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0:07
Good evening. I would have loved to add. Good to see you. But that tonight is of some importance to note. This would not be correct, and I cannot really see you. Well, in June this year I went almost blind. And although a series of surgeries have brought some improvement, I may still not be able to adequately interact with you during class. So please, if you have a question, gesticulate in a permanent manner so I will notice you anyway. Please don't hold my handicap for indifference.
0:48
Worst case scenario, however, I remind you, I mean, I may go blind. Now, the bright side of this apparent catastrophe is that the Institute for the blind have told me that I may receive a guide dog
1:04
who, and I quote their words, will take me exactly where I have to go.
1:11
Now, that would be really fortunate. I would love that, considering that throughout my life I really never really knew where I had to go. And perhaps now due to this dog, one day I will be.
1:29
We will see. Well, not me of course, but the little dog may.
1:36
Well, how do we know where to go? That's quite a question, isn't it? Also a perfect place to start a philosophy podcast. But maybe we should begin with who we are though. If if we're trying to figure out where we're going, maybe it's good for the listeners to know who's asking the questions. For them. Well, starting off with introducing ourselves might be getting ahead of ourselves as well, because how can you know where you're headed if you haven't even figured out where you are?
2:01
Or better yet, to know where you came from? Yeah. And even more so, how do you even know that? You know.
2:10
Here we go. Well, let's not immediately delve into crumbs or epistemological questions, but we can then get back to the question at hand. How do we begin a philosophy podcast? Stupid question one we have to grapple with. Some French philosophers argue that you're always in the middle, right? The rhizome. You're always in the middle of something. Never beginning, never the end. So we are kind of also in the middle of it already, which of course is true,
2:41
but also completely unhelpful in relation to what we're trying to do. I guess, we still need to start somewhere. So then why not start at the beginning, right? And that's where we come in. We want to provide an entry points into philosophy, which is why we call the podcast First Philosophy.
3:00
Not in a very textbook key way, not in a highbrow, academic way. We really want to try and talk about the philosophy that lives and that grabs you and shakes you up and stirs your thinking.
3:29
Edmund Husserl, about whom we will talk about in the future, thought that a philosopher should be an eternal beginner, eternal beginning, where we let go of our assumptions and biases. And we need to bring it back to our personal experience. And hence it is also about our own beginning, bringing it back to our experience. This podcast was inspired by a lecture series that inspired our own journey into philosophy. It taught us that philosophy didn't just live in books,
3:58
it was alive in ideas and in our everyday experience of the world. We really wanted to make a podcast centered around great lectures because they're a great starting point for most aspiring philosophers. And of course, there is no better place to start than with the series of lectures that inspired this podcast and kind of both of us in many ways. The much beloved lecture series Human Conditions with Avi Billings. There he traces the history of phenomenology
4:26
and existentialism, introduces the ideas and works of some of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century, such as Husserl, Martin Heidegger, software, and, Emmanuel Levinas, a personal favorite of mine. A reference really pulls you into the philosophy if you imagine it, as a labyrinth, which can be quite complex and difficult to navigate on, on, on your own. Is a great guide, just really showing you all the twist hooks and nooks and not letting you get lost.
4:56
And just like with music, life is always better. However, if you cannot attend the live recording then the recording itself will suffice. Yeah, and it's even better to do it yourself. You a DIY philosophy and as Edmund Husserl writes, if we want to be proper philosophers, we have to be eternal beginners, always ready to question, reconsider, rethink, really try to do away with old assumptions. So with that in mind, let's get to it. Time to jump into the first part
5:27
of this lecture series Human connections with Other Brains. And I'm Sonya Schmitz, and I'm just about an hour. Let's begin. Finally.
