布莱恩·范诺登
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lobgII6mVs&ab_channel=BryanVanNorden
2024年9月22日
2024年9月21日，联合国未来峰会前活动第二天哲学与教育小组的精彩瞬间，由哥伦比亚大学联合国可持续发展解决方案网络主办，由杰弗里·萨克斯、Yasmine Sherif、布莱恩·范诺登、S. H. Kumalo、Katja Vogt、Yaw Osei Adutwum 和主持人 Philo Wang 和 Paul Walsh 主持。
Highlights Jeffrey Sachs at United Nations Pre Summit of the Future Event
Bryan Van Norden
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lobgII6mVs&ab_channel=BryanVanNorden
2024年9月22日
2024年9月21日，联合国可持续发展解决方案网络在哥伦比亚大学主办的联合国未来峰会前第二天哲学与教育小组的精彩内容，嘉宾包括 Jeffrey Sachs、Yasmine Sherif、Bryan Van Norden、S. H. Kumalo、Katja Vogt、Yaw Osei Adutwum，主持人为 Philo Wang 和 Paul Walsh。
Bryan Van Norden 布莱恩·范诺登
http://www.bryanvannorden.com/
http://www.bryanvannorden.com/
儒家、道教和佛教哲学
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在耶鲁-新加坡国立大学 2017 年，作者 Jessica Sam 1.jpg
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Bryan W. Van Norden 是美国瓦萨学院 James Monroe Taylor 哲学系主任，也是中国武汉大学哲学学院的讲座教授。Van Norden 出版了十本关于中国哲学和比较哲学的书籍，包括《中国古典哲学导论》（2011 年）、《哲学回归：多元文化宣言》（2017 年）、《中国后期哲学读本：从汉到 20 世纪》（2014 年，与 Justin Tiwald 合著）、《适合所有人的古典汉语：初学者指南》（2019 年），以及最近的《中国古典哲学读本》第三版（2023 年，与 P.J. Ivanhoe 合著）。范诺登关于中国哲学的视频讲座系列可在网上免费观看，他撰写的关于孔子的 Ted-Ed 视频也已获得超过一百万次观看。
范诺登作为公共知识分子发表了许多文章，并两次获得美国哲学协会公共哲学评论奖。他最受公众关注的文章包括《孔子论同性婚姻》、《如果哲学不会多样化，那就直说它本来的样子》（与杰伊·加菲尔德合著）、《无知者无权被观众看到》和《这位古代道家是第一位残疾哲学家吗？》（与约翰·阿尔特曼合著）。范诺登最近主持了中国中央电视台 (CCTV) 的纪录片《中国智慧。老子篇》。范诺登最近的一次公开演讲是关于学习哲学的好处：“学习哲学是无用的：除了对科学家、商人、律师、医生、神职人员、艺术家、活动家、影响者、战争英雄和民主公民。”范诺登的其他一些受欢迎的文章可以在他的子堆栈“The Doc Talks”中找到。
范诺登曾获得富布赖特奖学金、美国国家人文基金会奖学金和梅隆奖学金，并被《普林斯顿评论》评为美国 300 位最佳教授之一。2017 年至 2020 年，范诺登担任新加坡耶鲁-新加坡国立大学学院观音堂佛祖庙教授。（他在《全球人文之战》中写到了他的经历和耶鲁-新加坡国立大学的命运。）他的书籍和文章已被翻译成阿拉伯语、中文、丹麦语、爱沙尼亚语、波斯语、德语、韩语、葡萄牙语、西班牙语和土耳其语。他的爱好是扑克（他曾参加过拉斯维加斯的世界扑克系列赛）和电子游戏。
“我是人，没有什么人对我来说是陌生的。”——特伦斯
“四海之内，皆兄弟。”——子夏
Bryan Van Norden
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lobgII6mVs&ab_channel=BryanVanNorden
http://www.bryanvannorden.com/
2024年9月22日
Highlights from the panels on philosophy and education from the second day of the United Nations Pre-Summit of the Future Event, hosted by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network at Columbia University, on 21 September 2024, featuring Jeffrey Sachs, Yasmine Sherif, Bryan Van Norden, S. H. Kumalo, Katja Vogt, Yaw Osei Adutwum, with moderators Philo Wang and Paul Walsh.
