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Introduction to Philosophy · What does it mean to be human? · Seeing-eye-dogs · Phenomenology · Edmund Husserl “What is man? There are no definite answers to this question.”In this first episode, Awee Prins explores the phenomenological approach, which tries to understand the world—not as a sum of objects or a totality of things but as a crossroads, a patchwork of different perspectives.Sonia and Kas introduce themselves and the First Philosophy podcas...
Introduction to Philosophy · What does it mean to be human? · Seeing-eye-dogs · Phenomenology · Edmund Husserl
“What is man? There are no definite answers to this question.”
In this first episode, Awee Prins explores the phenomenological approach, which tries to understand the world—not as a sum of objects or a totality of things but as a crossroads, a patchwork of different perspectives.
Sonia and Kas introduce themselves and the First Philosophy podcast.
Let's begin, finally!
P.S. If you could do us a kindness, please press the follow button; we are very obliged! You know, for the algorithms and such. Or, if you liked our podcast, you could rate it with a few—let's, for argument's sake, say five—stars.
Read on more on StilleGeluiden.nl
Exploring the timeless ideas of history’s greatest thinkers, one lecture at a time.
Philosophers must be eternal beginners, according to Edmund Husserl. In this podcast, we invite you to begin with us, accompanied by great lectures.
Every episode dives into the rich world of phenomenology, existentialism and hermeneutics, posing and answering profound questions concerning human existence. Through these episodes, you'll get familiar with Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, Levinas, and many others.
Our first season centers around Awee Prins and his lecture series Human Conditions. To accompany you through this journey, Sonia Shvets and Kas Molenaar will provide brief interludes, insights, and introductions.
Let's begin, finally!
P.S. If you could do us a kindness, please press the follow button; we are very obliged! You know, for the algorithms and such. Or, if you liked our podcast, you could rate it with a few—let's, for argument's sake, say five—stars.
Read more on www.StilleGeluiden.nl
Good evening. I would have loved to add, good to see you. But that, and it is of some importance to notice, would not be correct, as I cannot really see you well. In June this year, I went almost blind and although a series of surgeries have brought some improvement, I may still not be able to adequately interact with you during class. So please, if you have a question, gesticulate in a prominent manner so I will notice you.
Speaker 1:Anyway, please don't hold my handicap for indifference. The worst case scenario however, mind you, I may I may go blind. Now the bright side of this apparent catastrophe is that the institute for the blind have told me that I may receive a guide dog who, and I quote their words, will take me exactly where I have to go. Now, that would be really fortunate. I would love that.
Speaker 1:Considering that throughout my life, I really never really knew where I had to go. And perhaps now, due to this dog, one day I will. We'll see. Well, not me of course, but the little dog may.
Speaker 2:Well, how do we know where to go?
Speaker 3:That's quite a question. Isn't it? Also, a perfect place to start a philosophy podcast.
Speaker 2:But maybe we should begin with who we are though. If if we're trying to figure out where we're going, maybe it's good for the listeners to know who's asking the questions, for them.
Speaker 3:Well, starting off with introducing ourselves might be getting ahead of ourselves as well. Because how can you know where you're headed if you haven't even figured out where you are? Or better yet, to know where you came from.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And even more so, how do you even know that you know?
Speaker 3:Here we go. Well, let's not immediately delve into Kant or epistemological questions.
Speaker 2:Well, we can then get back to the question at hand. How do we begin a philosophy podcast? It's a stupid question, but one we have to grapple with. Some French philosophers argue that you're always in the middle. Right?
Speaker 2:The the rhizome, you're always in the middle of, something. Never beginning, never the end. So we are kind of also in the middle of it already.
Speaker 3:Which, of course is true, but also completely unhelpful in relation to what we're trying to do.
Speaker 2:I I guess, we still need to start somewhere.
Speaker 3:So then, why not start at the beginning?
Speaker 2:Right. And and that's where we come in. We want to provide an entry points into philosophy, which is why we call the podcast First Philosophy. Not in a very textbooky way, not in a hyperacademic way. We really want to try and talk about the philosophy that lives and that grabs you and shakes you up and stirs your thinking.
Speaker 2:Edmund Husserl, about whom we will talk about in the future, thought that a philosopher should be an eternal beginner. Eternal beginning where we let go of our assumption and biases. And we need to bring it back to our personal experience.
