The last lecture we attended from Colby’s Keith Peterson was very interesting and enlightening in relation to our previous discussions. I hadn’t thought in philosophical terms for a while but I thought many of the things Professor Peterson brought into discussion were directly related to our presence of the past theme. Philosophy in general is a very strong example of this concept and theme because many of the most prominent philosophical thinkers proposed some of the most perplexing philosophical questions hundreds of years ago. Philosophy is also a prime example of the presence of the past theme because it incorporates every aspect of our existence and therefor can be applied to nearly every issue we deal with in our contemporary age.
Professor Peterson really honed in on Kantian philosophy and the concept of a priori, which refers to things prior to experience that we use to categorize and understand the world around us. This concept related directly back to previous lectures from this series and the recurring theme of climate change. Again it was discussed that humans are not fully capable of understanding or battling this idea of the climate crisis. Many people cannot even believe the problem despite evidence being right in front of them and this is because the scope of the problem is so massive that we feel little direction about how to deal with it. We have nothing throughout our previous experiences that tell us how to deal with such a gigantic issue and our experiences throughout history have made us feel comfortable that a solution will present itself eventually. This is not the case with such a tremendous and important issue like global climate change and we need to change our mindset and lifestyles in order to combat it.
Professor Peterson also discussed prejudice, which is another extremely relevant topic in our contemporary age as emotions are running high and racism still remains in the fore of many cultures. Professor Peterson stated that prejudice is a pre-judgment that is lacking validity because it is often justified from things that happened in the past or things that never even occurred in the first place. It mostly stems from discussions about people that differ from us, which leads to people forming invalid opinions.
I think the importance of a priori is clear but I think it is interesting to consider what it means for us in our modern contemporary age where people are spending more time than ever before looking at a screen. How relevant is past knowledge when a majority of it is available at all hours a day at the tip of our fingertips, and how can we measure the importance of each past experience or encounter when there are countless encounters possible through the internet and new technology on scales never before seen? I think when considering this idea in combination with our modern world, it becomes clear that a priori should be impacting people to combat big issues like climate change simply through repeated exposure online. When I was younger I feel like many people still could calmly brush off worries about climate change, but now I feel more and more people recognize the significance of the issue and I think this is a small step but obviously there is still a lot of work to be done.