We discuss the biggest questions: "what's real?", "who matters?" and "how to make a better world?" with scientists, celebrities, activists, writers and philosophers. The Sentientism worldview is "evidence, reason and compassion for all sentient beings." It's a simple, yet radical, philosophy that's grounded in reality (naturalistic epistemology) and has compassion for all sentient beings (mostly human and non-human animals). Naturalism & sentiocentrism combined.
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Lee McIntyre (leemcintyrebooks.com & @LeeCMcIntyre) is a Research Fellow at the Center for Philosophy & History of Science at Boston University & an Instructor in Ethics at Harvard Extension School. Lee is the author of How to Talk to a Science Denier as well as many other books, essays & papers. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Newsweek, Scientific American, the Boston Globe, the New Statesman & the Humanist.
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?”
Sentientism is “evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” The video of our conversation is here on YouTube.
We discuss:
00:00 Welcome
01:30 Lee’s Intro
– Philosophy of science to public philosophy (“it’s supposed to be about making life better”)
– “Science denial & misinformation are the scourges of our age… there’s an epistemic crisis”
– Clarity & 2-way public engagement “philosophers can’t just be talking to each other”
06:00 What’s Real?
– Ontology (being) & epistemology (knowing)
– “It’s possible there are things that are real… that we cannot know”
– Naturalistic ontology (only the natural exists) & epistemology (evidence & reason)
– Growing up in Portland
– Questioning: “My mom didn’t treat me like a kid… That made me a philosopher early on”
– Dad & grandmother kicked out of church
– Raised non-religious
– “It was good to wonder, but it wasn’t good to pretend that you were certain of things that you couldn’t know or that you didn’t know”
– Socrates: the real enemy isn’t ignorance (because we can learn) it’s false knowledge
– “Don’t let the charlatans take that sense of wonder away from you”
– Norm MacDonald: Faith as a choice, a leap?
– Experiencing cancer & considering mortality
– How does Dawkins know there’s nothing after death? Could there be a naturalistic afterlife?
– “The fact that there are questions we can’t answer is not an excuse for pretending we have an answer”
– Faith is often a response to the discomfort of uncertainty
– David Hume & empiricism
– Skepticism, humility, hubris
– Karl Popper, fallibilism
– Pretend naturalism vs. good faith naturalism
– Science denial/conspiracism: Gullibility about what you want to believe & extreme skepticism about any alternative
– Arbitrariness
– Hugh Mellor’s “The warrant of induction” https://youtu.be/0__p0iVUi2M & bayesianism
38:00 What (& Who) Matters?
– Teaching ethics for a decade but “I’ve never really made up my mind”
…and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info and on YouTube.
Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our “I’m a Sentientist” wall via this simple form.
Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there!
Thanks Graham.
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