Speaker 3:And hence, it is also about our own beginning. Bringing it back to our experience. This podcast is inspired by a lecture series that inspired our own journey into philosophy. It taught us that philosophy didn't just live in books, it was alive in ideas and in our everyday experience of the world.
Speaker 2:We really wanted to make a podcast centered around great lectures. Because they're a great starting point for most aspiring philosophers. And of course, there's no better place to start than with the series of lectures that inspired this podcast and kind of both of us in many ways.
Speaker 3:The much beloved lecture series, human conditions with Ave Prince.
Speaker 2:There he traces the history of phenomenology and existentialism, introduces the ideas and works of some of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century, such as Husserl, Marcheline Heidegger, Sartre, and, Emmanuel Levin as a personal favorite of mine. Ave Prince really pulls you into philosophy. If you imagine it as a labyrinth, which can be quite complex and difficult to navigate on on on your own, he's a great guide. Just really showing you all the twists, hooks, and nooks, and not letting you get lost.
Speaker 3:And just like with music, live is always better. However, if you cannot attend the live recording, then the recording itself will suffice.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And it's even better to do it yourself. You know, DIY philosophy.
Speaker 3:And as Edmund Husserl writes, if we want to be proper philosophers, we have to be eternal beginners.
Speaker 2:Always ready to question, reconsider, rethink. Really try to do away with old assumptions.
Speaker 3:So with that in mind, let's get to it. Time to jump into the first part of this lecture series, human conditions with Ave Brins.
Speaker 2:And I'm Sonja Schwartz.
Speaker 3:And I'm Graz Madeline Arnar. Let's begin, finally.
Speaker 1:So, welcome to this first meeting of the second course of human conditions. 2 years ago we decided to, rename the rather uninclusive sounding course the quest for man to the More Inclusive Human Conditions. And allow me to elucidate briefly on the title Human Conditions. It was my invention, so I'm proud of it. Obviously, the title alludes to Hannah Arendt's magnificent book, the Human Condition'.
Speaker 1:There are, however, good reasons to prefer the plural, human conditions, instead of the human condition, because it allows us to explore a variety of manifestations of the human condition. Dutch seinsweise. Du Stammt. The ways we are sexually, mentally, physically, socially, politically. But also, human conditions alludes to something like the word condition depicts a premise.
Speaker 1:Condition is a prerequisite, Dutch Mogelkeits voorwerne. In human conditions 1, Eugene Kloog has elaborated on biology and evolution, culture, and technology as premises of human existence. And, but also many other premises could be identified as a prerequisite for being human in essential contemporary challenges and soon in the course eco philosophy. You will see that a sustainable environment or better put a sense of care for the planet we are invited and allowed to live on is a human condition, a human. Maybe care is the ultimate human condition, but also loneliness is a human condition.
Speaker 1:It takes a lot of loneliness to really realize that we are essentially connected to each other. Moods are premises for being human. All moods, grief, sadness, anxiety, are also profound and necessary premises for truly being human because they remind us of the fragility, the frailty, and the finitude of our lives and of the lives of our loved ones. So how to approach this vast and in many respects still uncharted realm of human conditions? I believe phenomenology may prove to be a good, if not excellent, candidate.
Speaker 1:So during the coming 4 weeks I will introduce you to the phenomenological approach. Phenomenology, rest assured you will get used to the tongue twisting ugliness of the word and you will appreciate its bliss and beauty. Phenomenology is often considered to be a philosophical method, and as such it is compared and opposed to analytic philosophy or dialectic Marxist philosophy, other main movements in the 20th 21st century philosophy. And although the founding father of phenomenology Edmund Husserl, he will be the main subject of the lecture next week, considered phenomenology to be a method, a method even more rigorous and scientific than science itself, I will insist on understanding phenomenology as an approach, as an attitude. This attitude is based on the realization that we can never escape ourselves as human beings.
Speaker 1:We will also in science and also in all other branches of philosophy and in daily life. We will never be able to rise above the contingency of our personal existence. Mark, and this is cannot be emphasized enough, that we cannot escape our contingency, the contingency of our being in the world, is not primarily an academic theoretical issue. It is an existential predicament, an existential challenge not to be ignored nor forgotten. To illustrate this, I want to address the so called anthropological turn.
Speaker 1:In his critiques, Kant elaborated on 3, what he called crucial philosophical questions. What can I know? What must I do? And, what may I hope? You recall?
