Study Philosophy at Otago

Dr Zach Weber — Introduction

Hi everybody. My name is Zach Weber. I’m a lecturer in the Philosophy Department here at the University of Otago, and I wanted to talk to you today about why you might want to study philosophy when you get here. I study philosophy. I’m still here, so I think it’s pretty good, and I’d like to tell you why too.

Wisdom begins with wonder

Philosophy starts with Socrates back in, like, 400 BC. And Socrates said wisdom begins with wonder, because the word philosophy means love of wisdom. So if Socrates said, how could we be wise—and he didn’t tell you how to be wise, but he wanted to be wise—it’s the love of wisdom.

So Socrates said to be wise begins in wonder.

Being small

And it begins with that feeling of being kind of small and not understanding what the world is all about. You ever feel like that? Like you go through your life, and stuff happens, and you’re supposed to, like, get a job and drive a car and—and at the end of the day it doesn’t really make sense.

And Socrates was thinking, it doesn’t really make sense. How could we figure it out? So Socrates said, to be wise we want to understand where we are as best we can. He said intelligibility leads to the better life. The more we can understand where we are, the better equipped we are to navigate. It doesn’t guarantee that we’ll succeed, but it gives us the best chance of succeeding.

So he said "intelligibility leads to a good life". So I just want to think for a minute ...

What is a good life

Was Socrates, right? Does intelligibility lead to a good life? So what is a good life? So let’s think about that for a second, because that’s what philosophers do. We ask these big hard questions, and then we think about them.

What’s a good life? Well, maybe it’s making a lot of money. Maybe it’s travelling. Maybe it’s helping people. Maybe it’s just being happy. But what’s that?

Ignorance is bliss

So maybe Socrates was wrong. And maybe we shouldn’t try to understand where we are, because maybe we won’t like the answer. Maybe trying to figure things out is a bad idea, and we should just try to get through things as best we can. Maybe, as they say, ignorance is bliss.

So maybe—is that right? Would it be just better not to know certain things?

Being ignorant is too late

And I guess what I want you to think about is that if you’re already asking, “Is ignorance bliss or not?” then it’s kind of too late, because you’re already asking the question. And to choose to be ignorant would be to try to deceive yourself. And philosophers at least think that you can’t do that.

So I think we’re stuck doing philosophy, one way or the other. And we in the department here are here to help you work through some of these big hard questions—and to work through them in a way that’s not just giving our opinions or shouting at each other, but to really try to work together and think through things as carefully as we can, to stand the best chance of getting to wisdom—or at least loving the pursuit of it.