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1:15

Sounds Music Radio Podcasts Hello

1:17

welcome to be Arts and

1:19

Ideas Podcast So many reasons

1:21

to listen to this program

1:23

About Can't and well, Reason

1:25

will also be discussing Marry

1:27

Wilson, Craft The Girls, and

1:30

how to Live like. A goat.

1:33

When is a marshmallow not a sweet?

1:35

When is a nine year old boy

1:37

not see go? When is a spice

1:39

girl? No longer a girl. That

1:51

we understand it was noise from a nearby

1:53

building site that cause the horses this book

1:55

and then bolt. We

2:16

we like to address the most pressing

2:18

questions here on freethinking, taking a lot

2:21

to let the what's happening but even

2:23

I know bit bewildered by the slightly

2:25

surreal turn of events this week. The

2:28

maybe what we need is a reassuring

2:30

reminder of the rational beings. That humans

2:32

are. And the vital powers of

2:34

reason with which we are eclipse. Enter

2:36

the philosopher Emanuel Tenth or think of

2:39

the week. It's three hundred years since

2:41

he was born and stone Callanan from

2:43

King's College London and Angle A Bright

2:46

And but from the University of Cambridge

2:48

A here to explain how can't my

2:50

guide us through some puzzling times? That

2:53

joined by Jan list him Stanley an

2:55

academic, Alexander Reza from the University of

2:57

Bristol. It's Mary Wilson Crafts birthday tomorrow

2:59

to and in a week in which

3:02

saw The Spice. Girls were united

3:04

at Victoria Beckham fiftieth birthday bash.

3:06

will be asking what happens when

3:08

girl power goes up Plus later

3:11

we celebrate the nine year old

3:13

he triumphs at the European See

3:15

Go championships. I talking with a

3:17

man he decided to live as

3:20

a Gates. I really will explain

3:22

it all. And a moment's hello

3:24

everybody hello And I. Am at

3:27

Is everyone sitting rational a while in

3:29

control of their faculties? They one you

3:31

know it might start bleeding like a

3:33

go to any moment I might. I

3:35

might. Nor. Does when you throw in. Some

3:38

teams on a taste good to second

3:40

stun. Let stars I talking about, can't

3:42

He was born in Seventeen Twenty Four,

3:44

in the small seven city of Koenigsberg.

3:47

Where he was, he was widely known

3:49

for adhering to a rather strict daily

3:51

routine. Wasn't his. Yahoos Unusual and

3:54

Floss reason that we do know something

3:56

about this routine of his which was

3:58

just to go on us. strict walk

4:00

at the set time every day, sometimes

4:02

with his servant Lampa behind

4:04

him, trailing with an umbrella if needed,

4:07

and that apparently, according to the biographers,

4:09

the locals could set their clock by

4:12

his walk more than anything else.

4:15

Is there a way, Angelia, for us to

4:17

make sense of that piquant little detail? The fact

4:19

that Kant had a routine that was

4:21

quite rigid in his way, he dressed quite strictly

4:23

as well, I think. Is there a way of

4:26

understanding it within the terms of his philosophies? Is

4:28

there a rhyme or reason behind it? One

4:31

thing that seemed significant is that he

4:34

didn't have to think about his routine. He just did

4:36

it, and that left room for

4:38

thinking about other things. He did

4:40

a lot of that and wrote a lot.

4:44

Do any of you have strict

4:46

routine? Tim, Stanley, do

4:48

you do style jumps at 6am every

4:50

morning? No, I don't. I walk the dog. My

4:53

dog does my thinking for me. Yes. I

4:56

structure the day, and they're

4:58

guided by instinct. We're going to come on to animals later,

5:01

aren't we? So is it the philosopher in my household? Is it my

5:03

dog? Is he your dog? What's your dog called? His name

5:05

is Bertie. Okay, I'm glad that Bertie got

5:07

a notable mention of this. Anybody else

5:09

have certain strict routines? I

5:11

stretch every morning pretty much now, which I

5:14

never used to do, and that is about

5:16

my age. I think sometimes

5:18

this routine of Kant is more about

5:20

his age. He only became famous really

5:22

late in life. He was around 60-something

5:25

probably when people were observing this daily

5:27

thing. I'm not sure if it's all

5:29

that significant. I think he just got us 10,000 steps.

5:33

Do you have a servant with an umbrella behind you? Not

5:35

yet. I have to become a professor. Alec?

5:38

No, not really. I try not to look at my

5:40

phone before 9 o'clock, but I'm not sure that that's

5:42

a real routine. I mean, the thing that Angela was

5:44

saying about not having to think about it made me

5:46

think Barack Obama apparently never thought about

5:48

his clothes. I always find that really frustrating. Someone

5:51

once told me I should do that, and I'm

5:53

very disorganised and spent ages thinking about what I'm

5:55

going to not wear. Then apparently

5:57

the secret to success is actually just to

5:59

cut that out. the daily, the daily, and

6:01

get any routines? Well not really, I mean

6:03

more of it since I've had children but

6:05

that's enforced from

6:08

without. They ruin everything. I

6:11

like to eat marshmallows at around

6:13

six minutes past nine on a

6:15

Friday night, not really of

6:17

course, but I do happen to have some and

6:20

I'm handing them around now

6:22

to you Tim.

6:24

Sadly not, but they are

6:27

guests to consume them and there is

6:29

in fact a philosophical challenge. There was

6:31

actually a story in the news this

6:33

week concerning a marshmallow company

6:35

who won, they won their case

6:37

against UK tax authorities

6:39

when a court ruled that they did

6:42

not have to pay VAT, yes Alex

6:44

I definitely would like a marshmallow, I'm

6:46

trying, they'd have to pay VAT on

6:49

their marshmallows because they were not confectionary,

6:51

so the courts deemed that they were

6:53

not items of confectionary and

6:56

the marshmallow company claimed that the

6:58

marshmallows were for roasting purposes and

7:01

so technically not a sweet.

7:03

You are all looking scandalised at

7:06

the moment, but guests I want you to

7:08

consider this as you chew on your marshmallows, could

7:10

this possibly be true? Is a marshmallow

7:14

not a sweetie and how do

7:16

we decide if it is or isn't?

7:19

But we just ate them without roasting them,

7:21

so have we abused their nature? If there

7:23

is a, if there is a, have another

7:25

Tim. If the marshmallow is defined by its

7:28

purpose right and we've just eaten

7:30

it, are we not committing some

7:32

grave offence both against the general moral order

7:34

of categories but also against the marshmallow itself

7:36

because it's not used it for its proper

7:38

purpose? I mean I love how seriously you're

7:40

taking it, that is a spirit. But you could

7:42

be saying that we're redefining its purpose in the act

7:44

of eating them with our fingers, right, so that was

7:46

the whole case I think that there are sweets you

7:48

eat with your fingers and this was supposed to be

7:51

roasting on a stick so therefore

7:53

it's not confectionary in the ordinary sense but

7:55

here we are without sticks

7:58

with fingers so We

8:00

refuse it thus. These are confectioners. I

8:02

like the way you're looking convinced, I

8:04

have to say. I'm just thinking marshmallows

8:06

are obviously sweets and the marshmallow lobbies

8:08

should pay the tax. But

8:12

on the other hand, do we want the

8:14

state defining what something, I mean, doesn't this

8:16

whole case hinge on trying to avoid tax?

