0:24 Anglo-American Pragmatist Movement *William James & Fredrich Nietzche* 1:16 American Nietzsche 1:48 Idealism, Romanticism, Darwinian Revolution, Psychology 3:23 Ideas Purchasing/Cash Power 5:35 Truth is Serviceable 6:05 Mature *Average philosophy* 7:03 A series of lectures, pitched to the average person 8:28 Dilemma: Tender vs Tough 12:22 We Hold Both 13:22 Have your cake and eat it too 14:32 Method and Theory 15:59 We want _Definite Differences_ 18:43 Marrying Truth and Belief *Personal Experience* 19:02 Camping 🏕 Man chases Squirrel 🐿 What do you mean by “going around?” 20:49 If it works, it’s right; pluralism They’re equal in explanatory power *X or Y?* 23:17 The real meaning Materialism - No Hope Spiritualism - Hope 24:52 Law settles Issues Determinism - Future resembles The Past, which leads to Despair Free-Will: The Future will be Different, Optimism 27:28 God vs Design 29:21 The animal has this need, it’s biological 31:08 Mental Pictures = Copies of Reality True Ideas demand Application False Ideas fail to be Applied in Life 34:14 Expediencies 35:17 Humanism 37:37 37:58 Make the world Our World Man Created Truth 40:09 Cultural-Survival, Cultural-Evolution 41:24 Common Sense *Freedom* 42:09 There are as many solutions as there are forms of life 43:30 Use all faculties, all paths Belief without violation of conciousness 44:39 Tough: Scientific Rationality Mediator: Pragmatism Tender: Psyche/Moral/Spirit
This is an awesome opportunity again to listen to Professor Daryl Staloff on William James. What an enormous contribution William James gave all of us.
It feels like the intellect is beaten down more than ever these days. These videos keep providing me evidence to the contrary. Thank you, Prof. Sugrue.
This is such a terrific series of lectures, I'm so glad you are uploading these lost classics for all to enjoy. I've always loved the Great Courses and for a long time have cherished the two courses by Lawrence Cahoone on modern intellectual and political thought, but you and Dr. Staloff are every bit as good. Thank you Dr. Sugrue for making these available to us.
What a brilliant speaker. I love how Staloff tries to channel Nietzsche and James, bravely incurring into theatrics to let us have some emotional purchase on these authors. I thank him for the effort, it is immensely useful to for me as it helps me grasp the message better.
Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape it-that no substitute can do your thinking-that the vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as middle-man between your consciousness and your existence.
The Varieties was my intro to philosophy when I looked for salvation from drugs. The book seller was approving of my obvious unacademic threadbare habit. He decried the academics and their grades. Opening the book I was warmly greeted by the great man himself , what a teacher. The circumscription of the topic made sure I was included and the language was courtly . That was the best part of the book for me at the time 35 years ago. I held onto the spirit of it ever since and felt he was talking to me as an equall which I appreciate from this video.
Re: going around the squirrel argument But once “around” is defined, it’s objectively true what the answer is, right? There’s no perspectivalism, there are true facts that have nothing to do with usefulness. If that’s true, shouldn’t pragmatism include that definition of truth in how it defines itself?
James's concepts surely make sense. Regarding the many philosophical theories to which I've listened to for the past two years, I would say, yes, for the most part "all disputes are idle."
For those who are well versed, how would one get into philosophy best? What books to read? In what order? Good RU-vid channels besides this one? Thank you
Materialists should be hopeful in my opinion. Because the end of the universe doesn't have to mean the end of humanity or life in general. We should find a new universe or an alternative. Just because the problems seem big, doesn't mean you should give up.
The Reason that Nietzsche advocated for a re-evaluation of values is because the weak imposed their morality on Nature to oppress the strong. This has all sorts of implications, it serves their interests in a number of ways, it causes misery and suffering which as Foucault observed drove people to seek spiritual guidance and now psychiatry and psychology. They have consciously or unconsciously created a market which is not conducive to the evolutionary process. So to re-evaluate the values that cause this misery requires Reason, especially in the face of dogma, hierarchical structures and social contracts. Really it can only be achieved by understanding Nature, a very difficult task and what is the best weapon of choice in this fight? Philosophy.
