1 00:00:00,012 --> 00:00:06,589 Okay. What have we learned so far? We've seen this thought that Philosophy is the 2 00:00:06,601 --> 00:00:13,153 activity of working out the right way of thinking about things. Then, we spent the 3 00:00:13,165 --> 00:00:19,885 next couple of sections investigating the thought that philosophical questions, or 4 00:00:19,897 --> 00:00:25,468 philosophical inquiry, was, in some way, fundamental or important. So, we suggested 5 00:00:25,480 --> 00:00:30,807 that it might be fundamental in the sense that when we're asking philosophical 6 00:00:30,819 --> 00:00:36,545 questions, the questions themselves, are always things that are up for debate. So, 7 00:00:36,657 --> 00:00:42,020 we can always step further back and ask more questions about the presumptions of 8 00:00:42,032 --> 00:00:47,570 the questions that we were asking when we're doing philosophy. Then, we suggested 9 00:00:47,582 --> 00:00:52,975 that philosophical questioning or philosophical inquiry might be important 10 00:00:53,092 --> 00:00:58,500 just because oftentimes, the subject of philosophical inquiry, its topics are 11 00:00:58,512 --> 00:01:04,205 concerns that are particularly important to us and to our lives. So, what I want to 12 00:01:04,217 --> 00:01:09,220 do in this section is to try and illustrate these ideas a bit more about 13 00:01:09,232 --> 00:01:14,420 what Philosophy is, about the sense in which it's fundamental because the 14 00:01:14,432 --> 00:01:18,800 questions themselves are always transforming and up for grabs. And the 15 00:01:18,812 --> 00:01:23,738 sense in which it might be something that we think of as important to us and to our 16 00:01:23,750 --> 00:01:28,397 lives. And we're going to do that by thinking through an example of a specific 17 00:01:28,409 --> 00:01:32,895 question and working out how to think about that question clearly. So, the 18 00:01:32,907 --> 00:01:38,309 question is, what is the meaning of life? Now importantly, I'm not going to try and 19 00:01:38,321 --> 00:01:43,232 answer that question here. So, our job is to just try and get clear on what that 20 00:01:43,244 --> 00:01:48,460 question means and what might be involved in coming to answer it. You might wonder 21 00:01:48,472 --> 00:01:53,425 whether or not that's even a philosophical question in the first place. So, you might 22 00:01:53,437 --> 00:01:58,862 think that the people who are best placed to tell you what the meaning of life is 23 00:01:58,874 --> 00:02:04,097 are, for example, priests or some other kind of religious figure or you might 24 00:02:04,109 --> 00:02:09,627 wonder whether or not it can possibly be a philosophical question because you might 25 00:02:09,639 --> 00:02:14,679 think that it's not the sort of question that you can work out the answer to by 26 00:02:14,691 --> 00:02:19,769 sitting down and pontificating about it in an armchair. You might think that to know 27 00:02:19,781 --> 00:02:24,641 the meaning of life, you actually have to get out there and live your life to find 28 00:02:24,653 --> 00:02:30,476 out what it is. But let's put those issues about whether or not the question itself 29 00:02:30,488 --> 00:02:36,066 is a philosophical one on the back burner and just perform this philosophical 30 00:02:36,078 --> 00:02:41,893 activity of working out the right way of thinking about it. Remember a quote that 31 00:02:41,905 --> 00:02:47,502 we met from Barry Stroud a couple of sections ago. He said that often the worst 32 00:02:47,514 --> 00:02:52,140 thing to do with what looks like a real philosophical question is to answer it. 33 00:02:52,237 --> 00:02:56,320 That can get in the way of a fuller understanding of what the problem really 34 00:02:56,332 --> 00:03:00,465 is and where it comes from. And so perhaps, that's the sort of question that 35 00:03:00,477 --> 00:03:05,030 we've got here. Perhaps, when we're faced with this question, what is the meaning of 36 00:03:05,042 --> 00:03:09,605 life, we've got something that looks like a sensible question that's crying out for 37 00:03:09,617 --> 00:03:15,329 an answer. But is actually in some ways, subtly confused or misguided and one that 38 00:03:15,341 --> 00:03:20,593 we should throw away or replace with a better question rather than trying to 39 00:03:20,605 --> 00:03:26,203 answer it. Now, that's certainly