8:19

And therefore, the notion of

8:21

trying to define something only matters when

8:24

the state is in the business of taking stuff from

8:26

us. I don't know. Yeah,

8:28

sure. But I guess, you know, we live

8:30

in an obesity crisis. There's all this stuff

8:32

about sugar levies, children eating

8:35

too many sweets and so on. And in that context,

8:37

don't we just want the sugar

8:40

companies to pay their sugar tax? I don't know why

8:42

I'm going there. I'm just... I don't disagree. I'm

8:44

so thrilled that you're taking this seriously. I

8:48

will say, considering how disgusting this is. Yeah, they're

8:50

not good. They're not good. I do

8:52

think we need camp to weigh in on

8:54

this. And John, perhaps you can do this.

8:57

We have a thing here on one hand,

8:59

a marshmallow with all the sensations that

9:01

come with it. It's disgustingly sweet. It's

9:03

melty. It actually sucks my fingers right

9:05

now and chewy. And on the other hand,

9:08

we have a theory of confectionary,

9:10

of sweets. And we're trying to

9:13

work out if these two things can

9:15

come together. Is it a stretch to

9:17

suggest that we're doing something kentian here?

9:20

It's a little stretch. But if we were to connect them,

9:22

we're talking about the ways in which we're going to do

9:26

which the concept of confectionary, the concept

9:28

of marshmallow, the concept of sweet is

9:30

in some sense up to us. And

9:33

that's what we're trying to debate out here. And sometimes we

9:35

have to bring in the courts in order to try and

9:37

get us a bit more regulated and figure out what the

9:39

rule is. Now, that kind

9:42

of style of thinking is very kentian

9:44

because Kent thought that our

9:46

whole experience of the world per se

9:48

was in some sense up to us. In

9:51

some sense, we are contributing concepts that

9:53

help us make sense of all these

9:55

sensations by ordering them into unified passions

9:57

that makes our experience possible in the

9:59

future. first place. So for

10:02

him it wouldn't be at all surprising that there

10:04

are decisions to be made in terms

10:06

of how we carve up the world because that's

10:08

what we are. We're kind of

10:10

creatures who carve up the world with our concepts.

10:13

Is it a sweetie though and do you want more John? Yes

10:16

and yes. Angela, I'm

10:19

trying to use this example to think

10:21

about the kind of architecture of the

10:23

mind that Kant set up and which John

10:25

is beginning to describe here. And at the heart of

10:27

this architecture is a faculty of

10:30

reason, a capacity for reason, which

10:32

all human beings possess. What does

10:34

Kant mean by this term reason?

10:37

Oh he means the faculty that

10:39

we all share. I think that's

10:41

really important. He

10:44

means in some respect the faculty that has

10:47

concepts that contributes concepts to our

10:49

experience. So there are other concepts

10:51

like marshmallow or sweet that

10:53

we have to work out and experience but there are

10:55

also some other concepts that

10:59

we have by virtue of having reason

11:02

in a broad sense so he calls it

11:04

also the understanding. And they

11:07

are given a priori. We use them

11:09

whenever we experience marshmallow sweets or anything

11:11

else. What do

11:13

we mean by a priori? Without

11:16

experience. Pre before experience. So you don't

11:18

need to have each of the marshmallow

11:20

to know it so much? Right. We

11:23

don't need to compare it to other kinds of sweets. We

11:25

don't need to compare it to, I don't know. Cooking chocolate.

11:28

I think that was used in this example. We

11:31

have those categories and we need them to experience

11:33

the word at all. Yeah. This notion of reason,

11:36

I have to tell you that

11:38

sticky marshmallow is making it very hard for me

11:40

to send pages of my scripts so we might

11:42

come undone. But John Reason is the big

11:45

idea of one of Kant's most

11:47

important books, The Critique of Pure

11:49

Reason. What is Kant trying to do

11:51

in that book, if you can summarize?

11:55

Well, he's trying to do a couple

11:57

of pretty radical things, actually. First

12:00

is just the idea that concepts which

12:02

we might think we learn in school

12:04

and the like are instead built into

12:06

our architecture, as you put it, of

12:08

the mind, and that they're there just

12:10

in order to make ordinary perception possible.

12:13

It's something that they're like rules

12:15

or algorithms that hold together our

12:17

experiences and put them into patterns

12:19

and shapes that allow us to

12:21

experience things at all. And

12:24

he thinks we need this. He thinks the flow

12:26

of experience through time is a big mess. And

12:29

we wouldn't be able to even have ordinary

12:31

coherent thoughts if we didn't do

12:33

some processing work to put all

12:35

these things, sensations together. And the

12:37

rules of that equals

12:40

the categories of these fundamental concepts. Why

12:42

is this capacity for reason that we

12:45

all share that you described, Angela? Why

12:47

is that important? It's

12:49

important because Kant thinks it's

12:52

important for experience, for knowledge.

12:54

It's also important because it's

12:56

the faculty that is

12:58

common to all of us, that binds us

13:01

together. So Kant thinks that to

13:03

reason properly is to reason in a way that we

13:05

can all do it, that

13:07

we can share with each other, that can be

13:09

followed by others. So he

13:12

has this idea that reasoning

13:15

is also a means of thinking about action,

13:18

not just experience. And

13:21

so if we do it well,

13:23

we do it in a way that we

13:26

can do together. What do you

13:28

think of this, Tim and Alex, together?

13:30

This idea of, or this positioning of

13:32

reason at the center of our existence?

13:35

Do you buy this idea that it's

13:37

universally shared? I'm

13:40

not a Kantian. I'm really enjoying listening to this

13:42

kind of this explanation. But I guess, I mean,

13:44

in my, the question I would ask

13:46

is that, and I'm not a philosopher, but

13:48

in my field, the way that Kant, which

13:50

is literary and cultural studies, is

13:52

I guess the kind of emphasis

13:54

in thinking about Kant in postcolonial studies has been

13:57

to ask the question of how

13:59

much his other writing outside philosophy, we were

14:01

talking a bit about this before, it's

14:03

in the green room, his anthropological

14:05

and geographical writing in which

14:08

he developed ideas about race that

14:10

were deeply hierarchical and actually denied

14:12

the idea that reason could

14:14

be a faculty that all people, not

14:18

universal, sorry, not universal,

14:20

exactly. And so I suppose that's something that

14:22

I think people, it's not

14:25

a new thing in that writers have been,

14:27

philosophers have been writing about this since the

14:29

1990s, Emmanuel Eze wrote about it,

14:31

Nigerian philosopher and then subsequently lots

14:33

of people, Paul Gilroy, Robbie Shilliam and others. So I

14:35

suppose, I mean, this can bring, I mean, the question

14:37

it brings to me and the kind of the body

14:39

of work it brings to my mind is

14:42

the kind of the work developed

14:44

by anti-colonial intellectuals in the 19th,

14:46

20th century, who were concerned

14:48

in a sense to unpick the whole

14:50

edifice of colonial reason that they saw

14:52

as underpinning the civilizational project of European

14:55

colonialism. And

14:57

so I guess that

14:59

question of whether that

15:03

body of thinking about rationality and

15:06

reason was really kind

15:08

of conceived of in practice

15:10

and in theory to kind of apply to the whole

15:12

world is a really important question. Yeah, that's

15:14

an anti-colonial critique of reason, Tim. Is there

15:16

another reason to critique that? Well,

15:19

just to pick up on that, the implication of

15:21

that is that Kant himself wasn't exercising pure reason

15:24

because his view of non-European people

15:26

was shaped by prejudice and ignorance.