5:53
So welcome to this first meeting of the second course of human conditions. Two years ago, we decided to, rename the rather an inclusive sounding course The Quest for man
6:08
to the more inclusive human conditions. And allow me to elucidate briefly on the title Human Conditions. It was my invention. So I'm proud of you. Obviously, the title alludes to Hannah Ireland's magnificent book, The Human Condition. There are, however, good reasons to prefer the plural human conditions instead of the human condition, because it allows us to explore a variety of manifestations of the human condition. Dutch giants of Asia two stomped
6:45
the ways we are sexually mentally physically socially politically but also human conditions.
6:58
Alludes to something like the word condition depicts a premise. Condition is a prerequisite. Dutch more allocates for violent, biology and evolution, culture and technology as premises of human existence, and but also many other premises, could be identified as a prerequisite for being human. a sustainable environment or better put a sense of care for the planet we are invited and allowed to live on. Is a human condition a human? May we care
7:38
is the ultimate human condition, but also loneliness
7:43
is a human condition. It takes a lot of loneliness to really realize. That we are essentially connected to each other. Moods, a premises for being you and all moods, grief sadness anxiety are also profound and necessary premises
8:08
for truly being human because they remind us of the fragility, the frailty, and the finitude of our lives and of the lives of our loved ones. So how to approach this vast and in many respects still uncharted realm of human conditions?
8:31
I believe phenomenology may prove to be a good, if not excellent, candidate. So during the coming four weeks, I will introduce you to the phenomenological approach phenomenology. Rest assured, you will get used to the tongue twisting ugliness of the word, and you will appreciate its bliss and beauty.
8:55
Phenomenology is often considered to be a philosophical method, and as such it is compared and opposed to analytic philosophy or dialectic Marxist philosophy. Other main movements in the 20th and 21st century philosophy. And although the founding father of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl, you will be the main subject of the lecture next week. Considered phenomenology to be a method, a method even more rigorous and scientific than science itself. I will insist
9:31
on understanding phenomenology as an approach, as an attitude. This attitude is based on the realization that we can never escape ourselves
9:46
as human beings. We will also in science, and also in all other branches of philosophy and in daily life. We will never be able to rise above the contingency of our personal existence.
10:01
Mark. And this is cannot be emphasized enough that we cannot escape our contingency. The contingency of our being in the world is not primarily an academic,
10:16
a theoretical issue. It is an existential predicament, an existential challenge not to be ignored nor forgotten. To illustrate this, I want to address the so-called anthropological term. In his critiques, Kant elaborated on three what he called crucial philosophical questions what can I know?
10:42
What must I do? And what may I hope you recall? Excellent. It is. Logic, however, comes as a fourth question what is man?
10:54
He assures his readers this false question is the most fundamental one, as the previous three are rooted in the question concerning men, human beings. Now it seems as if count is doing the right thing.
11:14
The obvious thing. Is addressing the true source from which these questions stem and arise.
11:24
These are questions that are put forward by human beings. So you might argue, in order to understand these questions, you must first understand what a human being is. That's a good thing. And you can blame him for anything you like. But he can. He could really think. However, it is of great importance to notice the remarkable shift in the structure of Kant's questioning. So what can I know? What must I do? What may I hope? What is man? Spot the difference.
12:06
The first three questions are from a first person perspective.
12:11
And the fourth question is from a third person perspective. And Mark. The first three questions could also be read as existential proclamations, even as outcries, if you will. They are not just academic questions, not primarily
12:31
academic questions. What can I know
12:38
in academic philosophy and also in one's own critique of pure reason? This question is treated as an epistemological question, a question pertaining knowledge. Epistemic is the Greek word for knowledge. What knowledge is true knowledge? What is certain knowledge and which knowledge is vague and uncertain? What are the possibilities and what are the limits of our understanding of the world? Now, let me be quite clear that this epistemological reading of the question, what can I know
13:13
is as respectable as it is important? All true science concerns itself with the reading this reading, this interpretation of the question, what can I know? But what can I know is perhaps first and foremost an existential question. What can I, a frail, vulnerable mortal being, know what can or do I know about myself, or about my loved ones, about the world I live in?