what some philosophers have thought about this 40 00:03:26,215 --> 00:03:31,567 question. So, here's what some people have said about it. They have suggested that 41 00:03:31,579 --> 00:03:37,052 the question is confused and that this is because meanings aren't really the sorts 42 00:03:37,064 --> 00:03:42,345 of things that attach to lives, rather, meaning is a sort of concept or the sort 43 00:03:42,357 --> 00:03:47,417 of a thing that only has its home in relation to language. Some philosophers 44 00:03:47,429 --> 00:03:53,815 might think that the only things that can really have meanings are words, phrases, 45 00:03:53,937 --> 00:04:00,130 sentences, items like that, but not things like lives, okay? That's one place that 46 00:04:00,142 --> 00:04:06,420 this question might lead us. It might lead us to thinking about what this concept of 47 00:04:06,432 --> 00:04:11,980 meaning really means and what we're asking about when we're asking the question, what 48 00:04:11,992 --> 00:04:17,165 is it for something to mean something? You might wonder though, whether or not we've 49 00:04:17,177 --> 00:04:22,357 perhaps given up on this question, what is the meaning of life, a bit too quickly. It 50 00:04:22,369 --> 00:04:27,801 certainly seems like a good and important question to ask. The thought that led some 51 00:04:27,813 --> 00:04:32,556 philosophers to give up on the que stion that we just saw, which is that it relies 52 00:04:32,568 --> 00:04:37,651 on thinking of meaning as being somewhere where it doesn't belong. So, meaning, 53 00:04:37,663 --> 00:04:42,673 belongs with words, it belongs with sentences, it doesn't belong with lives. 54 00:04:42,783 --> 00:04:48,167 One way to try and keep this question on our agenda might be to ask whether or not 55 00:04:48,179 --> 00:04:53,481 that's really the right thought to have about meaning. Doesn't meaning attach to 56 00:04:53,493 --> 00:04:58,991 lots of other things apart from words and sentences? We might think that it attaches 57 00:04:59,003 --> 00:05:04,446 to things like works of art, to films, to pieces of music, to paintings. And so, one 58 00:05:04,458 --> 00:05:09,978 place that this question, what is the meaning of life can lead us in our attempt 59 00:05:09,990 --> 00:05:15,179 to try and think clearly about the question, is to thinking harder about this 60 00:05:15,191 --> 00:05:20,686 notion of meaning. So, here are two broad classes of views of meaning that you might 61 00:05:20,698 --> 00:05:26,517 have. We can call the first one designitive view. On this understanding of 62 00:05:26,529 --> 00:05:32,858 meaning, for something to mean something is it, for it to designate something, is 63 00:05:32,870 --> 00:05:38,988 for it to stand for something or to point to something in the world. So, the word 64 00:05:39,000 --> 00:05:44,829 jumper designates a jumper by standing for this sort of thing or pointing towards, 65 00:05:44,938 --> 00:05:49,984 this sort of thing. So, we specify what a word means by singling out a specific 66 00:05:49,996 --> 00:05:55,280 chunk of the world that it designates. So, that's one way of thinking about meaning 67 00:05:55,292 --> 00:05:59,687 to designative view. Now, I want to contrast that with a second way of 68 00:05:59,699 --> 00:06:05,741 thinking about meaning, the expressive view. So, this one is a bit harder to get 69 00:06:05,753 --> 00:06:11,720 a handle on than the designated view, but we can think of the basic idea of it as 70 00:06:11,732 --> 00:06:17,379 involving the thought that to mean something is to express something where 71 00:06:17,391 --> 00:06:23,380 that means that the item that's doing the expressing actually brings about the 72 00:06:23,392 --> 00:06:29,309 meaning itself. Now, let's try and work out what that means by way of an example. 