Wisconsin College of the Air; Introduction to the human enterprise; 14; The Inevitable relationship between facts and values

The Wisconsin College of the air PRESENTS The Last of Me and the human enterprise selected from lectures recorded during the first semester in the classroom of Professor Max auto. In today's Leichter. Professor Otto begins a discussion of the inevitable relationship between facts and values. Now as recorded in the clock classroom here is Professor Otto. Well I have a nice announcement to make. I have spent a lot of time filling a blue book very fine blue book with an outline of comic relief I don't know all the wonderful quotation. And then to my consternation a few minutes ago I discovered that you have left at home. That's nice. So all we have to talk today without any notes whatever. And I want to talk to you about that subject of course the sensible thing to do would be to go home.

What's the use of pretending that we can do the things that we can't do without them. No I will start at it then see what we can do. And if if we break down you break down the library what then. That's trying to go. One off going to be here. I've got to say once upon a time those are the exact words. Once upon a time a university professor was called into a law court in a dynamic field. I've been an automobile like the facts confined himself to the facts and not go over into his opinions and his feelings about the facts. Then he went on to say Your honor I assume that it is the function of the jury not of the witness to

evaluate the facts. Well the judge who was. Not a very. Tall man who's rather drawn thin than pale looking and where his mouth ought to be there was just a line that any lips at all and went down on each side very white like a crack. Why not began to say something it said looking over his glasses rather sternly at the witness. The witness will confine himself to a statement of the bare facts all the facts he can remember and exclude everything else. It's very awkward for this particular universe to assert. University professors are used to talking on things I have

pondered on it interfered with his flow of language flow for his story made him awkward maybe Millett Eason and since he was ill at ease maybe you had this experience too since it was a live event. He tried to show you that he was extremely comfortable. Everything was OK you know we were all of him. The more he did that the more ill of these he was a war levy was the more he going to try to demonstrate the one and I within the law. Well you make a very good impression on the jury. And when it was over the lawyer. Not letting it go at that. Said very flatly that he thought. There was something wrong with this witness's testimony. It didn't hang together. As a matter of fact it didn't make sense and he intimated. Very clearly though he did not say so. Nice of you not to say Phil. Intimated that this witness was either a

liar or a fool and he rather suspected he was some of both. Well. What they wanted him to do when he found it was impossible for him to do was to separate feelings from a statement of fact. I'm back to what I want to talk about today. Very new. And. Back. To how I happen to know so much about that particular universe. After a little rough. For you to work out. I have though a little bit about this experience and as I got to thinking about it. Many of my mind the earth four types of persons in that trial at that time aside from the people who were listening to it and having a good time because they had no responsibility. There was no lawyer.

There were two lawyers. Why need socks. Well let's assume they're all honest all these people are honest they're trying to do a good job everyone. One lawyer. Had collected facts. He arranged the fire right to get them to get me to make a sort of a pattern. But it was very clear that he also dropped out of the fact she didn't get all right. He got some of the facts. And. Some of the facts. Law. School the other lawyer too was. Wrong he was interested in the facts under the influence of an interest of his. What was I did to win the case over the other course now before you get. What shall I say critical about that.

Blame him for wanting to win the case over the other wire and the other lawyer trying to win to get over him before you get too critical about that. Let me say at least that's my opinion the bulk of whole situation of everyone. Whatever we may be engaged are engaged in warning. I. Want to win some and that influence of the letter informs them. What it was like a magnet which drew some frank crude. Drawn down by. Our. War. That's what he was doing. Notice he was collecting facts he was arranging fights and making a pattern out of them and he was doing it under and then influence and that influence had a lot to do with the pattern of the facts that he got together. That of interest to us in this course of naturally their interest to all of us all of. Every day. The witness here also was interested in gathering facts and

arranging them and preventing them. And we've assumed there are as you want to go around the store. Under what influence was he working while he was working under quite a number of influences My happened to buddy and I feel a little role. What informs of. A man who was testifying in line do you think I do. He wanted to tell a consistent coherent dramatic convents things story oh of though and one that would enable him to respect himself after he got through with it. Soul like the dog walk with didn't fit into that. You got to trial the Mavi control come and pick them up they would go off while they're not actually because you were ruled by this influence. Maybe you haven't of course most of you haven't you haven't looked into this but dramatic story.

