Ellie Anderson interview: phenomenology and philosophy today
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- čas přidán 13. 04. 2023
- Part 1 of 2: for part 2, where Dr. Anderson discusses her own research on love and sex, see:
• New Voices in Phenomen... in the New Voices in Phenomenology channel series
Philosophy professor and Overthink co-host Ellie Anderson, Ph.D., talks about the nature of phenomenology, including its approaches to lived experience, the continuity between classical phenomenology and critical phenomenology, and how her work fits into the traditions of phenomenology, poststructuralism, and more. She also gets into her role as public philosopher, including how she feels about podcasting, how she got into posting CZcams videos, and the varieties of venues for philosophical education.
For more from Dr. Anderson, check out Overthink podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, and you can watch her lectures here on our CZcams channel!
overthinkpodcast.com
I'm currently in my fourth year of a philosophy undergrad, and I just wanna say your videos have helped me so much... Not just in clarifying concepts better than my professors, but also in introducing me to other perspectives on authors I thought I already understood, and thinking about philosophy as it relates to our current world as an academic discipline, social force, etc.
I wish I had enough patience and dedication to push through grad school, but as a consolation prize for not going, I get to hear you explain a lot of good reasons why its so hard to practice philosophy as a career... Sometimes it can feel like you're insane studying continental philosophy in the US, with people undermining the value of philosophy as a whole and 'continental' philosophy already being excluded from philosophy in a lot of people's minds. It's been awesome to hear you talk about not just philosophical concepts but also your experience in the job market (if I didn't know better, I might say the phenomenology of being a philosopher) which is a perspective that's hard to get from your undergrad professors. Keep up the great work
Also, if there are ever job openings at the youtube channel be sure to let us know ;)
I think you'll find the job market very rewarding with a degree in philosophy. Getting started will be a challenge- it generally is - but the overall quality of thought among today's population is fairly shallow. As a result, being able to think abstractly and analytically will give you the advantages in the long run. I say this from the "phenomenalogical" viewpoint of a boss with graduates on staff that can't really think and bosses for whom my analysis typically became the viewpoint of our division.
Plus, the real issues impacting people don't really change much. The forms mutate but the general concerns are similar, so you'll have the structure for analysis of every big question (I vs we, role of technology, cultural assimilation, freedom vs determinism, etc).
It seems unless you can study at a university with excellent pedigree, philosophy as a professional career is not a good choice or at least will lead to precariousness.
This channel actually does a really good video on this (if you haven’t already seen it) that was a wake up call for someone like me who was considering taking on massive student loan debt to attend a mid-level grad school with no real career prospects afterwards
I'm of Canadian origin and live in Berlin, follow German and French media/culture on a daily basis. I would say that philosophy and philosophers have almost as prominent a role in German society as in France. There was even a federal minister of culture who is a philosopher, Julian Nida-Rümelin. Philosophers get invited onto talk shows. I read once that such a degree can be of interest on the jobs market, as certain employers view it as a combination of analytical skills and cultural knowledge, not to mention, the ability to articulate. As for the concern that thumbnail sketches of philosophers and their ideas on CZcams might be too superficial, I don't think so. I love that old adage, "one thing leads to another".
she needs to do ASMR
'Philosopher'. Now, what is that? I do not know what that is.
I agree about the CZcams philosophy bit as well. When trying to condense ideas as complicated as those in philosophy into digestible video content ALOT is left out because it is necessarily a constrained medium of access. Philosophy YT content seems a better way of attracting/introducing people to philosophy rather than trying to give them a philosophical education, although the exceptions (this channel, Dr. Sadler, Dr. Sugrue) are important to recognise as above the rest for their rigorous work in accurately presenting these ideas
@@conorknapp6764 Judging from what I've been reading about the closure or the drastic shrinkage of the Humanities departments over there in the States, perhaps the future of intelligent thought lies in other media and outside of Academe.
@@robertalenrichter Yeah it’s a real shame. American academia does seem to be more concerned with securing funding and gatekeeping than it does with inspiring youth to critically engage with ideas. I do believe part of it is cultural too, relating to what you brought up about the mainstream appeal of philosophy in Europe. In the US, people have religious devotion to their opinions but are usually informed solely by intuition. I’ve tried to explain philosophy, or some of its concepts, to people and they just think you are trying to make them feel stupid.
Thank you so much
Great content with both questions and answers well thought out! Given the prevalence of social media, I think public philosophy will become even more important in the coming years.
Thanks this treatment of phenomenology and the great reminder to venture out of Plato's allegorical cave!
“The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason. To such a man the world tends to become definite, finite, obvious; common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected. Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases our knowledge as to what they may be; it removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect”
~ Bertrand Russell
29:23 So that a guy like me living in Egypt can get a chance to learn philosophy 😇
❤ Thank you, Ellie for inspiring another purpose in my life. For fourteen years, you might call them multiple selves, but I call them separate Angels within me, and my CZcams channel is a music one, with some audiobooks that I wrote. You have given me the idea to take philosophy and philosophers, and interview my own heavenly Angels as to how they feel about them. I love reading anything, but the best thoughts that are thought, that thought that comes from our many diverse traditions, including philosophy, deserve to be talked about. And, I have these Angels, so I might as well make some CZcams Interviews with them on Hegel, Nietzsche, Ponty, Derrida, Descartes, Heidegger, Sartre and many others. Though I am not an academic, but a common reader, my friends who love my Angels tell me that I make a pretty good teacher. So asking such celestial beings what they think of this or that figure will be interesting, and I have no idea what they will say just yet, but I know that they are good and fair always.
