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Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about philosophy because today is World

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Speaker 1: Philosophy Day. And when I did my journalism degree at

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Speaker 1: UNI or part time by correspondence, back in the day

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Speaker 1: pre computers, gosh, I'm old. It struck me as I

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Speaker 1: was doing it. Well, there's no point doing just one

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Speaker 1: major in journalism and padding the rest of it that

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Speaker 1: you had to get a certain number of subjects done

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Speaker 1: worth you know, have many points per subject to get

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Speaker 1: the BA the Bachelor of Arts. So I thought, no

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Speaker 1: point just doing one and padding it out. I'll do

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Speaker 1: as many as I can and to get the twenty

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Speaker 1: four points in a Bachelor of Arts. At least back

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Speaker 1: then that was the equivalent of three majors. So I

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Speaker 1: did journalism, politics, and my third was in philosophy. So

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Speaker 1: I've always maintained this interest. There is a cartoon I've

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Speaker 1: seen recently on social media where a young man tells

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Speaker 1: his dad, I'm studying philosophy, and his dad says, well,

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Speaker 1: that's lucky. The philosophy factory has just opened up in town.

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Speaker 1: So it does make me smile when I think of that.

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Speaker 1: But I think philosophy has its place, and let's find

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Speaker 1: out what it is. Doctor Millicent Churcher is a lecturer

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Speaker 1: in the School of Philosophy at the Australian Catholic University,

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Speaker 1: and she joins me now, Doctor Churchill.

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Speaker 2: Good evening, I'm Matthew. Great to be here.

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Speaker 1: Tell me a bit.

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Speaker 2: Love that story. By the way, I really really resonates

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Speaker 2: with my own story about how I went into.

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Speaker 1: Philosophy, really so. But the philosophy factory encouraged you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I wish no no. I was actually doing science

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Speaker 2: and languages, needed to fill some credit points in some

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Speaker 2: humanity subjects, and I chose philosophy because I was intrigued.

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Speaker 2: I actually didn't really know what it was, and yeah,

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Speaker 2: everything just went from there. I actually thought it would

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Speaker 2: be really easy going, that's why. So I just thought, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 2: you know, I can bludge my way through this. And

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Speaker 2: it was the lowest mark I ever got my philosophy

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Speaker 2: paper at at university. So yeah, that gave me some

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Speaker 2: added motivation to stick with it. And it was also

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Speaker 2: just really interesting.

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Speaker 1: You know, Okay, why was it really interesting? Let's start

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Speaker 1: with that.

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Speaker 2: Oh, it was just it was a whole new way

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Speaker 2: of thinking that I hadn't encountered before, because you know,

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Speaker 2: prior to that a lot of my experience of learning

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Speaker 2: had just been wrote learning, you know, big bunches of information,

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Speaker 2: and this was different. This was you know, we don't

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Speaker 2: we don't care so much that you can summarize what

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Speaker 2: Aristotle said on this subject. We want to know what

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Speaker 2: do you think of that argument? Is it a good one?

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Speaker 2: Is it a bad one? You know's what's missing? Yeah,

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Speaker 2: and I had never been trained to take that approach before,

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Speaker 2: So yeah, can I curiosity from there? And thankfully so,

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Speaker 2: I did my marks excellent?

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Speaker 1: All right, So what is its place today? Does it

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Speaker 1: still have a role? Do you think?

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Speaker 2: Absolutely? Yeah? And I think it's really a shame because

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Speaker 2: I think a lot of people don't really know what

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Speaker 2: philosophy is and what it's essentially about. But it's so

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Speaker 2: I like to tell my students, you've probably you're probably

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Speaker 2: already doing philosophy, a bit of philosophy in your everyday lives.