73 00:06:29,432 --> 00:06:35,642 So, think about the sorts of examples of art that we mentioned earlier on when we 74 00:06:35,654 --> 00:06:41,454 were talking about painting, and music, and, and perhaps films and things like 75 00:06:41,466 --> 00:06:47,423 that. Now, when you've got a really good piece of music, you might think that, that 76 00:06:47,435 --> 00:06:53,292 piece of music expresses something, so it communicates some kin d of feeling, or 77 00:06:53,304 --> 00:06:59,240 mood, or perhaps an idea. And if it's good enough, it might be a feeling or a mood or 78 00:06:59,252 --> 00:07:04,890 idea that you just can't put into words. You can try and do it justice by talking 79 00:07:04,902 --> 00:07:10,275 about it but you'll never be able to capture it quite as well as that piece of 80 00:07:10,287 --> 00:07:16,546 music has. So, if somebody really wants to understand the thought or the feeling or 81 00:07:16,558 --> 00:07:22,049 the mood that the piece of music is communicating, they just have to sit down 82 00:07:22,061 --> 00:07:27,870 and listen to it. In that case, we want to say that the piece of music expresses the 83 00:07:27,882 --> 00:07:33,808 thought or the feeling or the mood. And we can contrast that with the designative 84 00:07:33,820 --> 00:07:39,766 view of meaning according to which if a piece of music meant anything, it would do 85 00:07:39,778 --> 00:07:45,456 it by just picking out some item in the world. On this expressive view, the piece 86 00:07:45,468 --> 00:07:51,775 of music expresses the feeling or the mood by bringing that into being, right, in 87 00:07:51,787 --> 00:07:57,958 such a way that you can't separate what it's expressing from the actual piece of 88 00:07:57,970 --> 00:08:04,103 music itself. Now, that's kind of a sort of fuzzy around the edges thesis about 89 00:08:04,115 --> 00:08:09,776 meaning that I've just given you. But perhaps, it can be made more precise in 90 00:08:09,788 --> 00:08:14,825 some ways, and perhaps if it can, that can give us an alternative way about thinking 91 00:08:14,837 --> 00:08:19,552 about this question of the meaning of life. This question, what is the meaning 92 00:08:19,564 --> 00:08:24,626 of life, we've just seen that it doesn't seem to make much sense if we're thinking 93 00:08:24,638 --> 00:08:29,609 about meaning on the designative view, right? If meaning just involves picking 94 00:08:29,621 --> 00:08:34,151 out a chunk of the world, then that doesn't seem like the sort of thing that a 95 00:08:34,163 --> 00:08:38,618 life does. But if we think we can make sense of this alternative expressive 96 00:08:38,630 --> 00:08:43,758 conception of meaning according to which meaning is something that's brought about 97 00:08:43,770 --> 00:08:48,382 in a particular process, then perhaps the question, what is the meaning of life, 98 00:08:48,483 --> 00:08:53,184 starts to look like it makes a little bit more sense. So perhaps, when we're asking 99 00:08:53,196 --> 00:08:58,153 the question, what is the meaning of life, we're asking about what meaning is brought 100 00:08:58,165 --> 00:09:03,182 forth by this process of living a life. We've just seen two different attitudes 101 00:09:03,194 --> 00:09:08,425 that you could take towards the question, what is the meaning of life. No w, we've 102 00:09:08,437 --> 00:09:13,985 seen how deciding which sort of attitude you want to take up can hinge on deciding 103 00:09:13,997 --> 00:09:19,692 which of these conceptions of meanings you think is more plausible. Now, suppose you 104 00:09:19,704 --> 00:09:25,215 wanted to go with the diagnotive type approach to the question of the meaning of 105 00:09:25,227 --> 00:09:30,969 life and say that it wasn't really a good question, it's the sort of question that 106 00:09:30,981 --> 00:09:36,879 we should reject. Well, then it seems that you've got an obligation to put some other 107 00:09:36,891 --> 00:09:42,505 better question in its place. And you've got an obligation to explain why it does 108 00:09:42,532 --> 00:09:46,814 seem to so many people, like it is a reasonable and good question to ask. One 109 00:09:46,826 --> 00:09:51,145 way of doing this is to try and say that when we're asking about the meaning of 110 00:09:51,157 --> 00:09:55,550 life or the meaning of our lives, we're actually asking about something else 111 00:09:55,649 --> 00:09:59,918 that's, you know, similar or easily confused with meaning, And one thought 112 00:09:59,930 --> 00:10:04,733 that a lot of philosophers have had and a lot of other people have had when thinking 113 00:10:04,745 --> 00:10:10,230 about this question is that what we're actually asking about is something more 114 00:10:10,242 --> 00:10:16,065 like the significance of our lives, or the point, or purpose of our lives. So, when 115 00:10:16,077 --> 00:10:21,480 we're asking about the meaning of life, we're asking whether or