13:52
The person poet and philosopher Omar Khayyam wrote in the human Eye that a poem written in the 11th century. I quote from the famous translation by Edward Fitzgerald,
14:06
I came like water and like wind. I go into this universe. And why not knowing no winds like water willy nilly flowing. There's no guide dog gonna help you out here. I'll do it again. I always wanted to become an actor, but I'm too shy. I came like water and like wind. I go into this universe. And why not knowing no winds like water willy nilly flowing.
14:42
So the question what can I know is not primarily an academic epistemological question. It is an existential one. What can I know? How can I understand it? And how can I position myself? How can I find some orientation
14:57
in this? So often an understandable world?
15:03
The question is full of courage and despair. What can I know? What can I know? The same holds for the question what must I do? Which may easily and in fact often has been reduced to an ethical question. According to count, it can be solved by adhering to the famous categorical imperative. So what must I do? Well, I must follow the categorical imperative, which holds that I must always act.
15:34
Only according to maxims that could become a universal law.
15:41
So I shouldn't lie, because I don't want a world in which everybody lies. I shouldn't cheat because I don't want a world in which everybody cheats, and so on and so on.
15:55
The categorical imperative, the very famous, will be addressed in courses on ethics in due time. But
16:03
this is also abstract thinking. Academic thinking because it ignores the predicaments of real existence. What must I do when I am confronted with difficult or even impossible choices? We will address this in the class of Jean-Paul Sartre.
16:26
Sartre, gives the example of a young man during World War two who has a very ill old, bedridden mother who is completely dependent on him, but he also wants to join the resistance. He feels he has to fight the freedom of his country. What must I do? What must this young man do?
16:59
So we have just listened to of a giving the example of Jean-Paul Sartre writing about, a young man during World War two who asks advice, regarding his old bedridden mother. And one thing that I think is interesting is that of a user's stories and his philosophy. He uses a lot of different stories that aren't necessarily philosophically methodological or very clear written. And this is the point to show in which different ways the philosophical method can be
17:37
shown can be the phenomenological method can be used. And this is also, I think, the point in a lot of his own stories, like he will make jokes, he will tell short anecdotes, and you can take these anecdotes at face value, but all these stories have a point towards them. He doesn't just tell a story or just to have a lighthearted moment
18:02
that illustrates the philosophy that he's trying to convey. And that is also why he is able to refer to philosophers or writers that are not necessarily seen as part of phenomenology.
18:16
I think a lot of phenomenological professors or teachers or students will not necessarily think of Kafka and does the sky as phenomenology,
18:28
and they don't have to be. But he does show a way in. He does show that there is a way to look at these stories
18:36
from terminology, the inherent, ambivalence in interpreting any, fictional text when it pertains to, you know, writer philosophers or philosophic writers, is that one should not suppress the ambiguity in favor of a rigid philosophical method, but rather and this is where phenomenological phenomenology comes in. Embrace the ambiguity and actually find, the insights in this ambiguity that would not be possible within the constraints of a more, let's say, rigorous, method informed, inquiry.
19:20
And that is one of the, most, I think, important overall big lessons that a student ends up learning through the whole body of lectures is an encouragement for an unorthodox and brave and original thinking.
19:38
And this is also where we just listen before, when he talks about counts and those four questions that he poses. But what I really, really appreciate about how they does this is that the questions is, what can I know, what must I do and what may I hope? Which eventually to what is man? So when he asks in his lecture, what is the difference between these first three and the fourth question? You could really make like a category or categorically it's about,
20:09
it's about a different way of it's about knowledge and no, no, no, the only thing what is the difference between the questions? And that is first for your eye. And the fourth one is what is man? That's the only thing. Because if you stay still at that specific point and try to think what that means or what it could mean, you're already practicing philosophy before you even start to what these questions would entail, or how you would answer these questions.
20:39
And I think, I mean, this is this is from the, the gay scenes in of Nietzsche, which are they also quotes in this lecture is, superficiality out of profundity, like it's you. It's not always a bad thing to be superficial. Like to explain that a little bit better. The story that Nietzsche writes in his introduction of the gay science, where a little girl asks her mother, like if God is every everywhere and sees everything, is that decent?
