2023-04-12_How_to_Invest_in_Your_Children_at_a_Very_Early_Age-Teach_Your_Children_Logic_and

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00:00:30.620 | The holidays start here at Ralph's

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00:00:59.900 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance,

00:01:01.200 | a show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge,

00:01:02.800 | skills, insight, and encouragement you need

00:01:04.640 | to live a rich and meaningful life now

00:01:06.640 | while building a plan for financial freedom

00:01:08.280 | in 10 years or less.

00:01:09.840 | My name is Joshua Sheets, I'm your host,

00:01:11.240 | and today we continue our series

00:01:12.820 | on how to invest in your children at an early age

00:01:16.680 | so you won't be paying for them for the rest of your life.

00:01:19.980 | And I think today's topic is especially pertinent

00:01:23.120 | to this basic idea.

00:01:25.260 | My idea in this series is to give you

00:01:27.400 | all of the best ideas that you can use

00:01:29.760 | to invest into your children early

00:01:31.900 | so that they won't require economic outpatient care,

00:01:35.340 | as the late Thomas Stanley,

00:01:36.900 | author of "The Millionaire Next Door" used to term it.

00:01:39.440 | Economic outpatient care is when a parent,

00:01:41.780 | especially a wealthy parent,

00:01:43.140 | finds himself continually supporting his children

00:01:46.140 | long past their childhood, far into young adulthood,

00:01:50.420 | and even adulthood in some cases.

00:01:52.360 | And if you are required to do that,

00:01:54.660 | it can be a very expensive proposition.

00:01:57.100 | It's nice to do it if you want to,

00:01:58.520 | if you desire to support your children,

00:02:00.200 | that's a great blessing,

00:02:01.600 | but to need to do that is a big problem,

00:02:06.040 | and it can be a very expensive investment.

00:02:09.400 | And what I'm hoping to do is to persuade you

00:02:12.440 | to agree with me that if you do certain things effectively

00:02:15.880 | at a young age, then you dramatically minimize the need

00:02:19.820 | for you to pay lots of money

00:02:21.620 | for your children's college education,

00:02:23.420 | you diminish the need for you to pay lots of money

00:02:26.420 | for economic outpatient care

00:02:27.960 | in their 20s and their 30s, et cetera,

00:02:30.220 | and that's what we're all about.

00:02:31.900 | So we started with talking about the body,

00:02:33.700 | how to invest into the body of your children,

00:02:35.500 | and we've spent quite a lot of time dealing with the minds,

00:02:39.260 | how to invest in the minds of your children.

00:02:41.400 | And you can consider this episode a hinge episode

00:02:43.900 | as we pivot to the third category

00:02:45.840 | of investing into the spirit of your children.

00:02:49.520 | Now I'm gonna use that term very loosely.

00:02:51.640 | What I'm trying to get at in the distinction

00:02:54.080 | between mind and spirit or mind and character

00:02:57.380 | or mind and person is the difference

00:03:00.000 | between the physical brain and its exercise

00:03:04.220 | versus the emotional self, the real self, the id,

00:03:07.700 | the spiritual being that goes beyond

00:03:11.100 | the simple physical gray matter of your child.

00:03:14.700 | You'll notice that when I spoke about the body,

00:03:16.780 | I talked about lots and lots of physical aspects

00:03:19.440 | of the being.

00:03:21.040 | I talked about the importance of exercise

00:03:23.160 | and of building balance and coordination

00:03:25.020 | and good nutrition.

00:03:26.220 | As I've talked about the brain,

00:03:27.460 | I've been focusing on mostly things

00:03:29.480 | that have good evidence.

00:03:32.620 | Let me be careful not to say proven,

00:03:34.780 | but have good evidence to indicate

00:03:36.860 | that they literally make your children smarter,

00:03:39.500 | things that grow the gray matter,

00:03:42.420 | grow the number of connections between the neurons

00:03:44.540 | and the brains of your children.

00:03:46.040 | And that's been the theme of this whole section.

00:03:49.220 | Well, now we're pivoting to things

00:03:50.620 | that may or may not necessarily make your children

00:03:53.100 | smarter on a physical level,

00:03:55.320 | but these things definitely make your children smarter

00:03:57.940 | on a practical level.

00:03:59.660 | They make your children more capable

00:04:01.380 | 'cause we're starting to move into the emotions.

00:04:04.300 | And I consider today's topic,

00:04:06.020 | the importance of discussing or teaching your children

00:04:09.380 | logic and philosophy to be an important hinge

00:04:14.380 | kind of between them.

00:04:16.480 | Because if your children understand logic,

00:04:18.900 | they understand and are conversant in the laws of logic,

00:04:21.580 | how logical thinking works,

00:04:23.340 | they'll be able to coach themselves in many cases.

00:04:25.620 | They'll be able to look out for themselves.

00:04:28.080 | They'll be able to avoid scams.

00:04:29.720 | They'll be able to avoid emotional manipulation.

00:04:32.960 | They'll be able to simply be good coaches for themselves

00:04:35.940 | because they can think.

00:04:37.180 | And if we put this together with all the previous skills,

00:04:39.860 | then they will have what they need

00:04:41.760 | to be logical, rational creatures.

00:04:43.860 | We'll talk more about philosophy

00:04:45.360 | in the back half of this show.

00:04:46.940 | So logic, is this something that we can and should teach?

00:04:51.020 | My answer is simply yes.

00:04:52.740 | Ideally, every school would have years of study of logic.

00:04:56.820 | Unfortunately, it's a subject

00:04:58.460 | that is not given as much attention

00:05:01.180 | as I think it really should be.

00:05:03.480 | In some cases, I think this is coming back.

00:05:06.720 | Logic is a core part of the classic,

00:05:10.100 | the idea of classical education.

00:05:11.820 | And there's been a resurgence in classical education

00:05:14.180 | over previous years.

00:05:15.080 | And so we see more and more discussion of logic

00:05:17.860 | and more and more teaching of logic.

00:05:19.480 | But regardless of what your child's school does

00:05:21.860 | or does not teach, you as a parent have a responsibility

00:05:25.280 | to teach your child logical thinking,

00:05:28.100 | logical analysis, and the tools of logic.

00:05:31.060 | I want to start with a short apologetic

00:05:32.760 | for the teaching of logic.

00:05:34.300 | And to do so, I'm gonna read a couple of passages

00:05:37.400 | from a book that I referenced previously in this series.

00:05:40.420 | The book is entitled, "Teaching the Trivium,

00:05:42.100 | "Christian Homeschooling in a Classical Style"

00:05:44.240 | by Harvey and Lori Bludorn.

00:05:46.620 | And they have a chapter in this book called,

00:05:48.220 | "Teaching Logic" that I think does a pretty good job

00:05:50.420 | and is quite a concise discussion of why teach logic.

00:05:55.420 | An argument for teaching logic.

00:05:57.980 | The second part of the trivium is logic.

00:06:00.540 | Every subject has its own logic,

00:06:02.660 | the proper order and relationship between all of the parts.

00:06:05.660 | Logic is the way things fit together,

00:06:08.100 | or at least the way they ought to fit together.

00:06:10.580 | We want to describe the subject, which we call logic,

00:06:13.820 | because all of our understanding of every other subject

00:06:17.420 | is built upon the framework of this thing we call logic.

00:06:21.300 | What is logic?

00:06:24.320 | Logic is the simplest and most elementary

00:06:26.780 | of all exact sciences.

00:06:29.320 | It is the science of correct reasoning.

00:06:32.720 | Every science is occupied with detecting

00:06:35.020 | and describing the necessary and unalterable laws

00:06:38.420 | which rule a particular field of knowledge.

00:06:41.180 | Considered as a science, logic detects

00:06:43.900 | and describes the necessary and unalterable laws

00:06:47.580 | of correct reasoning.

00:06:49.700 | The apparatus which reasons or performs logic is the mind.

00:06:54.260 | Logic is in a limited sense, a science of the mind.

00:06:58.880 | To the extent an individual is incapable

00:07:01.540 | of logical analysis and conclusion,

00:07:04.180 | he is to the same extent mindless.

00:07:07.420 | That is, he does not use the powers of his mind.

00:07:12.500 | Dropping down a bit, man's mind is not blank at birth.

00:07:16.820 | Well before we are born,

00:07:18.700 | while we are still in our mother's womb,

00:07:20.360 | God gives us minds which have the power

00:07:22.500 | to evaluate all of our sensory experiences

00:07:25.900 | according to a systematic logic,

00:07:28.580 | which has already been structured

00:07:29.940 | and programmed into our minds by God.

00:07:32.500 | This natural logic is thus an inborn faculty

00:07:35.500 | for reasoned judgment and inference.

00:07:38.460 | But like any other native faculty,

00:07:40.620 | its capacity may be developed through use,

00:07:43.300 | its power strengthened through training,

00:07:45.940 | and its precision fine-tuned through testing.

00:07:49.340 | As infants, when we began to learn the language,

00:07:51.700 | we assigned meanings to words

00:07:53.500 | according to our logical analysis

00:07:55.780 | of how we observed those words being used in sentences.

00:07:59.500 | So let us talk about words and sentences for a moment.

00:08:03.080 | Standing all by themselves, words have meaning.

00:08:06.340 | For example, here is a word, horse.

00:08:09.660 | It has more meaning within a sentence.

00:08:11.940 | Here is that word used in sentences.

00:08:14.500 | I would love to ride a Palomino horse.