Bryan Van Norden
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Welcome to the website of Bryan W. Van Norden!
Bryan W. Van Norden is James Monroe Taylor Chair in Philosophy at Vassar College (USA), and Chair Professor in the School of Philosophy at Wuhan University (China). Van Norden has published ten books on Chinese and comparative philosophy, including Introduction to Classical Chinese Philosophy (2011), Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto (2017), Readings in Later Chinese Philosophy: Han to the 20th Century (2014, with Justin Tiwald), Classical Chinese for Everyone: A Guide for Absolute Beginners (2019), and most recently the third edition of Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy (2023, with P.J. Ivanhoe). Van Norden’s video lecture series on Chinese philosophy is freely available online, as is a Ted-Ed video on Confucius he wrote, which has over a million views.Van Norden has published a number of essays as a public intellectual, and is a two-time winner of the American Philosophical Association Public Philosophy Op-Ed Prize. Among his most discussed essays for the general public are “Confucius on Gay Marriage” “If Philosophy Won’t Diversify, Let’s Call It What It Really Is” (co-authored with Jay Garfield), “The Ignorant Do Not Have a Right to an Audience,” and “Was This Ancient Taoist the First Philosopher of Disability?” (co-authored with John Altmann). Van Norden was recently the host of a documentary for China Central Television (CCTV): “Wisdom of China: Laozi” (中国智慧。老子篇). One of Van Norden’s recent public lectures was on the benefits of studying philosophy: “Studying Philosophy Is Useless: Except to Scientists, Businesspeople, Attorneys, Physicians, Clergy, Artists, Activists, Influencers, War Heroes, and Citizens of a Democracy." Some of Van Norden’s other popular essays may be found on his substack, “The Doc Talks.”
A recipient of Fulbright, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Mellon fellowships, Van Norden has been honored as one of The Best 300 Professors in the US by The Princeton Review. From 2017-2020, Van Norden was Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple Professor at Yale-NUS College in Singapore. (He wrote about his experience and the fate of Yale-NUS in “The Global Fight for the Humanities.”) His books and articles have been translated into Arabic, Chinese, Danish, Estonian, Farsi, German, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, and Turkish. His hobbies are poker (he has played in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas) and video games.
“I am a human, and nothing human is alien to me.”— Terence
“Within the Four Seas, all men are brothers.” — Zixia
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布莱恩，你想说几句话吗？
布莱恩·范诺登
我们今天面临着严重的教育危机，危机在于世界其他国家对西方文明、文学、宗教和哲学的了解程度远远高于西方对世界其他国家的了解程度。用一句简单的口号来说，其他国家对西方的了解程度高于西方对其他国家的了解程度。所以，在今天的演讲中，我想谈谈我们是如何陷入这种境地的，以及我们现在可以做些什么来摆脱这种境地。如果你回顾 18 世纪的欧洲哲学教科书，你会发现，关于哲学在世界上的起源，存在三种常见观点。直到 18 世纪，欧洲哲学教科书中的常见观点之一是，哲学起源于非洲哲学从非洲传给了希腊世界第二种主流观点是哲学起源于印度，然后从印度传到了古希腊现在我相信你们都能想象出第三种关于哲学起源的主流观点是哲学在印度和非洲都是独立发展的，并且都传给了古希腊哲学起源于古希腊独立发展的观点，更不用说哲学起源于古希腊的独特观点，这种观点直到 18 世纪才在欧洲哲学中被认为是一种奇怪的边缘观点，因此，鉴于这种开放的态度，当人们第一次了解中国哲学时，他们非常容易接受并且非常兴奋也就不足为奇了孔子及其弟子的名言在英语中被称为 analex，在中文中被称为 lunu，孔子的名言第一次被翻译成欧洲语言是由耶稣会传教士完成的，耶稣会传教士对西方哲学非常熟悉，这是他们培训的一部分，他们将孔子的名言翻译成拉丁文，标题为 confucious sonorum
philosophus 孔子，中国哲学家因为他们立即意识到儒家思想是