He couldn't tell the full story. Just reminds me now in a recent New York a member of the last New Yorker there's a woman on the witness stand insurance something like that. I meant to. Maybe if I'd picked that up I picked up my notes this morning. I'm going to bring that along. She said the judge interrupts or the lawyers are up to somebody and he said you told me to tell the whole truth and I've hardly begun to know you stopped me. Not. The case with everybody. I remember talking to the fine thing about this one. And he said one of the interesting things about a witness on the witness stand is this. Somehow or other he wants to get into it. An explanation of how he happened to be on the scene to get this that the more. And they were running do what they say they did that they rule out. And he keeps on

trying to get that. And that's part of his story. That's an important part of the story. How did he happen to be there. And sometimes that take him quite a ways back. They don't want or they don't like they get it. Well the witness wants to tell. A good story. That's you and that's me and that's absolutely everybody every person on the witness stand or in any kind of investigation want to tell a good story. You want to tell a consistent story. You want to tell a dramatic story that really mounts mounts. And Vinces and is respectable. Season forms. And the jury. The jury collects facts too. If they're doing an honest job they do that very carefully. And what are they ruled by. Rule they're ruled by the desire to reproduce as well as they care as a good job as a

recreate how the thing actually happened. There have been various witnesses and here you have these various lawyers and the thing is all over and nobody knows exactly what's happened. And they would like to recreate that. They'd like to say that before the job one of the other one actually took place and then there's a job and he's the umpire isn't as to what facts are to be included and what facts are to be explored to see how clearly selective here. And sometimes he takes the matter under advisement which always makes me smile. Cause you wouldn't have him say in court. He's being his honor. He wouldn't say Gere this is. Isn't this puzzling that I don't know about this. I could think this over. Give me over and I think that's over. He takes it on good by. Most of us would say give me a few minutes

I'm stuck. I'll try to get myself off takes another advisement. And there's another big influence working over here and that is. His desire to be sustained by a higher court in case this case is appealed. Or does always mean it means that all these people are. Ruling things out ruling. Items out. And why are they doing it. Because they care and take everything into consideration and they have a nice name for ruling things out. Which they call irrelevant. No one up when a person is tested. Pulling a died just or. Pulling a lawyer got up and said. Your Honor. This man talks too much. The judge said that's right. You talk too much

and a little later he did the same thing and said he'd say let. The dog. Off. And I won't do that. He won't do anything like that. He'll say the witness is not engaging in testimony which is irrelevant. That's a more honorable way of saying. And one of the things I wanted to develop for you this morning which I can't do now is the origin of this word Iraq. It's a terribly fascinating study. I understand that it's a Scotch judge who invented that why. In order to get the testimony shortened down so they could buy cases. Incidentally when I was talking about the influences under which the judge operates that's one of the biggest. He wants to get this case decided so that he can go on to the next. If you want to that influence he would have many more facts and many more facts but he rules some of them up because

he wants to get this decided well this is God's job. What's the grand all that say about our Revolutionary War time must have been in there some time. What makes me think so because I looked up this word irrelevant relevant. Look it up for yourself in mores dictionary and you'll find it comes in somewhere about 800 somewhere soon after our Revolutionary War. That's very interesting and if you look at Johnson's Dictionary dunces dictionary rules or the dictionary Johnson thank you Mr Hayes. Yes I thought if I'm right about this theory that it must have come in about that time then Johnson's dictionary would have it. And Johnson's dictionary didn't have. And those of us who are not great scientists and great this and great that when we get a little triumph like that sort of thing a prophecy it won't be in that I think you know and it isn't in the dictionary. We swell up and have a cheerful

day. Yeah there's another thing I want to tell you all this to make a bold statement. I've heard one time. That this word Iraq. Is an English word. It has no color relative in german think. But Germans are the best manufacturers of words there have been for I don't know how long. They have no word for Iraq. They have to have all brains for that. The French have you tried and have tyrants have. And I'll just walk beyond my knowledge. The Norwegians have the Danish have the Swedish have the right. Right and have we had an R word was invented by a judge and it was invented for practical reasons because he could not have people talk

forever. You never get any case you'd still be deciding that case that he started in 1773. OK. Now I was going to go on with that and give you my first quotation I'm going to do it roughly but I'd love to read it and I'm going to bring in White history and read. From her old book. She wrote in the article and here. And in the article he said of course everybody knows I didn't like the way she said that I was driving it. It's perfectly obvious that. There's no reality to fact. A fact is not real. Well flak as a brick and a brick is an entity in itself.

You put bricks together and then you get a wall you get us struck for what a brick is not a structure and a fact is another structure. You put facts together and you get something. You put bricks together and you get something. What a fact in itself is like a brick in itself. One real world one of our readers. When the reader's p.m. read of that article then understand that very well. Oh he wrote her a letter and said even understand what you meant by saying the bricks were not real if bricks were not real. How could you build a real wall with him if he was very nice and wrote a letter and why and she said what I meant by saying the facts are not real is that facts have no meaning in themselves. I meant that you have to get facts together in order to get true.

