0:00:11.581,0:00:14.077
When it comes to saving life,

0:00:14.077,0:00:18.274
my guess is that you think[br]of things like chemotherapy or CPR,

0:00:18.274,0:00:21.274
things far removed from philosophy.

0:00:21.279,0:00:24.596
But the title of my talk today,[br]"How Philosophy Can Save Your Life,"

0:00:24.596,0:00:25.631
is in earnest.

0:00:25.631,0:00:28.257
I actually think that when[br]it comes to saving your life,

0:00:28.257,0:00:30.671
you need something like philosophy.

0:00:30.671,0:00:31.919
Think about it.

0:00:33.045,0:00:37.321
CPR, chemotherapy and all the other[br]marvelous medical techniques,

0:00:37.321,0:00:40.802
as wonderful and precious as they can be,[br]don't actually save your life.

0:00:40.802,0:00:43.034
They really just put off your death.

0:00:43.370,0:00:47.760
It's said that when Socrates,[br]the great hero of Western philosophy,

0:00:48.037,0:00:50.452
was sentenced to death[br]by the Athenian court,

0:00:50.452,0:00:54.590
he replied, "Technically you do not have[br]the power to sentence me to death.

0:00:54.590,0:00:59.067
Life has sentenced me to death.[br]All you can do is give me a date."

0:00:59.098,0:01:03.598
Handing down a death sentence[br]or successfully administering chemotherapy

0:01:03.598,0:01:07.537
is really just making an adjustment[br]on the date of our inevitable death.

0:01:07.537,0:01:11.328
If you want to save your life,[br]you need to turn it from a humdrum thing

0:01:11.328,0:01:13.835
into the precious thing[br]that it's meant to be.

0:01:14.153,0:01:17.602
And I don't think chemotherapy[br]has a whole lot to offer on that score.

0:01:17.602,0:01:20.341
Now, when I am talking about philosophy,

0:01:20.341,0:01:22.832
I mean it in the ancient[br]Greek sense of that word:

0:01:22.832,0:01:26.609
The love of wisdom. The pursuit of wisdom.

0:01:26.609,0:01:31.255
Sometimes, I worry that some[br]of our contemporary practitioners

0:01:31.255,0:01:35.345
can give you the sense that philosophy[br]is really just for some big brain

0:01:35.345,0:01:38.625
that's going to construct[br]a perfect theory of the whole universe,

0:01:38.625,0:01:40.084
or maybe even more likely,

0:01:40.084,0:01:43.431
a big brain that's going to criticize[br]what everyone else has to say.

0:01:43.432,0:01:46.301
And while criticism and theorizing

0:01:46.304,0:01:48.682
are important and even joyful[br]parts of philosophy -

0:01:48.682,0:01:50.168
I don't want to diminish them -

0:01:50.168,0:01:52.592
really, philosophy is something[br]much more than that.

0:01:52.592,0:01:55.888
I guess I worry that people often feel[br]like they don't have permission

0:01:55.888,0:01:57.559
to study philosophy,

0:01:57.586,0:01:59.470
that they feel intimidated by it,

0:01:59.470,0:02:03.336
or they feel social pressures[br]that steer them away from studying it.

0:02:03.336,0:02:07.597
That's too bad because I think philosophy[br]is something that we can all engage in,

0:02:07.597,0:02:10.837
and I think it's something[br]that we often should engage in.

0:02:11.165,0:02:14.015
Philosophy begins[br]in the wonder that we all feel

0:02:14.015,0:02:17.299
about what's true and really valuable.

0:02:17.311,0:02:22.855
It takes us on a fascinating, sometimes[br]perilous journey of speculation and doubt.

0:02:22.875,0:02:25.776
But it ends by returning us to our lives

0:02:25.776,0:02:28.660
and helping to know them[br]for the first time.

0:02:28.660,0:02:31.789
To explain what I am talking about,[br]let me tell a few stories.