Speaker 1:Excellent. In his logique, however, Kant adds a 4th question, what is man? He assures his readers, this 4th question is the most fundamental one as the previous 3 are rooted in the question concerning man, of course human beings. Now, it seems as if Kant is doing the right thing, the obvious thing. He's addressing the true source from which these questions stem and arise.
Speaker 1:These are questions that are put forward by human beings. So, you might argue, in order to understand these questions you must first understand what a human being is. That's good thinking. You can't. You can blame him for every anything you like, but he could he could really think.
Speaker 1:However, it is of great importance to notice the remarkable shift in the structure of Kant's questioning. So, what can I know? What must I do? What may I hope? What is man?
Speaker 1:Spot the difference. The first three questions are from a first person perspective, and the 4th question is from a 3rd person perspective. And, Mark, the first three questions could also be read as existential proclamations, even as outcries, if you will. They are not just academic questions, not primarily academic questions. What can I know?
Speaker 1:In academic philosophy and also in Kant's own critique of pure reason, this question is treated as an epistemological question. A question pertaining knowledge. Epistema is the Greek word for knowledge. What knowledge is true knowledge? What is certain knowledge?
Speaker 1:And, which knowledge is vague and uncertain? What are the possibilities and what are the limits of our understanding of the world? Now, let me be quite clear that this epistemological reading of the question, what can I know, is as respectable as it is important? All true science concerns itself with the reading, this reading, this interpretation of the question, what can I know? But, what can I know is perhaps first and foremost an existential question?
Speaker 1:What can I, a frail, vulnerable, mortal being, know? What can or do I know about myself, about my loved ones, about the world I live in? The Persian poet and philosopher Omar Khayyam wrote in the Rubaiyat, a poem written in the 11th century. I quote from the famous translation by Edward Fitzgerald. I came like water and like wind I go into this universe and why not knowing nor whence.
Speaker 1:Like water, willy nilly flowing. There's no guide dog gonna help you out here. I'll do it again. I always wanted to become an actor, but I'm too shy. I came like water and like wind I go into this universe and why not knowing nor whence.
Speaker 1:Like water willy nilly flowing. So, the question, what can I know, is not primarily an academic epistemological question, it is an existential one? What can I know? How can I understand and how can I position myself? How can I find some orientation in this so often un understandable world?
Speaker 1:The question is full of courage and despair. What can I know? What can I really know? The same holds for the question, what must I do? Which may easily, and in fact often has been, reduced to an ethical question.
Speaker 1:According to Kant, it can be solved by adhering to the famous categorical imperative. So what must I do? Well, I must follow the categorical imperative which holds that I must always act only according to maxims that could become a universal law. So I shouldn't lie because I don't want a world in which everybody lies. I shouldn't cheat because I don't want a world in which everybody cheats and so on and so on.
Speaker 1:The categorical imperative, very famous, will be addressed in courses on ethics in due time. But this is also abstract thinking, academic thinking, because it ignores the predicaments of real existence. What must I do when I am confronted with difficult or even impossible choices? We will address this in the class on Jean Paul Sartre. Sartre, gives the example of a young man during World War 2 who has a very ill, old, bedridden mother who's completely dependent on him, but he also wants to join the resistance.
Speaker 1:He feels he has to fight the freedom of his country. What must I do? What must this young man do?
Speaker 3:So we have just listened to Ave giving the example of Jean Paul Sartre writing about, a young man during World War 2 who asks advice regarding his old pet ridden mother. And one thing that I think is interesting is that this is a good point to talk about the way Ave uses stories in his philosophy. He uses a lot of different stories that aren't necessarily philosophically methodological or very clear written that this is the point Mhmm. To show in which different ways the philosophical method can be shown, can be the methodological method can be used. And this is also, I think, the point in a lot of his own stories.
Speaker 3:Like, he will make jokes. He will tell short anecdotes. And you can take these anecdotes at face value, but all these stories have a point towards them. He doesn't just tell a story or just to have a lighthearted moment in the lecture, But these are the stories that when you go home and you want to retell to your parents, like, oh, what did you do today? Well, one of my teachers told me a story about and and I will now make reference to stories that will only make sense if you have listened to more more of the lectures, but about the apples or about the horse coming into the lecture hall or about students who piss from a balcony.
Speaker 3:Like, all these different stories that he tells in his lectures are all stories that have a really good point that illustrates the philosophy that he is trying to convey. And that is also why he is able to refer to philosophers or writers that are not necessarily seen as part of phenomenology. I think a lot of phenomenological professors or teachers or students will not necessarily think of Kafka and Dostoevsky as phenomenology. And they don't have to be. But he does show a way in.