This is cool, I will start very soon. Thank you for your inspiration and public service. It will surely be better than asking ChatGPT what it thinks about philosophers and philosophy.
Wish us luck! 🎉
When I was in college 20 years ago, my boyfriend was into theory and wanted me very badly to learn it. As you all know, it’s hard. So he bought me these comic books that explained postmodernism and structuralism- because he knew I liked comics. Lol. This is what this discussion needs. I can still hear him saying “deconstruction doesn’t mean what you think it means.😂😅 i think phenomenology is so important and the language we use is so hard to understand. I wince thinking about charlatans like Jordan Peterson using Disney movies to illustrate his points against continental philosophy.
lol jordan peterson
yaay learning!!!!
'Great expose on Phenomenology!
Perhaps, moreover, the Deleuzian might broaden the perspective a bit on selfhood: "The self is a door between becomings...". In other words, self-ness is a retrospective of the compendium of thoughts that leads one onto a particular line of flight/plane of consistency.
And as for The existence of a coherent self, per Kant you might say that selfhood is by definition the coherent outcome of any particular strategy of thought> action. n other words, we know we're a self t the extent that we can reflect upon the general ontology that drives our decisions. Therefore, in a particular, individual sense, Ontology is Univocal.
But only that. here, it;s to be understood (or contested) that sarre utterly destroyed Husserl's project of finding tropes of "Universal Consciousness". Rather, that all consciousness is particular.
And ditto with Derrida in regards to language. Even within a particular cultural matrix, meaning slides so much as to take on significance only between users. In other words, it's the differing nature of language itself that makes a General Phenomenology quite impossible...
Great interview. A really succinct definition of phenomenology.
I particularly liked your brief mention of "the self." I've spend a lot of time reading and thinking about the philosophy of mind, but I don't know much about the perspective from Continental philosophy. Whom do you recommend on that subject? Merleau-Ponty, maybe Sartre. Others?
Please, Kant. Too many youngsters aren’t actually reading Kant.
There's different views on "the self", "selfhood" and "Subjectivity" in different Continental philosophies. Even Ellie Andersen is questioning her former views and knowledge on this subject (rightly so) - with reading for example Gilles Deleuze. This french philosopher is VERY hard to get into for people that are fresh to continental philosophy - but is very good on this subject. Most philosophers that studied and came after Heidegger and Edmund Husserl would (in my opinion) be of greatest interest - Merleau-Ponty and Sartre is defiently worth reading - but I'm leaning more towards Merleau-Ponty - as he have a clear criticism of the "transcendental subject" (this is basically one of Edmund Husserls main points in his phenomenology) that might appear in both Rene Decartes and Immanuel Kant etc.. A philosopher that have the most "sober" explaination and philisophy about Subjectivity is (in my opinion) maybe Jan Patocka - well worth a read - which consist of the "best" of Heidegger, Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre (a different notion of "nothingness") and many others - and maybe the closest to the Deleuze explaination of subjectivity (which is alot more radical than Patocka). Michel Foucalt or Hannah Arendt is also worth reading on this subject. If you ever read Hegel, Immanuel Kant, Fichte, Decartes on this subject - remember that the philiosophers I've listed is very critical of their views on "Self(hood)" and "Subjectivity". Hegel, Kant, Decartes etc. is to idealistic/constructivistic/psychological in their explainations.
Good luck on your reading.
While there are more technical or abstract aspects to philosophy that deserve to be treated in a purely academic setting, we shouldn't miss the forest for the trees. What is left of a philosophy that doesn't take life as its leit motif? And what kind of awareness of this are we bound to have if philosophy is sealed off from everyday life?
It's troubling, to me, how a major role of higher education is to legitimize the basic distinction between working classes and "educated" classes. It seems to me that we shouldn't accept this state of affairs as a fact of life, nor console ourselves with the belief that we inhabit a just meritocracy. But what to do?
The thumbnail for this is so funny and cute :3
Or the water glass.
I was happy having the prof read with commentary. I guess it's necessary to have a Q & A. Too distracting.
What is life, really, if we subtract all the ads, social media, and entertainment that keep us occupied daily, reeled in? What are we? Time is going so fast. What are we living for? This is the question
I tried my best to study philosophy and understand philosophy ,,, but I failed .
Join the club
@@OurBrainHurtsALot what is the process ,,, how I can join
The only way to fail is to stop reading, my dude.
@@impulsive1252 I shall try again ,,,,
@@impulsive1252 because philosophy is my crush
Cogito versus Culture ... Critical Phenomenology is a powerful tool that need not be applied to "social justice" ... ie Heidegger's position on blood and soil as it relates to authentic Dasein, and possibility of multiple Daseins [Russian Dasein, German Dasein, etc]
At 36:50 he asks a doubly meaningless question: firstly because the question had already been answered. Secondly, because it makes no sense to assume that exposing more people to an unknown subject could impede, or even harm, their interest in in-depth knowledge about the subject -- the worst that can happen is that they discover that they really have no interest in delving deeper into that subject; place they were already before being exposed to the subject...
i totally disagree in every possible aspect! but not philosophically off causa...