Wisconsin College of the Air; Introduction to the human enterprise; 9; Statement of the philosophy method

The Wisconsin College of the air presents philosophy and the human enterprise selected from lectures recorded in the classroom of Professor Max Otto in the past several lectures Professor Otto has discussed the materialistic philosophy represented in the book Man mind or matter by Charles Mayer. With today's lecture Professor Otto turns to naturalistic humanism as represented in the second textbook used in the course. The book is entitled The human enterprise. Now as recorded in the in the classroom. Here is Professor Otto. Now we're beginning a new book. And. I suppose I have to confess. It's written by me. I think you'll. Find it more difficult perhaps a night to separate me from that book. Most of you think you have a sense of personal continuity reaching right back to your first memory as well as a maybe as a baby.

But certainly pretty soon when you're three or four years of age you think you have a sense of personal continuity right back to that time. I mean I think you have. You just think you have. You have memories. You have images. And then you are all wrong things as you have things in your possession that people tell you that you had in your possession at that time. And then there are conventions in the community soul that you have to acknowledge responsibility for what that individual did and all of that makes you think that you have a sense of personal continuity. I think you do not have a learner rate. I find it much simpler to detach myself from less books than you think I do. I'm not going to try to keep away from what I thought at first I would I thought I'd give another name to the author of this book and all that sort of.

Faking it I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to get away with it I'd drop into it. And there is a certain connection sometimes when somebody says something nice about it. I have a certain law that I have no right to have unless I am connected with it. Sometimes when somebody says something nasty about it I feel hurt. Why should I feel hurt. I had nothing to do with it. In spite of all that. I can connect disconnect myself with it. Very nicely. So I begin to read it. Forward. I want to comment on as a detached person. For the first time. From. One who writes Omphalos reason is supposed to speak with a peculiar finality. If you don't know that then you haven't associated with people who call themselves philosophers. They certainly think they should write. Or talk with the curator of

finality with. In some cases supreme finality. Now that says a Plato set the fashion and his successors have followed it down to the present time down to the campus of the University of Wisconsin. And then this man goes on to say even William James Dean that the prime philosophic problem to lay hold of the first 20 and the last weather of the whole cosmic procession he says even when James was the same William James because he wishes very much that William James hadn't acted that way or talk that way. He thinks that William James should have known better than that. And when he thinks that William James should have known better than that it feels guilty because that's sort of assuming that he knows better than William James and he doesn't really think that he doesn't like to disagree with William James he doesn't certainly like to

talk as if William James didn't know. Something. That makes the situation awkward for the author of this book. See that's what he said. Why. Well first. To comprehend all things in their totality. That's one way of knowing everything. The whole business. Or is it the other way to dig through appearances things that you see about you. To the ultimate nature of being. Is magic beyond his powers. Making a confession. Why not. Preface was being. Composed. By. The author of it was advised to leave out magic. Why don't you just say it is beyond his powers. And he replied it is beyond my powers. But I'd also like to say

it's magic. The Anybody that pretends to do it. Is doing magic. He can't do it either. I don't want to just I don't want merely to say that I can't do what I mean to imply the NOBODY CAN DO IT knows I want magic in there. And if you don't like it with magic in there you have a vacuum. The reader that's you and me to know. The reader must therefore expect something different from universal and absolute truth. There is another sentence which a good friend of mine figured in getting me to take out. I don't know what was wise to take it out or not. It was a figure of speech or comparison or analogy. Yeah and the knowledge of what I was saying that I can't even kill all the flies in a cottage in the summer time I've tried it a million times I've tried to swat them one after another and I never get them all.

How could I pretend to get all the facts in the universe. Swat them. And I was advised that's below the dignity of the rest of you OK leave it off but I got a chance now to put a do not put it there. When I get serious right after that. Suppose the reader is tempted to conclude that if you can't get down to the bottom of reality or you can't get it all in. Or you haven't any right to philosophize at all. And you just go on and do something else. You can chop wood pretty well do that. Don't pretend that you are. You can do anything with philosophy since you can't do that. The one thing that a philosopher supposed to do. A teacher philosopher is supposed to do. He goes on to say the answer may be made clear.