0:02:32.584,0:02:35.697
Sometime toward the end[br]of the fifth century B.C.,

0:02:35.701,0:02:40.230
a man by the name of Chaerephon[br]went into the Delphi Oracle and asked,

0:02:40.230,0:02:44.281
"Is my friend Socrates[br]the wisest person around?"

0:02:44.769,0:02:49.632
The Oracle came back:[br]"No one is wiser than Socrates."

0:02:49.995,0:02:53.802
Now, when Socrates himself[br]got wind of this pronouncement,

0:02:53.808,0:02:54.988
he was puzzled.

0:02:54.988,0:02:57.406
He thought, "I can't be the wisest person.

0:02:57.406,0:02:59.523
I actually have no wisdom at all."

0:02:59.645,0:03:03.586
So he set out to disprove the Oracle[br]with a very simple strategy:

0:03:03.586,0:03:07.010
Just find one person[br]with a little bit of wisdom,

0:03:07.010,0:03:10.324
which would clearly beat him,[br]whose wisdom level was at zero.

0:03:10.926,0:03:12.805
So he wandered around Athens,

0:03:12.805,0:03:15.852
critically interviewing[br]the religious authorities,

0:03:15.873,0:03:17.469
the political authorities,

0:03:17.469,0:03:19.729
the workers, the entertainers.

0:03:20.112,0:03:22.927
And what he found was [br]that the Oracle had spoken the truth:

0:03:22.927,0:03:24.372
he was the wisest.

0:03:24.372,0:03:26.373
Not because he possessed any great wisdom,

0:03:26.373,0:03:29.894
but he possessed one little piece[br]of priceless wisdom.

0:03:29.904,0:03:31.999
Namely, he knew he knew nothing.

0:03:31.999,0:03:35.917
Everyone else claimed to have special[br]knowledge about their various pursuits

0:03:35.917,0:03:37.235
when in fact they did not,

0:03:37.235,0:03:40.355
putting them in the hole, wisdom-wise.

0:03:40.735,0:03:43.775
Now, I've always been fascinated[br]by that story of Socrates,

0:03:43.775,0:03:46.290
but I've also always been[br]a little puzzled by it.

0:03:46.290,0:03:50.367
What does it mean to have wisdom[br]when you don't possess wisdom?

0:03:50.367,0:03:54.987
How can searching after answers[br]be a form of wisdom?

0:03:54.987,0:03:58.723
What good is it not to have the answers[br]but to be looking for them?

0:03:58.789,0:04:00.937
It took a student of mine, actually,

0:04:00.937,0:04:05.490
to really help me understand that story[br]in a much deeper way.

0:04:05.624,0:04:10.328
She reenacted, unaware[br]of Plato's writings about Socrates,

0:04:10.328,0:04:12.512
that very story.

0:04:12.512,0:04:16.025
And, I think, she shows both how[br]philosophy can help save your life,

0:04:16.032,0:04:19.972
but also how we can all move[br]in the greatness of philosophy.

0:04:20.635,0:04:22.391
Her name was Jillian,

0:04:22.709,0:04:26.446
and she was a nurse's aide[br]when she took my ethics class,

0:04:26.446,0:04:29.423
I think because it probably helped[br]to fulfill some requirement.

0:04:29.423,0:04:32.670
She was studying to eventually[br]become a full-fledged nurse.

0:04:32.841,0:04:38.638
One of the most interesting[br]conversations was sparked

0:04:38.639,0:04:41.195
when I casually asked the drooping class,

0:04:41.952,0:04:44.637
"What's a hospital for, anyway?"

0:04:45.102,0:04:48.254
I challenged the expected answers[br]as they came out.

0:04:48.658,0:04:50.091
"To fix people."

0:04:50.290,0:04:52.724
"What about those with a terminal case?"

0:04:53.596,0:04:55.251
"To ease people's pain?"

0:04:55.611,0:04:58.111
"What about those people[br]whose pain cannot be eased?"