Speaker 3:He does show that there is a way to look at these stories from phenomenology.
Speaker 2:The inherent, ambivalence in interpreting any, fictional text when it pertains to, you know, writer philosophers or philosophic writers, is that one should not suppress the ambiguity in favor of a rigid philosophical method, but rather, and this is where phenomenology comes in, embrace the ambiguity and actually find, the insights in this ambiguity that would not be possible within the constraints of a more rigorous method informed inquiry. And that is one of the most important overall big lessons that a student ends up learning through the whole body of lectures. It's an encouragement for an unorthodox and brave and original thinking.
Speaker 3:And this is also what we just listened before when he talks about Kant and those four questions that he poses. But what I really, really appreciate about how Aveda does this is that the questions, what can I know? What must I do? And what may I hope? Which eventually to what is man.
Speaker 3:But when he asked in his lecture, what is the difference between these first three and the fourth question? You could really make, like, a or categorically, it's about, it's about a different way of it's about knowledge. No. No. No.
Speaker 3:The only thing what is the difference between the questions? And that is first three or I, and the fourth one is what is man? That's the only thing. Because if you stay still at that specific point and try to think what that means or what that could mean, you're already practicing philosophy before you even start to what these questions would entail or how you would answer these questions. And I think and I mean, this is this is from the the gay science in of of Nietzsche, which Ave also quotes in his lecture, is, superficiality out of profundancy.
Speaker 3:Like, it's it you you it's not always a bad thing to be superficial. Like, to explain that a little bit better, the story that Nietzsche writes in his introduction of the gay science, where a little girl asks her mother, like, if God is every everywhere and sees everything, is that decent? Mhmm. Because then he will also like, the implication is he will also see us going to the toilet or taking a shower. Like, is that decent?
Speaker 3:And that is a superficial question because that is not the point. But it's also quite profound because it is also very it's a very good question Yeah. In a way. And and this is, I think, one part of the phenomenological approach is this superficiality out of profundity.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think it leads also to, a point that is not stated directly, but you can kind of intuit, is that there is no such thing as a rhetorical question in stirring thinking. And there is no such thing as a rhetorical question in close reading. And that is something that AVE talks about. You have to learn the ethics of reading which is really like learning how to read anew.
Speaker 2:Because before you you might be reading, you know, a novel. It doesn't have to be a philosophical text. And there is a motivation of a character that maybe is not immediately apparent to you. And you just kinda write it off as, I can't seem to a human soul. I guess, they thought something that I that I don't know.
Speaker 2:That is precisely what the series of lectures, I think, is teaching us to not take for granted. No question is rhetorical and no random decision is philosophically insignificant. Right? There's a whole world hiding behind these things. And that is when you learn the ethics of reading and that is when you start spending way more time in reading.
Speaker 2:After the series of lectures I started rereading Brothers Karamazov trying to adopt this thing And gosh, did it take me a long, long time because you can't glaze over anything, but that is precisely where the richness that covers himself. It's supremely worth it.
Speaker 3:I I think he talks about this in a later lecture. I think he maybe references this in the lecture about Heidegger, maybe. But when his criticism towards Nabokov's criticism of Dostoevsky, that Nabokov, I think this is about crime and punishment, that Nabokov says, well, it's basically it's not a good book because there are umpteen, different reasons for the crime
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:He committed. And Ave would argue, yeah. That's the point. Yeah. There's never one reason to do something.
Speaker 3:Like, yeah, you you you might be curious what the experience would be like. You might be bored. You might be unhappy with your situation. You might think it will fix something. You might want to have a fatalist part in that.
Speaker 3:And you think, well, it doesn't matter anyway. And all these different reasons are valid and do count. And that is where the phenomenological approach also really, really shines.
Speaker 1:There are no general answers to the question, what must I do? Only individual ones. Again, courage and despair. Then there's the third question, what may I hope? Perhaps the most peculiar question ever posed by mankind, also the ultimate question of all religious intuitions, what may I hope?
Speaker 1:Ernst Bloch wrote a formidable 3 volume book on Das Princip Hoffnung, the principle of hope, which he explores. All the ways we have been thinking about hope, hope for salvation, hope for eternal salvation, maybe even hope for ultimate peace of mind. We all hope, hope, hope. Hope springs eternally. Hope du leven, we say in Dutch.