15:29

And this is the problem with whenever you're trying to

15:32

structure anything around the concepts of reason is, well,

15:34

A, we

15:36

all think things are

15:39

reasonable in different ways because of

15:41

our cultural background or whatever, and

15:44

B, we're all going to disagree, we're

15:46

all likely to disagree on what the

15:48

reasonable outcome is. That's human experience. Now,

15:51

I'm a journalist, you'd struggle to find a journalist who's read

15:53

Kant. In me, you get one who's tried to read Kant.

15:56

I Find him impenetrable. But My understanding in

15:58

terms of Historic Acorn: Sort of like location.

16:01

as is in the medieval era, people largely

16:03

believe what they were told to believe by

16:05

the church. Stanley Authority, The church

16:07

is questioned the had the Reformation, the wars

16:09

of religion, the change in the economy, the

16:12

emergence of the individual and what Cantina Some

16:14

is about at the misses His famous quotes

16:16

dare to think for yourself or some is

16:18

a race not at data Think to yourself

16:21

is idea that post God posts church ten

16:23

we eat meat and our way to a

16:25

better order. Can we as individuals just using

16:28

our minds and are practical experience categories eccentric?

16:30

Can we work out how to build a

16:32

better society And the assumption as I said

16:34

his first that you're able to exercise that

16:37

pure reason but I didn't think that's true.

16:39

I think petty disk and informants up A

16:41

second is this assumption that we will come

16:43

up with the same answers because theoretically if

16:46

a rule stripping away our prejudices and our

16:48

ignorance, if we're all got the same information

16:50

for ordering the same quality of thinking, we

16:53

should come up with one perfect system. And

16:55

it has to be said. where does Hitler

16:57

happened Since it happens in Germany, the most

16:59

educated population and Europe during the Second World

17:02

War right to happens in Emanuel comes Back

17:04

garden. So that proves to me that reason.

17:06

This is to quit benedick. The

17:08

sixteenth reason is not enough. You.

17:11

Have to acknowledge the people have prejudices and either

17:13

educate them or interact with them And the has

17:15

to be for me as a Catholics the has

17:17

to be the into relation of face what for.

17:19

This. What do a sentence and could this

17:22

is a be listened patiently. Well I'm

17:24

little bit sympathetic to the idea

17:26

that reason is not enough, but

17:28

that doesn't mean that reason isn't

17:30

necessary and of scissors sympathetic to

17:32

the idea of thus there are

17:34

various other aspects are outside of

17:36

Russian of the such as anthropology

17:38

that need to be brought in

17:40

in order to augment. The

17:43

Kantian universalism that it and Gala

17:45

was. Pointing. Towards

17:47

But the idea that press that

17:49

can't exercise of reasons himself was

17:52

flawed doesn't mean that. Rationality.

17:55

Ought to be rejected. The idea that it

17:57

has limits doesn't mean that it's not. It's

17:59

not. suffer. And doesn't mean it's

18:01

not necessary for living the right

18:03

life. and also comes notion of.

18:06

Rationality. Is somewhat procedural. it's

18:08

nos of and set of commandments,

18:10

specific set of rules. It's a

18:12

process by which we might try

18:15

and take the viewpoint of others

18:17

and try and find some unify

18:19

point of view in virtue of

18:22

which everyone can agree. So the

18:24

quest? the real interesting question for

18:26

Canteens is somehow he has some

18:28

of these very flawed views as

18:31

an individual. and yet he had

18:33

this incredibly rich and inclusive, universal

18:35

notion of rationality. Which you

18:37

think he ought to have extended father

18:39

and it. And so that's an. Interesting.

18:42

Thing to think about France's saucers.

18:45

For what I've always wanted a nice

18:47

piece of things that they can does

18:49

raises the you specify that having that

18:52

capacity the reason makes us what he

18:54

calls ends in ourselves and that means

18:56

to an and why is that into

18:59

something good And it's important because it

19:01

explains why he thinks that's am. As

19:03

being said reason have value, they ends

19:05

in themselves and authority tied to this

19:08

idea that to reason is t the

19:10

I'm pleased. Think for ourselves not to

19:12

be not to follow authority not to

19:15

follow. At the church says all out

19:17

he tell the parents and but to

19:19

be safe and that it to to

19:21

think in a way that is based

19:24

on our reason and can't think that

19:26

that as it can only happen if

19:28

we reason I'm in a way that

19:31

others can I am reason to which

19:33

means taking away the particular situation that

19:35

we another particular interests that we have

19:38

an am and and that means taking

19:40

on board the idea that we the

19:42

in a we have our own Am

19:45

position. and we were is that so i

19:47

in a way i agree with the fact

19:49

that we have to take that position into

19:51

account i think we have to take it

19:53

into account a particular situation order to understand

19:55

where we might be blindsided all women were

19:57

we might not be able to take the

19:59

bus of the other. Has

20:02

this Kantian idea of rationality

20:04

that we're discussing in different

20:06

ways, has it had a

20:08

wider impact beyond philosophy in

20:11

terms of ideas of modern liberalism perhaps,

20:14

human rights, John? Certainly.

20:17

We think of UN declarations of human rights,

20:19

for example, are just based upon ideas of

20:22

the inherent and innate dignity of the individual

20:24

just on the basis of

20:26

their personality as human beings and very

20:28

little more than that. What's exciting, I

20:30

think, about Kant's viewpoint is that he

20:33

sets the bar for rationality quite low.

20:35

It's being able to talk

20:37

and give reasons for what you think and why

20:39

you think and that's why you think

20:41

what you believe. And

20:43

it's important to stress that a lot

20:45

of Kant's emphasis on the dignity of the human

20:48

being and the ability to think for themselves is

20:50

in a sense an appeal to the idea

20:52

that rationality is all you have in the face of

20:55

power. Arbitrary power by

20:57

states, by institutions, by history,

20:59

all you have when they're

21:01

trying to coerce your will is the possibility

21:03

of thinking for yourself and setting up your

21:05

own values. And that's an enormously

21:08

powerful thought. What do you think Alex? There's

21:10

an ambition here even if he doesn't live up to it. Yeah,

21:13

no, I mean I think it does

21:15

sound very ambitious. I just I guess that it

21:17

might seem less ambitious and beautiful if you're not

21:19

the beneficiary, if you're not the kind of intended

21:21

beneficiary. So this question of this

21:23

idea that he doesn't actually think that all

21:26

people can have this faculty really troubles me. I'm

21:28

not sure that I'm not sure if I can get

21:30

past that. But what you were saying about not

21:32

tanking reason does I do agree with and I

21:34

guess in the kind of the body of work

21:37

that I work on,

21:39

writers try strategically sometimes to

21:41

kind of, you know for

21:44

example through surrealism or through kind of writing

21:46

about madness to kind of

21:50

to bathe themselves in unreason but not as an

21:52

endpoint as a kind of as a way of

21:54

demonstrating the limits of the ways

21:57

that I suppose from a clinical point.

22:00

Coupling few restarting reason have been picked.

22:02

Bad ends and thoughts. I think

22:04

all that or the people that.

22:06

I'm have in mind as are are

22:08

interested in the. End and for finding

22:11

new ways of grounding a kind of

22:13

successful or humanism and also new ways

22:15

of thinking about the rest. Naughty but

22:17

one that's not divorced from ceiling which

22:19

might be more challenging and also one

22:21

that's not divorced from embodiment. And because

22:23

I think when I think someone for

22:25

example and like for sono who is

22:27

that a psycho analyst and and they

22:29

must seasons lasagna indeed and you is

22:32

very interesting cause this and Russia see

22:34

the point of view this as a

22:36

physician I think his point is that

22:38

it's hard to understand madness. And reason

22:40

without taking seriously the waste people's consciousness and

22:42

experience of the world aside by the bodies

22:44

in the Steelers and and so and it's

22:46

quite difficult for me to understand me because

22:48

they are generally don't I don't I think

22:50

that know any message good vs into put

22:52

to our Arkansas ah how do we. Get.