I'm sorry said it that way. Because I know what he thought. The answer is. That's what I meant. But he says the answer may be made see a little softer a little softer don't hit them lightly I. Kick them in the teeth. Let's say the answer is yes. No I'll say the answer may be made that. The search for all inclusiveness is the vice of the law. Not the virtue of the lost the spirit of philosophy is the quest for depth and richness of meaning for wisdom of life. A quest that is endless. And open all the time. Abstract formalist closed systems pronouncements on all the myths which is the stock in trade of philosophy in general. These are the letter of philosophy and the letter kill of the Spirit given life.

They. Say I get such an easy again. The intent of this remark. Is constructive. I wonder I wished I could recover. I wish I could communicate to you. In order to be strictly honest what is frame of mind was when that. Sentence was written. The intent of this remark is to be constructive. He's saying I don't mean to do any damage to philosophy. Really I don't. Didn't they. Maybe there. May be. Maybe there was a deep feeling in him saying I don't want him for us. But he wasn't willing to say that partly because he just wasn't but partly also because he didn't want to say it to himself.

He did have a faith in philosophy remaining in him and he didn't want to betray that he didn't want to go back on that. On the other hand maybe he didn't have it and was simply saying this because he didn't think that that was the thing the same public. At any rate does when he says the intent of this remark. That. Closed systems are the vice of philosophy and not the virtue that the old one continuous eternal search for meaning is the virtue of philosophy was intended to be constructive not made to disparage philosophy too often however philosophers. Philosophy is overstated by philosophers and philosophic achievements are over estimated by the rest the public. I'm certain that there are members of this class who are so impressed. When things get

out of bounds of their understanding. That's a given and they write off. Maybe it has no meaning. See they can't quite do that. If it had no meaning they ought to discover that. They don't discover it there for them. It must have such profound meaning that it's beyond them. And I suggest to you that you ought to have yourself in hand but of them life. If a thing is not understood by you there is a chance that you're not up to it. There is also a chance that the individual who is talking to you doesn't know what he's talking about. And he is as much part of all as you are. Only he isn't going to tell you that. It is better that no one be deceived by them by these great claims

bizarre knowledge comes right up to it besides. Whatever anyone else may think. I put the ELTs in. To be a function of philosophy the reader should not be misled as to the present author's intention I have no intention of giving you the final lowdown on this great universe in which we live. You might as well alone know that at once. It's a good thought of Plato's writes Mark as a realist that when we discourse of men we should look down from a high place. The passage has not been found in Plato. More offered like that sentences there. Look at. What he's saying. The passage has not been found in Plato Plato. All of Plato nowhere when you find this passage you don't find many many statements like that in this book. That means there I know played all

from college or college simply is not there. To. Get a kick out of it. But I know Plato so well that it is a sort of thing he might have said. I've not only been all through Pleydell from cover to cover but I understand why the I'm on. And this is the sort of thing he might have said. We need on occasion to look for my speaking for himself not to see man in relation to the human story on the long evolution of life. We need to look from him but let it be a hill rising out of the top obviously of daily experience high enough to afford a good prospect the good this good perspective yet not so high that the everyday scene is lost from.

You Which is the. Temptation. For philosophers to get so hot. Just plain there weren't any jet planes when this was written directly so they can't see anything at all for the writing of the following chapters. I cannot claim to be without bias. Nice glad he said that to floss for Ryder and philosophy. Should be without God. These are not claimed to be without bias. Supposing is that the writer of the following chapter cannot be without prejudice. I'm glad I didn't say that it should be without prejudice. He should not claim to be without bias because he can't accomplish that. He can literally countless people without prejudice. One kind of bias. Is not only aware of implying that there are others he's not aware of one of them is aware of.

Not only willing to admit but he is constrained to emphasize a dignified way of saying that he's nuts about wants to shout. But of course you don't write that in the book noised as he's constrained to emphasize what a sentence constrained and. And that interest is that that virus is a militant marching interest in man's earthly enterprise. As to the advance of this that enterprise is neither indifferent nor neutral. Well I'm all the writer's last I'm reading a book I told you of Freud. And I've put a quotation from Adama on the scar on her ear before I said anything at all now I've gone ahead and said a lot of things I would read into anyway but this is some of the honest dominations and policy.