21:10
Because then he will also like the implication, as you also see us going to the toilet or getting a shower, like, is that decent? And that is a superficial question because that is not the point. But it's also quite profound because it is also very it's a very good question. Yeah. In a way. And, and this is I think
21:32
one part of the sentimental, logical approach is this superficiality out of profundity.
21:39
I think it leads also to, a point that is not stated directly, but you can kind of intuit is that there is no such thing as a resourceful question in stirring thinking, and there is no such thing as a rhetorical question in close reading. And that is something that ever talks about, you know, that you have to learn the ethics of reading, which is really like learning how to read a new, because before you, you might be reading, you know, a novel. It doesn't have to be a philosophical text,
22:12
and there is a motivation of a character that maybe it's not immediately apparent to you, and you just kind of write it off as I can't see into a human soul. I guess they thought something that I, that I don't know. That is precisely what's the series of lectures, I think is teaching us to not take for granted. No question is rhetorical and no random decision is philosophically insignificant. Right? There is a whole world hiding behind these things, and that is
22:42
when you learn the ethics of reading, and that is when you start spending like
22:48
way more time and reading. After the series of lectures, I started rereading Brothers Karamazov, trying to adopt this thing. And gosh, that it took me a long, long time because you can't glaze over anything. But that is precisely where the richness uncovers itself. It's supremely worth. I think he talks about this in a later lecture. I think he maybe references this in the lecture about Heidegger. Maybe. But when his criticism towards Nabokov's criticism of Dostoyevsky that Nabokov.
23:22
I think this is about crime and punishment, that Nabokov says, well, it's basically it's not a good book because there are unforeseen, different reasons for the crime he committed. And I they would argue, yeah, that's the point. Yeah. There is never one reason to do something like,
23:43
know, you might be curious what the experience would be like. You might be bored. You might be unhappy with your situation. You might think it will fix something. You might want to have a fatalist part in that. Or you think, well, it doesn't matter anyway. And all these different reasons are valid and do count. And that is where the phenomenological approach also really, really shines.
24:13
There are no general answers to the question, what must I do? Only individual. Once again, courage and despair. Then there's the third question. What may I hope? Perhaps the most peculiar question ever posed by mankind. Also the ultimate question of all religious intuitions. What may I hope, as Bloch wrote, a formidable three volume book on Das principle, The Principle of Hope, which he explores
24:50
all the ways we have been thinking about hope. Hope for salvation, hope for eternal salvation. Maybe you hope for ultimate peace of mind. We all hope, hope, hope, hope springs eternal hope do. Today we say in Dutch. But laziness has addressed the problem that hope is very often an egocentric project. Hope is more than often the hope, even in economic hope. Economy. By finding profit, finding a better life for ourselves, saving us asks us is true hope. Not only hope, not only true
25:38
hope, if it is the hope for others, if it is not an egocentric hope, but the hope that others will be doing well. Also, what may I hope is a very complex question. Now, according to comes these three questions in which the individual radically reaches out towards the world and beyond
26:03
are all rooted in the more fundamental question, the question concerning man formulated thus what is man?
26:11
This question and the canon has been answered in many, many, many ways. But taken literally, it is
26:21
a downgrading of the first person perspective. I hope he realizes this is what happened. It's a degrading of the first person perspective. It might be philosophically very sound and very interesting and very important. I don't deny the whole traditional philosophical anthropology thrives on this question. What is man? But that's never forget this kind of questioning what is man? What is the essence of man is an insult to an individual? Furthermore, how can we ultimately define
26:59
what man is, what human beings truly are?
27:03
Since Aristotle, we have proclaimed ourselves to be the rational animal, animal, rational.
27:12
Are we really? Are we ready? I'm not here to insult you, Nietzsche remarked.
