A Commentary on the Passing Scene by
Robert Paul Wolff
rwolff@afroam.umass.edu
Thursday, July 11, 2019
A GOLDEN OLDIE
Wandering about on YouTube I came upon this Noam Chomsky interview from forty-one years ago. It is Noam as I remember him from the old days. The interviewer strikes me as a dork, but Noam is fun to listen to.
That dork is Bryan Magee, who probably did more through his BBC interviews with famous philosophers to get a mass audience for philosophy than any other person in Anglo-Saxon countries at least.
Obviously, Magee is not Chomsky's intellectual match, but who of us is?
Magee wrote a fairly well considered book on Schopenhauer by the way.
Additionally, Magee’s intellectual autobiography, Confessions of a Philosopher, is a delightful and stimulating jaunt through the Western philosophical tradition. He writes with with wit and passion and, as Wallerstein notes, is gifted at making accesible otherwise complex and often ponderous philosophical ideas and arguments. A man after your own heart, professor!
I've listened to hours and hours of chomsky on YouTube, and I've probably only scratched the surface of the library of what's there.
But eventually, I got frustrated with his responses to questions of free will and determinism. I couldn't understand how someone so smart could so completely misunderstand the question. "Of course we have free will, for one necessarily must have it in order to come to the conclusion that he doesn't." What! I couldn't believe it, so I gave up on Chomsky.
This interview seems different though. I don't exactly know what he's saying here, so I'm gonna try to parse it again later when I'm awake. Does it have implications on the issue of determinism? I just don't understand how philosophers spend time talking about anything without addressing this obvious issue of free will....
I think Chomsky's take on free will is eminently practical. Strictly speaking, I've long found determinism persuasive as a philosophical thesis, but I'm also of the mind that it doesn't matter - we feel that we're free, and I can't see a way around that phenomenology.
My favorite take on free will is this Dinosaur Comics strip.
That dork is Bryan Magee, who probably did more through his BBC interviews with famous philosophers to get a mass audience for philosophy than any other person in Anglo-Saxon countries at least.
ReplyDeleteObviously, Magee is not Chomsky's intellectual match, but who of us is?
Magee wrote a fairly well considered book on Schopenhauer by the way.
Wikipedia profile of Magee.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryan_Magee
Additionally, Magee’s intellectual autobiography, Confessions of a Philosopher, is a delightful and stimulating jaunt through the Western philosophical tradition. He writes with with wit and passion and, as Wallerstein notes, is gifted at making accesible otherwise complex and often ponderous philosophical ideas and arguments. A man after your own heart, professor!
ReplyDeleteI've listened to hours and hours of chomsky on YouTube, and I've probably only scratched the surface of the library of what's there.
ReplyDeleteBut eventually, I got frustrated with his responses to questions of free will and determinism. I couldn't understand how someone so smart could so completely misunderstand the question. "Of course we have free will, for one necessarily must have it in order to come to the conclusion that he doesn't." What! I couldn't believe it, so I gave up on Chomsky.
This interview seems different though. I don't exactly know what he's saying here, so I'm gonna try to parse it again later when I'm awake. Does it have implications on the issue of determinism? I just don't understand how philosophers spend time talking about anything without addressing this obvious issue of free will....
I think Chomsky's take on free will is eminently practical. Strictly speaking, I've long found determinism persuasive as a philosophical thesis, but I'm also of the mind that it doesn't matter - we feel that we're free, and I can't see a way around that phenomenology.
DeleteMy favorite take on free will is this Dinosaur Comics strip.
The Chomsky quote about free will does seem a bit Scholastic, but how does it demonstrate that he so egregiously misunderstands the question?
ReplyDeleteA dork?
ReplyDeleteHere is a recent story about Magee, now 89 years of age:
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2018/04/even-old-age-philosopher-bryan-magee-remains-wonder-struck-ultimate-questions
I have a stake in the outcome of this dispute, but I'd like to think that being a dork and being a swell guy are not mutually exclusive.
ReplyDelete