00:08:17.660 | I enjoy watching a Clydesdale horse work.

00:08:20.220 | However, when words are illogically combined in a sentence,

00:08:24.540 | they become meaningless.

00:08:25.860 | For example, consider this sentence.

00:08:28.260 | Draw a square circle.

00:08:31.060 | The sentence is grammatically correct.

00:08:33.180 | Standing by themselves,

00:08:34.260 | the two words square and circle make sense.

00:08:37.620 | But when these two words are combined

00:08:39.620 | as they are in this sentence, they make no sense.

00:08:43.460 | The sentence is nonsense.

00:08:46.200 | By definition, something circular cannot also be square.

00:08:49.820 | We call this an oxymoron or a contradiction in terms.

00:08:54.200 | Sometimes we are confronted by a contradiction in terms,

00:08:56.940 | but we do not recognize it.

00:08:58.500 | For example, someone might ask,

00:09:00.020 | "Can God make a stone too heavy for himself to lift?"

00:09:03.360 | The idea is absurd.

00:09:05.100 | We might as well ask God

00:09:06.180 | to make a God greater than himself,

00:09:08.100 | such that he must bow before that God which he had made.

00:09:11.300 | It is not possible in the very nature of things.

00:09:14.820 | Yet we are surrounded by attempts

00:09:16.620 | to impose such absurdities upon us.

00:09:19.380 | Feminism, homosexuality, multiculturalism,

00:09:23.100 | such ideas are logical absurdities,

00:09:26.180 | contradictions in terms,

00:09:27.720 | which we are expected to absorb into our thinking.

00:09:31.020 | Feminism, making women to be men would be masculinism.

00:09:35.480 | Homosexual, sex means they're different, not the same.

00:09:39.660 | Multiculturalism, many cultures may be in contact

00:09:42.860 | with each other and affect each other,

00:09:44.620 | but they cannot inhabit the same population.

00:09:47.220 | Something must give.

00:09:48.980 | Such ideas cloud our minds in order to corrupt our thinking

00:09:52.060 | and to lead us into a whole world of absurdities.

00:09:54.900 | Our culture is being filled

00:09:56.860 | with these absurdities of language.

00:09:59.740 | For example, consider the man who thought he could fly.

00:10:02.460 | So he jumped off of the top of the Sears Tower.

00:10:05.280 | Sure enough, he was flying.

00:10:07.300 | As he passed each story on his way down,

00:10:09.220 | he cried to those who were looking through the windows,

00:10:11.260 | "So far, so good, so far, so good."

00:10:14.200 | Everything seemed to be going just fine.

00:10:16.540 | He was even gaining speed as he flew.

00:10:18.540 | He had proven that he could fly.

00:10:22.580 | But as he approached the pavement below,

00:10:24.020 | he suddenly realized that he had overlooked the question

00:10:26.320 | of whether he could land.

00:10:28.260 | What was the man's problem?

00:10:30.860 | He knew the meaning of fly,

00:10:33.220 | and he knew the meaning of man,

00:10:35.560 | but he made a connection between them,

00:10:37.360 | which was contrary to the nature of things.

00:10:40.100 | But that was not nearly so bad

00:10:41.320 | as when he tried to put this connection into practice.

00:10:43.680 | The law of gravity seemed to play on his side for a while.

00:10:48.120 | But once he encountered the pavement below,

00:10:50.040 | the law of mass inertia was enforced.

00:10:52.600 | He suddenly had a concrete understanding of the matter.

00:10:56.520 | Feminism, homosexuality, multiculturalism, ad nauseum

00:11:00.140 | may seem to fly, so far, so good.

00:11:03.080 | And some things may seem to play on their side,

00:11:05.840 | but eventually they will be arrested by the laws of nature

00:11:09.320 | and of nature's God, the creator,

00:11:11.900 | to whom they must inevitably give an account.

00:11:14.480 | They are absurdities,

00:11:16.040 | which contradict the logic of reality.

00:11:19.460 | So words may have meaning,

00:11:21.000 | but truth is not in the meaning of words.

00:11:23.360 | Truth is in the meaning of sentences.

00:11:26.400 | A logician would say it this way.

00:11:28.360 | Truth is not in terms, truth is in propositions.

00:11:32.440 | A word or a term by itself is neither true nor false.

00:11:36.320 | For example, the word broccoli has meaning,

00:11:39.560 | but by itself it is neither true nor false.

00:11:42.840 | However, a sentence or a proposition about broccoli,

00:11:47.040 | such as broccoli is edible, is either true or false.

00:11:52.040 | We each have our own opinion

00:11:53.580 | about that proposition, don't we?

00:11:55.760 | Truth is not in words or terms,

00:11:59.480 | but in sentences or propositions,

00:12:01.800 | which say something about those terms.

00:12:04.540 | Why is it important to study logic?

00:12:08.040 | Let us consider the most basic law of logic,

00:12:10.800 | called the law of contradiction.

00:12:13.520 | Some prefer to call it the law of non-contradiction.

00:12:16.520 | Aristotle expressed it in this manner.

00:12:18.960 | The same attribute cannot at the same time

00:12:21.540 | both belong and not belong to the same subject

00:12:24.880 | and in the same respect.

00:12:27.600 | Philosophers always speak in such plain language,

00:12:29.800 | don't they?

00:12:30.780 | Perhaps we can make it more plain

00:12:32.320 | with a simple illustration.

00:12:34.440 | A candle may be both lit and not lit,

00:12:38.140 | but not at the same time, nor in the same respect.

00:12:41.720 | It may be lit in the nighttime,

00:12:43.720 | but not lit in the daytime.

00:12:45.600 | Or it may be lit on one end,

00:12:47.680 | but not lit on the other end.

00:12:49.500 | Or it may be lit on both ends,

00:12:51.120 | but not lit in the middle.

00:12:52.880 | But wherever it may be lit or not lit,

00:12:55.340 | it cannot be both lit and not lit

00:12:58.600 | on the same end at the same time,

00:13:01.180 | because that would be a what?

00:13:03.580 | A contradiction.

00:13:05.560 | A dove cannot have all white feathers

00:13:08.300 | and all black feathers at the same time.

00:13:10.780 | A person cannot be both completely dead

00:13:13.380 | and totally alive at the same time,

00:13:15.740 | or at least not in the same respect.

00:13:18.060 | Without this law of non-contradiction,

00:13:20.100 | words or terms would no longer have specific meaning.

00:13:23.560 | If an attribute may at the same time

00:13:25.740 | both belong and not belong to the same word

00:13:29.320 | and in the same respect,

00:13:31.200 | then that word may be twisted to mean anything.

00:13:34.500 | We may trust politicians to supply us

00:13:36.440 | with ample examples of this phenomena.

00:13:39.160 | For example, a budget surplus

00:13:41.160 | is really a reduction of the rate of deficit spending.

00:13:45.120 | If we disregard this basic rule of logic,

00:13:47.900 | that a word cannot have contradictory meanings

00:13:50.080 | at the same time,

00:13:51.240 | then the distinctions between black and white,

00:13:53.980 | right and wrong, good and evil,

00:13:56.480 | is and is not will slowly grow fuzzy

00:13:59.800 | and may eventually dissolve completely.

00:14:03.100 | Where there is no logic,

00:14:04.400 | there can be no absolute standards,

00:14:06.980 | but only relative personal values.

00:14:10.840 | If truth becomes relative in our thinking,

00:14:13.480 | then it follows that morality

00:14:14.880 | must also become relative in our thinking.

00:14:18.140 | Dropping down a bit.

00:14:19.960 | In our culture, we have now arrived

00:14:21.400 | at the philosophy of polylogism, many logics.

00:14:25.860 | We are told that there is no such thing as absolute truth.

00:14:28.820 | All truth is relative.

00:14:30.740 | There is no single logic.

00:14:32.300 | There are many different logics

00:14:33.620 | and all of them are equally valid.

00:14:37.100 | This of course means that no logic is actually valid.

00:14:42.100 | Apparent contradictions among the different logics

00:14:44.180 | must be resolved, so they say,

00:14:46.100 | by some force other than reason,

00:14:48.620 | because reason itself is the cause of the contradictions.

00:14:52.020 | We shall all be like gods,

00:14:53.500 | deciding for ourselves individually or collectively

00:14:56.760 | what is good and what is evil.

00:14:59.800 | Later.

00:15:00.660 | This polylogism is the kind of absurd nonsense

00:15:03.140 | which is being taught in government schools today.

00:15:05.700 | Though this was once largely confined to the university,

00:15:08.580 | now elementary schools are being filled with this nonsense.

00:15:12.180 | Polylogism forms the foundation of modern thinking.

00:15:15.940 | With polylogism, absolute truth is absolutely ruled out.

00:15:19.820 | The only way to establish any truth is to decree it.

00:15:23.520 | Truth is whatever we decide it to be.

00:15:27.240 | What we want to be true is our standard for what is true.

00:15:32.240 | If it fits with our preferences,

00:15:33.500 | then we say, let it be so, and it is so.

00:15:36.900 | Dropping down, we have a section,

00:15:38.080 | what is logic useful for?

00:15:40.120 | Logic is useful to understand the sciences.

00:15:43.100 | Every science, whether it be chemistry,

00:15:45.180 | physics, geography, history, or theology,

00:15:47.340 | is, or at least it should be,

00:15:49.820 | the application of the science of logic

00:15:51.860 | to observations made in that particular field of knowledge.