0:04:58.854,0:05:01.250
"To ease people's pain[br]whose pain can be eased?"

0:05:01.250,0:05:03.873
"Is there no obligation[br]to healthy people?"

0:05:03.873,0:05:06.140
I was trying to open up[br]their minds a little bit

0:05:06.140,0:05:09.484
for some articles I was assigning[br]on the purpose of a hospital.

0:05:09.484,0:05:11.942
Well, the conversation[br]sparked something in Jillian,

0:05:11.942,0:05:16.232
and she asked my permission if she could[br]write on this for her next paper.

0:05:16.727,0:05:18.514
Well, a couple of weeks later,

0:05:18.514,0:05:21.694
as students were filing out,[br]turning in their papers,

0:05:21.694,0:05:24.754
I called her aside[br]to ask how the project had gone.

0:05:25.246,0:05:27.764
Well, our conversation[br]in class, she told me,

0:05:27.764,0:05:30.388
had really perplexed her,[br]even kind of disturbed her.

0:05:30.388,0:05:33.481
She worked in a hospital,[br]she felt she had a good sense of things,

0:05:33.481,0:05:35.756
but after our conversation, she realized

0:05:35.756,0:05:39.278
that she didn't really have any great[br]wisdom about the point of a hospital.

0:05:39.576,0:05:43.181
To help her formulate[br]a thesis for her paper,

0:05:43.181,0:05:47.034
she lit on the idea[br]of going around the hospital

0:05:47.150,0:05:49.333
and questioning various people there -

0:05:49.333,0:05:52.799
the doctors, the administrators,[br]the nurses, the nurse's' aides.

0:05:52.799,0:05:55.997
She said, "I figured someone[br]there surely had to have some wisdom

0:05:55.997,0:05:58.528
about what the point of a hospital was."

0:05:58.577,0:06:02.232
But what she found was[br]that when she critically interviewed them,

0:06:02.377,0:06:06.969
that they often gave the same pat answers[br]as the students did in class,

0:06:06.969,0:06:09.673
which, with a little criticism,

0:06:09.673,0:06:13.993
she was able to show[br]to be not really totally adequate.

0:06:14.853,0:06:18.892
She said that the best answer she got[br]was from some doctor who said to her -

0:06:18.892,0:06:22.453
after having had his first couple[br]of attempts shot down by a nurse's aide -

0:06:23.077,0:06:25.703
"Well, maybe you're[br]supposed to do all of the above."

0:06:25.973,0:06:28.853
But she realized that[br]that too was kind of inadequate.

0:06:28.853,0:06:31.041
Should they always[br]give people what they want?

0:06:31.041,0:06:33.280
Should they always[br]give people what they need?

0:06:33.280,0:06:36.138
What should govern the variety[br]of services that they provide?

0:06:36.138,0:06:37.868
And why were they there?

0:06:38.108,0:06:41.238
The problem, Jillian said to me,[br]was she thought that too often,

0:06:41.238,0:06:46.211
the hospital subordinated[br]its whole purpose to fixing broken bodies.

0:06:46.855,0:06:50.473
She said, "Too often pregnant women[br]are treated like they are sick,

0:06:50.473,0:06:53.923
mourners are dealt with[br]like psychological cases.

0:06:54.143,0:06:57.385
Folks clearly dying are pointlessly fixed.

0:06:57.653,0:07:01.063
If the hospital is no more[br]than a mechanical body shop,

0:07:01.354,0:07:04.752
we live in a less than fully human world."

0:07:05.600,0:07:07.810
"Imagine," she said, "Doctors, nurses,

0:07:07.810,0:07:10.965
people who have devoted decades[br]to studying and practicing medicine[br]

0:07:10.965,0:07:14.432
who've never given really serious thought[br]to why they were doing it."

0:07:14.605,0:07:16.240
Imagine, I thought,

0:07:16.240,0:07:20.573
the people of Athens being unable[br]to answer Socrates' question successfully.