22:55

To grips with that passes his thought. If

22:57

this that the i do that that rush

22:59

on as he meant for towards bad ends

23:01

I met. He argues that some people very

23:04

young children from the woodland. his abilities non

23:06

Europeans may not be fully rational. How do

23:08

we get to grips with that was his

23:10

Saudi thing. Is

23:13

it is an imperfect system I

23:15

guess I'm so. I think that

23:17

different cases I mean I think

23:19

in some cases so the So

23:22

the example some children bath and

23:24

can went on to say of

23:26

as a reason they're in L

23:28

am it's growing, it's not there

23:30

so eloquently eve and could am

23:33

very clever done a senior citizens

23:35

and so is that said that

23:37

Islam case Then there are cases

23:39

where am I can't think that

23:42

I think tense thinking as prejudiced.

23:44

I thought certain people went on

23:46

didn't have for is not the

23:48

same capacity as lights and Am

23:50

that doesn't sit with his Am

23:53

universalist conception of reason I'm so

23:55

he contradicted himself and as and

23:57

indices something that John raised. It's

23:59

difficult to understand how he could

24:02

have done had how he could

24:04

not have seen am that he

24:06

say I was a straightforward contradiction

24:08

with his universalist ah commitment I'm

24:11

ah I'm and we might think

24:13

about. You know what other

24:15

reason for says deception there? Perhaps

24:17

not seeing that Ah When has

24:20

a beautiful radical theory of all

24:22

national beings ah have ends in

24:24

themselves have the same ah inherent

24:27

value and yet seen got some

24:29

as different setting. that's a question

24:31

for yeah how how we are

24:33

do with that in the history

24:36

of philosophy. Are. Also think that comes

24:38

in his essay on enlightenment. Just thought we

24:40

were at the stores in He really didn't

24:42

think that there was assessed picture of reason

24:45

that was solidified and ossified forever. That if

24:47

one had to have a but rather was

24:49

a project or that was growing and hoping

24:52

to include other viewpoints. as long as they

24:54

were able to give some kind of reasons

24:56

that they could share and communicate with and

24:58

debase I was as to why they want

25:01

to be included and give reasons for that

25:03

Than that was the Interesting and Tarkenton project.

25:05

so it hasn't it hasn't. It has

25:07

an inclusive aspiration for the project is

25:10

clean or ended because as the West's

25:12

as a game of reason has gone

25:14

through the French Revolution, communism in our

25:16

postmodernism and it's interesting this conversation has

25:18

come back to race. That's because that's

25:21

a modern interest and it's because we

25:23

have so dramatically changed our minds. which

25:25

implies as the what one judges as

25:27

being reasonable changes over time from society

25:29

from place to place. Now I think

25:32

it's important. Systems green, what can't actually

25:34

thought and then what happened later with

25:36

Cantina Some. And where it went but

25:38

there is so if cans interested in what

25:40

can we know there is a direction of

25:43

thoughts from the in the west which goes

25:45

in the direction saying we can't be certainly

25:47

know anything. And you end

25:49

up with post modernism and a complete fragmentation

25:51

of categories and a complete confusion about what

25:54

nothing means. So to give an example, it's

25:56

in the news. Five minutes ago, politicians in

25:58

this country said that. trans woman was a woman.

26:01

Never mind marshmallows, they said a trans woman

26:03

was a woman. Today they're saying they're not.

26:06

So there is something we should have thought would

26:08

be absolutely fundamental which we could all agree if

26:11

Kant's right, we all have this shared moral language

26:13

because no one has a private language right. We

26:15

all have this shared moral language. It blows my

26:17

mind that one year ago a trans woman was

26:20

a woman and now they're not. And what that

26:22

tells me is that the categories don't work. The

26:24

attempt to reason through everything doesn't work because it

26:26

all comes down to a mixture of prejudice and

26:28

fashion, whatever is the intellectual fashion of the moment

26:31

might happen to be. Can we do a

26:33

little thought experiment along those lines

26:35

perhaps in all of us together? Let's

26:38

fast forward from Kant's time, 243

26:40

years on from the publication of

26:42

the Critique of Pure Reason to

26:44

now. And imagine Kant on his

26:46

daily walk but now he's also

26:48

checking his phone Tim, imagine that.

26:50

Scrolling through an app formerly known

26:52

as Twitter and it's full

26:54

of people exercising their

26:57

apparently critical faculties but

26:59

generally against each other. There's lots

27:01

of disagreements. There are emotions running

27:03

really high. And they're irrational. People

27:06

are deeply divided.

27:08

And they invoke reason to justify

27:11

irrational positions. That's a very interesting

27:13

thing. So is there a way

27:15

for us to cool down this kind

27:18

of heated debate according to Kant? Is there

27:20

a way to do that? I

27:22

mean of course there's a way to do that. I

27:24

mean that is exactly you can say what is happening.

27:27

We focus radically on the bad

27:29

end of the spectrum of rational debates

27:32

and try not to pay attention to

27:34

the enormous success of rational deliberation in

27:36

Western society over the last 200 years.

27:39

The enormous growth of institutions,

27:42

the fantastic expansion of commerce

27:44

and trade and

27:46

mutual interaction that exists across the

27:49

globe that never did before. We

27:51

downplay all the success of reason

27:53

and focus on its worst elements in

27:55

order to denigrate the idea of reason.

27:58

And that is the thing that's... cantus fearful

28:00

about that we might look at failures

28:02

of reason as grounds for rejecting us

28:05

What do you think Alex? What are you thinking? What

28:08

am I thinking? I'm thinking that I'm

28:12

just not sure that all that all the positive things in

28:14

the world can be necessarily ascribed to reason I mean, I

28:17

guess I don't have it. I I think I

28:19

think that I just I

28:21

just have in mind this this line in

28:23

a poem in a poem by the martinican

28:26

poet mrs where reason kind of appears

28:28

and this is kind of this mad

28:30

moment the reason appears character and the

28:32

speaking voice says Reason I anoint

28:34

you the evening wind you say your name is

28:36

the voice of order But I say you are

28:39

the curve of the whip and and I guess

28:41

you know, it's a kind of it's a kind

28:43

of puckish um uh

28:45

sort of Whirling rejection of that

28:47

kind of of that um of

28:50

the idea of reason but it's also one

28:52

that really underlines the way that And

28:54

perhaps for the developmental reasons you were

28:56

just talking about that those discourses of

28:59

reason were used to justify violence

29:02

and expansion colonial expansion across

29:05

the world in ways that makes it quite hard to

29:07

see um the kind of

29:09

legacy of rationalism and reason as being kind

29:11

of good things like commerce and institutions because

29:13

that's a very partial understanding of I

29:16

guess The history of the

29:19

modern world. I I think one of the

29:21

things that cantas deeply concerned about

29:23

is the idea that Reason has

29:25

to seem in some sense like it's an

29:27

internal affair that it's coming from you Right

29:29

in the essay on enlightenment He says he

29:32

gives us this very evocative talk about the

29:34

risks of outsourcing thinking to other authorities If

29:36

i have someone else to do my spiritual

29:38

guidance this person to give me my daily

29:40

routine health I don't have to think for

29:43

myself if I can pay he says And

29:45

that is the what that is what is worried

29:48

about is that we somehow start to conceptualize

29:50

reason as something external to our consciousness Rather

29:53

than something that's very intimate to ourselves

29:55

and to our ordinary thinking. It's just

29:58

simply tied to your own sense

30:00

of integrity. We've talked about an

30:02

essay called What is Enlightenment? He

30:04

also wrote an essay in 1795 called

30:07

Perpetual Peace, a

30:09

philosophical sketch and

30:11

gala. So does he think

30:13

we ought to be exercising reason

30:15

in political life too? Should

30:17

we be treating countries like

30:19

people? In a

30:21

sense, yeah. So I think this

30:23

has very radical implications, the essay.