27:21
In fact, man is the the mad animal does which you get here. I'll come back to this in other classes. I think that's also true. We are the mad animal. Just think of your lives. How often have you made decisions that were absolutely not rational? And when we call ourselves the animal rationality or rational animal, or in another formulation, another idiom, the Homo sapiens, the Homo sapiens, we are the Homo sapiens sapiens. Even we can think, we can reflect. Ecologists tell me that, in fact,
27:55
we are the Homo sapiens. We are the raping kind of being.
28:03
We destroy the earth without with no acknowledgment of it. So Homo sapiens, Homo sapiens, I think both they're both true. But still, in all handbooks of philosophy, we all need to be called the rational animal. That's why we're also afraid of getting Alzheimer.
28:22
We define ourselves by our rationality. And then if your rationality fades, all is lost.
28:30
I myself suffer from what I call happy Alzheimer.
28:34
I forget I never forgave my enemies, but I start to forget them. This is a very, very I wish you would. That could happen to me. There's something like happy Alzheimer. We've also been depicted as the symbolic animal
28:51
or as the animal that can be educated animal, it can do or the symbolic animal, and so on and so on. A very boring exercise. When I was a young student, we had to learn all these untold pina, all these definitions, all these different answers by heart, terrible terrible terrible. And then all of a sudden, and this was never mentioned in class, I read Dostoyevsky and I read man is the perpetually dissatisfied animals.
29:23
Now we're talking. Now we're getting close to home animal action knowledge. I mean, about 80 kilos or more. It's all good and well, the perpetual, the dissatisfied animal,
29:38
the capricious animal, the only animal that curses.
29:44
Anthropology never wrote about that.
29:50
First, there is no definite answer to the question. What is man? This is the first crucial point to be taken from this class. There are no definite answers to this question. Nietzsche wrote, man is just an entity. Man is the undefined and undefinable animal. In free translation.
30:18
But it's not about the definition of what is man? I believe that there is no real answer to any. Question for a definition any. So now phenomenology is the attitude and the approach in which all phenomena are given the opportunity. Listen well, the opportunity to show themselves in the fullness of their contingent and concealment. Welcome to philosophy.
30:47
It sounds profoundly obscure, but it's quite simple.
30:52
So we have to give all phenomena, everything that happens, the opportunity to show itself in the fullness
31:02
of their contingency and concealment.
31:07
It's very simple. I'll give you an example, and you'll understand immediately. Take a landscape. Someone ask. I want a definition of a landscape. What is a landscape? But then we look. Phenomenology is about looking. Take a farmer. A farmer grazes his cattle, cherishes and grows his crops. Knows his way around the fields. That is the landscape of the farmer.
31:38
And there's a hiker strolling through the landscape, enjoying it smells and its colors and its challenges. Gorge. Whatever. That's the landscape for a hiker.
31:52
Then there's the landscape painter who wants to capture the dimming light,
31:58
the setting sun, or the atmosphere of the landscape. That is the landscape for the landscape painter. Then there's a young couple finding within the landscape the secluded place where they can get together, be intimate, read poems to each other. Or, as my mother would so eloquently put it. Make each other happy. And then there is the land surveyor. Touch the land. Make her confidently pacing through the landscape. Measuring the perimeters of the landscape. Now it's crucial to realize
32:39
how in all these different perspectives, the landscape becomes in some way unconcealed. It lights up in some way to the land surveyor, to the farmer, to the painter. It lights up. It becomes a certain landscape. It shows itself in a certain way, but it also conceals itself in many other ways.
33:04
The landscape painter may be unaware of the fertility of the soil
33:09
and the farmer, although maybe sometimes will be ignorant of the beauty of the skies.
33:20
So there's an concealment every time there's onion. And this is a crucial term. We'll come back to it often. Often? Many times. Who wouldn't? And this is also important. Would even dare to give a definition of a landscape. If we see these different ways, the landscape can appear.
33:42
And who would dare to say that? Who understands the landscape best? We might might be tempted to say the land surveyor. He measures the landscape. This is what science, as we measure what happens, is the land surveyor maybe superficial, but the biologist is or the geologist. They're really capable of understanding the landscape. I don't believe it.