0:07:20.573,0:07:24.139
Imagine, I also thought, people,[br]maybe especially people in a hospital,

0:07:24.139,0:07:26.246
forgetting to save their own lives.

0:07:26.533,0:07:30.595
Now, she also said she figured that many[br]of her coworkers did pretty decent jobs

0:07:30.595,0:07:33.259
going on their feel[br]for what they ought to be doing,

0:07:33.259,0:07:36.828
but she wondered if they wouldn't be[br]better off opening their minds

0:07:36.828,0:07:38.903
to the full truth of it.

0:07:38.919,0:07:42.006
She was echoing[br]a famous claim of Socrates:

0:07:42.006,0:07:45.768
"The unexamined life is not worth living."

0:07:46.549,0:07:50.194
In her paper, Jillian explained[br]that the philosophers I had assigned

0:07:50.194,0:07:52.632
helped her to see matters[br]a little more clearly.

0:07:52.632,0:07:56.702
That sickness, pain, can alienate us[br]from those around us,

0:07:56.702,0:07:59.936
that they threaten to exile us[br]from the human community.

0:08:00.197,0:08:03.854
The closest she could come[br]to formulating the purpose of the hospital

0:08:03.854,0:08:06.684
was, "To be there for people."

0:08:07.421,0:08:10.736
"To be there when they're sick,[br]to be there when they're dying,

0:08:10.801,0:08:12.806
to be there when they're mourning."

0:08:12.830,0:08:16.007
"To help people when you could,[br]and to aid people when they wanted,

0:08:16.019,0:08:17.079
of course,

0:08:17.079,0:08:20.745
but most of all, to be there[br]for them, human to human."

0:08:21.004,0:08:25.009
The point of medicine, she said, was care.

0:08:25.343,0:08:27.896
"Doctors are there,"[br]she marvelously concluded,

0:08:28.183,0:08:29.774
"to help the nurses."

0:08:29.986,0:08:32.864
But doctors, she feared, sometimes[br]overrate their wisdom

0:08:32.864,0:08:36.576
on the basis of their technical[br]proficiency and science.

0:08:37.095,0:08:40.464
She also admitted that she[br]didn't necessarily have all the answers

0:08:40.469,0:08:43.315
and that even what she was saying[br]she had some doubts about,

0:08:43.475,0:08:48.705
but she said that her pursuit of wisdom[br]about what she was doing

0:08:48.705,0:08:50.395
had helped her to really understand

0:08:50.395,0:08:53.594
the full meaning and significance[br]of what she was training to do,

0:08:53.691,0:08:58.206
that philosophy had helped[br]plug her into her vocation.

0:08:59.476,0:09:03.076
Jillian has been a full-fledged nurse[br]now for over a decade,

0:09:03.221,0:09:07.551
and I contacted her recently,[br]and she said to me,

0:09:07.660,0:09:09.762
"You know, I kept[br]that paper I wrote for you,

0:09:09.762,0:09:13.792
and I still define my goals[br]and my purposes in those terms."

0:09:13.792,0:09:18.252
In being there for people,[br]she's been saving her own life.

0:09:19.349,0:09:21.610
In the wake of Socrates,

0:09:21.610,0:09:23.706
philosophy in the ancient world

0:09:23.706,0:09:28.306
really became focused on the question[br]of how to live a good life.

0:09:28.506,0:09:32.521
It was all about the pursuit[br]of what they called "eudaimonia,"

0:09:32.524,0:09:33.650
in ancient Greek,

0:09:33.650,0:09:36.926
which we often translate[br]as happiness, the pursuit of happiness.

0:09:37.288,0:09:39.321
And happiness is[br]a pretty good translation,

0:09:39.321,0:09:41.671
but really, eudaimonia[br]means something more like

0:09:41.671,0:09:43.933
"Flourishing over the course[br]of your whole life"

0:09:43.946,0:09:47.472
or "Living up to the full[br]potential of being human."