30:26

So he thinks that in

30:28

order to ensure peace, countries

30:30

have to enter into a

30:33

union with each other. So if

30:36

they don't, they are in a sense in a

30:38

state of nature just as individual

30:40

human beings are in a state of nature unless

30:42

they enter into a social

30:45

contract with each other. And so the same

30:48

holds for states. He thinks that there

30:50

has to be a federation in which there's

30:53

some coercive power, which

30:57

comes from a deliberation between

30:59

the states so that states

31:02

are no longer at war with each other. That's one

31:04

way to bring

31:07

about peace. He also thinks that the same

31:09

holds for, internally for states, states have

31:11

to be organized as

31:14

republics. He

31:16

thinks it's really important that those who

31:18

make decisions about whether to go to

31:20

war are the same people that will

31:22

pay for the war, I mean financially,

31:24

but also with their

31:26

lives potentially. That's really the only

31:29

way to avoid states

31:32

going to war at

31:34

will. I

31:37

have the sense that there is an optimism

31:40

slash naivety at

31:42

work in Kant's philosophy depending on which way you

31:45

take it. But if we all appeal

31:47

to this shared faculty of

31:49

reason, we will see a way through the

31:52

things that divide us. But the world that Tim

31:54

is describing and that Alex is describing

31:56

is polarized and divided.

31:58

Are you all convinced by that? that

32:01

the Kant's philosophy, that the reason will

32:04

win, will help us. Tim, where

32:06

do you end up? It's

32:08

an important part of the human experience, of course,

32:10

but what I'm saying is that my tradition, I

32:12

believe it has to be balanced by faith, but

32:14

also by inherited traditions, culture and things like that,

32:17

partly just in recognition of the way that human

32:19

beings really work. If you

32:21

pose someone a moral question like, if you're hungry, should

32:23

you steal this bread? The answer that people will give

32:25

is not just based upon pure reason, it's based upon

32:27

how hungry they are, it's based upon how they were

32:30

raised by their parents, it's based upon whether or not

32:32

they were Christian, it's based upon whether or not there

32:34

is a state which is going to punish them to

32:36

do it. Now, I can't understand that, I don't

32:38

want to misrepresent Kant, but my point is there's

32:41

a slight cult of reason nowadays, and

32:45

particularly dare I say, centrist dads, who

32:47

are of the view politically that if

32:49

only you all just sat around and

32:51

had a good conversation, we could all

32:53

reach a reasonable middle of the road

32:55

kind of answer. Maybe that's our last

32:57

question, is Kant a centrist dad? Yes.

33:01

No, he's not, because I am, and I know

33:03

what it's like to be one, and

33:07

he's definitely, there's no sourdough

33:09

making a full guest alone

33:11

type activist. Well, let

33:13

me send the marshmallows round again to

33:15

fortify my brilliant guests, who've

33:17

really taken us through our paces,

33:19

and while I remind you, our

33:22

listeners, that you've tuned into free thinking.

33:24

So with me, Shahid Abbari. If you're

33:26

finding all this clever and companionable, then

33:28

great! That's what we're aiming for. Come

33:30

again, Fridays at 9pm. And

33:32

you can also dive into our archive of

33:35

programmes, where you'll find philosophically minded episodes about

33:37

Wittgenstein, thank you for the marshmallows Tim, Michel

33:40

Foucault and Simone de Beauvoir. They're

33:42

all available on BBC Sounds and

33:44

as the Arts and Ideas

33:46

podcast. Now, from

33:48

the rationality of man to the

33:50

rights of women, another philosophical birthday

33:52

this week, Mary Wollstonecraft, founder

33:55

of a dissenting school, chronicler of the French

33:57

Revolution and the writer of the vindication of

33:59

the French Revolution. of the Rights of

34:01

Women, which is regarded as one of the

34:03

first works of feminist philosophy. Let's hear a

34:05

little extract from it now. My

34:07

own sex, I hope, will excuse

34:09

me if I treat them like

34:11

rational creatures, instead of fluttering their

34:14

fascinating graces, and viewing them

34:16

as if they were in the state

34:18

of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.

34:21

I earnestly wish to point out

34:23

in what true dignity and human

34:25

happiness consists. The vindication

34:27

of the rights of women came out

34:30

in 1797, just 16 years after

34:32

Kant's critique of pureism. Agela, when

34:34

Wolfson Craft makes the case for

34:36

women as rational creatures, as she

34:38

does there, is she implicitly in

34:40

conversation with Kant? It would

34:42

be nice if they hadn't been explicit in

34:44

the conversation. Because

34:46

I read her as, in a sense, correcting

34:49

Kant on some important questions, including

34:53

the right to vote and to

34:55

have elected representatives. I

34:57

mean, if you're committed

35:00

to the universal reach of reason, then you

35:02

have to include women, of course. Kant

35:04

actually didn't. He thought that four civil

35:07

citizenship didn't reach all the way to

35:09

women. But he should have. He should

35:11

have been in conversation with Wolfson

35:14

Craft and corrected that. Yeah. It's Wolfson

35:16

Craft filling in a gap here that

35:18

Kant has left. Absolutely. But

35:20

it would be generous and I think possible

35:22

to view it as a gap in Kant's

35:25

thinking, because she is appealing to Kant in

35:27

concepts of rationality. They're just

35:29

asking for a greater leap of imagination

35:32

as to how far the concept of

35:34

rationality can extend than was in Kant's

35:36

mind. Which is maybe what I was

35:38

trying to talk about earlier. You need

35:40

imagination to see how far

35:42

reason can extend. And that

35:44

also requires a little bit of diverse experiences.

35:47

Well, the French Revolution, right? She's writing around the

35:49

time of the French Revolution. So I wonder if

35:51

there's a sense of opportunities for

35:54

intellectual liberation. To be thinking differently

35:56

at a time of political liberation

35:58

too, Angela. Yeah,

36:01

I mean she does that, right?

36:03

She does that herself. She

36:07

wasn't recognized for it, so

36:09

that's the sad part of the story. But

36:12

I think she does and she says things

36:15

that a few people at the

36:17

time said or wrote, like,

36:20

well, that women have a right to education

36:22

and that women have a right to vote.