not there is 116 00:10:21,492 --> 00:10:27,510 something that life does or perhaps should aim at. You might think that when people 117 00:10:27,522 --> 00:10:32,627 are asking this question, what is the meaning of life, these questions that look 118 00:10:32,639 --> 00:10:37,744 kind of similar, kind of related about the point or purpose of life, is what they're 119 00:10:37,756 --> 00:10:42,773 really getting at. And you might be able to go on to tell a plausible story about 120 00:10:42,852 --> 00:10:48,273 why this issue of, you know, the meaning of something on one hand and it's point or 121 00:10:48,285 --> 00:10:53,828 purpose or significance on the other hand, are sort of similar enough that people can 122 00:10:53,840 --> 00:10:59,112 plausabily get confused about them. You might be able to tell a story that makes 123 00:10:59,124 --> 00:11:05,004 it makes sense, that people felt that they were interested in the meaning in life but 124 00:11:05,016 --> 00:11:10,207 actually interested this other very closely related set of questions about 125 00:11:10,219 --> 00:11:15,404 life. Now, as I notice at the start, not only have I not going to tell you or try 126 00:11:15,416 --> 00:11:20,486 to tell you what the meaning of life is, I'm not going to tell you what I thin k 127 00:11:20,486 --> 00:11:25,111 the right approach to these issues is, right? So, that might be something that 128 00:11:25,123 --> 00:11:29,454 it's interesting for you to go and talk about with your fellow students on the 129 00:11:29,466 --> 00:11:33,983 course, whether or not you think one of these different ways of thinking about the 130 00:11:33,995 --> 00:11:38,227 question, what is the meaning of life, makes more sense and if so, why you think 131 00:11:38,239 --> 00:11:42,947 that is. The job here was just to use this question and the different issues that 132 00:11:42,959 --> 00:11:47,631 come up when we're trying to think through the question, to illustrate some of the 133 00:11:47,643 --> 00:11:51,963 things that we've been saying about Philosophy and the characteristics of 134 00:11:51,975 --> 00:11:56,622 philosophical inquiry. We started off with this question, what is the meaning of 135 00:11:56,634 --> 00:12:01,941 life, we saw that one of the ways that it can take us is to thinking about general 136 00:12:01,953 --> 00:12:07,667 philosophical issues about what meaning is, what it is for something to mean 137 00:12:07,679 --> 00:12:13,670 something. And that illustrates something that we saw right at the start of this 138 00:12:13,682 --> 00:12:19,075 session where we saw the attempted definition of Philosophy is a subject that 139 00:12:19,087 --> 00:12:24,450 attempts to ask questions about the fundamental presuppositions of some domain 140 00:12:24,462 --> 00:12:29,450 of inquiry. Now, I suggest that, that thing about asking questions about the 141 00:12:29,462 --> 00:12:35,050 presuppositions of a domain of inquiry is just what's captured in my shorter slogan 142 00:12:35,062 --> 00:12:40,375 that philosophy is the activity of working out the right way of thinking about 143 00:12:40,387 --> 00:12:45,420 things. And so here, we've seen a specific example of that where, in trying to come 144 00:12:45,432 --> 00:12:50,250 to think clearly about a question and what's involved in answering it, we've 145 00:12:50,262 --> 00:12:54,960 uncovered the fact that thinking clearly about meaning and what meaning is 146 00:12:54,972 --> 00:12:59,885 something that we need to do before we can get a clear conception of what's involved 147 00:12:59,897 --> 00:13:04,995 in answering this question. Here's another thing that we've seen. So remember, the 148 00:13:05,007 --> 00:13:09,834 quote from Stroud about how sometimes, the best thing to do with a philosophical 149 00:13:09,846 --> 00:13:14,388 question is to reject it rather than try and answer it. Well, we've just very 150 00:13:14,400 --> 00:13:19,277 quickly seen an example of an approach to the question of the meaning of life that 151 00:13:19,289 --> 00:13:24,258 would do just that. We've thought about the designativist position that rejects 152 00:13:24,270 --> 00:13:29,248 the meaning of life as a confused quest ion because it tries to look for meaning 153 00:13:29,260 --> 00:13:34,238 where meaning doesn't really belong. And then, we suggested that somebody