0:09:47.472,0:09:50.773
Philosophy was not just[br]some intellectual game,

0:09:50.773,0:09:53.714
it was very much about trying[br]to understand those principles

0:09:53.714,0:09:57.923
that are going to bring happiness[br]and practice them in our lives.

0:09:58.515,0:10:03.348
I have to admit that I am guilty[br]of sometimes asking my students in class,

0:10:03.348,0:10:05.667
"If the doctor gave you[br]only one year to live,

0:10:05.667,0:10:08.477
how would you spend your remaining days?"

0:10:08.893,0:10:14.493
Generally, I get kind of cliched,[br]bucket-list sort of answers,

0:10:14.584,0:10:17.827
which show how unexamined[br]our lives often are.

0:10:17.827,0:10:21.881
For bucket lists make[br]a really bad assumption

0:10:21.881,0:10:27.337
that the good life is just a parade[br]of splashy, disconnected experiences.

0:10:28.402,0:10:31.503
One time, as I was fielding answers

0:10:31.503,0:10:35.973
about skydiving and visiting the Pyramids,

0:10:35.973,0:10:39.204
I noticed a twinkle[br]in the eye of Kimberly,

0:10:39.228,0:10:42.227
one of my great nontraditional students.

0:10:42.227,0:10:44.583
After class, I called her up and I said,

0:10:44.583,0:10:47.214
"I noticed you were[br]kind of smiling when we were talking

0:10:47.214,0:10:50.038
about how people would spend[br]their last year of life.

0:10:50.038,0:10:51.529
What was on your mind?"

0:10:52.382,0:10:53.458
She explained to me

0:10:53.458,0:10:58.418
that fairly recently[br]she'd been in exactly that situation.

0:10:58.828,0:11:03.716
She had been diagnosed[br]with a rare neuromuscular disorder,

0:11:03.716,0:11:06.663
"The most aggressive case seen,"[br]the doctor said,

0:11:06.665,0:11:10.151
and they told her that she[br]did not have long to live.

0:11:12.377,0:11:14.503
Well, after some dark nights of the soul,

0:11:14.503,0:11:17.695
Kimberly made up her mind[br]to take matters into her own hands,

0:11:17.695,0:11:22.423
seeking out some additional therapies[br]to the ones the doctors prescribed.

0:11:22.423,0:11:26.223
But she realized she did not have[br]all the time in the world,

0:11:26.364,0:11:28.095
and so, she said to me,

0:11:28.095,0:11:32.493
she decided to engage in philosophy[br]in that ancient sense.

0:11:32.493,0:11:34.451
She was going to try to figure out

0:11:34.451,0:11:38.578
what, really, happiness was[br]and how to practice it.

0:11:39.928,0:11:41.367
She loved wine,

0:11:41.405,0:11:45.619
so she got in the habit of really savoring[br]a couple of glasses every night.

0:11:45.619,0:11:47.710
She loved bicycling,

0:11:47.717,0:11:51.041
so she threw herself[br]into the world of cycling.

0:11:51.589,0:11:54.988
She loved learning more,[br]and she never finished college,

0:11:54.988,0:11:56.484
so she went back to school

0:11:56.484,0:11:59.864
to study the kinds of subjects[br]she was most interested in,

0:11:59.884,0:12:02.117
including philosophy,

0:12:02.117,0:12:07.998
where she studied, with me, thinkers[br]like Plato and Epicurus and Epictetus.

0:12:07.998,0:12:13.289
She said these thinkers helped to sharpen[br]her sense of the logic of living.

0:12:14.006,0:12:16.433
You come to terms with your death.

0:12:16.433,0:12:20.496
You confront the limitations[br]of bodily existence.

0:12:20.496,0:12:22.372
You pursue virtue.

0:12:22.372,0:12:25.682
You try to figure out[br]what's really pleasurable.

0:12:25.682,0:12:28.199
You pursue knowledge to deepen yourself

0:12:28.199,0:12:31.404
and to use this unique[br]human brain of ours.

