That’s a really wonderful question.
What is philosophy and why do we need it?
Of course many people think we don’t need it anymore.
And I can sympathize with that reaction when they look at the inward-turning character
if much contemporary philosophy, especially written in English.
But I think philosophy is immensely important.
I think the search for the large ideas about truth, knowledge, beauty, justice that is
in the classical philosophical tradition—not only in the West but also in the East—is
a terribly important thing.
That said I think it was misguided.
I am, at the end of the day, a pragmatist, and I don’t think we’re ever going to
find the big theories of truth, justice, et cetera that the classical philosophers have
sought.
But I think what they’ve given us are all sorts of wonderful tools for thinking about
the deepest and largest human questions.
Those questions are how should we try to live and how should we try to live together.
And the questions are connected with one another.
Now I want to suggest that rather than trying to give some definitive theory that will answer
those questions what we should do is try to think about our current state and the problems
that arise for human beings living well, living happily, living valuable and meaningful lives.
How, at a particular moment in time—our moment in time—are they limited?
And how could we get beyond those limits?
And philosophers aren’t in the business in my view of trying to sort of add some sort
of knowledge to the knowledge that is given by physicists and art critics and linguists
and anthropologists, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Philosophers are in the business of trying to fit all of that together so that we have
a picture of where people stand at a particular moment in time and how lives are problematic
so that we can be in a position to diagnose ways in which we might go forward.
I said this is a thoroughly pragmatist approach and it is because it’s not about perfection.
It’s a matter of improvement.
And philosophers I think are in the business of trying to give us that general picture
of ourselves and our place in the world and the kinds of lives that we live that will
enable us to take the next steps in improving things for ourselves.
And that means that philosophy is a synthetic discipline primarily.
It’s something that draws from lots and lots of different areas and draws from life
as it exists at a particular moment in time.
So every age will always need its philosophers and in the past we’ve had great synthesizers.
We think if people like Plato and Aristotle in the ancient West.
We think of people like Kant and Hegel in the more recent West.
We think of people like Confucius and Mencius and so on.
These are all attempts it seems to me to find a big synthesis, and that’s what philosophy
is all about and that’s what it needs, and that’s what philosophers I think should
be trying to accomplish.