34:08
There is no definition of landscape. Just the concealment of it. And I just sketched five different ways. Take water. Science tells me water is H2O.
34:22
A liquid that boils at 100°C and freezes below zero. What do these definitions of water mean to a farmer desperately watching rain flood his crops? What does this definition of water mean to someone who is dying of thirst? Or to someone whose house is on fire, or to a child who's drowning? Or it's only H2O? Again and again, water becomes unconcealed. You're getting to just unconcealed to the farmer in different ways. To the farmer, to the drowning child,
35:04
to the fireman, to the sad tourist on a drained out camping site, etc., etc. etc.. There is no ultimate definition of water. Nietzsche calls this perspectivism. Perspective is most.
35:20
I call it the philosophical attitude to acknowledge just perspectivism, staring, thinking, loss, slope and ink. It is the attempt to do justice to the fullness of contingent and concealment. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't expect you to really understand what I'm saying. Just you. But you will reflect on it. We'll come back to it and you will. You will understand that you will get to get a grip of it. Don't worry, don't worry.
35:53
I asks the students to try to think of what is a landscape. And as we've originally already discussed, I do believe there are no rhetorical questions. And in this lecture series. So you should be stopping and thinking, oh, what is the landscape to me? And I think it can lead to many interesting, thoughts, not only good philosophical discussions that you can help with yourself and your loved ones and whatnot, but also it can elucidate a lot about yourself.
36:25
Because when I was listening to it and that was the time for a personal anecdote, I was thinking, what is the landscape? And the first thing that came to mind is, a potato field of my grandparents who are, you know, just been like, the working people. And they've had this, piece of land, really not big. Where, they've been growing potatoes for decades now. And for me, when I was still living back at home every first Sunday, of September,
36:57
the entire family, which we don't have that big of a family, but we would all gather on the potato field, and we will we would dig up the potatoes together, you know? So. So for me, that potato field field is not just the potato field. It's also the site of a yearly sort of shared bonding physical activity, which is extremely enriching because it's not, you know, you don't always have the opportunities for like help your granddad, you know, work on land, etc.. So I think it is
37:30
by trying to pause and answer to yourself these seemingly rhetorical questions, you can also uncover a lot about your own life and how you see things. This is the part where I'll say starts mentioning contingent and concealment, and it contains the contingency of, concealment. More if you're, first time listener and you don't have any background in philosophy, that's quite a lot to take in the contingency at face value. So contingency, it could be this way. It could also have been any other way
38:07
to question what is the landscape after you've answered it for yourselves. Take that with you when listening to how they don't stress too much about this, concealment. It's one word. Concealment will come back when we talk about Heidegger.
38:24
And I think this is where we leave you with the last part of the lecture.
38:37
Apparently, we have to find a way of thinking about this fullness of contingent, concealment. Now, someone might say, oh, perspectivism, that is that you see the world as an enormous reservoir of perspectives. Now, what is wrong with this definition, with this attempt to describe it, an enormous reservoir of perspectives. People. It's limited. Limited. Very good. Then you have the presupposition, which many scientists have, that the world is the sum of objects,
39:14
the totality of all objects. That's the world. Not oh, it's not the totality of the objects we are now just discovering. It's all of ours and all these different perspectives. Okay, let's try again. The world. No. An endless reservoir that doesn't really help. It will still have a reservoir, which we'll call said Perspectivism, is about the universal horizon of all real and possible worlds. That is virtually all real and possible worlds. So the landscape is real to the farmer,
39:49
but it's also as the even when the farmer looks at it as a farmer, he should acknowledge if he becomes a philosopher, that there are also many other possible ways of thinking about it. But there's something we should find another word for it. And philosophers today are looking for this world. These words, they're talking about the events of the world. They're talking about the happening of the world, the occurring of the world. I didn't name it. Would aliveness. It's a happening.