哲学的，而且非常有趣的哲学，不仅仅是耶稣会士对儒家思想作为一种哲学感到兴奋，出现在任何现代西方哲学史标准课程上的gried vilhelm liit是一个真正的标志，事实上他说混乱伦理比西方伦理更好，他补充说，虽然我们承认这一点是可耻的，但他说混乱伦理更适合像我们这样的凡人的生活，而不是不那么现实的西方伦理，lightnet也很着迷，因为lightnet当然发明了二进制算术，这是计算机的基础，所以下次你使用电脑时，感谢哲学家，不客气，但当他了解到《易经》、中国占卜和哲学文本，使用六卦描述情况，六条断线或连续线的集合，liit认识到断线和连续线本质上是零和一，他说我的天，他们发明了二进制算术在我之前做得很好，鉴于人们对中国哲学的兴奋，显然中国哲学一直是西方哲学课程的标准组成部分，直到今天，不，为什么不呢？我担心的简单答案是伊曼纽尔康德现在伊曼纽尔康德无疑是一位才华横溢的哲学家，在某些方面，我认为自己是一个反对者，许多人在伊曼纽尔康德的哲学中找到了解放思想，康德当然没有发明伪科学种族主义的概念，但他在发现它后就接受了它，它并不为人所知，因为他并没有在他更知名的作品中主要写到它，但在他的讲座中，他将种族按等级排列，白人排在最顶层，白人 K 告诉我们，他们身上有所有的天赋和动机，所以他们是唯一能够进行哲学研究的种族，你必须原谅我在这里的语言，但我只是在重复康德说过的话，有时我们必须看丑陋的东西才能面对它们康德说印度人看起来像哲学家，但他们没有抽象思维能力，因此永远无法实现科学或哲学显然康德从未读过任何一本印度哲学著作否则他会更了解印度科学K说中国人与印度人处于同一水平，再次原谅我的语言因为他们自己的书告诉我们他们没有比他们的圣人几千年前所想出的进步一点点非洲人K告诉我们康德的语言是喋喋不休和虚荣的，只能被训练成仆人他说根据康德的说法，美洲的印度人不会说话而且不育这一说法从表面上看必须是错误的，因为在欧洲人进入之前占领美洲的人类现在你可能会说好吧所以康德是一个h康德是一个种族主义者，但我们不再阅读那些作品了，谁在乎呢？我们应该关心的原因是康德是一位伟大的哲学家，他改变了西方哲学，他的弟子们重写了欧洲的哲学教科书，他们把亚洲、非洲和美洲的本土传统从哲学教科书中剔除，现在，绝大多数（不是全部）但绝大多数我的哲学同事都会拒绝反方账户的明确种族主义，但他们接受反方账户的污染果实，即无可争议的假设，即除了可以追溯到柏拉图和亚里士多德的传统之外，任何传统中都不存在任何哲学，关于这一点，我偶尔会快速退一步，我的哲学同事会说，为什么布莱恩，为什么你必须把种族主义带入其中，你知道为什么，为什么你认为这是关于种族主义的，难道它不仅仅是关于无知吗？我都数不清我有多少次了曾对人们说过诸如你是否考虑过聘请中国哲学专家之类的话，他们说，没有中国哲学这种东西，我问他们，你读过什么被认为是中国哲学的，你不同意，他们说，哦，我没有读过，但我知道没有，我知道印度哲学、非洲哲学和美洲土著哲学也发生了同样的事情，人们觉得他们不必读它，他们知道它不存在，这就是为什么这是关于结构性种族主义的，那么康德的影响是什么？美国只有大约 133% 的哲学博士课程，有没有谁可以胜任指导中国哲学论文的工作人员，而且没有一所常春藤盟校的哲学系里有任何人能够指导中国哲学的论文中国哲学现在印度哲学的情况稍微复杂一些，在哥伦比亚，这是为数不多的哲学博士课程之一，你可以在那里学习印度哲学，他们有一位助理教授，我希望有一天他们能让她终身教授印度哲学，但总的来说，在美国，你可以学习南亚或印度哲学的地方比你可以学习中国哲学的地方要少，非洲哲学与印度哲学差不多，我的朋友里卡多·普提到了准韦杜，他几年前去世了，他是美国为数不多的教授非洲哲学的学者之一，上次关于美国本土哲学，我查了一下，有三个博士课程，你可以在那里研究欧洲人到来之前生活在美洲的人们的思想，那么我们能做些什么呢，我写了一本关于哲学的书，我在这本书中论证了如果你喜欢我刚刚提出或了解到的一些主张的文献资料，或者对一些反对教授中国或非洲或美洲土著或南亚哲学和哲学系的乏味和谬误论点的快速回应，呃，我在《夺回哲学》中谈到了这一点，但在书中，我说我们需要从两个方面夺回哲学，我们需要将哲学带回到最初激发哲学的国际化理想，柏拉图知道其他文化中也有一些有趣的想法，他想了解它们，大多数人直到现代时代开始才知道这一点，所以我们需要将哲学带回到它的国际化根源，它的国际化和多元文化根源，我也认为我们应该将哲学带回到它的根源，作为与哲学作为一种生活方式有关的东西，尤其是在英语世界，哲学已经变成了一堆智力客厅游戏，人们愿意为“现任法国国王是秃头”这句话是假的还是假的而战斗到死真假我有一个研究生院的同事写了一整本书，我可不是在编造，这是哲学家们喜欢争论的真实问题，而不是生命的意义，当你以一种世界主义的方式思考哲学和生命的意义时，你会发现，人们在许多文明中讨论的四个主题是什么是正确的生活方式什么是最好的生活方式在英语中，我们技术上称之为人类繁荣，在中文中，你会把它称为人类的随机方式，或者在古希腊语中，你会把它称为udonia，或者呃，在拉丁语中，你会把它称为beatitudo，不同文化中的概念相似，他们如何填写这个概念往往不同，但他们对这个话题很感兴趣，如果你关心生活方式，那么你也会关心你需要以那种方式生活的性格特征，在英语中，我们称之为美德，在中文中，他们称之为duh或现代汉语词汇
在希腊语中被称为 AR，在拉丁语中被称为 virtu，如果你关心美德，你就必须关心如何培养美德，在英语中我们称之为道德修养，在中文中，你可以说 shyong，在希腊语中你会说 pidea，在拉丁语中你会说 humanitas，当然，如果你关心培养美德，这样你就可以过上一种生活方式，你关心人性是什么样的，这样你就可以过上那种生活方式，培养那些美德，我们用英语谈论人性，它来自拉丁语 nura，这是希腊语 fusus 的版本，在中文中你谈论的是人性，所以我们对常见问题找到了不同的答案，在一个相互联系的多极世界中，我们需要了解其他人对这些话题的看法，而不仅仅是处理他们现在所想的模因或人物，如果你想要一些关于如何使教育多元文化的具体建议，当 G7 国家开会时最近在意大利，他们召集了一群顶尖的哲学家，我很高兴你笑了，我们制定了一份关于未来哲学需求的声明，我们在巴列塔市撰写了《巴列塔哲学与跨文化宣言》，你可以在我的网站 Brian van.com 上找到它，那是 bryanvnnordn.com 对不起，我拼错了，但出于某种原因，人们觉得我的名字很难拼写，我不介意，但你找不到我们，但如果你只是查一下巴列塔宣言，它会带你到我的网站，我也有链接，指向不同种类的哲学的教学大纲和阅读材料，所以我想以一个轶事来结束，我认为这个轶事可以说明，我说巴列塔宣言会给你一些关于如何实现多元文化哲学的具体建议，但我想以一个轶事来结束，有一所欧洲大学最近引起了一些争议，这个欧洲大学里有一位年轻的新贵哲学家，他想在哲学课程中引入一位新人物，很多保守派教师说，这个人不是我们传统的一部分，你们用这些非经典的思想家淡化了课程，文本学生几乎因为课程的这种变化而骚乱，我说的大学是巴黎大学，我说的辩论发生在 13 世纪，这位年轻的新贵哲学家是圣托马斯·阿奎那，他试图将亚里士多德重新引入欧洲哲学课程，因为他的作品已经丢失但幸运的是保存在伊斯兰世界，现在它们被翻译成拉丁文，顺便说一句，有证据表明阿奎那只对亚里士多德作品的拉丁文翻译有效，而且有很多印度和中文的译本以及非洲和美洲土著哲学，对我来说，托马斯·阿奎那真正令人兴奋的是，阿奎那有自己的基督教信仰，但他想向柏拉图和亚里士多德等异教徒学习，他想向迈昂斯等犹太人学习，他想向阿比萨和奥伊斯等穆斯林学习，他认识到尊重自己的传统与热爱和学习其他传统完全一致，我总结的方法是使用伟大的拉丁诗歌《特伦谁谁》中的诗句，这是英文翻译，当然，他说特伦斯说我是一个人，没有什么人性对我来说是陌生的，或者正如孔子的弟子所说，在四海之内，我们所有的兄弟都谢谢你
杰弗里·萨克斯
让我补充一下，这是一个很棒的小组，呃，每个人都参与其中，这个讨论不是在联合国安理会进行的，它不是在 G20 上不会发生，世界领导人之间不会发生，将军之间也不会发生，这是一个非常严重的问题，那就是我们没有在决定我们生死的人们之间进行关于我们想要的世界的哲学讨论，我认为这是非常中肯和严肃的，没有关于加沙战争的哲学讨论，没有关于乌克兰战争的哲学讨论，在投下炸弹或选择是否投下炸弹或寻找不同方式或寻找不同方法的人们之间，对我来说，这就是为什么这次讨论也非常中肯，当然，这与我们的孩子有关，与我们的生活方式有关，与我们希望年轻人如何生活和学习有关，因为他们将在一个呃，非常多样化和全球化的世界，但我们也正处于末日时钟所说的午夜前 90 秒的节点，而我们对其他社会没有最基本的了解，甚至不知道我们没有，甚至不知道如何获得它，所以这里每天都有人假设中国人会做什么，这样我们就可以拥有
杰弗里·萨克斯、布莱恩：从哲学层面探讨，在联合国未来峰会前活动上的精彩演讲
2024.09.22
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xcygrLoXCM&ab_channel=
Brian would you like to say a few words
布莱恩