0:12:31.819,0:12:37.929
I find a life like Kimberly's utterly[br]marvelous and also utterly philosophical.

0:12:38.644,0:12:44.037
Students that I have had,[br]like Kimberly and Jillian and many others,

0:12:44.037,0:12:45.405
have shown me that,

0:12:45.405,0:12:49.995
in the words of one of my heroes,[br]William James, an American philosopher,

0:12:50.365,0:12:54.067
"The deepest human life is everywhere."

0:12:55.057,0:12:58.429
The philosophical odyssey[br]is open to all of us;

0:12:58.441,0:13:02.491
the books of the great philosophers[br]are there to help us,

0:13:02.491,0:13:06.881
but of course, ultimately it's a journey[br]that we have to go on for ourselves.

0:13:07.468,0:13:09.935
Now, maybe you happen to be living

0:13:09.935,0:13:15.532
according to absolutely brilliant,[br]beautiful principles and ideals.

0:13:16.017,0:13:18.985
If that's true, philosophy[br]can still be a help;

0:13:18.985,0:13:20.869
it can help take you off autopilot

0:13:20.869,0:13:24.781
and put your hands on the wheel[br]of your beautiful life.

0:13:25.264,0:13:31.534
But what if some of the ideas[br]structuring your life are less than ideal?

0:13:32.125,0:13:36.402
What if some of the ideas[br]you have about how to be a nurse,

0:13:36.402,0:13:37.616
or a doctor,

0:13:37.616,0:13:39.460
or a teacher, or a student,

0:13:39.468,0:13:41.317
or a citizen, or a parent,

0:13:41.332,0:13:44.844
or a man, or a woman, or a human being

0:13:44.969,0:13:47.139
are a little out of whack?

0:13:48.451,0:13:52.283
Well then, philosophy has the power[br]to cut through the crap

0:13:52.283,0:13:57.084
and help bring us closer to what really[br]is meaningful and valuable.

0:13:57.488,0:13:59.171
I hate to break it to you today,

0:13:59.171,0:14:01.941
but you are going to die.

0:14:01.941,0:14:04.171
We all have a death sentence,

0:14:04.171,0:14:09.206
and there is no cosmic contract that says[br]it can't happen in the upcoming year.

0:14:09.506,0:14:11.674
So why not make up your mind

0:14:11.674,0:14:16.311
to devote yourself to philosophy[br]in that ancient sense?

0:14:16.311,0:14:20.300
Like Kimberly, like Jillian,[br]like all the other great philosophers.

0:14:21.313,0:14:24.391
The books of the great philosophers[br]are there to help us,

0:14:24.391,0:14:28.854
and you don't need my permission[br]for you to study them.

0:14:29.011,0:14:30.100
In fact, I would say,

0:14:30.100,0:14:34.200
freedom is the one thing[br]you should never ask permission for.

0:14:35.920,0:14:40.974
About a year ago, I contacted Kimberly[br]to see how she was doing,

0:14:40.974,0:14:44.859
and she explained to me[br]that she had to take a break

0:14:44.859,0:14:49.383
from her dream job with the women's[br]cycling developing program.

0:14:50.505,0:14:53.168
She was having to undergo chemotherapy.

0:14:54.153,0:14:55.588
"But," she said, "don't worry.

0:14:55.598,0:14:58.188
Things are looking up.[br]Not that they ever looked down.

0:14:58.188,0:14:59.577
I'm still pursuing happiness.

0:14:59.577,0:15:02.357
I'm still pursuing philosophy," she said.

0:15:02.357,0:15:05.650
"And it's better than last summer;[br]I was on hospice care for a while.

0:15:05.650,0:15:09.190
I think I'm on the fast track[br]to racing my bike again."

0:15:09.923,0:15:12.702
She was still saving her own life.

0:15:13.679,0:15:15.496
I haven't heard from her since.

0:15:15.992,0:15:17.602
Thank you very much.

0:15:17.602,0:15:20.125
(Applause)