Speaker 1:But Levinas has addressed the problem that hope is very often an egocentric project. Hope is more than often the hope, even an economic hope, economy by finding profit finding a better life for ourselves. Levinas asks us, is true hope not only is hope not only true hope if it is the hope for others, if it is not an egocentric hope, but the hope that others will be doing well? Also, what may I hope is a very complex question. Now, according to Kant, these three questions in which the individual radically reaches out towards the world and beyond are all rooted in the more fundamental question, the question concerning man formulated thus, what is man?
Speaker 1:This question and canon has been answered in many many many ways, But taken literally, it is a downgrading of the first person perspective. I hope you realize this. This is what happens. It's a degrading of the first person perspective. It might be philosophically very sound and very interesting and very important.
Speaker 1:I don't deny it. The whole tradition of philosophical anthropology thrives on this question, what is man? But let's never forget. This kind of questioning, what is man, what is the essence of man, is an insult to any individual. Furthermore, how can we ultimately define what man is?
Speaker 1:What human beings truly are? Since Aristotle we have proclaimed ourselves to be the rational animal. Animal rationale. Are we really? Are we really?
Speaker 1:I'm not here to insult you. Nietzsche remarked, in fact man is the the mad animal. Das wahn, bitzigetia. I'll come back to this in other classes. I think that's also true.
Speaker 1:We are the mad animal. Just think of your life. How often have you made decisions that were absolutely not rational? And when we call ourselves the animal, rational, the rational animal, or in another formulation, another idiom, the homo sapiens. The homo sapiens.
Speaker 1:We are the homo sapiens sapiens even. We can think, we can reflect. Ecologists tell me that in fact we are the homo rapians. We are the raping kind of being. We destroy the Earth without with no acknowledgment of it.
Speaker 1:So, homo sapiens, homo sapiens. I think both they're both true. But still, in all handbooks of philosophy, we don't all be called the rational animal. That's why we're all so afraid of getting Alzheimer. Because we define ourselves by our rationality and then if your rationality fades, all is lost.
Speaker 1:I myself suffer from what I call happy Alzheimer's. I forget. I never forgave my enemies, but I start to forget them. This is a very, very I I wish it would happen that could happen to me. There's something like happy Alzheimer.
Speaker 1:We've also been depicted as the symbolic animal or as the animal that can be educated, or the symbolic animal and so on and so on. A very boring exercise when I was a young student, we had to learn all these anthropina, all these definitions, all these different answers by heart. Terrible, terrible, terrible. And then all of a sudden, and this was never mentioned in class, I read Dostoevsky. And then with Dostoevsky I read, man is the perpetually dissatisfied animal.
Speaker 1:Now we're talking. Now we're getting close to home. It's all good and well. The perpetually dissatisfied animal. The capricious animal.
Speaker 1:The only animal that curses. Anthropology never wrote about that. 1st, there is no definite answer to the question what is man? This is the first crucial point to be taken from this class. There are no definite answers to this question.
Speaker 1:Nietzsche wrote, man istas nicht weskestelteitier. Man is the undefined and undefinable animal in free translation. But it's not about the definition of what is man. I believe that there is no real answer to any question for a definition. Any.
Speaker 1:So, now, phenomenology is the attitude and the approach in which all phenomena are given the opportunity, listen well, the opportunity to show themselves in the fullness of their contingent unconcealment. Welcome to philosophy. It sounds profoundly obscure, but it's quite simple. So we have to give all phenomena, everything that happens, the opportunity to show itself in the fullness of their contingent unconcealment. It's very simple.
Speaker 1:I'll give you an example and you'll understand immediately. Take a landscape. Someone asks, I want a definition of a landscape. What is a landscape? But then we look.
Speaker 1:Thermonology is around Look. Take a farmer. A farmer grazes his cattle, cherishes and grows his crops, knows his way around the fields. That is the landscape of the farmer. Then there's a hiker strolling through the landscape enjoying its smells and its colors and its challenges, the gorge, whatever.
Speaker 1:That's the landscape for a hiker. Then there's the landscape painter who wants to capture the dimming light, the setting sun or the atmosphere of the landscape. That is the landscape for the landscape painter. Then there's a young couple finding within the landscape a secluded place where they can get together, be intimate, read poems to each other, or as my mother would so eloquently put it, make each other happy. And then there is the land surveyor, Dutch, the lond mater.