who 154 00:13:34,250 --> 00:13:39,395 thinks that could then go on to give us an additional story about what question we 155 00:13:39,407 --> 00:13:44,577 should be asking in its place. So, we just sort of thought that perhaps that should 156 00:13:44,772 --> 00:13:49,256 be a question about the point of life, or the purpose of life, or the significance 157 00:13:49,268 --> 00:13:54,019 of life. That sets us up to give one last quote that I think is really important and 158 00:13:54,031 --> 00:13:58,490 really helpful in trying to think about what Philosophy is and it's a quote by 159 00:13:58,502 --> 00:14:03,342 American philosopher, Hilary Putnam, who has acclaimed to be the greatest living 160 00:14:03,354 --> 00:14:07,908 philosopher, I think and here's what he says about Philosophy. Philosophy needs 161 00:14:07,920 --> 00:14:12,548 vision and argument. There is something disappointing about a philosophical work 162 00:14:12,560 --> 00:14:16,903 that contains arguments, however good, which are not inspired by some genuine 163 00:14:16,915 --> 00:14:21,419 vision, and something disappointing about a philosophical work that contains a 164 00:14:21,431 --> 00:14:26,011 vision, however inspiring, which is unsupported by arguments. Speculation 165 00:14:26,023 --> 00:14:30,469 about how things hang together requires the ability to draw out conceptual 166 00:14:30,481 --> 00:14:35,687 distinctions and connections, and the and the ability to argue. But speculative 167 00:14:35,699 --> 00:14:40,054 views, however interesting or well-supported by arguments or insightful, 168 00:14:40,157 --> 00:14:45,099 are not all we need. We also need what the philosopher Myles Burnyeat, called vision 169 00:14:45,202 --> 00:14:49,691 and I take that to mean vision as to how to live our lives, and how to order our 170 00:14:49,703 --> 00:14:55,710 societies. Under argument here, we can include the sort of thing we were doing 171 00:14:55,722 --> 00:15:02,055 earlier on when we trying to adjudacate between these two different connections of 172 00:15:02,067 --> 00:15:08,439 meaning. And we were for example, thinking about the sort of cases that each view of 173 00:15:08,451 --> 00:15:14,724 meaning can handle well and not so well. So, we saw that the designated view might 174 00:15:14,736 --> 00:15:19,593 be especially good at handling instances like the meaning of the word, jumper, 175 00:15:19,605 --> 00:15:24,579 whereas, the expressivist view might be particularly good at handling the meaning 176 00:15:24,591 --> 00:15:29,577 of a work of art, a painting or a piece of music. Now, the reason that I chose the 177 00:15:29,589 --> 00:15:34,104 question, what is the meaning of life, as a good one to think about in th is 178 00:15:34,107 --> 00:15:39,050 particular case is that most people do have some kind of sense of what that 179 00:15:39,062 --> 00:15:44,175 question seems to be getting at, why is seems to be a worthwhile or important 180 00:15:44,187 --> 00:15:49,400 question. In the context of Putnam's quote, when we're speculating about the 181 00:15:49,412 --> 00:15:54,607 different views of meaning and which one we want to prefer in this context, it's 182 00:15:54,619 --> 00:15:59,921 informed by this background vision about what the question of what is the meaning 183 00:15:59,933 --> 00:16:05,018 of life is getting at, right? So, it's informed by this intuitive sense that we 184 00:16:05,030 --> 00:16:09,988 have of what we're being asked or what we're trying to find out about. And I 185 00:16:10,000 --> 00:16:16,053 think Putnam's point that he is borrowing from another philosopher Miles Burnyeat is 186 00:16:16,065 --> 00:16:22,061 a really important and insightful one. The best philosophy does need this crucial 187 00:16:22,073 --> 00:16:28,094 interplay of vision and argument. So, to tie that distinction again into what we've 188 00:16:28,106 --> 00:16:33,824 just been talking about an example of a case of having lots of argument where we 189 00:16:33,836 --> 00:16:38,733 like vision might be, just dismissing the question of the meaning of life on the 190 00:16:38,745 --> 00:16:43,460 basis of a designative understanding of meaning. So, you might think that you've 191 00:16:43,472 --> 00:16:47,803 got a really good argument for the designated theory of meaning, but if you 192 00:16:47,815 --> 