all right does this work yes we Face a serious educational crisis in the world today the crisis is that the rest of the world understands the West the
civilization the literature the religions the philosophy of the West much better on average than the West understands the rest of the world to put it in a simple slogan the rest understands the West better than the West understands the rest so in my remark today I'd like to say something about how we got into this
situation and what we can do to get out of it now if you look back at European philosophy textbooks as late as the 18th
century there were three common views about how philosophy orig ated in the world one of the common views in European philosophy textbooks up through the 18th century was that philosophy
originated in Africa and from Africa philosophy was given as a gift to the Greek World a second major view was that
philosophy began in India and from India philosophy migrated to ancient Greece now I'm sure you all can imagine what
the third major view was about the origin of philosophy it was that philosophy developed independently in both India and Africa
and both of them gave it to ancient Greece The View that philosophy began independently in ancient Greece much
less that it began uniquely in ancient Greece was considered a weird Fringe view in European philosophy as late as
the 18th century so given this open-minded attitude it's no surprise that when people first learned about Chinese
philosophy they were very receptive to it and very excited about it the sayings of confucious and his immediate
disciples are called in English the
analex in Chinese the lunu and the first translation of the
sayings of confucious into a European
language was done by Jesuit missionaries
and the Jesuits have extensive
familiarity with Western philosophy as
part of their training and they
translated the of confucious into Latin
with the title confucious sonorum
philosophus confucious the Chinese
philosopher because they immediately
recognized that Confucianism was
philosophic and very interesting
philosophy at that it wasn't just the Jesuits who were
excited about Confucianism as a
philosophy gried vilhelm liit who
appears on any standard history of
modern Western philosophy curriculum was
a true sign aile and in fact he said
that confusion ethics were better than
Western ethics he added though it is
shameful for us to admit this he said
the confusion ethics are more suited to
the life of Mortals like us as opposed
to the less realistic Western ethics
lightnet was also fascinated because
lightnet of course invented binary
arithmetic which is the basis of
computers so the next time you use a
computer thank a philosopher you're
welcome but liet when he learned about
the eing the classic of changes the Chinese divination and
philosophy texts that describe
situations using hexagrams collections
of six broken or unbroken lines liit
recognized broken and unbroken lines are
essentially zeros and ones and he said
my God they invented binary arithmetic
before I did well given all the excitement about
Chinese philosophy obviously Chinese
philosophy continued to be a standard
part of the western philosophy
curriculum up to the present
day no it didn't why not the simple
answer I'm afraid is Emanuel
Kant now Emanuel Kant was undeniably a
brilliant philosopher and in some ways I
consider myself a contion and many
people have found emancipatory ideas in
the the philosophy of Emanuel Kant and
Kant certainly did not invent the notion
of pseudo scientific racism but he
bought into it once he discovered it
it's not as well known because he
doesn't write about it mostly in his
more well-known works but in his