00:15:55.780 | Hence, the study of the exact science of logic

00:15:58.220 | is foundational to the study of every other subject.

00:16:01.820 | The ancients called logic the organon,

00:16:04.620 | the instrument presupposed by every other science.

00:16:08.460 | The formal study of logic should therefore be considered

00:16:10.660 | a foundational and indispensable part

00:16:12.940 | of every educational curriculum,

00:16:15.180 | and in the past, it was.

00:16:17.100 | Logic is useful to discern the truth.

00:16:20.820 | In the past, logic was the first course required

00:16:23.440 | of all college freshmen.

00:16:24.980 | Why?

00:16:25.980 | Because logic is the means for getting at the truth

00:16:29.200 | of propositions, the soundness of arguments,

00:16:32.220 | and the possibility or plausibility of assertions.

00:16:36.800 | Later, logic is useful

00:16:38.780 | in the proper development of the brain.

00:16:40.540 | Our brain can be compared to a muscle in this respect.

00:16:43.100 | No pain, no gain.

00:16:44.660 | A certain radio commentator

00:16:46.020 | likes to describe school-age children's brains

00:16:48.060 | as skulls full of mush.

00:16:49.940 | We presume he is pointing

00:16:50.980 | to their lack of intellectual development

00:16:52.620 | due to their improper diet, input of knowledge,

00:16:55.260 | lack of exercise, processing of understanding,

00:16:58.220 | and extracurricular activity, output of wisdom.

00:17:02.020 | Of course, the mind must have something good to chew on,

00:17:04.320 | and it must have a reason to be chewing.

00:17:06.900 | But right now, we're only talking about the chewing itself,

00:17:09.900 | the logic.

00:17:11.220 | Whenever we interrupt

00:17:12.100 | the natural trivium progression of learning,

00:17:14.120 | leaving out one of the steps,

00:17:15.740 | we create a learning dysfunction.

00:17:18.100 | This is the age of learning dysfunctions.

00:17:20.740 | This is the age of interruptions.

00:17:22.940 | For example, when we omit teaching

00:17:24.580 | the basic principles of phonics,

00:17:25.960 | then we interrupt the natural development

00:17:27.480 | of written phonetic language learning,

00:17:29.180 | and we thereby create the learning dysfunction,

00:17:31.500 | which we call dyslexia, the inability to read.

00:17:34.860 | Well, if we omit teaching the basic principles of logic,

00:17:37.560 | then we will create the dysfunction,

00:17:39.020 | which we might call dyslogia, the inability to think.

00:17:43.100 | Put dyslexia and dyslogia together,

00:17:46.020 | and what do you have?

00:17:47.640 | Disaster.

00:17:48.940 | Logic is thoroughly dispensed with in modern curricula,

00:17:52.100 | except as a tool for manipulation.

00:17:54.700 | Nebulous social skills are considered more important

00:17:57.780 | than precise thinking skills.

00:18:00.060 | Feeling is valued more than discernment.

00:18:03.140 | And where some kind of thinking is taught,

00:18:05.460 | it is a programmed thinking,

00:18:07.180 | not a genuine critical thinking.

00:18:09.900 | The child is trained to think with the herd, like an animal,

00:18:14.260 | then socialized to run with the animals in the herd.

00:18:18.340 | Beware of stampedes, known today as group consensus.

00:18:22.380 | Thou shalt not follow a mindless multitude to do evil.

00:18:28.100 | Exodus 23.2.

00:18:30.220 | The child is programmed not to question certain concepts,

00:18:33.860 | precisely because they are not provable.

00:18:36.580 | They have been handed down from the politically correct gods

00:18:39.180 | by infallible revelation,

00:18:40.860 | and none may dare to deeply explore their reasoning.

00:18:44.260 | It is through some form of logical study

00:18:47.460 | that we become skilled to discern between truth and error,

00:18:51.220 | and therefore between good and evil, and right and wrong.

00:18:56.140 | Now the authors go on to give a discussion

00:18:58.380 | of what is logic, defining and describing it,

00:19:00.980 | discussing the various forms of logic,

00:19:02.780 | how to study logic, et cetera.

00:19:04.300 | But if you're interested in that,

00:19:05.420 | you can search out those resources.

00:19:07.980 | Obviously, the authors are providing

00:19:11.500 | quite a biting social commentary.

00:19:14.420 | That book was written, I think, 20 years ago.

00:19:18.420 | And what's interesting is if we trace back the last 20 years,

00:19:22.900 | I think the authors are proven more right than less right.

00:19:29.860 | And I used to read those books when I was younger,

00:19:32.660 | and I'd say, "Ah, you're going too far.

00:19:33.900 | "You're just a whadduckle old religious fundamentalist,

00:19:36.980 | "and what's wrong with you?"

00:19:38.380 | But tell you what,

00:19:39.460 | a lot of those old religious fundamentalists

00:19:41.100 | have been proven to be much more right than wrong

00:19:44.740 | in many of the arguments that they made.

00:19:47.140 | And to me, what is most important

00:19:49.820 | is that last little commentary,

00:19:52.260 | that we need to teach our children to think critically,

00:19:56.380 | actually to think critically,

00:19:58.740 | and not to be trained to think with the herd.

00:20:01.540 | And this is exceedingly important

00:20:04.180 | in order that our children can obtain for themselves

00:20:07.740 | unusual benefits in life.

00:20:10.820 | One of the, years ago,

00:20:12.380 | I made a study of John Taylor Gatto's works.

00:20:15.540 | He of the well-known

00:20:16.780 | "Underground History of American Education,"

00:20:18.420 | probably his best-known book, was dumbing us down.

00:20:20.940 | And my personal summary of his lifetimes of work

00:20:25.940 | is quite simply that school was developed

00:20:29.180 | for two basic purposes.

00:20:31.460 | To create a homogenous society for easy governance

00:20:35.420 | by the powers that be,

00:20:37.060 | and for easy selling to by the corporate powers that be.

00:20:41.340 | If you have a homogenous population,

00:20:43.940 | then it's easy to govern those people.

00:20:46.460 | And if you have a homogenous population,

00:20:48.380 | it's easy to market and sell to those people

00:20:51.500 | to use propaganda.

00:20:53.780 | I personally intend that

00:20:55.300 | during my children's schooling curriculum,

00:20:57.460 | they'll study the use of propaganda.

00:20:59.020 | We'll start with Edward Bernays' book,

00:21:00.260 | "Propaganda," kind of the father of modern propaganda,

00:21:02.860 | and look at it deeply.

00:21:03.900 | Because when you understand logic,

00:21:05.900 | and you understand propaganda,

00:21:07.100 | and you understand how people have been conditioned

00:21:10.420 | through social conditioning to go along with everyone else,

00:21:15.420 | it's remarkable.

00:21:17.220 | And all of us are affected by it.

00:21:19.380 | All of us are.

00:21:20.700 | I have, at various times in my adult life,

00:21:23.300 | been scandalized at how much I personally

00:21:29.260 | am affected by going along with the herd

00:21:31.500 | in many various ways.

00:21:33.580 | And I pride myself on doing my best

00:21:35.900 | to be a critical thinker,

00:21:36.980 | trying to be willing to follow my understanding

00:21:40.420 | of the world, regardless of anyone goes with me or not.

00:21:42.900 | And yet constantly, I've been conditioned

00:21:45.900 | to fit in with the herd.

00:21:47.820 | And this is to our detriment.

00:21:51.620 | Left unchecked, this leads to horrific error in populations.

00:21:56.620 | And we can look throughout history,

00:21:58.020 | and we can find example after example after example,

00:22:00.980 | showing that to be true.

00:22:03.020 | So how do we combat that?

00:22:07.460 | Well, we study logic, and we study philosophy,

00:22:10.740 | and all of their basic practices.

00:22:14.740 | We exercise our skills of reason,

00:22:17.020 | discernment, and critical thinking.

00:22:18.860 | And we do that through the study of logic and philosophy.

00:22:22.540 | That's my answer.

00:22:23.820 | And we teach through the use of logic and philosophy.

00:22:27.660 | We teach people to disassociate from an idea,

00:22:31.940 | and examine the idea on its own merits.

00:22:36.060 | And that is a skill that is greatly lacking

00:22:38.860 | among our friends.

00:22:40.060 | We desperately need more of that in our society.

00:22:43.180 | By teaching your children logic and philosophy,

00:22:46.980 | by teaching them about propaganda,

00:22:49.140 | about emotional manipulation,

00:22:51.260 | they will have a defense mechanism

00:22:53.260 | that they can use when somebody tries to market

00:22:56.140 | a product to them that is not a good fit for them.

00:22:58.540 | When somebody tries to market a lifestyle to them

00:23:00.780 | that is not of their choosing,

00:23:02.260 | they'll have a tool set that they can use

00:23:04.500 | to examine their own decisions,

00:23:06.100 | and the outcomes of all of their own decisions.

00:23:08.660 | And that's why it's desperately important

00:23:10.620 | that we teach our children logic.

00:23:13.100 | How do we do that?

00:23:13.940 | Well, we begin with a class, a textbook,

00:23:17.860 | some books to start with.

00:23:19.300 | I think there are a couple of books.

00:23:21.020 | I am not yet at the point

00:23:22.220 | where I'm formally teaching logic,

00:23:24.260 | but the books are some books that I intend to use

00:23:26.700 | when I get to that point.

00:23:29.020 | A couple of popular level books

00:23:30.860 | that I think are worth considering.