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Speaker 2: Like every time you put forward an argument, I think

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Speaker 2: you're doing a bit of philosophy. You're either doing it

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Speaker 2: well or you're doing it badly. But it's it's in everything,

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Speaker 2: It's everywhere, you know. For me, you know, that's you know,

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Speaker 2: if you ask a philosopher. Everyone's going to give you

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Speaker 2: a different account of what philosophy is and what it

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Speaker 2: means to them. But to me, you know why, I

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Speaker 2: think it's so important that it's really about like interrogating

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Speaker 2: the meanings of concept, really foundational concepts that we might

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Speaker 2: take for granted in our everyday lives, Like what do

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Speaker 2: we actually mean by justice? What does it consist in

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Speaker 2: When people talk about empathy, what are they referring to exactly?

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Speaker 2: And is it always a morally good thing? And you know,

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Speaker 2: so on and so on. But you know, it also

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Speaker 2: involves not just interrogating the meaning of concepts, but putting

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Speaker 2: forward and defending your own views about something based on

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Speaker 2: you know, compelling reasons and evidence, and also to addressing

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Speaker 2: potential objections to your views. So for me, you know,

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Speaker 2: philosophy is this critical endeavor that really like draws on

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Speaker 2: your capacity for intellectual courage but also I would say

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Speaker 2: intellectual humility.

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Speaker 1: When people talk about philosophy, we tend to think you

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Speaker 1: mentioned Aristotle and Plato obviously in those those old blokes

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Speaker 1: with beards who came up with art and their theories.

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Speaker 1: I suppose of what it was all about. And there's

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Speaker 1: been a lot of people since then, of course, who

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Speaker 1: have written on the subject the carts. You know, I

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Speaker 1: think therefore I am and all the others along the way.

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Speaker 2: But a lot of women.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, Simone de Bouvier. Was she Did she get

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Speaker 1: a Nobel Prize? Or was that Jean Paul Sartre? I

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Speaker 1: can't remember, but anyway, one of them rejected it. I

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Speaker 1: think I reckon it was her, wasn't it right?

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Speaker 2: I actually don't know that, so that I'm going to

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Speaker 2: go find out. Yeah, I imagine it would have been such,

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Speaker 2: but I'll be delighted.

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Speaker 1: If yeah, it might have been. Now it was one

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Speaker 1: or the other. I don't recall her anyway, the place

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Speaker 1: of it today. I just wonder, as you described there,

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Speaker 1: just how people think of it in that regard. Do

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Speaker 1: we do we tend to think of that we might

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Speaker 1: be philosophizing when we're putting forward an argument, for instance.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, as I said, you know, you can put

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Speaker 2: forward an argument better or worse ways. You know, what

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Speaker 2: philosophy really is about is it's not trying to convince

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Speaker 2: people on the basis of retric you know, or really

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Speaker 2: emotive language or sarcasm or whatever. It's you know, a

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Speaker 2: very almost clinical way of doing things, you know, like

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Speaker 2: it's really about persuading people through the power of reasons

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Speaker 2: and really convincing examples. So there's a kind of clear

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Speaker 2: headedness and thoroughness to philosophical thinking that I really like.

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Speaker 1: Can it solve the problems of the world today? Can

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Speaker 1: it solve you know, the Ukrainian War, for instance, bring

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Speaker 1: peace to the.

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Speaker 2: Middle You really like to think so, but I don't.

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Speaker 1: I don't.

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Speaker 2: I don't want to, you know, overestimate it's important, But

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Speaker 2: I think I think why For me, it's it's so

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Speaker 2: important to get as many people into filosophy, particularly in

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Speaker 2: the times wherein where public political discussion around just about

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Speaker 2: everything is so polarized deeply due to respectful you know,

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Speaker 2: grounded in misinformation and a lack of sound reasoning. You know,

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Speaker 2: in this landscape, I think training to be philosophers couldn't

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Speaker 2: be more important.

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Speaker 1: Okay, all right, is there a how did you marry

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Speaker 1: it with science? By the way, did a kind of

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Speaker 1: clash with ideas you had preconceived ideas and what you'd

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Speaker 1: learned already?

