Bring Philosophy to Life

#1: Introduction

BRING PHILOSOPHY TO LIFE

Podcast #1: Introduction

            In recent years, democracy has been seriously challenged not only in the United States but also throughout the globe. Three decades ago, I could not imagine that the very existence of democracy might be in question in the United States, but today, a substantial number of people seem to prefer “miracle, mystery, and authority” rather than freedom, as Dostoevsky put it in The Brothers Karamazov. Even in the U.S., where the Constitution explicitly prohibits Congress from making any “law respecting an establishment of religion,” we can no longer count on the separation between church and state. The concept of “illiberal democracy” (Christian democracy) has migrated from Hungary to the United States and has influential proponents. In some quarters, “alternative facts” have replaced truth as the guide to political and moral decisions. Lying, deception, and willful denial of the truth are ignored or even openly embraced as tools for seeking and holding political and economic power. This shocking development is the reason we are launching this new series of Agora podcasts designed to focus on the moral foundations of public and private laws, policies, and practices.

            Agora Publications was created in 1994 to breathe new life into classical philosophical works with fresh translations and revised editions in contemporary American English along with performances using an oral format. Since then, we have published more than 30 titles in both audio and text formats in order to “bring philosophy to life!” This venture is inspired by Socrates, the ancient Greek thinker who went to the marketplace in Athens (the agora) and engaged in dialogue with the young people who gathered there. His goal was to lure anyone and everyone to think critically and deeply about the issues that matter most in our individual lives and in the social and political activities we share with others. Ancient Athens was the birthplace of democracy, a bold political concept designed to engage all people in forming and implementing the laws and the practices that are required for shared activities. Before this transformation, tyrants, kings and queens, priests and priestesses, and a variety of other authorities dominated people with little concern for the common good. When the focus of attention shifted from a few powerful, authoritarian leaders to the people themselves (the demos), reason replaced authority as the primary guide for individual and social thought and action. In its ideal form, democracy employs rhetoric and logic to promote open discussion and analysis seeking truth and reality.

            Free, open, and truthful discourse is essential to democracy. That is why freedom of speech and of the press stand at the center of Article I of the United States Constitution. We have expanded the media through which speech and writing serve to inform us and allow us to express our opinion, but without this freedom democracy cannot exist. The right to vote is currently receiving considerable attention because it is under attack in some places. That right  is meaningless if the people do not have access to the information and opinion required to make enlightened decisions. The people must also learn how to think clearly and critically about that information and those opinions.  If there is no truth, or if we are denied access to the truth, voting for individual people or for specific laws is a futile exercise. The central challenge to the idea of truth is that even though it is indispensable, it is a goal rather than a starting point. There is no consensus when we are considering values such as justice, freedom, and goodness. That leads some people to the false conclusion that there is no truth. These ideas are a matter of opinion, not fixed and static absolutes, so we must learn to distinguish true opinions from false ones.

            I approach the difficult topic of truth as it applies to ethical and political matters by thinking of it as a three-stage process of gradual abstraction. In the first stage, we begin with specific events such as what has just happened in some part of the world that matters to us. I learn about this from the daily news in the form of newspapers and magazine programs, radio and television broadcasts, blogs and podcasts on the Internet, posts and tweets on social media, along with a variety of evolving formats. The second stage employs more permanent forms of discourse such as scholarly journals, books, documentary videos and films, private and public records and archives—all of these forms can be used to record, interpret, and evaluate the activity that takes place in the first stage. A recent addition to this stage of development is a daily email called Letters from an American written by the Boston College historian Heather Cox Richardson. In these short daily letters, she selects reports from the current news cycle and places them in a historical context. As an American historian, she focuses on current events in the United States, which she connects to brief accounts of similar or contrasting episodes and policies from the past. I have read these letters regularly for the past three years, and I have benefited from the process of transcending what are often overwhelming and shocking stories and realizing that we are not the first Americans to confront the unthinkable as it emerges in an unpredictable world.

            The third stage takes us to a more general form of thinking, one that seeks universal principles that apply across time, space, and political boundaries. This stage is this home of philosophy. Philosophy, as I use the term, is defined as “the rational analysis and justification of fundamental concepts, principles, decisions, and actions.” Some people are intimated by the term “philosophy,” but I believe that comes from misunderstanding and from how it is often presented. Philosophy is best understood as a quest, not a set of doctrines to be dispensed as “the truth.” Philosophers are “lovers of wisdom,” not people who pretend to be wise. The most important role of philosophy is to question and critically examine any and every idea, often leaving what first seemed obvious in doubt. This does not mean there is no truth or that we are left with skepticism. Rather than being abstruse and complicated, this series of podcasts will draw upon a few simple truths that everyone can grasp and that are essential for our personal and our social wellbeing. If we avoid distortions and false expectations that rightly alienate us, these reflections can calm us and promote a sense of harmony with other beings and with nature itself.

            Podcast #2 will focus on the idea of democracy by posing two questions: (1) What does it mean? (2) Why is it superior to other forms of government?