lectures he ranked the races hierarchically with whites at the top
whites K informs us contain all talents
and mo motives in themselves and so they
are the only race capable of philosophy and you'll have to pardon my language here but I'm just repeating
what Kant said sometimes we have to look
at ugly things to confront them Kant
said Hindus look like philosophers but they are incapable of
abstract thought and so will never
achieve science or philosophy obviously Kant had never read
a single work of Indian philosophy or
he'd know better or Indian science for
that matter K said the Chinese are on
the same level as the again pardon my
language the Hindus because their own
books tell us that they have not
Advanced a single bit beyond what their
sages came up with thousands of years
ago the Africans K tells us are kant's
language a chatty and Vain and can only
be trained to be servants and he said the IND ous people
of the America according to Kant don't
talk and are infertile a claim which on the face of
it has to be false of the human beings
who occupied the Americas before
Europeans came in now you might say okay so kant's a he
was a racist but we don't read those
works anymore who cares the reason we
should care is that Kant was a great
philosopher who transformed Western
philosophy and his disciples re wrote
the philosophy textbooks in Europe and
they wrote Asia Africa and the
indigenous traditions of the America out
of the philosophy textbooks now the vast majority not all
but the vast majority of my colleagues
in philosophy would reject the explicit
racism of cons account but they accept
the tainted fruit of cons account which
is the unargued assumption that there never was any
philosophy in any tradition besides the
tradition that goes back to Plato and
Aristotle and just a quick degression on
this point occasionally my colleagues in
philosophy will say well why Brian why
do you have to bring racism into this
you know why why do you think it's about
racism isn't it just about ignorance I
can't tell you how many times I have
said to people things like have you
considered hiring someone in Chinese
philosophy and they say well there is no
such thing as Chinese philosophy and I asked them well what
have you read that is considered Chinese
philosophy that you disagree as
philosophy and they oh I haven't read
any but I just know there isn't
any and I know the same things happens
with Indian philosophy with African
philosophy with indigenous American
philosophy people feel they don't have
to read it they know oppr or it doesn't
exist that's the that is why this is
about structural racism so what's been the effect of Kant
there are only about 133% of the
doctoral programs in philosophy in the
United States is there anybody on staff
who can competently supervise a
dissertation on Chinese philosophy and there is not a single ivy
league university that has any one in its
philosophy Department capable of
supervising a dissertation on Chinese
philosophy now the situation of Indian
philosophy is a little more complicated
here at Colombia it's one of the few
doctoral programs in philosophy where
you can actually study Indian philosophy
they have an assistant professor I hope
they tenure her someday who covers
Indian philosophy but overall there are
fewer places where you can study South
Asian or Indian philosophy in the United
States than there are places where you
can study Chinese philosophy African philosophy about in
the same boat as Indian philosophy uh my
friend uh Ricardo poo mentioned quasi
wedu who passed away just a few years
ago he was one of the few scholars in
the United States teaching African
philosophy and he's passed away as for