00:23:32.620 | There's a book called "The Fallacy Detective"

00:23:34.220 | by Nathaniel Bluedorn and Hans Bluedorn.

00:23:36.780 | These are the sons of the authors of this book,

00:23:40.900 | "Teaching the Trivium" that I've just read to you from.

00:23:43.100 | I think that's a good start.

00:23:44.300 | I've become a big fan of "The Life of Fred" books

00:23:47.020 | by Stanley Schmidt.

00:23:47.900 | I have ordered his book on logic,

00:23:50.220 | and I expect to like it as much as I've liked

00:23:52.460 | all of his other math books.

00:23:54.220 | But I haven't gotten it in yet,

00:23:55.780 | so I look forward to using that one.

00:23:58.340 | I think those are good.

00:23:59.540 | Those two books are probably good entry-level books

00:24:02.060 | to begin with.

00:24:02.940 | And then I intend to supplement that

00:24:04.820 | with a scholarly-level textbook

00:24:07.220 | to make sure we have a good grounding

00:24:08.740 | in the academic approach as well.

00:24:10.980 | But I think those two books are good resources

00:24:12.980 | for people to begin with.

00:24:14.620 | Now let's turn our attention to a related field,

00:24:16.780 | and that is the field of philosophy.

00:24:19.460 | And the text that I've chosen

00:24:20.620 | to introduce a few of these comments

00:24:22.260 | comes from the excellent book, "How to Read a Book."

00:24:26.580 | The title is "How to Read a Book" by Mortimer Adler.

00:24:29.700 | Mortimer Adler, longtime scholar,

00:24:31.780 | publisher of the great books series

00:24:34.260 | for the Encyclopedia Britannica, et cetera.

00:24:38.900 | Amazing scholar, very, very useful guy.

00:24:41.620 | And his book that he's most well-known for, of course,

00:24:44.100 | is this book called "How to Read a Book."

00:24:46.700 | And when I read this years ago,

00:24:48.260 | his chapter on philosophy struck me on a very deep level.

00:24:52.220 | And because it made philosophy make sense

00:24:54.580 | and it ignited in me a desire to study philosophy.

00:24:58.680 | And so I want to share a few pages with you.

00:25:02.700 | "How to Read Philosophy."

00:25:04.900 | "Children ask magnificent questions.

00:25:08.060 | 'Why are people?'

00:25:09.820 | 'What makes the cat tick?'

00:25:11.740 | 'What's the world's first name?'

00:25:13.820 | 'Did God have a reason for creating the earth?'

00:25:16.860 | Out of the mouths of babes comes, if not wisdom,

00:25:20.620 | at least the search for it."

00:25:22.940 | Philosophy, according to Aristotle, begins in wonder.

00:25:26.220 | It certainly begins in childhood,

00:25:28.140 | even if for most of us, it stops there too.

00:25:31.700 | The child is a natural questioner.

00:25:34.540 | It is not the number of questions he asks,

00:25:36.660 | but their character that distinguishes him from the adult.

00:25:40.740 | Adults do not lose the curiosity

00:25:43.020 | that seems to be a native human trait,

00:25:45.580 | but their curiosity deteriorates in quality.

00:25:48.960 | They want to know whether something is so, not why.

00:25:53.460 | But children's questions are not limited

00:25:55.180 | to the sort that can be answered by an encyclopedia.

00:25:58.300 | What happens between the nursery and college

00:26:00.500 | to turn the flow of questions off?

00:26:02.900 | Or rather, to turn it into the duller channels

00:26:05.660 | of adult curiosity about matters of fact?

00:26:08.660 | A mind not agitated by good questions

00:26:11.140 | cannot appreciate the significance

00:26:12.720 | of even the best answers.

00:26:14.620 | It is easy enough to learn the answers,

00:26:17.020 | but to develop actively inquisitive minds,

00:26:19.920 | alive with real questions, profound questions,

00:26:23.460 | that is another story.

00:26:25.840 | Why should we have to try to develop such minds

00:26:28.420 | when children are born with them?

00:26:30.860 | Somewhere along the line, adults must fail somehow

00:26:34.140 | to sustain the infant's curiosity at its original depth.

00:26:38.100 | School itself perhaps dulls the mind

00:26:40.800 | by the dead weight of rote learning,

00:26:42.680 | much of which may be necessary.

00:26:44.880 | The failure is probably even more the parent's fault.

00:26:47.740 | We so often tell a child there is no answer,

00:26:50.180 | even when one is available,

00:26:52.080 | or demand that he ask no more questions.

00:26:54.440 | We thinly conceal our irritation

00:26:56.700 | when baffled by the apparently unanswerable query.

00:27:00.060 | All this discourages the child.

00:27:02.260 | He may get the impression

00:27:03.300 | that it is impolite to be too inquisitive.

00:27:05.940 | Human inquisitiveness is never killed,

00:27:08.620 | but it is soon debased to the sort of questions

00:27:11.500 | asked by most college students,

00:27:13.580 | who, like the adults they are soon to become,

00:27:16.140 | ask only for information.

00:27:18.860 | We have no solution for this problem.

00:27:21.860 | We are certainly not so brash

00:27:23.300 | as to think we can tell you how to answer

00:27:25.160 | the profound and wondrous questions that children put.

00:27:28.940 | But we do want you to recognize

00:27:30.560 | that one of the most remarkable things

00:27:31.980 | about the great philosophical books

00:27:34.260 | is that they ask the same sort of profound questions

00:27:37.540 | that children ask.

00:27:39.060 | The ability to retain the child's view of the world

00:27:42.020 | with, at the same time, a mature understanding

00:27:44.460 | of what it means to retain it is extremely rare.

00:27:47.980 | And a person who has these qualities

00:27:49.860 | is likely to be able to contribute

00:27:51.260 | something really important to our thinking.

00:27:54.580 | We are not required to think as children

00:27:56.740 | in order to understand existence.

00:27:58.980 | Children certainly do not and cannot understand it,

00:28:02.220 | if indeed anyone can.

00:28:04.000 | But we must be able to see as children see,

00:28:07.580 | to wonder as they wonder, to ask as they ask.

00:28:11.920 | The complexities of adult life get in the way of the truth.

00:28:15.480 | The great philosophers have always been able

00:28:17.500 | to clear away the complexities and see simple distinctions,

00:28:21.540 | simple once they are stated, vastly difficult before.

00:28:25.620 | If we are to follow them,

00:28:26.740 | we too must be childishly simple in our questions

00:28:30.380 | and maturely wise in our replies.

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00:29:04.320 | The questions philosophers ask.

00:29:08.340 | What are these childishly simple questions

00:29:10.900 | that philosophers ask?

00:29:12.500 | When we write them down, they do not seem simple

00:29:15.120 | because to answer them is so difficult.

00:29:17.500 | Nevertheless, they are initially simple

00:29:19.540 | in the sense of being basic or fundamental.

00:29:22.980 | Take the following questions about being or existence,

00:29:26.300 | for example.

00:29:27.640 | What is the difference between existing and not existing?

00:29:32.640 | What is common to all the things that do exist?

00:29:35.660 | And what are the properties of everything

00:29:38.140 | that does exist?

00:29:40.420 | Are there different ways in which things can exist?

00:29:42.900 | Different modes of being or existence?

00:29:46.320 | Do some things exist only in the mind or for the mind,

00:29:49.580 | whereas others exist outside the mind

00:29:52.380 | and whether or not they are known to us

00:29:54.660 | or even knowable by us?

00:29:57.740 | Does everything that exists, exist physically?

00:30:00.980 | Or are there some things that exist

00:30:02.860 | apart from material embodiment?

00:30:05.580 | Do all things change?

00:30:07.220 | Or is there anything that is immutable?

00:30:10.180 | Does anything exist necessarily?

00:30:12.700 | Or must we say that everything that does exist

00:30:15.100 | might not have existed?

00:30:17.500 | Is the realm of possible existence larger

00:30:19.720 | than the realm of what actually does exist?

00:30:22.860 | These are typically the kind of questions

00:30:24.760 | that a philosopher asks when he is concerned

00:30:27.420 | to explore the nature of being itself

00:30:30.020 | and the realms of being.

00:30:32.100 | As questions, they are not difficult to state or understand,

00:30:36.580 | but they are enormously difficult to answer.

00:30:39.500 | So difficult in fact, that there are philosophers,

00:30:41.740 | especially in recent times,

00:30:43.380 | who have held that they cannot be answered

00:30:45.220 | in any satisfactory manner.

00:30:47.620 | Another set of philosophical questions concerns

00:30:49.780 | change or becoming rather than being.

00:30:53.100 | Of the things in our experience

00:30:54.480 | to which we would unhesitatingly attribute existence,

00:30:57.680 | we would also say that all of them are subject to change.

00:31:01.000 | They come into being and pass away.

00:31:03.620 | While in being, most of them move

00:31:05.500 | from one place to another,

00:31:06.860 | and many of them change in quantity or in quality.

00:31:10.180 | They become larger or smaller, heavier or lighter,

00:31:13.780 | or like the ripening apple and the aging beefsteak,

00:31:16.600 | they change in color.

00:31:18.780 | What is involved in any change?

00:31:21.260 | In every process of change,

00:31:22.660 | is there something that endures unchanged

00:31:25.340 | as well as some respect or aspect

00:31:27.520 | of that enduring thing which undergoes change?