He says something like that too. What he means a very differently. A man can be without Can't can't be will taste. Happy without my lips I taste can be with him the word he uses he can sit in the clouds and have no prejudices that's what he says he can't sit above the clouds and have no prejudices. You know I have my likes and my dislikes and I'm not ashamed of them. I don't want to impose them on anybody else. That's the way he puts it. But what I want to read to you was this. The modern kind is a race of Amabel's living in the material world is the first breeze opposition of this whole inquiry into the first presupposition of this whole inquiry too. I should be playing false to myself and to the reader if I did not assume it. Wish I'd said that in the Senate as well.

All my thoughts even the most speculative very skeptical ruled quite happily on the basis of public sanity custom and language that I start where other people start. So each of these conventions are not miraculous revelations of truth but is what people believe what you believe I believe or not. Miraculous revelations of truth. But they are the only available avenues to truth as you and I should start with them you won't get anywhere. I should not wish to be a philosopher at all he says if that meant being a prophet with a message. I am content to stand where honest laymen are standing and to write as I might talk with our friends in a country walk or sitting in a tavern. Otherwise I should be undermining the conventional assurance that my readers exist at all or that they reported historical facts exist about which I am

writing. I read that. Because a good many people do not. I mean writers in philosophy and teachers of Austrian. People call themselves philosophers do not agree with that. They think that's exactly what you must get beyond. And I'm saying that's exactly what. I am happy to believe. Two of us at least do not subscribe to. We begin where every honest layman begins in everyday life. Not that that is ultimate truth but that without that it's all fake and even the people that claim that they go beyond it. I actually don't. There's no way of doing that they were going to get around to that the minute someone famous and it in or about it might not. Look at that.

A new era this is 900 940 remember when it was published written before that. A new era will come in no way and era of human history is running up. A new era will come in. Those who plan to live in the world there have no modernized a little when necessary but otherwise the same world are building castles as RH Tawney has put it on land already cut off by the sea. The hard realities and the big Will must make the best of them will never be the same again. Well when it goes off. There is one buys that so far as possible as here been avoided. It is the bias in favor of the merely wished for. Is a bias in favor of what my nature demands. I loathe the underdog taking which the present study represents is empowered by a positive interest in a life of happiness and dignity

for all. So far as this is attainable it aims to hold itself to a rigorous standards of evidence and true. And it hopes to aspirate. The philosophic method but sense it is intended for people who want a lawsuit to throw light on life as they know it. The ideas presented must have something to say to them. They may not listen. Many of them won't listen. And the author will be a killer by his colleagues. I'll be basing a scholarly subject in order to get people to listen. Both risks must be wrong and they are freely. Consciously wrong. You can read the rest when I want to go onto the. Chapter. There's one thing in there though. Talks about obligations which are very numerous.

And then says he must he must forego the pleasure of recognising those obligations in so many words. But there is one exception and that's a man named without killing. Since I was written. Project Kenny has died. He was the most consummate. I want to tell you a story about. And then he became a teacher of French of Colombia. Is recognized as one of the. Founders and developers all almost the leading developer of their humanities course which had become famous all over the country. He was lavishly praised constantly by his colleagues and by students as one of the great teachers of his time lavishly praised and niggardly reward. Why was he niggardly rewarded.

Because even if used to take a Ph.D.. Couldn't there. With his left hand his right hand tied behind. It what. Story I want to tell you about it was when he was a student in the university. This is a class of mine first time I ever saw in my column. Downstairs it was up on the Hill downstairs. And he said I do not care to make a public statement on the question of the present time. I was young and inexperienced. I didn't know what rule in the. Pedagogic lexicon that violated. I had no notion what to do when a man made a statement. I walked up and down the platform trying to gather myself together made up my mind.

I'll take care of you baby. I'll never call on you again let's see how I'll work out. So I did. And he became interested. He wanted to recite. I saw everybody. I didn't see him to the right of him to the left them behind in front I'm all on. Fire. We're not British. Canada never been that canning and they got more and more interest. And one day when I called the number of people and was again desperate couldn't get any answer they went down like a row of bricks one after another and I thought he was interested I suddenly called on him in desperation. No one else to call on. I wouldn't have if I'd stuck to my guns but I called on him. And he said you have made fools of a six people I do not care to be the seven highroad. He used sometimes to write.