indigenous American philosophy last time
I checked there were three doctoral
programs where you could study the
thought of the people who lived in the
American Amer before the Europeans came
in so what can we do about this well I
wrote a book taking back philosophy and
I argued in this book I if you liked
some of the you know documentation for
the claims I've just made or learned or
or some quick responses to some of the
tedious and fallacious arguments against
teaching Chinese or African or
indigenous American or South Asian
philosophy and philosophy departments uh
I talk about that in taking back
philosophy but in the book I say we need
to take back philosophy in two senses we
need to take back philosophy to The
Cosmopolitan ideal that originally motivated
philosophy Plato knew there were
interesting ideas in other cultures and
he wanted to learn about them most
people knew this until the beginning of
the modern era so we need to take
philosophy back to its Cosmopolitan
Roots its Cosmopolitan and Multicultural
Roots also I think we should take
philosophy back to its roots as
something concerned with philosophy as a
way of life too often especially in the
English-speaking World philosophy has
become a bunch of intellectual parlor
games where people are willing to fight
to the death over the question of whether the sentence the current King of France is bald is false or neither true
nor false I have a colleague from
graduate school who wrote a whole book
about that I'm not making that up this
is a real thing philosophers like to
argue about instead of the meaning of
life and when you think about philosophy
in a Cosmopolitan way and about the
meaning of life what you recognize is
that there are four topics that people
discuss across many many civilizations what is the right way to
live what is the best way of life in
English we technically refer to that as
human flourishing and in Chinese you would
refer to it as randow the way of a human
or in ancient Greek you'd refer to it as
udonia or uh in Latin you'd refer to it
as beatitudo similar concept across
different cultures what they how they
fill that concept out is often different
but they're interested in that topic and
if you care about ways of life then
you're also going to care about the
personality traits the character traits
you need to live that way of life in
English we call those virtues in Chinese
they call them duh or in modern Chinese
MAA in Greek they call them AR and in
Latin they call them virtu and if you care about virtues you
have to care about how you cultivate the
virtues and in English we just call that
ethical cultivation in Chinese you could
say shyong in Greek you'd say pidea and in
Latin you'd say humanitas and of course if you're caring
about cultivating virtues so you can
live a way of life you care about what
is human nature like so that it's
possible to live that way of life and
cultivate those virtues and we talk
about human nature in English which
comes from the Latin nura which is their
version of the Greek fusus and in
Chinese you talk about raning human
nature so we find different answers to
common questions and in an interconnected multi-polar world we need to understand what other people think on
these topics and not just deal in memes
or characters of what they think now if
you'd like some concrete recommendations about how to make
education Multicultural when the G7
Nations met recently in Italy they
called together a group of leading
philosophers and me um to glad you
laughed at that uh to develop a a
statement on the needs of philosophy
going forward and we wrote uh in the
city of Barletta the barleta Declaration
