exists, it seems to follow that there is no God. But according to our guest in this episode, the problem of evil is not only a problem for theists, it is also a problem even for atheists (and non-theists).
Here to guide us through the problem of evil in the philosophy of religion, we have Professor Yujin Nagasawa, H. G. Wood Professor of the Philosophy of Religion, University of Birmingham, and the director of the John Templeton Global Philosophy of Religion Project.
Ethics tells us what’s good and what we morally ought to do. Law tells us what’s legal and what we legally ought to do. But what’s the relationship between ethics and law?
Here to discuss this question with us is Professor Garrett Cullity of the School of Philosophy at the Australian National University.
We all have “minds.” We can think, feel, be conscious, and have beliefs and desires. But what exactly does it mean to have a mind? Does having a mind mean having a brain? Or is it something else?
Discussing these questions with us is Tim Crane, Professor of Philosophy at the Central European University and a world-leading philosopher of mind.