Humans are creatures of habit. We have habits for talking, eating, walking, sleeping–we don’t question these habits; much of it happens on autopilot. But it’s through art and philosophy that allows us to take a step back from those habits and examine them in a meaningful way.

This is the argument that Alva Noë, professor of philosophy at UC Berkeley, makes in his book The Entanglement: How Art and Philosophy Make Us What We Are. He’s also written a number of books that tackle philosophical questions surrounding how humans interact with the world, like Action in Perception and Learning to Look: Dispatches from the Art World. 

Alva and Greg discuss how art and philosophy help us break free from the habits we’re saddled with, what’s really happening in the brain when we deem something “aesthetic,” and what it means to truly see the world. 

*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

Philosophy and life are entangled

19:49: I think philosophy happens throughout our lives. It happens not only in the law, it happens in the laboratory, and it probably happens in your discussions with your partner at the dinner table sometimes. Art [and] philosophy is a moment in our thought processes. So, in a way, I want to say that there is all the difference in the world between business as usual and the work of philosophy and art. But outside in the wild of our lives, whether our legal lives, our political lives, our social lives, our family lives, there’s lots of opportunities for art and philosophy.

There is no STEM without art and philosophy

06:23: Art and philosophy are really important, and they are important in ways that the popular ideas in our civilization at the moment about the preeminence of science, technology, engineering, and math, this kind of STEM worldview really misses the point. There is no STEM without art and philosophy.

Language isn't an automatic thing that we do following the rules blindly

38:39: To be a language user is to have resources for coping with problems that arise in the course of that activity: misunderstandings, needs for clarifications, demands for repetitions, or justifications. So, to be a speaker is not just to do this kind of automatic thing. It's to be able to reflect on what we're doing. So, the ability to reflect is presupposed at the ground level. See, this is why I want to resist the hierarchy idea because there are two levels. There's the use of language, and there's the reflection about language. But it turns out that the ability to be a user of language presupposes that you're also able to reflect on language.

Great philosophers start debates

13:36: What makes a philosopher a great philosopher? Not that they landed on the truth, and we all know it, but rather that they started a debate that we're still having. That's what greatness is. So, as a philosopher, I'm very interested in what is the value of these non-utilitarian things that are so important to us. Why are they so important to us? And, that's where I want to say, actually, they are opportunities for us to finally grow and change and not just be trapped by the habits of culture, by the ways of doing things.

• James Baldwin
• Seeing Through Clothes by Anne Hollander
• John Ruskin
• P.F. Strawson
• Roy Harris
• Hubert Dreyfus
• Ian Hacking

• Faculty Profile at UC Berkeley 
• Alva Noë on Website
• Alva Noë on LinkedIn
• Alva Noë on Twitter
• Alva Noë on Talks at Google

• The Entanglement: How Art and Philosophy Make Us What We Are
• Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature 
• Action in Perception
• Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness
• Learning to Look: Dispatches from the Art World
• Infinite Baseball: Notes from a Philosopher at the Ballpark