There's no truth in the fact itself it has no meaning at all you have to get them together and then she told that story she said you remember the all famous Eastern story about a man who tried to find out why a man would try to find out what I know of him was one to call its leg and he said it's like a tree. Another one to call of its tail. I guess it's to go to its trunk and said it was like a tree. Other took hold of its tail and said elephant is like a snake. Each of them she went on to say that's all she concluded the letter this time. Each had hold of a fact. But neither had all of the truth. While I was nice. She said something very important in both of these cases and that's that's what I'm trying to get to you and that is this. The fact.

Has to be related to something larger than itself in order to really function in the way that it should function. Something outside itself something larger than itself by virtue of which relationship then it gets its significance. That's what she's bringing out. But know when this reader read this second letter you have new troubles. Facts are not real. No actually takes that back their meaning. So this reader said to himself well and then how by adding meaningless items together do you get me one of his troubles when he was a boy was to learn that no matter how many times you multiply zero you always have ZERO. Maybe you didn't have I probably had that problem. We thought if you multiply

0 by. 7 in the array zero hundred or thousand you'll have something. Maybe if you just multiplied by one. Thing. But if the mother blabbed by thousand you still have nothing. And having learned that by and by gradually slowly and been convinced that you can't add zeros together and get anything you can't multiply them to get anything he wasn't going to be taught knowledge that by adding meaningless items together you get truth. And then as to this business of taking hold of the elephant's trunk and taking hold of the elephant's tail and having a fact and a fact but not the truth. He said to himself I thought you had hold of the elephant's trunk and the elephant's tail.

Not the whole elephant of course but parts of the elephant didn't know you had hold of the fact. Doesn't make any difference whether you say you had a horrible life horrible crime. Don't be so sure that they can. Don't hurry or say right away that I'm making a difference. Think it over a little bit. All of it do very good quotations. You want me to read them to you why do you think God that's. Very enthusiastic about it. That's the way you are. I've learned that sometimes where you just nod your head a little bread almost blows me off. Why are. You. Like this other quotation I want to give you is still more marked one I can't do anything with it at all I just roughly tell you want to hear. But it would take. Have a lark Alice who is not only a

profound thinker but a style one. One of the great stylists in the English language to give it to you the way he gave it he was talking to our woman in England famous for imaginative literature literature she thought she had written I suppose novels she said she imagined that literature and I suppose I'd sent my three portraits I thought no and this woman said. She hated books of fiction. We'd just been kind to quite understand she loved books of facts. Realistic books like that and I thought incidentally a footnote for me that's very charming. It's like a woman to put it that way she expresses hard. You stain on the emotion by hating

and loving. Man would do worse than that and doing worse with the better. Well I'm kind of like Alice was talking with her and he said to her this attitude of yours. And not liking books of emotion. Is Us. It's a childish attitude. Children drink milk and by and by they get over it and bring coffee. And when you're very young maybe you don't like fiction but when you books of emotion books of feeling but when you get older you do. And then he said instead of thinking that what you call. Facts are hard you had better think of feelings of being hard in so-called hard facts are the most softest things in the world.

He said you can stick your fist through them any place. But as you grow older you discover that facts of emotion and emotions feelings are the hardest most irreducible the most directive the most unconquerable things in the world. Well I bring not to you. Know what have you been doing one of the women saying we've been saying right on the facts isn't the obdurate hard irreducible thing that we usually take it to be. Let me sum it all up by getting another court case in which I managed a little better than I did this and that's from Emerson and I have some of this whole than the stuff he said. Every lie. Had been brought here by song. First. You didn't say every fact that's been here all the time.

Every five. And been wrong. Life on. Earth. Then he goes on to say and it will be replaced by another side. Which other person who's who is bigger than the person in question brings something like that. Rigid attitude. Well right now let's get down to where we live. That's the theory I'm trying to prove that I'm trying to argue. That contrary to the usual supposition that facts. Are. Just are you the very nature of where you are a little bit nearer. You know what I think of your friend your work what you're hearing me and a good leader and so I have to overstate a little bit you know really to me hearing that all.

Facts are not found. Facts are in Maine. Do you hear that. Time isn't all. I have to ask. Now we haven't gone completely pieces yet and have passed that only leaves 20 minutes. Why should we go to pieces. And Ohio State University. One time it was a seminar and those people those people that seminar were considering the matter of truth and reality and all the rest of it and they were making a distinction. That the cost would make no hard to get this thing's ripe and something really see it.

And that distinction was the distinction between existence and subsist. Black. Realities. Exist according to the flaw. The quote that. I put that on. Put that on the board. Exist. And. You. Exist. With evacuations or ideals. Do not exist. Thanks on the honor of one of these men but there are plenty of plenty of others. And some present day one who's younger man by the time I'm putting emphasis upon this. They do not exist. I. Saw. So you have sub says. All these young men in that exam.