on philosophy and interculturality and you can find it on
my website Brian van.com that's b r y an
v n n o r dn.com sorry I'm misspelling
it but for some reason people find my
name incredibly difficult to spell I
don't mind but you won't find the we but
if you just looked up barleta declaration it should take you to my
website I also have links there to
syllabi and readings for different kinds
of philosop opy so I'd like to end with
an anecdote that I think kind of illustrates um and I say the barleta Declaration will give you some concrete
suggestions for how to achieve Multicultural philosophy um but I'd like to end on an anecdote there's a European University
that had a bit of controversy recently um this European University
there was this young upstart philosopher
who wanted to introduce a new figure to
the philosophical curriculum and a lot
of the conservatives on the faculty
saidwell this guy is not a part of our
tradition and you're watering down the
curriculum with all these non-canonical
thinkers and text students literally
almost rioted about this change in the
curriculum the university I'm talking
about is the University of Paris the
debate I'm talking about took place in
the 13th century the young upstart philosopher
was St Thomas aquinus and he was trying to introduce Aristotle
back into the European philosophical
curriculum because his Works had been
lost but fortunately preserved in the
Islamic world and now they were being
translated into uh Latin and by the way there's
some evidence that aquinus only worked
from Latin translations of Aristotle's
works and there are plenty of
translations of Indian and Chinese and
African and Indigenous American
philosophy and for me what's really
exciting about Thomas aquinus is that aquinus was someone who
had his own Christian faith but he
wanted to learn from pagans like Plato
and Aristotle he wanted to learn from
Jews like myones he wanted to learn from
Muslims like abisa and aoiz and he
recognized that respecting his own
tradition was completely consistent with
loving and learning from other Traditions as well and that approach the way I would summarize that is to use lines from the
great Latin poem Terren who who and this
is an English translation of course he
said Terrence said I am a human and
nothing human is alien to me or as
kung's disciple said within the four seas all our
brothers thank you
杰弗里·萨克斯
let me just add It's a Wonderful panel
and uh everybody is engaged in it and
this discussion does not happen in the
UN Security Council it does not happen
at the G20 it does not happen among world
leaders uh it does not happen among
generals this is a very serious problem
which is that we are not having a
philosophical discussion about the kind
of world that we want among people who
are determining our lives and deaths and
that I think is uh extremely pertinent
and serious there has been no
philosophical discussion about the war
in Gaza there's been no philosophical
discussion about the war in Ukraine
among the people who are dropping the
bombs or choosing whether to drop the
bombs or to find a different way or to
find a different approach and this to me
is uh why this discussion is also
extremely pertinent of course it's
pertinent for our children it's
pertinent for how we live it's pertinent
for how uh we hope uh uh young people
will live and learn because they're
going to be in a in in a uh very diverse
and Global world but we're also at a
point of uh as the Doomsday Clock says
90 seconds to midnight and we don't have
the most basic appreciation of other
societies and don't even know that we
don't and don't even know how to get it