00:31:30.300 | When you learn something that you did not know before,

00:31:32.640 | you have certainly changed with respect

00:31:34.540 | to the knowledge you have acquired,

00:31:36.140 | but you are also the same individual that you were before.

00:31:39.300 | If that were not the case,

00:31:40.400 | you could not be said to have changed through learning.

00:31:44.260 | Is this true of all change?

00:31:46.940 | For example, is it true of such remarkable changes

00:31:49.280 | as birth and death,

00:31:51.700 | of coming to be and passing away,

00:31:54.500 | or only of less fundamental changes,

00:31:56.540 | such as local motion, growth, or alteration in quality?

00:32:01.140 | How many different kinds of change are there?

00:32:03.780 | Do the same fundamental elements or conditions

00:32:05.940 | enter into all processes of change,

00:32:08.220 | and are the same causes operative in all?

00:32:11.480 | What do we mean by a cause of change?

00:32:14.220 | Are there different types of causes

00:32:15.640 | responsible for a change?

00:32:17.160 | Are the causes of change, of becoming,

00:32:19.660 | the same as the causes of being or existence?

00:32:23.640 | Such questions are asked by the philosopher

00:32:26.540 | who turns his attention from being to becoming,

00:32:29.900 | and also tries to relate becoming to being.

00:32:33.820 | Once again, they are not difficult questions

00:32:35.600 | to state or understand,

00:32:37.940 | though they are extremely difficult

00:32:39.500 | to answer clearly and well.

00:32:41.900 | In any case, you can see how they begin

00:32:43.720 | with a childishly simple attitude toward the world

00:32:46.640 | and our experience of it.

00:32:49.260 | Unfortunately, we do not have space

00:32:50.960 | to go into the whole range of questions more deeply.

00:32:53.500 | We can only list some other questions

00:32:55.140 | that philosophers ask and try to answer.

00:32:57.740 | There are questions not only about being

00:32:59.860 | and becoming, but also about necessity and contingency,

00:33:03.900 | about the material and the immaterial,

00:33:06.540 | about the physical and the non-physical,

00:33:08.740 | about freedom and indeterminacy,

00:33:11.460 | about the powers of the human mind,

00:33:13.380 | about the nature and extent of human knowledge,

00:33:15.660 | about the freedom of the will.

00:33:17.900 | All these questions are speculative or theoretical

00:33:21.660 | in the sense of those terms that we have employed

00:33:23.540 | in distinguishing between the theoretical

00:33:25.340 | and practical realms.

00:33:27.040 | But philosophy, as you know,

00:33:28.740 | is not restricted to theoretical questions only.

00:33:32.060 | Take good and evil, for instance.

00:33:34.540 | Children are much concerned with the difference

00:33:36.240 | between good and bad.

00:33:38.260 | Their behinds are likely to suffer

00:33:39.660 | if they make mistakes about it.

00:33:41.240 | But we do not stop wondering about the difference

00:33:43.420 | when we grow up.

00:33:44.700 | Is there a universally valid distinction

00:33:47.300 | between good and evil?

00:33:49.620 | Are there certain things that are always good,

00:33:52.180 | others that are always bad, whatever the circumstances?

00:33:55.500 | Or was Hamlet right when, echoing Montaigne,

00:33:58.660 | he said, "There is nothing either good or bad,

00:34:01.220 | "but thinking makes it so."

00:34:03.100 | Good and evil, of course,

00:34:05.340 | are not the same as right and wrong.

00:34:07.940 | The two pairs of terms seem to refer

00:34:10.140 | to different classes of things.

00:34:12.180 | In particular, even if we feel

00:34:13.580 | that whatever is right is good,

00:34:15.700 | we probably do not feel that whatever is wrong is evil.

00:34:19.500 | But how do we make this distinction precise?

00:34:22.540 | Good is an important philosophical word,

00:34:25.140 | but it is an important word

00:34:26.600 | in our everyday vocabulary too.

00:34:28.780 | Trying to say what it means is a heady exercise.

00:34:32.260 | It will involve you very deeply in philosophy

00:34:34.620 | before you know it.

00:34:36.100 | There are many things that are good,

00:34:37.880 | or as we would prefer to say, there are many goods.

00:34:41.340 | Is it possible to order the goods?

00:34:43.700 | Are some more important than others?

00:34:45.380 | Do some depend on others?

00:34:47.380 | Are there circumstances in which goods conflict

00:34:49.820 | so that you have to choose one good

00:34:51.460 | at the expense of foregoing another?

00:34:53.880 | Again, we do not have space

00:34:55.020 | to go more extensively into these questions.

00:34:57.320 | We can only list some other questions in the practical realm.

00:35:00.440 | There are questions not only about good and evil,

00:35:02.680 | right and wrong, and the order of goods,

00:35:04.720 | but also about duties and obligations,

00:35:06.940 | about virtues and vices, about happiness,

00:35:09.900 | life's purpose or goal, about justice and rights

00:35:13.080 | in the sphere of human relations and social interaction,

00:35:15.920 | about the state and its relation to the individual,

00:35:18.680 | about the good society, the just polity,

00:35:21.640 | and the just economy, about war and peace.

00:35:25.520 | The two groups of questions that we have discussed

00:35:27.440 | determine or identify two main divisions of philosophy.

00:35:32.080 | The questions in the first group,

00:35:33.680 | the questions about being and becoming,

00:35:36.140 | have to do with what is or happens in the world.

00:35:39.920 | Such questions belong to the division of philosophy

00:35:42.340 | that is called theoretical or speculative.

00:35:45.960 | The questions in the second group,

00:35:47.480 | the questions concerning good and evil,

00:35:49.520 | or right and wrong, have to do with

00:35:51.800 | what ought to be done or sought,

00:35:54.120 | and they belong to the division of philosophy

00:35:55.960 | that is sometimes called practical,

00:35:58.000 | and is more accurately called normative.

00:36:01.600 | Books that tell you how to make something,

00:36:03.720 | such as a cookbook, or how to do something,

00:36:06.320 | such as a driver's manual, need not try to argue

00:36:09.160 | that you ought to become a good cook

00:36:11.320 | or learn to drive a car well.

00:36:13.240 | They can assume that you want to make or do something

00:36:15.520 | and merely tell you how to succeed in your efforts.

00:36:18.200 | In contrast, books of normative philosophy

00:36:20.480 | concern themselves primarily with the goals

00:36:22.720 | all men ought to seek, goals such as leading a good life

00:36:26.720 | or instituting a good society.

00:36:28.800 | And unlike cookbooks and driving manuals,

00:36:31.000 | they go no further than prescribing

00:36:32.680 | in the most universal terms,

00:36:34.300 | the means that ought to be employed

00:36:36.340 | in order to achieve these goals.

00:36:38.600 | The questions that philosophers ask

00:36:40.120 | also serve to distinguish subordinate branches

00:36:42.640 | of the two main divisions of philosophy.

00:36:44.940 | A work of speculative or theoretical philosophy

00:36:48.140 | is metaphysical if it is mainly concerned

00:36:50.880 | with questions about being or existence.

00:36:54.100 | It is a work in the philosophy of nature

00:36:56.360 | if it is concerned with becoming,

00:36:58.560 | with the nature and kinds of changes,

00:37:00.880 | their conditions and causes.

00:37:02.760 | If its primary concern is with knowledge,

00:37:05.160 | with questions about what is involved

00:37:06.920 | in our knowing anything, with the causes,

00:37:09.160 | extent, and limits of human knowledge,

00:37:11.160 | and with its certainties and uncertainties,

00:37:13.480 | then it is a work in epistemology,

00:37:16.040 | which is just another name for theory of knowledge.

00:37:18.880 | Turning from theoretical to normative philosophy,

00:37:21.980 | the main distinction is between questions

00:37:23.800 | about the good life and what is right or wrong

00:37:26.580 | in the conduct of the individual,

00:37:28.320 | all of which fall within the sphere of ethics

00:37:30.980 | and questions about the good society

00:37:32.820 | and the conduct of the individual

00:37:34.420 | in relation to the community,

00:37:36.000 | the sphere of politics or political philosophy.

00:37:40.040 | Modern philosophy and the great tradition.

00:37:42.840 | For the sake of brevity in what follows,

00:37:44.580 | let us call questions about what is and happens in the world

00:37:47.800 | or about what men ought to do

00:37:49.600 | or seek first order questions.

00:37:52.200 | We should recognize then

00:37:53.680 | that there are also second order questions

00:37:55.920 | that can be asked,

00:37:57.220 | questions about our first order knowledge,

00:38:00.120 | questions about the content of our thinking

00:38:02.420 | when we try to answer first order questions,

00:38:04.840 | questions about the ways

00:38:06.160 | in which we express such thoughts in language.

00:38:09.360 | This distinction between first order

00:38:11.520 | and second order questions is useful

00:38:13.720 | because it helps to explain

00:38:15.020 | what has happened to philosophy in recent years.

00:38:17.960 | The majority of professional philosophers

00:38:19.780 | at the present day,

00:38:20.820 | and by the way, this was 1950s, I think,

00:38:24.000 | the majority of professional philosophers

00:38:25.780 | at the present day no longer believe

00:38:27.420 | that first order questions can be answered by philosophers.

00:38:30.900 | Most professional philosophers today

00:38:32.740 | devote their attention exclusively

00:38:34.300 | to second order questions,

00:38:35.860 | very often to questions having to do with the language

00:38:38.260 | in which thought is expressed.