36:25

So yeah, these are, I

36:27

guess it sends new things to say. Yeah. Alex, what

36:29

do you think of that part

36:31

of the clip where Wolfson Krahr,

36:33

I think it's very striking, she

36:35

denounces the state of perpetual childhood

36:37

to which women are reduced. It's

36:39

a call to treat women as

36:41

adults. I mean, I

36:43

think probably one I can sign up

36:45

to. Yeah, no, I mean, I guess,

36:48

I mean, it's kind of compelling. I agree with what's

36:50

being said. I guess this sort of the same question

36:53

might apply as to, is

36:56

she really talking about all women in the world

36:58

and or she really talking about white women as

37:00

a question. But I think those

37:02

kinds of texts are really

37:05

important in kind of constructing our understanding

37:07

of who has the right to be

37:09

fully human, fully rational. It strikes me

37:11

that she's arguing for the rationality of

37:14

women, but does this mean that she's

37:17

expanding or exploding

37:19

the definition of reason here? I

37:22

think expanding. I mean, she even

37:24

uses the metaphors you talk about

37:27

maturity and not being infantilized, which

37:29

is essential to Kant's notion of

37:32

enlightenment. If you're unenlightened, if

37:35

you just lack the courage

37:37

to grow up, as he puts it, he

37:40

thinks that we have a strong desire not

37:42

to grow up. We have a

37:44

strong desire to keep ourselves in some

37:46

sense infantilized and get other people

37:48

to do our thinking for us. And

37:50

it's having a certain kind of courage, he

37:52

thinks, that is required. And that is exactly

37:55

the courage that Wollstonecraft had.

37:57

If you want to find out more

37:59

about Mary Wollstonecraft. There's an episode of Your

38:01

Dead To Me specifically about her life

38:03

and work and it features Corin Throsby

38:05

who was our guest last week if

38:07

you were following our conversation about Tacitus

38:10

and history and Byron. Mary

38:12

Walsacraft's birthday is tomorrow but

38:14

someone else guests were

38:17

celebrating their birthday recently with their

38:19

four best girlfriends and a

38:21

spot of karaoke who here's a clue.

38:24

The Spice Girls reunited informally

38:27

a few days ago

38:29

at Victoria Beckerman's 50th

38:31

birthday party.

38:40

Tim I don't know why I'm looking at you that

38:42

you were Victoria Beckerman's birthday party

38:44

perhaps but obviously that has made

38:46

us at Free Thinking ask what happens

38:48

to the feminism of the Spice Girls

38:50

when they are no longer girls and

38:53

before I ask that I do need

38:55

to check that we are well qualified

38:57

to have this discussion are there

39:00

Spice Girls fans among us? Oh

39:02

yeah. I mean Angayla's face is really

39:05

squirming. Did it not translate to your

39:07

childhood no but everybody else? They were

39:09

there yeah. They were there. Tim that

39:12

was quite enthusiastic. Yeah I remember where

39:14

I was when I first saw them I was in my

39:16

Grand Flatt in Welling in South East

39:18

London and they came on the telly must be

39:20

GMTV or something like that and I thought this

39:22

is awful it's going to be really

39:25

popular. Awfully good. I

39:27

think part of the reason was that they

39:29

had the same energy as a

39:31

boy band and they had the same personality as a boy

39:33

band and that was critical. So I think

39:35

the way the way of thinking about the

39:37

Spice Girls is they're the children of feminists

39:39

right they're not feminists they're not they're not

39:41

changing the law they're not doing anything new

39:44

they're people who had grown up after the

39:46

60s when women obviously can vote can make

39:48

money can go out to work can get

39:50

an abortion they're they're not

39:52

making feminism they're enjoying feminism so

39:55

this was the age of the

39:57

laddet of girl power and

39:59

there were some lefty feminists, some old-fashioned feminists who

40:01

thought, well, why aren't you fighting for women's rights in

40:03

the developing world? Or why aren't you talking about poor

40:05

women? Why aren't you talking about socialism? It's like, because

40:08

this is the generation that got of women who

40:10

got to breathe and enjoy it. And

40:12

when they sang, and I know they are

40:14

created by a male-dominated music industry, I'm not

40:17

a fool, but what did they sing about?

40:19

They sang about things like friendship and mother.

40:21

They sang about women. Mumma, I love you. Mumma,

40:23

I love you. They sang about female themes. And

40:26

each of them went on to have their

40:28

own career. Parsh and Bex

40:30

have become like a new aristocracy. Hang on.

40:32

And what does that mean? Well, they're in

40:35

the meritocratic aristocracy. And like any aristocracy, God

40:37

love them, they're trying to replicate themselves by

40:39

giving their kids a hand off too. But

40:41

so I really think that's why I

40:44

ask it. Alex is absolutely horrified.

40:47

I'm not looking for neuropsychographies, personally.

40:49

I mean, I wasn't actually meant to listen to

40:51

the Spicemore. I had really kind of psycho-parents if

40:53

they're listening. And they didn't want me to listen

40:56

to the Spicers. Well, I was meant to be

40:58

doing my homework. And

41:03

then when I inevitably found my way around the kind of

41:05

parental censorship, I remember, I mean, obviously, I was 10 in

41:07

1997. So I was kind of a target audience. It was

41:10

kind of cool. But

41:13

on the other hand, I do remember

41:15

feeling somewhat bemused by the kind of

41:17

categories of womanhood that these five people...

41:19

Even at 10, I was just like,

41:22

I don't know which one I am.

41:24

And maybe in retrospect, maybe those categories

41:26

are actually a little bit unimaginative. They

41:29

hated them. They hated them too. Well, some

41:31

of them disliked them. So the concept of

41:33

scary spice, because she was the black member

41:35

of the group. That was very troubling. And

41:37

baby spice, talking about the marginalisation of women.

41:40

Yes, which was very sort of

41:42

semi-pornographic and aimed at the dads.

41:44

I want to know if centrist dads begin

41:47

as Spice Girls hands. Yeah, usually.

41:50

There's something there in the history. I

41:52

think it's a bit harsh on the Spice Girls

41:54

to think them as either feminist

41:57

icons or mere tools.

42:00

of the industry though there were certainly the

42:02

latter to a certain extent. I do think they

42:05

were constructed with a certain male gaze in

42:07

mind as well. There were lots of stuff in

42:09

the newspapers about which one you were allowed

42:11

to fancy and which ones you weren't. And

42:15

Girl Power was a brand

42:17

at the end of the

42:20

day. So there's a certain limit

42:22

to the feminism that we can expect from it.

42:25

I'll try my best. I had to

42:28

come round seeing them as feminists. I

42:30

didn't see them as feminists at the

42:32

time where maybe I

42:34

should have seen them as feminists

42:36

and to empower myself or whatever.

42:39

So one case to make is that

42:42

they went on stage, they were assertive,

42:44

they were confident, they had no doubts

42:47

that they were meant to be there,

42:49

that they had a right to be

42:51

on stage and they made it

42:53

look fun. And I think that's something

42:56

that clearly had an impact on how

42:58

girls felt or women felt. And

43:01

I said in terms of them being

43:03

manufactured, every revolution ends up becoming commodified.

43:06

Like the 68 becomes transformed into

43:08

the music and the clothes. And

43:10

this is where second wave feminism

43:12

went. It got commodified into the

43:14

Spice Girls. It was capitalism's really

43:17

easy Kantian categorisation of what

43:19

an unliberated woman was. Well, here's a

43:21

woman who can play sport. Here's

43:23

a woman who is a bit scary and edgy. It

43:26

was dumb, but it was the market catching

43:28

up with the second wave feminist revolution. I

43:30

think you're being very discerning to him. Would

43:33

I'm understanding from your account as

43:35

though that wannabe with the girls

43:37

perched on the steps of the

43:39

hotel was radical, but the latest

43:41

iterations of Emma's solo album was

43:43

not so radical. Maybe

43:47

I'm pushing it too far. At least one of them said they

43:49

also liked Thatcher. That

43:53

was Jerry. What I

43:55

find interesting about that is Thatcher has been

43:57

completely misremembered by the generation that came after.

43:59

And she was in the 80s, she was

44:02

regarded as socially conservative and feminists hated her.