uh so there are assumptions made every
day here about what the Chinese are
going to do uh so that we can have a war
by 2027 says the US Navy this is
insanity uh and this is the level of
stupidity I'll use a a harsh word but uh
that that we really are governed by
right now now one of the things I uh and
by the way just the list of issues that
came up uh that are philosophical issues
as well as uh economic or political or sociological
or any other category migrants marginalized populations postcolonial populations Clash of civilizations
future Generations relations to the
biosphere these are all intrinsically
deeply philosophical issues that are not
so much discussed in a philosophical way
uh in places where it needs to be one of the things I as I studied more and more philosophy one of the things
that I came to love about philosophy is
that the great philosophers that we know
of um were not uh sitting in classrooms
they're all failed politicians almost
all of them uh or even better from my
point of view failed policy advisers uh
I love the fact that Plato failed three
times in trying to advise uh the
syracusa uh in Sicily because if he can
fail it gives us license for all of us
to fail uh one of the times he was near
nearly arrested uh and sold off to
slavery but he escaped at the last
moment so I'm just trying to take notes
uh well I was going to say that
confucious spent his whole life up to
age 70 going from Kingdom to Kingdom
being ignored basically uh until he sat
down with his disciples and then taught
for the next 2,000 years what to do but
during his lifetime he was mostly
ignored uh mavelli wrote The Prince uh
as basically a job application to get
the job back with the mediche lock these are not all my favorites but because they wrote for patrons the Earl
of Shaftsbury in that case and he was
secretary for the Carolinas and John
Stewart Mill worked for 40 years for the
East India Company I don't think he got
a lot right out of that particular part
of his career but the idea is we need to
bring this discussion in a very practical way also in a rather urgent way and it's very very rich and our assumptions about
how others behave are very culturally
determined by our own views I think one
of the things Pope Francis uh teaches
the most by the way is uh what his encyclical fatal tuti is about and that is encounter and the idea is that
if you really want to philosophical
approach listen to the other uh and know
how to make that encounter and that uh
in cyclical uh is dedicated it's the first ever I think
Catholic uh papal and cyclical dedicated
to a a Muslim leader it's dedicated to
the Grand Imam of alasar and it opens
actually with the description of St
Francis of AI and this is a historical
truth traveling uh traveling on foot
basically in ship to uh damietta uh Egypt in the fifth crusade
in 1219 to meet with the uh Sultan uh Kamel
al- Malik uh to try to make peace between the Christians and the Muslims on the battlefield uh and he had an allnight discussion with the sultan uh peace did not come uh in that way but it was another encounter that was extraordinary so I I want to thank all the panelists and all the uh philosophers and Gian Yu a colleague on our practical side of things but philosophical uh in his own right for how rich this is uh how meaningful it is how important it is and how much we have to really Propel it into uh active political course as well because this is not only philosophical uh to put it in quotation marks this is the most practical and that's how philosophy has always been that was the tradition practical uh and we need it practically speaking today more than ever so thank you