Speaker 1:Confidently pacing through the landscape measuring the perimeters of the landscape. Now, it's crucial to realize how in all these different perspectives the landscape becomes in some way unconcealed. It lights up in some way to the land surveyor, to the farmer, to the painter. It lights up, it becomes a certain landscape. It shows itself in a certain way, but it also conceals itself in many other ways.
Speaker 1:The landscape painter may be unaware of the, fertility of the soil And the farmer, although maybe sometimes, will be ignorant of the beauty of the skies. So there's unconcealment every time there's un in in this is a crucial term. We'll come back to it often often many times. Who would, and this is also important, would even dare to give a definition of a landscape if we see these different ways the landscape can appear? And who would dare to say who understands the landscape best?
Speaker 1:We might might be tempted to save the land surveyor. He measures the landscape. This is what science does, we measure. What happens with the land surveyor may be superficial but the biologist is or the geologists, they are really capable of understanding the landscape. I don't believe it.
Speaker 1:There is no definition of landscape, just the concealment of it and I just sketched 5 different ways. Take water. Science tells me water is H2O, a liquid that boils at a 100 degrees Celsius and freezes below 0. What do these definitions of water mean to a farmer desperately watching rain flood his crops? What does this definition of water mean to someone who is dying of thirst?
Speaker 1:Or to someone whose house is on fire? Or to a child who's drowning. Oh, it's only h two o. Again and again water becomes unconcealed. You getting to gist?
Speaker 1:Unconcealed to the farmer in different ways to the farmer, to the drowning child, to the fireman, to the sad tourist on a drained out camping site, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. There is no ultimate definition of water. Nietzsche calls this perspectivism, perspectivismus. I call it the philosophical attitude to acknowledge this perspectivism stirring thinking, It is the attempt to do justice to the fullness of contingent unconcealment. Now, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 1:I don't expect you to really understand what I'm saying. Just but you will reflect on it. We'll come back to it, and you will you will understand. You will get get the grip of it. Don't worry.
Speaker 1:Don't worry.
Speaker 2:AVE asks the students to try to think of what is a landscape. And as we've originally already discussed, I do believe there are
Speaker 3:no
Speaker 2:rhetorical questions in, in this lecture series. So you should be stopping and thinking, well, what is the landscape to me? And I think it can lead to many interesting thoughts. Not only good philosophical discussions that you can help with yourself and your loved ones and whatnot, But also, it can elucidate a lot about yourself. Because when I was listening to it and now is the time for a personal anecdote I was thinking, what is landscape?
Speaker 2:And the first thing that came to mind is a potato field of my grandparents who are, you know, just been, like, working people. And they've had this piece of land really not big where they've been growing potatoes for decades now. And for me, when I was still living back at home, every 1st Sunday, September, the entire family, which we don't have that big of a family, but we would all gather on the potato field and we will we would dig up the potatoes together. You know? So for me, that potato field is not just the potato field.
Speaker 2:It's also the site of a yearly sort of shared bonding physical activity which is extremely enriching because it's not you know, you you don't always have the opportunity to, like, help your granddad, you know, work on land, etcetera. So I think it is by trying to pause and answer to yourself these seemingly rhetorical questions, you can also uncover a lot about your own life and how you see things.
Speaker 3:This is the part where Ahway starts mentioning contingents and concealment and the contingents the contingency of unconcealment more. If you're a first time listener and you don't have any background in philosophy, that's quite a lot to take in. Take contingency at face value. So contingency, it could be this way. It could also have been any other way.
Speaker 3:The question, what is the landscape, after you have answered it for yourself, take that with you when listening to Ade. Don't stress too much about this unconcealment. It's one word, unconcealment. It will come back when we talk about Heidegger. And I think this is where we leave you with the last part of the lecture.
Speaker 1:Apparently we have to find a way of thinking about this fullness of contingent unconcealment. Now someone might say, oh, perspectivism that is that you see the world as an enormous reservoir of perspectives. Now, what is wrong with this definition, with this attempt to describe it? An enormous reservoir of perspectives. Come on.
Speaker 1:Be bold. It's limited. Limited. Very good. Then you have the presupposition, which many scientists have, that the world is the sum of objects.
Speaker 1:The totality of all objects, that's the world. Now, It's not the totality. This is the totality of objects. We are now just discovering it's all about all these different perspectives. Okay.