00:38:40.120 | That is all to the good

00:38:41.180 | for it is never harmful to be critical.

00:38:43.260 | The trouble is the wholesale giving up

00:38:44.940 | of first order philosophical questions,

00:38:47.220 | which are the ones that are most likely

00:38:49.060 | to interest lay readers.

00:38:51.460 | In fact, philosophy today,

00:38:52.780 | like contemporary science or mathematics

00:38:54.740 | is no longer being written for lay readers.

00:38:57.500 | Second order questions are almost by definition,

00:39:00.260 | ones of narrow appeal.

00:39:02.260 | And professional philosophers like scientists

00:39:04.940 | are not interested in the views of anyone,

00:39:06.700 | but other experts.

00:39:08.460 | This makes modern philosophy very hard to read

00:39:10.860 | for non philosophers.

00:39:12.340 | As difficult indeed as science for non scientists.

00:39:15.820 | We cannot in this book give you any advice

00:39:18.140 | about how to read modern philosophy

00:39:19.740 | as long as it is concerned exclusively

00:39:21.660 | with second order questions.

00:39:23.380 | However, there are philosophical books that you can read

00:39:26.580 | and that we believe you should read.

00:39:29.100 | These books ask the kinds of questions

00:39:31.060 | that we have called first order ones.

00:39:33.400 | It is not accidental that they were also written primarily

00:39:36.460 | for a lay audience rather than exclusively

00:39:38.820 | for other philosophers.

00:39:40.700 | Up to about 1930, or perhaps even a little later,

00:39:44.060 | philosophical books were written for the general reader.

00:39:46.920 | Philosophers hoped to be read by their peers,

00:39:49.260 | but they also wanted to be read by ordinary,

00:39:51.380 | intelligent men and women.

00:39:53.380 | Since the questions that they asked and tried to answer

00:39:55.920 | were of concern to everyone,

00:39:57.640 | they thought that everyone should know what they thought.

00:40:00.620 | All of the great classical works in philosophy

00:40:03.100 | from Plato onward were written from this point of view.

00:40:06.360 | These books are accessible to the lay reader.

00:40:08.620 | You can succeed in reading them if you wish to.

00:40:11.500 | Everything that we have to say in this chapter

00:40:13.620 | is intended to help you do that.

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00:40:46.120 | - One more section.

00:40:48.560 | On philosophical method.

00:40:50.800 | It is important to understand

00:40:52.280 | what philosophical method consists in,

00:40:55.280 | at least insofar as philosophy is conceived as asking

00:40:58.680 | and trying to answer first order questions.

00:41:01.600 | Suppose that you are a philosopher who is troubled

00:41:03.920 | by one of the childishly simple questions we have mentioned.

00:41:06.960 | The question, for instance,

00:41:08.120 | about the properties of everything that exists

00:41:10.280 | or the question about the nature and causes of change.

00:41:13.220 | How do you proceed?

00:41:14.920 | If your question were scientific,

00:41:16.560 | you would know that to answer it,

00:41:18.160 | you would have to perform some kind of special research,

00:41:21.040 | either by way of developing an experiment

00:41:22.840 | to test your answer

00:41:24.120 | or by way of observing a wide range of phenomena.

00:41:27.120 | If your question were historical,

00:41:28.560 | you would know that you would also have to perform research,

00:41:31.080 | although of a different kind.

00:41:32.680 | But there is no experiment that will tell you

00:41:34.840 | what all existing things have in common,

00:41:37.480 | precisely in respect to having existence.

00:41:40.320 | There are no special kinds of phenomena that you can observe,

00:41:43.000 | no documents that you can seek out and read

00:41:45.300 | in order to find out what change is or why things change.

00:41:49.680 | All you can do is reflect upon the question.

00:41:53.000 | There is, in short, nothing to do but think.

00:41:56.740 | You are not thinking in a total vacuum, of course.

00:42:00.440 | Philosophy, when it is good, is not pure speculation.

00:42:03.760 | Thinking divorced from experience.

00:42:05.840 | Ideas cannot be put together just any way.

00:42:08.560 | There are stringent tests of the validity of answers

00:42:11.060 | to philosophical questions,

00:42:12.640 | but such tests are based on common experience alone,

00:42:16.040 | on the experience that you already have

00:42:17.920 | because you are a human being, not a philosopher.

00:42:21.640 | You are as well acquainted through common experience

00:42:23.980 | with this phenomena of change as anybody else.

00:42:26.960 | Everything in the world about you manifests mutability.

00:42:30.520 | As far as the mere experience of change goes,

00:42:32.640 | you are in as good a position to think about its nature

00:42:35.680 | and causes as the greatest philosophers.

00:42:38.960 | What distinguishes them

00:42:40.600 | is that they thought about it extremely well.

00:42:44.180 | They formulated the most penetrating questions

00:42:46.400 | that could be asked about it,

00:42:47.720 | and they undertook to develop carefully

00:42:49.680 | and clearly worked out answers.

00:42:51.880 | By what means?

00:42:53.240 | Not by investigation, not by having or trying

00:42:55.880 | to get more experience than the rest of us have.

00:42:58.460 | Rather, by thinking more profoundly about the experience

00:43:01.560 | than the rest of us have.

00:43:03.680 | Understanding this is not enough.

00:43:06.320 | We must also realize that not all of the questions

00:43:08.760 | that philosophers have asked and tried to answer

00:43:11.680 | are truly philosophical.

00:43:13.980 | They themselves were not always aware of this,

00:43:15.960 | and their ignorance or mistake in this crucial respect

00:43:19.020 | can cause unperceptive readers considerable difficulty.

00:43:22.240 | To avoid such difficulties,

00:43:23.920 | it is necessary to be able to distinguish

00:43:26.960 | the truly philosophical questions

00:43:29.240 | from the other questions that a philosopher may deal with,

00:43:33.020 | but that he should have waived

00:43:34.540 | and left for later scientific investigation to answer.

00:43:37.820 | The philosopher was misled by failing to see

00:43:40.160 | that such questions can be answered

00:43:41.940 | by scientific investigation,

00:43:43.820 | though he probably could not have known this

00:43:45.440 | at the time of his writing.

00:43:47.240 | An example of this is the question

00:43:48.820 | that ancient philosophers asked about the difference

00:43:51.040 | between the matter of terrestrial and celestial bodies.

00:43:54.740 | To their observation, unaided by telescopes,

00:43:57.520 | it appeared to be the case

00:43:58.560 | that the heavenly bodies changed only in place.

00:44:01.400 | They did not appear to come into being or to pass away

00:44:03.840 | like plants and animals,

00:44:05.320 | nor did they appear to change in size or quality.

00:44:08.520 | Because celestial bodies were subject

00:44:10.720 | to one kind of change only, local motion,

00:44:13.880 | whereas all terrestrial bodies

00:44:15.520 | change in other respects as well,

00:44:17.680 | the ancients concluded that they had to be composed

00:44:19.960 | of a different kind of matter.

00:44:21.800 | They did not surmise,

00:44:23.120 | nor could they probably have surmised,

00:44:25.240 | that with the invention of the telescope,

00:44:27.320 | the heavenly bodies would give us knowledge

00:44:29.080 | of their mutability beyond anything we can know

00:44:31.200 | through common experience.

00:44:32.760 | Hence, they took as a question

00:44:34.560 | that they thought it proper for philosophers to answer,

00:44:36.720 | one that should have been reserved

00:44:38.360 | for later scientific investigation.

00:44:40.760 | Such investigation began with Galileo's use of the telescope

00:44:44.040 | and his discovery of the moons of Jupiter.

00:44:46.220 | This led to the revolutionary assertion by Kepler

00:44:48.700 | that the matter of the heavenly bodies

00:44:50.460 | is exactly the same as the matter of bodies on Earth.

00:44:53.280 | And this in turn laid the groundwork

00:44:55.000 | for Newton's formulation of a celestial mechanics

00:44:57.720 | in which the same laws of motion apply

00:44:59.680 | without qualification to all bodies,

00:45:02.000 | wherever they are in the physical universe.

00:45:04.560 | On the whole, apart from the confusions that may result,

00:45:07.680 | the misinformation or lack of information

00:45:10.040 | about scientific matters that mars the work

00:45:12.300 | of the classical philosophers is irrelevant.

00:45:15.340 | The reason is that it is philosophical questions,

00:45:18.280 | not scientific or historical ones,

00:45:20.620 | that we are interested in when we read a philosophical work.

00:45:23.940 | And at the risk of repeating ourselves,

00:45:25.720 | we must emphasize that there is no other way

00:45:28.240 | than thinking to answer such questions.

00:45:31.140 | If we could build a telescope or microscope

00:45:33.200 | to examine the properties of existence,

00:45:35.440 | we should do so of course,

00:45:37.020 | but no such instruments are possible.

00:45:39.360 | We do not want to give the impression

00:45:40.820 | that it is only philosophers who make mistakes

00:45:42.800 | of the sort we are discussing here.

00:45:44.520 | Suppose a scientist becomes troubled by the question

00:45:46.720 | about the kind of life a man ought to lead.

00:45:49.080 | This is a question in normative philosophy.

00:45:51.640 | And the only way to answer it is by thinking about it.

00:45:54.700 | But the scientist may not realize that

00:45:56.540 | and instead suppose that some kind of experiment

00:45:59.220 | or research will give him an answer.