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Speaker 2: What I found, I mean, not not to my memory,

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Speaker 2: but what I found really interesting and what actually really

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Speaker 2: motivated me to keep going in philosophy was a second

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Speaker 2: year unit I did in practical ethics and that also

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Speaker 2: covered bioethics, and that that was fascinating to me, Like

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Speaker 2: I hadn't I hadn't, Yeah, I just hadn't, as I said,

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Speaker 2: hadn't done any kind of work like this, So that

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Speaker 2: was super interesting. And now I'm actually working on our

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Speaker 2: course in the philosophy of science, and I'm looking at

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Speaker 2: really interesting stuff there, like, for example, how feminists came

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Speaker 2: and critiqued, you know, the myth of the of the

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Speaker 2: scientist being able to adopt a purely objective, mutual you know,

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Speaker 2: view from nowhere and what you know and what that

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Speaker 2: means for science when you know, our perspective of the world,

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Speaker 2: what we study, what we attend to, how we interpret

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Speaker 2: evidence is very much influenced by our social locations, you know,

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Speaker 2: our culture, our history, our gender, our race, class, and

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Speaker 2: so on. So yeah, I'm finding all that very interesting

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Speaker 2: and philosophies really really I'm finding that a nice a

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Speaker 2: nice marriage in philosophy.

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Speaker 1: And Sime is there a branch of it, and that

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Speaker 1: obviously is one, but a branch that really appealed. I

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Speaker 1: mean for me, it's a stoicism the whole. The Stoics

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Speaker 1: are fantasic, because I reckon, if you can be stoic,

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Speaker 1: then you tend to become more resilient as a result

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Speaker 1: of that. But anything for you like closely.

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Speaker 2: Closely related to that, I'm really into a thinker under

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Speaker 2: tradition that drew a lot on stoicism, but then kind

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Speaker 2: of took it in a bit of a different direction.

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Speaker 2: So I don't know if you're familiar with the moral

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Speaker 2: sentimentalist tradition by any sham. So basically it's a tradition

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Speaker 2: that said, look, morality is not grounded primarily in reason,

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Speaker 2: as can't would have it you mentioned earlier. Rather, morality

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Speaker 2: is grounded in sentiment, in the passions, in feelings, right,

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Speaker 2: And yeah, I think that tradition is really really rich.

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Speaker 2: And part of what they said is being a moral

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Speaker 2: person isn't about getting rid of all of your feelings altogether,

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Speaker 2: as the Stoics might have it, to achieve this kind

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Speaker 2: of perfect state of tranquility. It's about getting the right

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Speaker 2: getting the balance of your passions right. It's about getting

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Speaker 2: the tone and pitch of your feelings right. And yeah,

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Speaker 2: I find that tradition really rich and fascinating, you know,

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Speaker 2: particularly again when we're in contemporary times where you just

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Speaker 2: see people's sentiments and passions being inflamed way beyond their

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Speaker 2: appropriate sounds. So the question of how you kind of

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Speaker 2: tame piece of people's passions and channel them towards kind

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Speaker 2: of other regarding behaviors as opposed to self regarding ones,

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Speaker 2: I find that, Yeah, a really interesting philosophical and practical question.

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Speaker 1: I suppose too, in workplaces there's a role for it.

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Speaker 1: And I don't want to open the doors to any

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Speaker 1: hr professional that you know, has has come up with

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Speaker 1: weird and wacky things for employees to engage with. But

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Speaker 1: maybe philosophy should actually be something they should introduce or

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Speaker 1: bring into the workforce in some form.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, Like this is this is I think the

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Speaker 2: thing that people miss, you know, even when I told

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Speaker 2: my father I was doing philosophies, Like, isn't philosophy just

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Speaker 2: a bunch of talking? It's just a giant talk best

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Speaker 2: And in a way it is. But I think what

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Speaker 2: people miss is that it can offer you know, you

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Speaker 2: get you need, you need good theory for good practice, right,

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Speaker 2: So yeah, I think philosophy offers excellent practical guidance and

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Speaker 2: has so much practical applications that's overlooked.

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Speaker 1: Okay, well, on that note, we'll leave it there, Doctor Churchill,

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Speaker 1: thank you for your time, this evening pleasure.

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Speaker 2: Matthew, great to be here

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Speaker 1: Thank you, World Philosophy Day and doctor Millicent Churchill from

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Speaker 1: Australia can click University who