In the Beginning, there was ... Philosophy.

This episode discusses the widespread phenomenon of emergence: how the complex arises from simpler components. Or how novel features emerge from underlying properties. Emergence occurs in both the natural and the social world: from the making of cakes and the liquidity of water to the behaviour of crowds and the existence of mental states (feelings, thoughts). New properties can be emergent in a weak sense (wetness of water from a bundle of molecules) or strong sense (mental phenomena from neuronal processes). Emergence is a common phenomenon of which we may not be aware.

Literature:

• Steven Johnson, Emergence (Penguin Books 2001)
• Emergent Properties (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
• Emergence (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

In previous episodes I discussed the differences between genuine science and non-science or pseudo-science. In the current episode I address the broader question: What is an ideology and how does it differ from science? An ideology is a coherent set of beliefs, based on fundamental assumptions, which provide adherents with a consistent view of reality. It is not required of an ideology that it accurately reflects reality. This is the job of objective science. An ideology offers a biased and partial interpretation of reality. Examples are atheism, conservatism, liberalism etc.. A scientific theory faces the verdict of reality. An ideology can be upheld in the face of counter-evidence.

Literature:

M. Freeden, Ideology. A very brief Introduction (OUP 2003)

D. Little: www-personal.umd.umich.edu

S. Žižek, The Sublime Object of ideology (1989)

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Ideology

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Science and Ideology

This is the second part of the episode on humour. It looks at the emotional and sociological functions of humour. Humour is a social phenomenon. The most important distinction is that between conservative and critical functions of humour. Conservative functions re-confirm us a members of a community which shares a sense of humour. Critical functions highlight deficiencies in the way we act, talk and think.

Literature:

https://jonathansandling.com

Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy

Internet Encylopedia of Philosophy

Carroll, N.: Humour. A Very Short Introduction. Oxford UP 2014

Critchley, S.: On Humour. Ebook Bradford 2002. Routledge 2002

Episode 33 is devoted to the question of humour or why we humans laugh. It consists of two parts.

Part I discusses the pros and cons of the main theories of humour (Superiority theory; Relief theory; Play theory; Incongruity theory).

Part II discusses the social functions of humour. It distinguishes a conservative from a critical function of humour.

I give examples of different types of humour in each part.

Literature:

https://jonathansandling.com

Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy

Internet Encylopedia of Philosophy

Carroll, N.: Humour. A Very Short Introduction. Oxford UP 2014

Critchley, S.: On Humour. Ebook Bradford 2002. Routledge 2002

This his episode consists of two parts. In Part I, I discuss the role of trust in personal relationships - called interpersonal trust. In the second part I consider the role of trust in people's relationships with institutions - called institutional trust. In both cases an expectation of benefits from the trustee to the truster is involved. We make inductive inferences from past experience of benefits to the expectation of future benefits. When the trustee turns out to be reliable we tend to trust them. Such expectations can be disappointed. When this happens it leads to distrust on the part of the truster. The trustee comes to be seen as untrustworthy.

In the second part I emphasise the importance of trust in social and political institutions (from banks to universities). A free society cannot function properly, if people have no trust in the institutions (say, the government, the health system, the police etc.). In a dictatorship, trust is not needed because it is replaced by intimidation, fear violence. A democracy needs trust, because people always have the choice of alternatives (different political parties, newspapers, organizations).

There is a vast amount of literature on trust. The following are good starting points:

• Katherine Hawley, Trust. A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press (2012)
• The Ethics and Epistemology of Trust, in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

On the notion of trust, you may also consult my paper:

• Weinert, F.: ‘The Role of Trust in Political Systems. A Philosophical Perspective.’ Open Political Science 1 (2018): 7-15

In this Episode I look at the philosophy of Stoicism, through the eyes of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (161-180 AD). As with so many things, Stoicism goes back to the Greeks; its impact reached into the Roman period. It is much more than composure in the face of adversity. It is a practical philosophy, a way of life: how to lead a wise life. Wisdom embraces justice, rationality and control over one's emotions. It also has political implications: the Stoic cares for the community of which s/he is a member. And there are cosmopolitan implications: the Stoic is part and parcel of the evolution of the cosmos, even though life is transient and short.

Literature:

-Marcus Aurelius; Meditations (many editions)

-The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) is famous, amongst other things, for his negative outlook on life and human nature. His pessimism was partly due to his experience of human misery and his revolt against slavery; it was also partly due to his philosophy of the Will. He saw the Will as the blind driving force of human actions and behaviour. As humans have no control over the Will, their actions are not free. Schopenhauer, who was a brilliant prose writer, argues that our characters are unchangeable. There is no freedom of the Will. He was a virulent opponent of the obscurantism of German Idealism (Hegel, Fichte, Schelling) and a champion of clear language. Although he lived in the shadow of Hegel (and other German idealists) his ideas have influenced the likes of Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Freud and Einstein. Karl Popper counted him amongst the great philosophers.

Literature:

• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

In this Episode, I introduce the life and work of a forgotten hero of science: Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859). In his own time he was such a famous explorer and discoverer that many of his contemporaries were influenced by his thinking, most notably Charles Darwin. And even though he is no longer as well known as Darwin today , many places, species, mountains and rivers are still named after him. He took a global approach to Nature, treating Nature as an interrelated whole, in which everything is in flux. He became the first ecologist who truly understood the importance of the environment and its influence on life. He approached Nature as a living organism. Politically, he was inspired by the ideals of the French revolution, which made him an opponent of colonialism and slavery.

Literature:

• Andrea Wulf: The Invention of Nature (2015; a magnificent biography, on which this episode is based)

• Friedel Weinert: The Scientist as Philosopher (2004: Ch. I.2 in which I explain the emergence of this notion of nature)

Websites:

• https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/alexander-humboldt

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt

This episode looks at three pre-Darwinian accounts of the development of organic nature: the Great Chain of Being, Design arguments (Paley) and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck's 'transformatism'. All of these accounts assume, in one way or another, that the explanation of organic life requires the postulation of purpose and design in nature. This assumption is in striking contrast with mechanical explanations in astronomy and physics. The idea of 'evolution' was well accepted before Darwin. But Darwin's achievement consists in the articulation of a testable mechanism - natural selection - which explained evolution, without requiring design and purpose. The episode ends with a succinct description of Darwin's 'revolution'.

Literature:

• J. C. Greene, ‘The Kuhnian Paradigm and theDarwinian Revolution in Natural History’, in: G. Gutting (ed.): Paradigms and Revolutions (1980: 297-320)
• F. Weinert, Copernicus, Darwin & Freud (Wiley 2009)

In this episode I introduce a brief history of scepticism, that is the doubt whether we can have any certain knowledge of the external world. I start with the Greek philosopher Sextus Empiricus who lived in the second century AD. His arguments were taken up and developed by the French Renaissance writer Michel Montaigne (1533-1592). Two French philosophers - Marin Mersenne (1588-1648) and his friend Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655) - rejected this rather defeatist version of scepticism and proposed a more moderate form: it accepts that we can have knowledge of appearances but know nothing about their underlying causes. Modern scepticism, as represented by the philosopher Karl Popper and the physicist Sean Carroll, defends the idea of conjectural knowledge. Science knows about appearances and the underlying causes but this knowledge is conjectural because it is always at the risk of refutation and revision.

Literature:

• Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism
• R. H. Popkin, The History of Scepticism (3rd edition 2003)
• N. A. Pinillos, Why We Doubt (OUP 2023)
• F. Weinert, Karl Popper - Professional Philosopher and Public Intellectual (Springer 2022).