I don't agree with the watch example. We can find the inner workings by taking it apart. The copy of truth is merely the rationalistic take, the watch is the watch as it appears. But its inner workings can also be a copy, and thats where materialism comes in, the watch makers toolkit. So, in my opinion, our ideas can be copies of the world, but not without effort which is James point.
Then we come to free will, what is the extent of our free will? Our attitude towards the way of things? At a certain point it extends beyond that. If we hanker after money, how will that affect our moral choices, what about sex? Or power? What if we hanker after nothing but are concerned only with our duty to Nature? If we want to live in accordance with Nature, if we really understand who and what we are and stop with the woo, consciousness and all that bullshit that no one understands, just ethical doctrine to ensure security and comfort. Rules made by the weak to protect the interests of the weak, in spite of their misery. What if we realised that Hitler had his role for a reason Cromwell had his. What instead of imposing our morality we seek to understand, we learn about physics, and dialectics, and about the nature of things. Then and only then can we Reason and start to determine the Nature of change. Only then have we free will.
How can there be truth in a paradoxical Universe composed of binary opposites and ambiguities? I sat on a bench once trying to understand how I could possibly engage in any course of action without expectation. Of course I had an expected outcome, otherwise why would I bother. I got the answer in James Pragmatism, not to have an expectation but a hypothesis, and question the possibility of it being a live hypothesis, and that it only ever remained a possibility or a probability, but never an expectation. This took a lot of practice. I have a bit to say in relation to determinism and free will, another binary opposite, but I'll finish listening to the lecture later, and thank you for the lecture. I like your analysis of Nietzsche too.
These are my takes from the video. I encourage and welcome pointing out my potential mistakes. The meaning of a given thing is the correspondent output (effects and consequences) it would produce, if that thing would be the case. In other words, we have Wittgenstein's behaviorism, as all knowledge must be reduced to what sort of behaviors it generates. Truth is practical, instrumentalized to our psychological needs, inevitably subjective and pluralistic. The measure of our truths is the “cash value” they possess, that is: what can we achieve with a given set of prepositions? Do they relatively satisfy you? Then they are probably true. Using the pragmatic method to resolve philosophical dilemmas: cut out the abstract, reduce posits to their practical consequences - assume that they're right - and assess if their “effects” are desirable or useful to you. There's no point to dwell in universals, what matters is to integrate new knowledge to your “web of belief”/framework. Assuming that a solid, stable framework will probably make the world better, as you, working on your interests, will ultimately benefit your surroundings. Resonates with posterior phenomenology, humanizing the world of knowledge. Pragmatism is predicated upon Darwinian posits: ideas are the ultimate judges - their value is measured by the survival benefits they bring, and their “judgement” is the result of our ancestor's trial and error, collective expressed by common sense.
Truth is probably the single idea that's rooted deepest within the human spirit. I would argue that truth is not, even as a human idea, abstract at all, and is instead directly connected to, and thereby inseparable from, existence itself. What is true is what is real. Not only is the world true but our experience of it is as well. To assume truth can be contained within a single formula or line of reasoning is the height of arrogance
Let's start with defining our terms, what is Reason? If the just man uses Reason, what is Reason. If you think only of yourself and your own selfish interests, is that Reason?
Regardless of which "side" has arrived at deeper insight, I think it is reasonable to say that the tender-minded side has a disproportionate attraction for "annoying people", puritans, idealists, "pacifists", progressives, Professor Panglosses. This is a personal preference, I'm aware, but a striking one
I watched a cat sneak up on a lame bird once. I intervened and lifted the bird to safety. One could ask why I intervened in the course of Nature? But I too am Nature, that is a choice I get to make.
