Professor of Philosophy and College of Letters Tushar Irani sat down to discuss Owen Flanagan’s book, “The Really Hard Problem.” Flanagan will be giving a talk at the University on Oct. 30 at 4:15 p.m. in Shanklin Hall.
Gina Yeoman: Tell me a bit about the book.
Tushar Irani: The book explores the topic of meaningfulness in human life from a naturalistic standpoint. Flanagan is a philosopher most well known for his work in the philosophy of mind, which he approaches from a naturalistic perspective—trying to understand human consciousness, for instance, not in terms of anything spooky or supernatural, but in terms of natural science. Coming from that point of view, he tackles this other problem, which he calls “the really hard problem;” namely, how do you make sense of meaning in a material world without appealing to the supernatural? So it’s a very hard-nosed scientific look at this question.
We recently finished the book as part of the philosophy department’s pro-seminar reading group, which is a weekly meeting where the faculty get together and read a work of common interest. Flanagan’s topic is a perennial one of course, but his approach to the problem touches on many of our research interests in the department.
Most mainstream analytic philosophers haven’t examined the issue as seriously as he does in this book, so it’s an ambitious project, and he resolves the problem, in part, by appealing to different philosophical traditions. Specifically, he points out that there’s a precedent for this way of approaching the question of how to make sense of human life and meaning in a natural world in ancient Greek philosophy. That’s something I found interesting from the get-go.
He also connects this approach to Buddhist and Confucian ethical views, which coincides with the interests of Steve Angle, the current chair of our department and a specialist in Chinese philosophy. Flanagan draws on these traditions fairly liberally in the book by examining what it means to flourish as a human being, which is the central topic of ethical inquiry in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy.
The Greek word here, “eudaimonia,” is often translated “happiness,” but is more accurately understood as “human flourishing.” The general idea is that, instead of thinking about the “meaning of life” as something external and imposed on us from without, you take meaning to emerge internally from the practices and activities we typically engage in as the animals that we are. You examine what it means to be a flourishing human being in the natural world and make sense of human life from that internal perspective. So it’s a very Aristotelian way of doing ethics, and Flanagan calls this project “eudaimonics”—the science of human flourishing.
GY: How does this pertain to the research you’re doing?
TI: The book relates directly to my interests in ethics and the approach to moral philosophy found in Plato and Aristotle. From this perspective, you’re not looking to prescribe rules of conduct in the way that later moral philosophers such as Kant and Mill aimed to do. Rather, you’re understanding what it means to be moral by asking what it means to live well.
This approach to morality has come to be termed “virtue ethics” in contemporary philosophy, since the main focus of concern is the virtuous individual examined “from the inside out” rather than “from the outside in.” So the book ties into my research interests by showing how Plato’s and Aristotle’s views continue to inspire and influence current answers to hard moral problems.
GY: Have you had a chance to discuss it with the faculty?
TI: The philosophy faculty has been meeting every Tuesday evening since the beginning of the semester to sit down and discuss a chapter from the book, raising questions and pointing out problems we think Flanagan doesn’t address, and what the overall strengths and weaknesses are of his argument. We’ve been doing that for the past six weeks in anticipation of his visit next week, in the hope that we’ll be able to engage him more constructively during his visit.
We’ll have a chance at that time to meet with him in a seminar setting and he’ll be giving a public talk on October 30, where there will be an opportunity for questions and discussion afterwards. Steve Horst, who has helped organize Flanagan’s visit, has also been leading a science and religion reading group on the text comprised of other Wesleyan faculty and students.
GY: How do you think this book will be interesting to students?
TI: I think it explores a question that all of us are interested in, now that we subscribe to a scientific point of view and are more prone to make sense of the world naturalistically instead of appealing to supernatural explanations that aren’t susceptible to empirical testing. Since we subscribe in the 21st century to this scientific framework, and are less inclined to seek supernatural justifications for our lives, where do we look for meaning? What sort of justification can there be? I suspect students ask these questions just as much as philosophers do, and the book is in fact intended to reach a wider audience.
Flanagan discusses the various and complementary ways in which human beings may flourish by exploring different areas in which we typically find meaning in present-day society. He focuses on a sextet of areas here in art, science, technology, ethics, politics and spirituality.
The thought is that there are these spaces of meaning that we turn to in making sense of our lives. All of us dabble in these spaces to differing degrees, and they’re all important in answering the question of what it means to live a meaningful life. Even spirituality, Flanagan argues, can be explained in this sense in naturalistic terms. He takes on religious worldviews in a provocative way during the course of the book, and I expect students who attend the talk will come away provoked if nothing else.
GY: Is he convincing?
TI: There are elements of what he says that are certainly convincing, especially if you’re interested in understanding ethics and these questions from an ancient perspective in the way that I am. Flanagan’s general ambition is a noble one, but it’s a relatively short book and an ongoing project, and there are points on which he can be pressed, as well as parts that need to be filled in, which I hope he’ll do in future work and perhaps even in his talk.
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