A lot of a chapter maybe in this book or some other thing that I would say got started that 12 o'clock one o'clock in the morning in New York writing it so excited that I couldn't sleep. Finally at four o'clock in the morning I had to write to you in utter imagination and admiration so that you would be lifted up by what he said. And other times he would write and say I have read a. Lot of tripe in my time. You've hit a new low. Well that's the man of whom this exceptionalism. All right. Chapter One. Lancelot Hogben you know who he is don't you. A very keen thinker and writer and publisher of some very telling books wrote a review of the human enterprise

and I want to call your attention to the way he opens up with you. In order to make a point. He said some nice things Lenny said. The chief effect of this new book. Recalls the catering facilities at the wedding of canine galley. There's no harsh criticism of an author to say that his good wine is kept for the end of the feast. But unfortunately most people form a judgment about the real readability of a book from a casual impression they get from the first few pages. I put this criticism at the beginning because I want to emphasize and to emphasize emphatically. That the human enterprise is not just another book by nice old gentleman with white hair and a dreamy smile. I. The book buyer was formed this impression by turning the first 20 or so pages while waiting for the

small change to be returned to him as made a justifiable mistake. I hope I shall be able to make my make. Anyone who has done so give the book a fair trial. I want to make a point I said with this with this video and that is this. He doesn't get anything on the first 20 pages or so. The joke is on the amp. At any rate this offer is trying to do something with those first 20 pages. And. In my judgment there's nothing more important in the book than that first chapter which he leaves out. I wish I could have talked to him about it he'd gone then you remember he was here at one time perhaps you remember you know the old he was but he'd gone and I think I just talked to him about. I'd like to talk to him given the reasons I'm going to give you why.

I take the position on first. The beginning. Of this book is unusual. He didn't get it. Yeah I got was unusual but not unusual. Why is that unusual. Because the occasion for the occasion is not a philosophic Quest. According to. Press or hard when you should start right out questing philosophically first sentence cattlemen wants with the philosophic question. This is not a philosophic question. It's merely an ordinary walk. On a Sunday afternoon. You know and suspect that you're going to get into philosophy dog knew that he expect to get in the last taking off. Climbing a little hill. Second the locus the locus the place is not aligned rary or a study. Nor a book. Well for heaven's

sake philosophy and you know I'm the library inot in the study. You're not in the book. It is a bit of natural landscape. Then we study. This philosophy. That's the point I'm trying to make. This philosophy. Is intimately bound up with the earth on which we live. And not only whether books with nature in the ordinary everyday sense. That's possible might be Mr. Hardman is one of those people it's possible that there are people that have no sense like that. I don't know. Maybe there are whole races that have no sense like them. I don't know. At any rate this author doesn't belong in that group. Not long ago there was a you know a lot of love going senatorial no lost things on the editorial page those little articles left for a page of The New York Times on

Sunday. Little nature things always a little passage toward the end of the little article toward the end of the editorials. There was one recently called Why. There's so many questions and so little time to find out so. Why does one maple turn half garlic the other half clear golden yellow. Why does a system a bowl not 20 feet away remain green. Why does a third one show only splashes of color at the branch to persons and so it goes on why why this why not why that. Last paragraph Why do people pick sumac to take in the house. Why. What's so funny about hard cider. How red can a Blackberry leaf get. If the woodchuck and whistle Why doesn't the West live children like a bird. Don't spiders ever run out of webbing. Where are pro-Kerry

standards rare. Why do geese hawk in in their flight instead of saving their breath. Why don't care did they give up sooner and made them be quiet. Rasta sort of questions with which this book or the author of this book begins. Of course one might start at this place and come out an altogether different place from where he comes out. But that's what he's done. And here then you get to go right or see that Donna has. Seated on this hill see yourself. I thought it was there I discovered something. Is a seat on this hill. Musta been sitting down but he was standing up with them. It was easy to indulge a languid half attention and to mistake this dreamy state of mind for a profound intuition.

You can think about that he says. Seated on this hill. It was easy to go half asleep and to mistake this. Dreamy state of mind for a profound intuition. The intuition of the whole composition unity behind the landscape all global obvious diversity. What is sighing years. One is implying years. Maybe these wonderful intuitions so call. Our sleepy responses to the world not wide awake responses. Lord. I think he's probably wrong about that. But at any rate that's what he said. You know Rufus Jones Rufus Jones a close to me died not long ago one of the great Quakers of our time when the great minds one of the great idealists of our time intuition for him was less sharp less.