Speaker 1:Let's try again. The world, no, an endless reservoir that doesn't really help. You still have a reservoir. Husserl said, perspectivism is about the universal horizon of all real and possible worlds. That is very good.
Speaker 1:All real and possible worlds. So the landscape is real to the farmer, but it's also has the even when the farmer looks at it as a farmer, he should acknowledge if he becomes a philosopher that there are also many other possible ways of thinking about it. But there's something we should find another word for it. And and and philosophers today are looking for this world, these words. They are talking about the event of the world.
Speaker 1:They're talking about the happening of the world, the occurring of the world. Heidegger named the world. It's a happening. It's not a sum of objects. It's it's it's alright that at this moment we're still searching.
Speaker 1:We're searching. We want to do we have this starting point that we want to find a way of thinking that does justice to all these different possible perspectives. I will try to show the relevance and importance of stirring thinking and perspectivism to scientific thinking. And, to show you that science is just one perspective. Science is just one way of looking at the world.
Speaker 1:This is very difficult. You are all students. We try to teach you or intimidate you that science is the best way to look at the world. No. It's just one way of looking at the world.
Speaker 1:In science we say that to measure is the key to knowledge. Okay? To measure is to know is a famous famous saying. Mater is wete in Dutch. My opinion, measuring is forgetting the world.
Speaker 1:Mater ist de wielle vreghete. I'll give you two examples. Many years ago I was, moderator of a congress on love, on being in love. And a psychologist, wonderful wonderful woman, a good friend of mine, don't get me wrong, studied young people who were in love. And she put them under an MRI scan.
Speaker 1:And, she showed on this big screen, a screen like this, what could be seen in the brains of these young people. You wouldn't believe it. It was wonderful. The colors, the colors that were flowing through each other. So I moderated.
Speaker 1:So I asked her. This is a task of moderator. What happens? Dear Jacqueline, her name was Jacqueline. I won't mention her last name.
Speaker 1:What happens if, you put people under this MRI scan who are not passionately in love but are, in spite of their slight irritations and boredom, very much devoted to the person they love. In Dutch we call this howder wand. You know what she said? I won't see You won't see anything. It won't show anything if you put people like that under an MRI scan.
Speaker 1:You wouldn't see any colors. So in MRI idiom, having this solid relationship to someone, Dutch howder wand is another word for brain death. That is very very sad. Very very sad. To measure is to forget.
Speaker 1:2nd example, I give classes to little children. Philosophy for children. Now, we like 200 young kids here. Yeah? And I tell them, you think that you're learning how to count.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you you can't really count. And, they are of course accompanied by their teachers who are looking at me, they're really wishing me dead dead and they hate me from the very from the get go. And, I bring 4 apples. A big apple, a smaller apple, an apple which is a bit rotten, which has a worm in it, you see a small hole. And, the 4th apple is not my apple, it's my brother's apple, I tell the children, but I don't even have a brother.
Speaker 1:And still, it's 4 apples. How is this possible? And then I explain to them, this is possible because there is something like cold thinking, cold thinking. Counting is cold thinking. You abstract from the and this, I won't use this word to these little kids.
Speaker 1:The singularity of each individual apple, you don't really see the individual apple in its in its the fullness of its contingency. You don't see the individual apples, you just see 4 apples. That is cold thinking. It's good, good to do that. You have to learn it.
Speaker 1:Well, the teacher is gonna be a bit more quiet, but it's cold thinking. Warm thinking is that you acknowledge the apples in their individual existence. Rainer Maria Rilke, rather romantic poet from the 20th century beginning, once said, if you want to tell me what an apple is, be very very careful. Because I'm awfully surprised. Wonderful.
Speaker 1:Makes me cry, yes. And, of course, these children I had to be very inventive because the third apple with the worm in it, you know, these little kids came in to break all to look for the little worm. So the night before, I made a little hole in the apple and then they rots a little in it so they would believe there's a little worm in it. So they and you could notice they appreciated the the the bigness of the big apple, the small little one, the one with the worm, the one that apparently didn't belong to anybody. They saw it.
Speaker 1:They got the gist of worm thinking. Now, stirring thinking has this relevance to sciences, but also in everyday life. And, it it it's all about alertness. I give you I won't elaborate too long, otherwise I get problem with the time. But if you read an ad on television, get a life, get a Pepsi.
Speaker 1:What does this mean? Get a life, get a Pepsi. That having a beverage can get you a life is all about alertness. Stern thinking is something you can do all the time. We had a prime minister some decades ago, I think, maybe, yeah, some decades ago.