00:46:01.060 | He may decide to ask 1000 persons

00:46:03.500 | what kind of life they would like to lead

00:46:05.180 | and base his answer to the question on their answers.

00:46:08.260 | But it should be obvious that his answer in that case

00:46:11.340 | would be as irrelevant as Aristotle's speculations

00:46:14.060 | about the matter of the celestial bodies.

00:46:16.960 | Now the chapter goes on and of course you should,

00:46:20.580 | if you haven't read the book, you should read it.

00:46:23.140 | But what has stuck with me for years

00:46:26.180 | is that quote about how to reflect upon

00:46:31.180 | how to come to philosophical knowledge.

00:46:33.460 | Listen very carefully, I want to reread this.

00:46:35.700 | "There is no experiment that will tell you

00:46:38.740 | what all existing things have in common,

00:46:41.680 | precisely in respect to having existence.

00:46:44.040 | There are no special kinds of phenomena

00:46:45.620 | that you can observe,

00:46:46.460 | no documents that you can seek out and read

00:46:48.300 | in order to find out what change is

00:46:50.340 | or why things change.

00:46:52.700 | All you can do is reflect upon the question.

00:46:56.740 | There is in short nothing to do but think."

00:47:00.540 | Later, "As far as the mere experience of change goes,

00:47:04.380 | you are in as good a position to think about its nature

00:47:06.580 | and causes as the greatest philosophers.

00:47:09.660 | What distinguishes them is that they thought about it

00:47:12.180 | extremely well.

00:47:13.860 | They formulated the most penetrating questions

00:47:16.860 | that could be asked about it

00:47:18.100 | and they undertook to develop carefully

00:47:20.380 | and clearly worked out answers."

00:47:23.260 | By what means?

00:47:24.380 | Not by investigation,

00:47:25.780 | not by having or trying to get more experience

00:47:28.060 | than the rest of us have,

00:47:29.540 | rather by thinking more profoundly about the experience

00:47:33.660 | than the rest of us have.

00:47:35.540 | This to me is what I think is at the core of philosophy,

00:47:40.440 | is thinking.

00:47:41.940 | And if you are going to engage your brain

00:47:45.620 | or your children's brains,

00:47:48.020 | the brain's function is thinking.

00:47:51.020 | That's what it is for.

00:47:53.020 | We are thinking creatures.

00:47:55.100 | That is what differentiates us from other creatures.

00:47:59.260 | And so,

00:48:00.180 | if logic is the base of all good scientific inquiry,

00:48:07.280 | philosophy is the base of good thinking.

00:48:11.780 | Earlier in the series,

00:48:13.940 | we talked about writing as a way to enhance thinking.

00:48:17.060 | Philosophy is the purest form of thinking,

00:48:20.180 | simply considering a question,

00:48:22.100 | formulating it and thinking about it.

00:48:24.620 | And it's been my experience that the practice of that

00:48:29.020 | lends to an interest and a wonder of the world

00:48:34.180 | that few other things do.

00:48:35.720 | It also lends to a clarity of thought

00:48:39.900 | and just a sense of satisfaction

00:48:42.740 | when you catch a glimmer of the truth

00:48:45.060 | that is out there for us to conceive of with our minds.

00:48:49.980 | And so I think that a study of philosophy,

00:48:53.260 | at the very least in a rudimentary way,

00:48:55.860 | is necessary for all youth.

00:49:00.060 | Now, at what age is this an appropriate pursuit?

00:49:05.060 | This would seem to me one of those things

00:49:08.580 | that's appropriate for adolescents.

00:49:10.660 | And when we think about philosophy,

00:49:14.460 | that's the classic,

00:49:16.260 | it's part of the classic maturation process.

00:49:19.380 | But friend, your child is probably not being taught

00:49:23.700 | any kind of reasonable approach to philosophy.

00:49:26.300 | And so unless you can enroll him in a school

00:49:30.300 | where there is a solid philosophy curriculum,

00:49:33.140 | that's something you're going to have to do yourself.

00:49:35.540 | The process of making up your mind

00:49:38.140 | as a young man or young woman

00:49:40.140 | about the great questions of life

00:49:42.540 | is natural and inevitable.

00:49:45.300 | Children go through this.

00:49:46.940 | What alarms me, however, in our modern age

00:49:50.460 | is that many young men and women

00:49:52.560 | are making up their mind without any appreciation

00:49:56.380 | or even knowledge of the tremendous progress

00:50:00.180 | that we as a human species have made

00:50:02.460 | on some of the big questions of life.

00:50:04.780 | And so instead of standing on the shoulders of giants

00:50:07.340 | that have come before

00:50:08.580 | and have dedicated immense amounts of time and effort

00:50:12.260 | to thinking through and reasoning through these questions,

00:50:15.860 | and instead of positioning themselves

00:50:18.580 | to build upon that in their own lives

00:50:21.460 | as young men and women,

00:50:22.820 | I fear that our young men and women

00:50:25.740 | approach the subject as infants

00:50:28.340 | without any instruction, any exposure,

00:50:31.060 | and they somehow think that they've come up

00:50:33.340 | with the greatest thoughts in the world

00:50:35.220 | because their only estimation

00:50:36.820 | is their own thinking ability.

00:50:38.860 | And I think that is a major flaw.

00:50:42.420 | Let me close with a section later in,

00:50:44.220 | let me close my discussion of philosophy here

00:50:45.700 | with a section later in the same chapter

00:50:47.300 | on making up your own mind.

00:50:49.300 | A good theoretical work in philosophy

00:50:51.100 | is as free from oratory and propaganda

00:50:53.940 | as a good scientific treatise.

00:50:55.940 | You do not have to be concerned

00:50:57.180 | about the personality of the author

00:50:59.340 | or investigate his social and economic background.

00:51:02.340 | There is utility, however,

00:51:03.580 | in reading the works of other great philosophers

00:51:05.600 | who have dealt with the same problems as your author.

00:51:08.660 | The philosophers have carried on a long conversation

00:51:11.300 | with each other in the history of thought.

00:51:13.360 | You had better listen in on it

00:51:14.640 | before you make up your mind about what any of them says.

00:51:17.780 | The fact that philosophers disagree

00:51:19.620 | should not trouble you for two reasons.

00:51:21.940 | First, the fact of disagreement, if it is persistent,

00:51:25.060 | may point to a great unsolved

00:51:26.780 | and perhaps insoluble problem.

00:51:29.100 | It is good to know where the true mysteries are.

00:51:31.500 | Second, the disagreements of others

00:51:33.360 | are relatively unimportant.

00:51:35.340 | Your responsibility is only to make up your own mind.

00:51:38.820 | In the presence of the long conversation

00:51:40.760 | that the philosophers have carried on through their books,

00:51:43.220 | you must judge what is true and what is false.

00:51:46.680 | When you have read a philosophical book well,

00:51:48.920 | and that means reading other philosophers

00:51:50.500 | on the same subject too,

00:51:51.960 | you are in a position to judge.

00:51:54.700 | It is indeed the most distinctive mark

00:51:56.960 | of philosophical questions

00:51:58.220 | that everyone must answer them for himself.

00:52:00.960 | Taking the opinion of others is not solving them,

00:52:03.660 | but evading them.

00:52:04.880 | And your answers must be solidly grounded

00:52:07.280 | with arguments to back them up.

00:52:09.200 | This means above all that you cannot depend

00:52:11.320 | on the testimony of experts,

00:52:12.940 | as you may have to do in the case of science.

00:52:15.640 | The reason is that the questions philosophers ask

00:52:18.260 | are simply more important

00:52:19.620 | than the questions asked by anyone else, except children.

00:52:24.180 | I myself do not yet know to what extent

00:52:28.520 | the study of philosophy should be carried out.

00:52:31.560 | Certainly, there's a difference between,

00:52:34.200 | or there's a major range between zero knowledge

00:52:37.140 | of philosophy and philosophical categories

00:52:39.680 | versus PhD level philosophy studies.

00:52:43.640 | I don't know where that right range is.

00:52:45.840 | At the very least, our children should have some exposure

00:52:48.480 | to the great questions of life,

00:52:50.240 | some of the answers of life,

00:52:51.820 | and should have exposure to the great range of thinking,

00:52:56.820 | so that they can be well-equipped to advance that.

00:52:59.880 | And then of course, out of philosophy comes

00:53:01.960 | many of the practical sciences, social science,

00:53:04.000 | politics, et cetera.

00:53:05.720 | But at its foundation, we should make sure

00:53:08.240 | that our children are versed at least

00:53:11.320 | in the basics of philosophical thought,

00:53:13.360 | and are at least aware of the great thinking

00:53:16.200 | that is out there, so that if they are interested

00:53:18.120 | at a later date in going out and pursuing specialized study

00:53:23.120 | in one area or another, that they are equipped to do that.

00:53:27.160 | In conclusion on today's show,

00:53:28.780 | I want you to teach your children logic and philosophy

00:53:31.800 | and how to use these tools.

00:53:34.120 | For logic, I think the practical way to do this

00:53:38.680 | is to require your children to articulate the logic

00:53:43.480 | of their own ideas and those of others.

00:53:46.880 | The study of formalized logic, fallacies, et cetera,

00:53:50.480 | has a goal of helping to train good thinking,

00:53:53.760 | but then that good thinking needs to be applied

00:53:56.040 | to specific subjects, to specific topics,

00:53:59.600 | to specific decisions.