Planes whereas deeper penetration of the human intellect. And awareness of the inner relation of things or certainly was it was not however the mystic sense of absorption and ultimate being or was of an excursion into an intellectually simplified world of the scientist. Not that kind of unity. It was more like the feeling with which we are all acquainted when everything seems strangely seem strange of one piece. While. Again there is a suggestion that there are two ways of going to the world. They are this way and I suppose most of us have some of the artist in us we are the sway of the many and many ministers of the world seeing the many sided aspect of the world and then they see you know like where your scientific way

reducing it all to one. Like Aldous Huxley. There was one. And then Julian Huxley. Many of us. Minute or one where you belong. And as I look from this hilltop responsive to the quiet yet animated scene at the end of that paragraph it appeared obvious. That in direct experiences of this kind that is the presence of all things in its managers and its togetherness. One touches metaphysical bottom and one is said metaphysical box. Let's phrase. Stops in. Metaphysical bar. How easy to make big phrases. Aren't these wonderful ideas that you come across in philosophy.

Big phrases. Metaphysical bar. Oh easy. Is there a metaphysical bottom or are you just saying that. Is there a kind of reality which may or may be taken as Ultimate which may be regarded as existing beyond all experiences or as a period of every other kind of experience within the range of experience. Men who busy themselves with such matters talk as if the were and when our requests. Tell you what to do. When there are more modest seconds but cautious. They just take it for granted and merely indicate to you step that you should take to get there. Well there you get the first clear position on having the note down a very clear position that this author takes.

There is no ONE way of apprehending the world that some mistake and he doesn't care. You should care perhaps he doesn't care who it is to take it or what his name is or what is reputation there or how he struts around. There is no ONE way of apprehending the world. It's an illusion. And that what I'm saying is philosophic heresy. Must be one way. The thing itself. Goes on to explain the thing the Rector St. Clair and the timid hint that. They made us we were in this thing. Emerson is always talking about war in the US then they treat talks about as being behind nature. The big capitalized nature as contrasted with a lower case nature. The thing the

reckless declared to you talk to about and the chemical that. Has a way of in looting all the specifications for every advantage is behind a not yet. Why was there in the news a thing. Or read the rest of it and that's gone to the next or how are you how are you getting along and. Why. You are. Why should you be lost. You want to answer up where you love ends with those stuck on your head while you're too willing to answer yes. All I see what you said you were confused. The No. It's not too early to be concealed but it's sure to be ongoing villain. OK we'll go on a little

and we're always has said he goes on all this is said. Remember all of those are in the mood of commonsense. Or in their early wish now. The last the world the challenges of every day and all day long ordinarily not not not the intellectuals but all of us ordinarily wish knob. The Lusty world that challenges us every day and all day long we welcome Instead the bloody bloodless operation which careful training has taught us to prefer. Out of doors is more difficult to deny audience to the world in its immediate aspect. I wonder whether that isn't one of the reasons why we like to get out of don't like to go on walks like the climb here we like to get into the awards. Because then the reality of the of the things we see and feel and smell.

Which we're not accustomed to coming to us in childhood objects were discoveries there were graphic vivid presence. I was thinking when I read that. Four years old then she was. Pictured. On the picture there was a bar like that. Then there was a little rhyme. Like that. I wish I had colored chocolate with a circle like this. Of greed use another circle. Of yellow. Oh this was the purple and that was a great big circle. Low. White.

Backdrop made a very interesting kind of picture. Mr. Macquarie. I think would like to think that I can't make anything out of it. It's real to me. I said What is it. What is that. He said it's a fact. Well what's this. I said I can see why. That's offensive all. Too. Well I can see what you mean. See. What's. Happening.

Oh yeah. And walk this way I suppose this is a site right now that's another nail. Then there's the hot. Sauce. Where's the house. She said. You're silly you can't see the house because the houses back of the French. Wife tried to she was four. I've tried to get in my my visual experience. Fresh and that's. What he was talking about. And they stood out above everything else. What was. He like. And. It's the graphic presentation of this summer. Just over my house is. Five.

I saw another picture of long ago. And he said it was a design lesson in design. Much of the design of the design well but I said What is it and design all of it must be design or something it isn't a tree and it is now almost and isn't what isn't