Thought they'd help out these philosophers. And carry on a little for the existence of the thing in space and time. Forbes this. Is the basis is that there's nothing not inflation like an ideal. But there is also of course the self the human being the thinker the mind for whom. The ideal or the thing has existence or subsistence or subsistence or existence. The cell itself. And that certainly can have subsystems. It is an ideal and it has can't have existence that is the thing. Itself. So these young man said and had a system. Of merry go on.

Over this thing. And the ideal. Aspirations and all the rest of A. Man's whole you meet a lifeboat. There must also be a hell hole or you would literally end what this is all come again. And. They thought. The name for that. Should be this. Existence subsystem. Just then and this. There were three more of them who were engaged in working this out and helping the philosopher the husband. And they thought they'd start to fall off. And weren't sure they want a philosophy or religion. Where this is the very thing I'd like to talk to at length about the way they moved off in this direction but very soon they broke. Up into sects. Over this great problem. There were four of them I said and one of them.

It was very clear I was just watching the other fellows. We could see which way was the way to jump get the majority. And the rest of them got sick of him. And. Told him to. Go somewhere else. Going above. Probably not work. And then the three remain and they became divided over this question. All your problems this. One of them said it. Yes. Give it all you can give is right. Then the other said years. But your your this metaphysical thing which we talking about. Cannot be put into words. Very well it's a lucid but it's inevitable. It's. Understandable for he wanted it to be pronounced. Is.

This a. Big difference. In the third ring said I wonder which ineffable just. Was. I'm sorry that broke up in the sack. Sorry but they became so agitated about this ineffable ness because as a result of that a great philosophical movement in America and since it. Started in America probably spread all over the world. Which they were going to call. This does. Not work. For the next part of this. This was a joke going. I mean these people were these people were. This is a mystery. In one sense it was Mr.. They were making fun.

Of. Technical for Oscar winning numbers and it was what Mr.. They were trying to say. But. Foster's have a habit. Of inventing technical language. And missing the reality of what they are supposed to be agitated. And. As you approach the reality about which they're supposed to be agitated and which they cannot do very much. They invent language and then dive hears random language terminology technical terminology which is difficult for you to deal with and be kind. That difficulty. They can feel their inability to deal with the complex data. That you thought they were dealing with that with the seriousness behind. What. They were doing. And that throws light. On a remark that yeah I'm doing me.

What in 1917 was like. One of those sentences that has gone down in philosophy and will go down in philosophy in the history of thoughts along with that isn't his thought. When he said. When he made a distinction between philosophy as a device. For dealing with the technical problems of the philosophers. The distinction between that. And a method which is his way of going about a method. Cultivated by philosophers for dealing with the problem of man this thing thought was why I don't know if they could have invented that terminology. They would have gone down in history instead of his. I mean their phrase would have gone down in history instead of here because what they were doing they wanted to get to the problems of man

and away from a device for dealing with technicalities. Some times invented just because you cannot deal with the actual Rob. All right then let's conclude today with this. I think most of us think that reality I mean the fact is they do things there. By itself it is what we call object and the evaluation that I use. We think of as subjective The fact is outside the value is inside. Object subject. Facts are like a gun or a leaf blower. While. You're lucky clever you have the time.

Way of going out things will become up. For there to be picked up. I know a young man who's particularly clever that is so clever that already it worries me. Come here long just the minute he looks around. Which a lowly with your four leaf clover and watch words he has a daughter now. And she brought him there for these clothes. Most of us think that five star like four leaf clovers one I was a graduate student. A man. Came up from which of the history. American history you never would have suspected it. But why should you suspect that when you listen to me talking for hours. Man came up from Virginia and he was forever finding a

fire. And then writing an article about it and I thought to myself. How would you do that. I was worried to find those I look around sometimes I'd train him a little bit I think my just passed by one and I might see it. I pick it up and I might write an article. Always writing art always finding the four leaf clover writing and I feel like I was mistaken. He wasn't finding them. They were coming out of the store of information he had and the way he had of going out of sight for another four leaf clovers Well we think facts are what is in a box. Different shapes of implies different colors in the fridge and again I'll. Go on where I want to the universe is our box of

my house. When they come out. And I've been arguing with you today. That Aflac is not a self contained self sufficient self existing entity. It is not a metaphysical thing it is a psychological logical. Creation ruled by something you're trying to do. Let me sum it up this way. 5. Is the item of experience with which or where. Act which. Is the item of experience at which you start

searching and began to arrive. We turn around and be given a warning. Nothing I'm about and the big question for us is this. Why did you stop where you stop. Everybody have to stop somewhere. Why did you stop where you stop. Was it because it made you feel good stuff. Was it because an authority had told you to stop. Was it because you were free to take another step beyond that. Or was it because you have a method of doing good work and you stop there because if somebody asked you why are you stuck there. You could tell them why you did stuff there.

That's not such a bad place to start this morning. You heard another in a selected number of lectures from the course philosophy and the human enterprise regarded in the classroom of Professor Max auto.