Speaker 1:Jan Peter Balkanander who was very concerned about the moral state of our country and he's launched a new initiative and he called this norm eweide. So norms and values, that was the the key to the new future of the Netherlands. We must think about norms and values. It doesn't really take that much stirring thinking to realize why this project never never never even got anywhere. It was dead from the get go.
Speaker 1:There is no such thing as norms and values. There is something like values and norms. 1st, you have values, insights that you would dramatically put live and die for and these are translated into norms. But this guy, who even had an academic education, thought that you could talk about norma and laude, norms and values. It's just being alert all the time of what is happening.
Speaker 1:It's all about alertness. At the Erasmus University, we have a, renowned institute called the World Database of Happiness. Have you ever heard of it? It is quite renowned. The world database of happiness and what they do there is they measure happiness all over the world.
Speaker 1:And every year there's a new report which tells us which countries are have the happiest population. Oh, you must have heard about this. And usually it's the Scandinavian countries are very high. The Dutch, Holland, and the Netherlands are usually 5, 5th, 6th. We're good.
Speaker 1:We're doing well. Wow. And then you start wondering if I look I don't know every Swede or Norwegian or Dane. I know some of them and I know a lot of Dutch people. Many of them are depressed, bored, alcoholics.
Speaker 1:1,000,000 Dutch people are on antidepressants. Another million is on tranquilizers. 2 say 3000000 drinks too much. That is That's strange. How can we be so happy?
Speaker 1:Because they measure whether there are hospitals, good communications and schools, whether there's an honest police or relatively honest police, whether it's safe to go out in the street at night. So, these are the parameters which was they measure and then they come to the conclusion that these countries are the most happy of all. If you would say, the importance of family is the criteria for happiness. The importance and the attention you pay to your next of kin, Zimbabwe would be first. But, we measure for reasons beyond me only certain things.
Speaker 1:So what what I want to say is I I made up some other expressions in English. When you count, you lose much of what is there to be found. I was in the hospital yesterday as I was bored and I thought of something that I made, expressions, the the proverbs that may help you to understand. When you calculate, you derogate, you downgrade. These are things that you had in in Holland, you have these small tiles with wiz words of wisdom on it in many houses.
Speaker 1:I think these are these are things that should be in every class at the university. When you calculate, you derogate. Now, to your the students here from ESE and and RSM and ESSP, don't drop out of school. That's not what I'm saying. But remember, while you are being educated to becoming land surveyors, you don't have to.
Speaker 1:That is not all there is. Funnily enough, 2 years ago, a very promising professor in, econometrics came to me and he told me he said professor Prince, it was many many years ago that I was attending your class for little children with the apples. He even reminded the apples. Remember the apples and that We're talking about the apples. And I never forgot that.
Speaker 1:I never forgot that. And now that I'm an economist and I'm working with models and I try to fit everything and calculate, I never forget this and I always try to make And, he used this expression, my models, my calculations as warm as possible. I like that. Good kid. Good kid.
Speaker 1:Good boy. So, don't forget there is such a thing as the fullness of the contingency of unconcealment. Just this expression and try to think about it and and you don't have to really understand it, but the fullness because fullness, there's no limit to fullness. Fullness is that it is just a word, but there's so much happening and we should acknowledge everything that is happening. And maybe even phenomenology doesn't succeed completely.
Speaker 1:That that that's not what I'm saying. But, phenomenology is an attempt, an attempt and not an an unimportant attempt to acknowledge, to do justice to this fullness of contingent unconcealment of these all these different perspectives that we are faced with. And then also to calculate is to derogate. Remember that we have to That is These are 2, sentences that I would love to that you will never forget and and keep on remembering. And these are important for the rest of this class also.
Speaker 1:And I I always thought how can I do this in such a way that you will never forget this? I'm, I'm good friends with one of the former rector magnifices, Henk Schmidt, who is a psychologist of education. And he once told me from an evolutionary perspective, he said, Abe, if you really want your students to remember something, you have to have something dangerous, something terrible happen, a loud sound, firecrackers, whatever. Because this triggers their, longing for Well, for survival and whatever happens when you really have to survive you will never forget. So I ordered a friend to bring a horse in class while I was talking to you about this, and he would just walk around me and then walked out.
Speaker 1:And then you will never, never, never forget about the fullness of contingent unconsumens.