00:54:01.920 | And so one way you can do this is by engaging

00:54:04.920 | in your children about the topics of the day,

00:54:06.880 | and most importantly, the topics of their life,

00:54:09.760 | and requiring them to defend to you

00:54:12.800 | the reasons for their decisions.

00:54:15.400 | Young people who are consistently required

00:54:21.600 | to engage in logical analysis of their own thinking,

00:54:25.920 | of their own actions, will be better equipped

00:54:30.400 | to make better decisions, and those better decisions

00:54:33.680 | will drive their life outcome.

00:54:36.380 | The decisions that we make in life drive the outcomes

00:54:41.260 | that we experience.

00:54:43.600 | Obviously, there's action in between,

00:54:45.160 | but decision precedes action.

00:54:48.160 | Excuse me, decision precedes action.

00:54:50.920 | So at its starting point, decisions are the most important

00:54:55.320 | foundations to build, and so you can drill your children

00:54:59.800 | consistently by simply asking them what they're thinking

00:55:03.160 | about and why they're thinking about doing them,

00:55:05.680 | doing those things, and require them to defend

00:55:08.060 | the logic of their own ideas to you.

00:55:10.280 | This is something that I think my own father

00:55:11.880 | did extraordinarily well in my life

00:55:14.520 | and in the lives of my siblings.

00:55:16.980 | When I was an adolescent, I enjoyed a much higher degree

00:55:20.960 | of freedom than many other people,

00:55:22.920 | because my dad's philosophy was to be a very strong,

00:55:26.160 | controlling parent in the early years,

00:55:28.360 | and then to back off massively and move into the role

00:55:31.920 | of a coach and mentor during the period of adolescence.

00:55:36.040 | And so of course, there were still times

00:55:37.920 | when he had to step in and exercise control,

00:55:39.820 | but he exercised much less control than many other people.

00:55:43.280 | But what he always did very effectively in my life

00:55:46.520 | was require me to articulate what I wanted to do,

00:55:50.000 | why I wanted to do it, why a certain decision

00:55:52.680 | was a good decision, what would happen

00:55:54.720 | if a good decision weren't the case,

00:55:57.400 | or what it would happen if I made a bad decision,

00:55:59.260 | what I would do if I wound up making a mistake, et cetera.

00:56:01.880 | And this constant questioning built within me a habit

00:56:05.720 | that prevails to this day of questioning my own thinking.

00:56:08.680 | And this has helped me constantly to be able

00:56:13.000 | to defend my ideas with greater clarity to myself,

00:56:16.000 | primarily, but also to others, and also to be able

00:56:19.180 | to coach myself with more effectiveness,

00:56:21.840 | because I can observe where I'm behaving emotionally,

00:56:25.160 | I can observe where I'm behaving rationally,

00:56:27.920 | and I can consider the logical outcome of my actions.

00:56:30.720 | And so the practical tool is teach your children

00:56:33.520 | tools of logic, but also require them just consistently

00:56:37.360 | to articulate the logic of their own ideas

00:56:39.500 | and their own plans, their own desires.

00:56:41.640 | Also then require them to articulate the logic of others.

00:56:44.600 | We are living in a society that seems bereft

00:56:48.360 | in some many parts of foundational logic.

00:56:52.360 | People are living their lives based upon

00:56:54.680 | the fickleness of emotion only.

00:56:57.640 | And when they make logical defense,

00:57:00.240 | it's important to listen and understand,

00:57:02.400 | but it's important to think about the logical train of being

00:57:06.520 | because in the same way that that example of the guy

00:57:09.560 | flying off the top of a skyscraper,

00:57:12.320 | sometimes the logical idea,

00:57:18.040 | the logical outcome of an idea is very clear

00:57:22.360 | long before the results are seen.

00:57:25.160 | It's interesting, you go back and you read history,

00:57:27.600 | and you read historians that with hindsight,

00:57:31.000 | they look back and they say,

00:57:32.880 | "Well, World War I was inevitable because of these things."

00:57:36.560 | And then because of the way that World War I concluded,

00:57:39.560 | World War II was inevitable.

00:57:41.960 | Or you think about geopolitics,

00:57:43.600 | a geopolitical strategist says,

00:57:45.520 | "The success of this country or the orientation

00:57:47.600 | of this country in this direction is inevitable."

00:57:50.080 | And it's because of the logical outcome of certain facts,

00:57:53.680 | certain things, and wise analysts can indeed

00:57:58.440 | see those things in advance.

00:58:00.680 | The timing is often hard to get right.

00:58:02.960 | No one would have said that World War I had to occur

00:58:05.680 | in 1914 or 1940 for World War II,

00:58:10.240 | or whatever the specific thing is.

00:58:12.360 | The timing is hard to predict,

00:58:14.160 | but the logical outcome is inevitable.

00:58:16.920 | And it's important to identify

00:58:18.920 | the logical outcome of ideas.

00:58:20.800 | And especially as you move into adulthood,

00:58:23.040 | this is one of the biggest things that for me,

00:58:24.840 | I've gained confidence in.

00:58:26.160 | When I was younger, I thought,

00:58:27.680 | "Well, if so-and-so continues to live that way,

00:58:30.080 | they're gonna wind up having this certain result."

00:58:32.560 | But I didn't have enough living under my belt

00:58:34.160 | to be confident in my analysis.

00:58:36.680 | Today, with a bit more living,

00:58:38.040 | I have increasing levels of confidence.

00:58:40.280 | If a guy overeats by 500 calories a week,

00:58:43.680 | he's going to wind up obese.

00:58:45.400 | That obesity is going to wind up

00:58:47.040 | with medical complications.

00:58:48.520 | He's going to wind up with all kinds of issues

00:58:51.360 | because of the fact that he is observably

00:58:53.240 | overeating by 500 calories a week.

00:58:55.720 | Unless there is change, the outcomes are inevitable.

00:59:00.040 | You can't predict it with precision,

00:59:02.320 | but you can predict it with good,

00:59:05.160 | with appropriate levels of accuracy.

00:59:10.120 | You see this in relationships.

00:59:11.560 | You watch a relationship between a husband and a wife,

00:59:14.200 | and you identify certain major red flags.

00:59:17.360 | And regardless of the good face

00:59:19.200 | that the husband and wife put on today,

00:59:21.040 | their marriage is doomed unless they change.

00:59:24.320 | Similarly, you see positive signs,

00:59:26.880 | and things are good, right?

00:59:29.360 | Relationship between a father and a child, et cetera.

00:59:32.680 | You can see a good relationship,

00:59:34.240 | you know that things will eventually work out.

00:59:37.000 | And so life is very logical.

00:59:41.840 | We live in an orderly cause and effect universe.

00:59:44.840 | We live in an orderly sowing and reaping universe.

00:59:47.360 | And where there are causes, there are effects.

00:59:50.640 | Where there is sowing, there is reaping.

00:59:52.640 | And so by discussing the logic of ideas,

00:59:55.760 | we can help our children to make wise decisions for them,

00:59:58.640 | for their families, and to be defended against those

01:00:00.720 | who would manipulate them.

01:00:02.120 | And then on the topic of philosophy,

01:00:04.640 | I think the importance of philosophy is to build empathy

01:00:10.280 | and to be able to disassociate ideas from people.

01:00:13.920 | A major issue that I observe in our modern era

01:00:18.920 | is that many people have a very hard time

01:00:21.560 | disassociating their ideas from one another.

01:00:24.240 | Perhaps a political example would be a better example.

01:00:27.800 | Today, many people have associate

01:00:32.560 | and draw their political ideology

01:00:34.880 | from a certain leaning or interest,

01:00:38.160 | from a sense of association, a political bent,

01:00:41.440 | a political party, et cetera,

01:00:43.320 | rather than considering ideas

01:00:45.200 | in a logically, philosophically detached way.

01:00:49.520 | And I myself find this very frustrating.

01:00:52.200 | Maybe people are happier if they just say,

01:00:54.640 | I'm a partisan follower of this particular party

01:00:57.440 | and life is good.

01:00:58.880 | But this doesn't lead to effective, productive outcomes.

01:01:03.440 | And as an observer of politics and such, it drives me crazy.

01:01:07.120 | Why don't people, why can't we make progress?

01:01:10.120 | Why can't we create political function instead of dysfunction

01:01:13.720 | by separating ideas and analyzing them on their merits?

01:01:18.040 | And I think that if we did more of that,

01:01:20.320 | we could bring people together.

01:01:21.400 | We could create more peace and harmony in relationships.

01:01:24.400 | But the starting point is to teach people

01:01:26.360 | to consider ideas, not people.

01:01:29.280 | And not to say, well, I'm gonna reject that person's ideas

01:01:31.720 | 'cause I don't like that person.

01:01:33.120 | And so philosophy builds empathy

01:01:34.880 | and it helps people to be better thinkers.

01:01:37.640 | I hope that you'll take these tools.

01:01:38.840 | I hope that you'll teach them to your children.

01:01:40.560 | And I hope that you will help your children

01:01:42.440 | to exercise their brains so that they can become smarter,

01:01:46.800 | both in a physical sense, as well as in a practical sense,

01:01:50.640 | and that they will learn through the rigorous application

01:01:54.920 | of good logic and good philosophy to apply their ideas

01:01:59.920 | and to share their ideas in a way that as humans,

01:02:03.560 | we can advance and move on towards a better

01:02:06.720 | and better future.

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2023-04-12_How_to_Invest_in_Your_Children_at_a_Very_Early_Age-Teach_Your_Children_Logic_and_Philosophy