44:04

And now she is regarded for some bizarre

44:06

reason as libertarian liberating and some

44:08

feminists love her. And I find that

44:11

commodification of the Thatcher image very interesting. I think

44:13

that other Spice Girls descended from the idea

44:15

that Margaret Thatcher was the, ooh, a Spice

44:17

Girl. I think Mel C said she didn't

44:19

agree with that. But I think

44:21

that, I mean, there is a kind of, there is

44:23

that sort of slight kind

44:26

of lean towards the kind of girl boss vibe that

44:28

I think detracts from. I do think

44:30

it detracts from the feminism of the speech. But

44:32

I don't want to be on, I don't want to be trashing Spice Girls, you know. They're

44:35

there, they were there, they were, you know. I

44:37

don't think we're trashing them. I think we're asking

44:39

a proper question. Which is

44:41

about, well, this has come about

44:43

because the girls reunited

44:46

for Victoria Beckham, a woman's 50th

44:48

birthday party. And I wonder what

44:51

happens to girl power when you're

44:53

no longer girls? Does that a

44:55

brilliant, youthful form of feminism

44:57

peter out? And do we need feminism

44:59

to do a different kind of work

45:01

when we're older? I'm

45:04

looking at you, Alex. I know, it's a good question.

45:06

I guess, I guess,

45:09

if you think, I'm just thinking off the top of my

45:12

head here, but I think if you think what feminism is,

45:15

is kind of

45:17

a bullionts and energy, then we run

45:19

into hot water. But maybe what

45:22

kind of youthful feminism might do is

45:24

think not just about energy, but about

45:26

power and about the different ways that

45:29

people, the gendering of different people gives

45:32

them different kinds of power in society.

45:34

And so maybe doesn't just think about gender alone,

45:37

but thinks about other things alongside gender. And

45:41

that kind of feminism is probably a bit more age-proof.

45:43

Yeah, I think. Age-proofing of Spice Girls, that's

45:45

what we're doing. I

45:48

still think that they reflect the materialist values of the

45:50

Thatcher era, in the sense that, for instance, Posh has

45:53

not really changed. The whole thing with Posh is still,

45:55

she's super rich, she's got a beautiful family, she's married

45:57

to the best-looking man in the world. But

46:01

if you go back a generation you

46:03

look at how artists in the 60s

46:05

take a completely opposite figure, Marianne Faithful,

46:08

right? Ten years after her initial hit she's broken.

46:10

Her voice is broken, she's living on a wall,

46:12

I'm not exaggerating for a period, lived on a

46:14

wall, and her life

46:17

is a wreck and she's turning that into art

46:19

and produces the amazing Berlin albums in the 1980s.

46:22

So that's a different kind of 60s vibe. Tim,

46:24

I really need to see your record

46:26

collection but happy birthday in the meantime

46:29

to Mary Wolfson Craft and to Victoria

46:31

Beckham, clever spice and posh spice we

46:33

thought as a sentence he would only

46:35

ever hear on freethinking. Here's

46:37

another, how does a human being

46:39

channel their inner seagull? A nine

46:42

year old boy from Derbyshire has

46:44

won a gull screeching competition. Apparently

46:46

Cooper started seagull impressions after being

46:48

nipped by one while he was

46:50

eating a tuna sandwich. Even so

46:52

he has magnanimously said of seagulls,

46:55

I feel like they are a really nice animal,

46:57

I like them because of their noise, isn't that

46:59

lovely? But there's a

47:01

serious point to this competition according to

47:03

Jan Saves, a marine biologist and president

47:05

of the panel of judges who said

47:08

it is meant to elicit some sympathy

47:10

for seagulls which are an essential element

47:12

of our coast but are often maligned

47:14

as rats of the sea. But,

47:16

I mean the jury's out on that, but why

47:19

else might you want to impersonate an

47:21

animal, that's our question. Or even become

47:24

another animal, let's ask Thomas Thwaites

47:26

who wrote about living as a

47:28

goat, to escape he said

47:31

the angst of being a human

47:33

in his book Goatman, how I took

47:35

a holiday from being human. Thomas, first

47:38

of all, let's start at the beginning, what does it mean

47:40

to live as a goat, what does it

47:42

entail? It entails

47:46

for me, you know,

47:50

trying to kind of transform my

47:52

body and mind into the body

47:55

and mind of a goat. So,

48:01

you know, how does

48:03

one go through that process? I

48:05

basically just started emailing

48:08

various kind of

48:10

experts, neuroscientists, kind

48:14

of rumin biologists like anatomists

48:16

and prosthetists

48:19

with this like, I want

48:21

to escape become a ghost and you know, can

48:23

you help me? And so I

48:25

went to a neuroscientist to ask

48:28

him if he could switch off the parts of my

48:30

brain that made me different from a goat. Of course

48:33

he couldn't, but he tried to kind

48:35

of induce the virtual lesion in

48:37

the part of my brain that, you know, in

48:40

the kind of the speech pathway. And

48:42

I had the strange experience of not

48:45

being able to kind of get the words out and stuff.

48:49

So yeah, you know, I

48:51

made some prosthetic legs and an artificial rumin

48:53

and then went to Switzerland

48:56

to live on a goat farm with

48:58

the goats. When you say live, as in

49:00

you were hanging out with goats, you were eating with them,

49:02

sleeping with them, you were not sleeping with them, I meant

49:05

sleeping next to them. So you're

49:07

saying, give me the ins and outs. How

49:09

far did you go? Yeah,

49:12

so just

49:15

kind of basically sleeping in

49:17

the same shed with the goats like,

49:20

and just eating a

49:23

lot of grass and trying to

49:25

forget that I was a human

49:27

being. And it's, you know,

49:30

it's quite difficult to forget you're

49:32

a human being when you're very

49:34

cold and quite tired and very

49:36

hungry. So yeah.

49:39

Yeah. Why was it a goat? Can

49:41

you hear me a step out? Why was it a goat? I'm

49:43

thinking about how... Originally it was an elephant.

49:46

Okay. Originally I thought it would

49:48

be great to be an elephant. Then

49:53

I realised that kind of becoming

49:55

an elephant sort of escapes some

49:57

of the existential angst

50:00

a human being would be

50:03

jumping from the frying pan into the fire sort

50:06

of thing because elephants are one of these other

50:09

species that have

50:11

some idea of their own mortality and

50:13

kind of live in these very complex

50:15

social families and the complexity of family

50:17

was exactly the kind of thing I

50:19

was trying to escape from as a

50:21

human. I just wanted to get away

50:23

from it. All of this worry

50:27

and regret, all of

50:29

those human emotions. Did it work?