40:20
It's not a sum of objects. It's. It's all right. At this moment. We're still searching. We're searching. We want to do we have this starting point. If we want to find a way of thinking that does justice to all these different possible perspectives, I'm trying. I will try to show the relevance and importance of stirring, thinking and perspectivism to scientific thinking, and to show you that science is just one perspective.
40:49
Science is just one way of looking at the world. This is very difficult for all students.
40:56
We try to teach you or intimidate you that science is the best way to look at the world. No, no, it's just one way of looking at the world. In science, we say that to measure is the key to knowledge.
41:11
Okay we'll. To measure is to know is a famous, famous saying major is data. In my opinion, measuring is forgetting the world. Major is to be able to locate. I'll give you two examples. Many years ago, I was, moderator of a of a Congress on love. On being in love and a psychologist. Wonderful, wonderful woman. That was a good friend of mine. Don't get me wrong, studied young people who were in love,
41:46
and she put them under an MRI scan,
41:50
and she showed on this big screen, a screen like this, what could be seen in the brains of these young people. You wouldn't believe it. It was wonderful. The colors, the colors that were flowing through each other. So our moderator so I asked her, this is the task of moderator. What happens? The executive, you know, her name was checked in. I won't mention her last name. What happens if, you put people under this MRI scan who are not passionately in love but are in
42:27
spite of their slight irritations and boredom, very much devoted to the person they love. In Dutch, we call this how the von. You know what she said? I won't see you won't see anything. It won't show anything. If you put people like that under an MRI scan, you wouldn't see any colors.
42:51
So in MRI idiom, having this solid relationship to someone Dutch out of van is another word for brain death.
43:06
That is very, very sad. Very, very sad to measure this, to forget. Second example I give classes to little children philosophy for children. You know, we like 200 young kids here. Yeah. And I tell them, you think that you're learning how to count,
43:27
but I'll tell you, you can't really count. And there are, of course, accompanied by their teachers who are looking at me. They really wishing me dead. Dead. And then they hate me from the very from the get go. And I bring four apples, a big apple, a smaller apple, an apple, which is a bit rotten, which has a worm in it. You see a small hole.
43:49
And the fourth apple is not my apple, it's my brother's apple. I tell the children, but I don't even have a brother and still is four apples.
44:02
How is this possible? And then I explain to them, this is possible because there is something like cold thinking, cold thinking, counting is cold thinking. You abstract from the and this I won't use this will to these little kids. The singularity of each individual apple. You don't really see the individual apple in its in its the fullness of its contingency. You don't see the individual apples, you just see four apples. That is cold thinking it's good, good to do that.
44:40
You have to learn it's to. The teacher is going to be a bit more quiet, but it's cold thinking. Warm thinking is that you acknowledge the apples in their individual
44:53
existence. Rainer Maria Rilke, about the romantic poet from the 20th century beginning, once said, if you want to tell me what an apple is, be very, very careful. Sign up for these targets. Schools. Wonderful. Makes me cry. This. And of course, these children. I had to be very inventive because the third apple with the worm in it, you know, these little kids came in the break of to look for the little worm. So the night before, I made a little hole in the apple and then the rocks a little
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so they would believe there's a little where I mean it. So they and you could notice they appreciated the beginnings of the Big Apple. The small little, the one, the one with the worm, the one that apparently didn't belong to anybody. They saw it. They did. They got to gist
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of worm thinking. Now.
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Stirring. Thinking as to its relevance to sciences, but also in everyday life. And it's all about alertness. I give you about I want elaborate too long. Otherwise I got problem with the time. But if you read an ad I know on television, get a life, get a Pepsi. What does this mean? Get a life, get a Pepsi. That having a beverage can get you a life. It's all about alertness during thinking. It's only you can do all the time. We had a prime minister some decades ago, I believe.
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Maybe some decades ago. Young Peter in and who was very concerned about the moral state of our country.
