In honour of world philosophy day on 17 November, Verve sat down with Auckland University’s Associate Professor of Philosophy Matheson Russell for a captivating insight into life’s big questions.
We begin by asking what the biggest misconceptions are about this most fascinating of fields.
“That philosophers sit around thinking only about the meaning of life! Most are trying to understand the nature of consciousness or consider how knowledge forms in modern media environments. Others are thinking about questions of injustice, artificial intelligence, or the future of democracy.”
While it’s common for many to be intimidated by a subject perceived to be about “abstract disconnected problems”, Matheson says that most of us spend at least some of our days philosophising without even realising it.
“Philosophical thought is about trying to think deeply about things we all already care about – reflecting on what we do in our ordinary lives, but just slowed down and taken really seriously. The aim is to think systematically about issues we face as humans. I was talking to a friend a couple of weeks ago who works in insurance, and she expressed concern about policies being developed that weren’t going to be available to people with certain conditions. They asked how we were to think about that and if it was an ethical thing to do. They’re philosophical questions.”
Does all philosophical thought centre around ethics?
“There are some philosophical topics that aren’t ethics, but I guess the questions we ask come out of our human lives. So, because they belong to a human world, they are problems that emerge for us as human beings and do often have an ethical aspect to them.”
How has artificial intelligence and the digital age affected philosophical thought?
“Experiments have been conducted to test AI’s response to ethical problems. It’s not necessarily so we can outsource decision-making to computers, but rather examine what good, ethical decision-making might look like. Because, you might get outputs from the machine and think, ‘Oh, that’s kind of interesting that it came up with that conclusion, but that doesn’t strike us as a very robust way of thinking about it, so, what’s gone wrong?’”
Such a process, adds Matheson, can serve as a tool to help us “reflect upon the nature of ethical reasoning”. I ask what are the most common questions that he’s asked as a philosopher.
“There are generally two responses to what I do. The first is ‘wow, that’s really interesting’ followed by silence as they have no idea what it is, or perhaps find it too intimidating. Others are fascinated about the world, and ask about politics, democracy, misinformation, and ethics. They may have come across some debates about the nature of consciousness or something like that and want to talk about that. People get little snippets about philosophy through the media and YouTube. It touches on people’s lives in lots of different ways.”
“Philosophy was this really great fit for me because it was about the world and big issues that we’re facing as humanity.”
Are philosophers generally a diverse group?
“Philosophy has been dominated by males over the last century or so – and that’s true of maths and physics as well. But it’s changing pretty rapidly now, thankfully. Philosophy departments are recognising that women have been excluded or felt unwelcome in the discipline for a long time and have faced barriers to breaking in and those kinds of systemic problems are being taken seriously.”
Matheson admits he didn’t even really know what philosophy was when he first went to university in Sydney but took some papers “because it was sort of a done thing for undergraduate art students to do”.
“I wanted to study arts and was interested in learning about history and culture and politics and society. Philosophy was this really great fit for me because it was about the world and big issues that we’re facing as humanity. It had this sort of logical, rigorous side to it too, which appealed to my maths-y, science-y brain!”
What would you recommend by way of books and podcasts for the philosophy-curious?
“There’s a popular podcast called Philosophy Bites which is hosted by a couple of British philosophers and has short interviews with philosophers for a general audience. It’s a really great way of getting a sense of what philosophers are doing, what they’re working on. The hosts of that podcast, David Edmunds and Nigel Warburton, have really nice introductory books to philosophy also. For those interested in ethics and justice, I’d recommend the book Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? by American political philosopher Michael Sandel.”
While “perennial philosophical questions” such as the nature of truth remain, philosophers, says Matheson, are “changing with the times”, now just as likely to be working on topics like animal consciousness and climate change.
“There’s a big debate going on about ethical obligation to future people for instance, which is largely precipitated by the climate crisis and other ecological crises. We’re suddenly no longer thinking about human existence as something which is continually improving the world and making the quality of life better for everyone. We recognise that we’re in a mass extinction event and the future of humanity is uncertain. These events in the world change the way in which the world around us is changing and poses new questions which is always a stimulus to philosophers.”
And so, it’s the philosopher’s job to respond and contribute to such public debates by using their very specific reasoning and resources.
“That’s what we as philosophers are trained to do, bring to bear these different kinds of ethical theories and perspectives on those kinds of questions.”
