Crossover lecture by Prof. Tamar Gendler, Yale University
As a part of the Ashoka Crossover lecture series, a talk by Professor Tamar Gendler was organized on 17th March, 2017 at the India International Centre, Delhi.
As a part of the Ashoka Crossover lecture series, a talk by Professor Tamar Gendler was organized on 17th March, 2017 at the India International Centre, Delhi. The topic for the same was āLiberal Arts in the 21st Century: Modern Questions, Ancient Answersā.
Beginning with an introduction to the ideas of various philosophers of ancient Greece, and an overview of Socrates and the dangers he was presumed to pose as one capable of ācorruptingā young boys of Athens, Prof. Gendler stated that āif anyone ever questions the value of liberal arts and their capacity to change peopleās souls, remember that ancient Athens thought the liberal arts were so unbelievably powerful, that their greatest practitioner was seen as the greatest threat to the stability of the state.ā
The celebrated academician, who is currently a Vincent J. Scully Professor of Philosophy at Yale, spoke about the way different disciplines can converge by illustrating how various philosophical āinsightsā of ancient Greece can be used to understand the world, and to understand how one lives in context of their own identity, as well as the world around himself/herself. She started with Socratesā insight with regard to self-knowledge, stating that āthe key to self-knowledge, is the recognition that some part of ourselves is opaqueā. The illumination of this insight, Professor Gendler went on to say, is what imperial social psychological tradition has focused on, and also explained some psychological studies in relation to this insight which dealt with the phenomenon of misattribution of feelings and emotions, and misjudgement of motivations; āour tendency,ā she said, āof not knowing where our feelings come fromā.
Professor Gendler, then, moved on to Plato and his philosophical ideas, which focused on the various parts of oneās āsoulā and the effect of the interactions between them. She spoke about Platoās belief that the human soul consisted of three parts: Reason, Spirit, and Appetite, and comparison of these parts of the soul to a charioteer and two horses, where one horse was āa lover of honour and social recognitionā, while the other represents indecency. The distinguished professor then added that such metaphors for the structure of human soul could be observed across various traditions across the world and that neuroscience, too, offers the same insights as Platoās work. Speaking about the concept of ābeliefā and āaliefā as well as reflective and āmore primitiveā parts of the soul, Prof. Gendler stated that conflict between these parts can cause internal strife, which is costly to oneās energy reserves. Emphasizing that no part of the soul is always right or wrong, she told the audience: – ā[s]ometimes our reason overcorrects for things that the evolved systems have been particularly well designed to recognizeā.
One way to make sure the parts of the soul are in harmony, Professor Gendler went on to say, is to make something a āhabitā. Here, she drew upon Aristotle and some ideas of his philosophy to state how making something a habit could be used as a āmagical tooā to convert normative commitments (āthis is how the world should beā) into descriptive laws (the way the world actually is). Explaining a strategy for this conversion, she told the audience, paraphrasing Aristotleās insight, that āif you want to become something, act as if that is what you already areā.
Prof. Gendler also spoke about Ciceroās idea, which can be phrased as saying that sociability acts as a motivation, and then went on to elucidate Epictetusā idea of the location of a particular behaviour, be it internal or external. Quoting his words, she told the audience the need to recognize that ā[s]omethings are up to us, [s]omethings are not, and being able to differentiate between the two is key to maintaining oneās peace and quiet.
Expounding upon the importance of interdisciplinary education, Prof. Gendler concluded her talk by stating that the way these questions or themes are explored in different domains acts as evidence that in order to understand the world and flourish in it, one needs exposure to āour heritageā of philosophical, artistic, humanistic, and social scientific traditionāan exposure that liberal arts give us access to. āLiberal arts in the 21st centuryā, she went on to say, āare a set of modern answers to ancient questions, and a set of ancient answers to modern questionsā.
(The writer is a first-year Undergraduate student at Ashoka University)