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And he's launched a new initiative and he called this norm and via the so norms and values that was done did the key to the new future of the Netherlands. We must think about norms and values,
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but it doesn't really take that much stirring thinking to realize why this project never, never, never even got anywhere. It was dead from the get go. There is no such thing as norms and values. There is something like values and norms. First, you have values in size that you would dramatically put, live and die for, and these are translated into norms. But this guy who even had an academic education thought that you could talk about norm and line norms and values.
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It's just being alert all the time of what is happening. It's all about alertness. At the Erasmus University, we have a, a renowned institute,
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called the World Database of Happiness. Have you ever heard of it? It is quite renowned. The World Database of Happiness. And what they do there
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is they measure happiness all over the world. And every year there's a new report which tells us which countries are a have the happiest population. Oh, you must have heard about this. And usually it's the Scandinavian countries are very high. The Dutch Holland is the Netherlands are usually fine. Fifth sixth. And we're good. We're doing well. Oh, and then you start wondering if I look, I don't know every Swede or region or Dane. I know some of them. I don't know a lot of Dutch people.
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Many of them are depressed, bored.
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Alcoholics. 1 million Dutch people are on antidepressants. Another million is on tranquilizers. To say 3 million drinks too much. That is. That's strange. How can we be so happy? Because they measure whether there are hospitals, good communication center, schools, whether there is, an honest police or relatively honest police, whether it's safe to go out in the street at night. So these are the parameters, which is they measure,
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and then they come to the conclusion that these countries are the most happy. Well, if you would say the importance of family is the criteria for happiness, the importance and the attention you pay to your next of kin. Zimbabwe would be first. But we measure. For reasons beyond me, only certain things. So what I want to say is mate, is to be able to hate. I made up some other expressions in English. When you count, you lose much of what is there to be found.
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I was in the hospital yesterday. I was bored and I thought of some things that I made.
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Expressions that proverbs that may help you to understand. When you calculate, you derogate you downgrade. These are things that you had do in Holland. You have these little tiles with with words of wisdom on it in many houses. I think these are these are things that should be in every class at the University. When you calculate, you derogate. Now to your the students here from Jersey and our ISM and ESB don't drop out of school. That's not what I'm saying.
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But remember, while you are being
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educated to becoming land surveyors, you don't have to. You have. That is not all there is. Funnily enough, two years ago, a very promising, professor in, econometrics came to me and he told me, he said, Professor Prince, it was many, many years ago that I was attending your class for a little children. With the apples. He reminded the apples, I remember the Adam and were talking about the apples, and I never forgot that. I never forgot that.
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And now that I'm an economist and I'm working with models and I try to fit everything and calculate, I never forget this. And I always try to make and he use this expression, my models, my calculations as warm as possible. I like that I'm good good good good good boy. So don't forget there is such a thing as the fullness
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of the contingency of, concealment. Just this expression and try to think about it. And then you don't have to really understand it. But the fullness. Because fullness, there's no limit to fullness. Fullness is that it is just a word. But there's so much happening, and we should acknowledge everything that is happening, and maybe even the sentimentality doesn't succeed completely. That that's not what I'm saying. But terminology is an attempt, an attempt, and not an unimportant attempt
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to acknowledge, to do justice to this fullness of contingent, concealment of these all these different perspectives
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that we are faced with. And then also to calculate is to derogate remember that we have two that is, these are two, the sentences that I would love to that you will never forget. And keep on remembering. And these are important for the rest of this class also. And
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I always thought, how can I do this in such a way that you will never forget this? I, I, I'm good friends with one of the former rector, magnificent Hans Schmidt, who is, psychologist of education, and he once told me from an evolutionary perspective, he said, Abby, if you really want your students to remember something, you have to have something dangerous. Something terrible happened there in front of a loud sound. Firecracker ears, whatever. Because this triggers their, longing for him.
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Well, for survival and whatever happens when you really have to survive, you will never forget.
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So I ordered a friend to bring a horse in class while I was talking to you about this. And he would just walk around me and then walked out, and then you will never, never, never forget about the fullness of contingent and concealment.
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