Re: What is your question?

Description: Maybe we should re-evaluate the whole idea of certainty.

Transcript: Well it goes back, I think, to the epistemological problem that I think we face as creatures in our . . . in our world. So I think one question that I think is always useful to ask in political context is, “If I am so sure I’m right, how come she’s so sure she’s right too?” If it’s obvious what . . . to me the answer is; if the answer’s obvious, why isn’t it obvious to the other person? And I think just that sort of turn taking – standing in the other’s man’s moccasins, walking in the other man’s moccasins kind of thing of saying, “Well I’m so sure I’m right about this, and yet here are these other people who don’t think what I think.” How is that? Are they just fools or irrational? Or is there some part of reality that’s hidden from them? Or could it be that I ought to reflect more carefully on what I think, and listen a bit more to what they have to say. So that’s a kind of _________ you’d expect from a philosopher. It’s a question you asked me to . . . a question about questions. It’s an answer about answers. It’s an answer about questions about questions. But I think that it is . . . it is . . . it is a useful perspective to adopt given the conflicts that we have in the world today about many important matters.

Recorded on: 7/31/07