00:16:52,171 just dismiss the question what is the meaning of life as a confused sort of 193 00:16:52,183 --> 00:16:57,232 pseudo question, then it seems that you're missing something really important, which 194 00:16:57,244 --> 00:17:02,369 is this background vision of what this question is really asking us about or 195 00:17:02,381 --> 00:17:07,446 perhaps, another example of favoring argument, the expansive vision would be 196 00:17:07,458 --> 00:17:12,836 just dismissing the expressive view of meaning because were weren't able to spell 197 00:17:12,848 --> 00:17:18,063 out very clearly. We just had to sort of wave our hands around and give several 198 00:17:18,075 --> 00:17:23,971 examples. Now, it might be that we weren't able to articulate the expressivist view 199 00:17:23,983 --> 00:17:29,734 very well and we won't be, we weren't able to give a really convincing, compelling 200 00:17:29,746 --> 00:17:34,627 knock-down arguement. But again, when people say something like, you know, this 201 00:17:34,639 --> 00:17:39,715 piece of music means this or expresses this, it seems that we do have a good 202 00:17:39,727 --> 00:17:44,361 sense of what they're saying and that we should care about trying to work out how 203 00:17:44,373 --> 00:17:49,095 we should think about that. So, if you j ust, or to just dismiss the expressivist 204 00:17:49,107 --> 00:17:53,426 view on the basis that you didn't quite understand it, or you hadn't seen a 205 00:17:53,438 --> 00:17:57,972 compelling knock-down argument for it. Again, this is a sort of privileging. 206 00:17:58,142 --> 00:18:04,468 argument over vision whereas, you ideally, you need both of them to work together. 207 00:18:04,594 --> 00:18:11,098 Now, a case of doing the opposite thing in privileging vision over argument might be 208 00:18:11,110 --> 00:18:16,799 bad in a different way. So, a case of doing that might be if, for example, you 209 00:18:17,032 --> 00:18:21,833 really doggedly held onto the belief that this expressivist view meeting was the 210 00:18:21,845 --> 00:18:26,391 right one, but you just really couldn't give any kind of good argument for it, 211 00:18:26,494 --> 00:18:31,329 right, you had real troubles or saying what the view was, or you had real trouble 212 00:18:31,341 --> 00:18:36,060 trying to articulate to anybody else why they should believe you. It seems that 213 00:18:36,411 --> 00:18:41,809 then you've got, you know, this guiding vision of the general sort of theory of 214 00:18:41,821 --> 00:18:47,589 meaning that you want, but you just can't back it up with argument. So, the point 215 00:18:47,601 --> 00:18:52,743 that Putnam is making in this quote is that for philosophy to be good and 216 00:18:52,755 --> 00:18:57,071 successful and worth while, you need both of these things and phiPosophy, when it 217 00:18:57,083 --> 00:19:01,769 lacks either one of them, is unsatisfying. So, if you just have a grand philosophical 218 00:19:01,781 --> 00:19:05,768 vision but you can't back it up with argument, if you can't articulate it 219 00:19:05,780 --> 00:19:10,105 clearly, and show why we should prefer that to an alternative grand philosophical 220 00:19:10,117 --> 00:19:14,000 visions, then there's something unsatisfying about that. Likewise, if 221 00:19:14,012 --> 00:19:18,590 you've got a really, really clearly articulated and worked out philosophical 222 00:19:18,602 --> 00:19:23,630 system but it just doesn't really seem to make any contact with the things that we 223 00:19:23,642 --> 00:19:28,240 care about and the ways that we feel we should be living our lives, then there 224 00:19:28,252 --> 00:19:33,255 seems to be something equally unsatisfying about that, right? It seems that you need 225 00:19:33,522 --> 00:19:39,035 some kind of vision as to how your system of arguments and thoughts fits in with the 226 00:19:39,047 --> 00:19:44,535 stuff that we care about if it's going to count as good and worthwhile philosophy. 227 00:19:44,647 --> 00:19:50,185 So, I want to suggest that this quote from Putnam that we've just been looking at, is 228 00:19:50,197 --> 00:19:55,478 a good way of spelling out what I said at the end of the last section, which was 229 00:19:55,490 --> 00:20:00,341 that, good philosophy is the activity of coming to think clearly about the things 230 00:20:00,353 --> 00:20:01,063 that matter to us.