50:32

Did becoming animal help you

50:34

escape that human angst? Strangely

50:40

the project had

50:42

this self-destructive. The

50:47

project itself was kind

50:49

of self-destructive in

50:51

that I began to worry about

50:53

what people might think of this

50:56

project to become a goat. So

51:00

it was kind of, I

51:03

was trying to forget myself and it

51:06

was brilliant the kind of time in

51:11

the field with the goats and just kind of being

51:13

among them. But

51:15

then there was always this kind of human sort

51:18

of concern that I couldn't escape

51:20

from, like the fear of embarrassment,

51:23

the fear of like, you know, yeah. Well

51:26

the more you talk about it, the more

51:28

seriously I'm taking it. What

51:30

did you learn ultimately? Apart

51:35

from things like, you

51:38

know, some grass tastes nice,

51:40

some grass, you know, it

51:42

was kind of sour and,

51:44

you know, how difficult it

51:46

is to not be

51:49

kind of disgusted by like goat's breath

51:51

when it's, you know, kind of when

51:53

you're breathing it in. It

51:56

was the kind

51:58

of research into like, how how you might

52:00

go about becoming a goat was the process

52:02

for me and kind of talking to a

52:05

shamans and scientists and trying to sort

52:08

of, you know, okay, well,

52:10

yes, we can like philosophize about what

52:12

it might be, you know,

52:14

mean to be another animal, but like what

52:16

can kind of present day science and technology

52:18

do to kind of get us there and

52:20

all of those like, you know,

52:23

the actual pain of it, the prosthetics, you know,

52:26

causing blisters on your skin and just

52:29

all of that kind of physical stuff. I

52:33

think the

52:35

big thing was like changing your body definitely

52:37

changes your mind and your interaction with the

52:39

world like the kind of neuroscience

52:42

part of it and the kind of shamanic

52:44

part of it didn't really get

52:46

me closer to my goal. But like, as soon

52:48

as I had four legs, you

52:50

know, and couldn't use my hands, then

52:53

I was forced to start using my lips and

52:55

my nose and my tongue and kind of behaving

52:58

as an animal to try and kind

53:00

of make my way in the world.

53:02

The more you talk about it, it's more amazing,

53:05

it sounds to me. But let me draw

53:07

our philosophers in because animals

53:09

and nature fit into the picture of cancer

53:11

philosophy too, don't they? Yeah,

53:13

they do. So we talked a

53:15

lot about reason and there's

53:18

a clear sense in Canada that animals

53:20

don't have reason. But

53:22

I think it's interesting to think a

53:24

bit more about Kant's conception of what

53:26

an animal is. He also thinks that

53:28

we can't really understand them or make

53:30

sense of them as alive unless we

53:33

read something of ourselves into them.

53:35

So here's this idea that to

53:37

see that there's a living being

53:39

in front of us is

53:41

to see that by analogy with what

53:43

makes us distinctive of humans, only by analogy

53:45

with reason. And I think

53:47

that that is sometimes overlooked and we

53:49

might go from there

53:51

and say, well, because of this, we also have

53:54

responsibility towards nature. We can't use

53:56

them as mere means to our ends.

53:59

They are ends of themselves. in some

54:01

way so we see them by analogy

54:03

with us. I think Thomas is nothing

54:05

long. John, is it possible to inhabit

54:07

the point of view of an animal?

54:10

In his 1974 essay, what

54:12

is it like to be a bat the American

54:15

philosopher Thomas Nagelage that we can't? That's

54:17

right, he thought we couldn't even conceptualise us. But

54:19

I think one thing that Kant

54:21

would be more sceptical about is even

54:23

the ambition to be something

54:26

more animal-like. It's, he would

54:29

be a little unsympathetic, I think, to the project

54:32

of trying to be like a goat because you

54:34

always just end up being a human being imagining

54:36

what a goat is like and

54:38

trying to be like that. It's always, as Angela was

54:40

saying, somehow the human image of

54:43

an animal that we're always aspiring to.

54:46

And also I think he thinks that it, and

54:49

perhaps this is something that was really, Thomas was

54:51

saying in a quite evocative way, it can come

54:53

out of a certain negative existential

54:55

almost misanthropic understanding of what it is

54:58

to be human. Almost like that being

55:00

human is the problem and

55:02

to be more like an animal is to be

55:04

cure yourself of whatever problem you have. And

55:06

I think Kant thinks that's a very negative way

55:09

of framing the human project. We

55:12

have a troubled and vexed relationship with

55:14

nature but there being less of us

55:16

in it can't really be the solution.

55:19

I feel like our conversation is heading

55:21

towards the horses from

55:24

earlier this week, the two cavalry horses

55:26

that ran through

55:28

the streets of London after this tardles

55:30

by building work. What did people make

55:32

of them Tim? What did you make

55:35

of that extraordinary scene? It was and

55:37

although it was actually an image of trauma,

55:39

the horses were traumatised and a man had been

55:41

hurt. I can't be the only

55:44

person who found it peculiarly beautiful at the same

55:46

time. The white horse, dare I say, covered with

55:48

the blood. I'm going to sound terrible here but

55:50

there was something really almost artistic about the image

55:52

but you are seeing an image of trauma because

55:55

horses are not supposed to do what we make

55:57

horses do. panicked

56:00

it, it then did what horses do actually

56:02

naturally do. I mean in all this conversation

56:04

it's normal for people to look for human

56:06

qualities in animals. It's very interesting to hear

56:08

someone trying to actually become a

56:10

bit more animal themselves, not normally the direction

56:12

we go in. And I guess

56:15

that that quality of reason which extends to trying

56:17

to see yourself in an animal is one of

56:19

the things that draws me to humans rather than

56:21

to animals. I mean I've never understood people who

56:24

say sleep is sheep because once you've done that,

56:26

what do you talk about? You

56:28

can't take them to the cinema or go on

56:30

to a restaurant, can you? There is a basic difference

56:32

between human beings and animals and one of those

56:34

things is the Kantian reason. It is they don't have

56:36

it. We do. Alex,

56:38

what would you think of that? An

56:41

unanswerable thing. You can't think of it. I

56:43

can't follow you. I

56:45

guess, I mean, yeah, the horses, it was really sad. I mean

56:47

I felt very sad and I looked short,

56:49

saw those bad footage. But I guess just

56:52

thinking back to the questions of kind of

56:54

hierarchy and classification and so on, I guess

56:56

it is also a kind of uniquely European

56:59

point of view to think of the world and

57:01

think of nature with humans at the top and

57:03

lots of other traditions of folk thinking have

57:06

conceived of much very

57:08

different ways of understanding animal life alongside

57:10

human life. I

57:13

was quite struck by that to take us back

57:15

to the seagulls, just the kind of attention that

57:17

that chart, I mean I have to out myself

57:20

as a seagull hater which is probably very unfashionable

57:22

and politically retrograde. But the attention that that child

57:24

paid to listening, because I think he had to

57:26

do not just see a girl, but kind of

57:28

hungry seagull and cranky seagull, whatever. And

57:31

the kind of effort of close listening that that must

57:33

have taken is kind of, you know, there is something

57:35

quite beautiful in that. I

57:37

think there is something beautiful about trying to get closer

57:40

to an animal like that. But also with the horses,

57:42

it seemed like what was beguiling about

57:45

the image, which I agree was for

57:47

all its traumatic context, was just the

57:49

alien nature of the, and

57:51

the disordered nature of the horses' behaviour

57:53

in a very urban ordered

57:56

setting. I mean we can do it for a

57:58

while, like we can come back. to

58:00

Sea Golden, Langor Cooper as well at the end

58:02

of our program. We've galloped through this program. Thank

58:04

you to my guests, Thomas Thwaites,

58:07

Alexandra Reza, Tim Stanley, John

58:09

Callanan and Angela Breitenbach. Thanks

58:11

also to my producer, Luke

58:13

Mohall and studio manager, Duncan

58:15

Hannant. Do join Matthew next week.

58:21

I'm Helena Bonham Carter and for

58:23

BBC Radio 4, this is History's

58:25

Secret Heroes, a new series

58:27

of rarely heard tales from World War

58:29

Two. They had no idea

58:31

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58:33

code breaker. We'll hear of daring

58:36

risk takers. What she was offering

58:38

to do was to ski in

58:40

over the High Carpathian Mountains. Of

58:42

course it was dangerous, but danger

58:44

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