00:00:00.280 - 00:00:08.820

Thank you. I'm Patty McDonald here at the library, and we do welcome you all. We really appreciate your attendance here at these

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programs and we also want to thank the Dons and the Humanities program for hosting the series of programs on Friday afternoons in November. Many, several of you I know are aware of the exhibit.

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I did put a brochure about the exhibit at the different places and also a flyer that lists the various events. So if you can come walk, there is a program tomorrow with Saturday science program where some of the science faculty are going

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to perform some of Franklin's experiments and not the usual lightning. I think there's even something to do with a cathetera that sounds kind of horrifying, but whatever.

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And then there's the concert at 3:00 with the featuring the glass armonica, so that should be really interesting. And those are over in Smith Hall.

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Also, if you haven't had a chance to look at the exhibit, it's on the main floor of the library and it'll be here until December 5th. And it does give you a good overview of Franklin's life and

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his many contributions, so do encourage you to take a look at it. And then today I'm very pleased to introduce Doctor Walt Fuchs, professor of philosophy and religious studies.

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I did ask him for some biographical information. So he did want to point out that he is not as old as Benjamin Franklin, although he has been here at Towson since 1969. So he does share Franklin's longevity.

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He's getting there anyway. His areas of specialization have to do mainly with 19th century and contemporary philosophy, but he has had the good fortune to have been able to teach a wide range of courses, including

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American philosophy. It's from teaching the course and from his involvement with the redoubtable Dons and their concentration on the 18th century that he's come to encounter Franklin as more than

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a founding father. Thank you. I have a handout which I stole, of course, which on the one side are the thirteen virtues that Franklin talks about extensively, and on

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the other side are some of his aphorisms. Oh, thank you. You can see that I snipped it out and pasted it. This talk will be in four short parts and it will leave us time

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for discussion. And the title of it is Benjamin Franklin, Philosopher, with a question mark. At the risk of being indiscreet, let me divulge a secret of those

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who belong to the professional tribe known as philosophers. As irritating as it can be when the term is used as a dismissive label, as it so often is when one has shown oneself to be forgetful or unaware of something that everyone else in

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the world knows about, or simply incompetent in practical matters, as in the mode of, well, what can you expect? He's a philosopher. That irritation is more than compensated for by hearing the

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apologetic song of someone who is about to claim an insight on some deep or significant matter by beginning with, well, I'm not a philosopher, but... This ceremonial acknowledgement of the superior

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status of the one designated with the title philosopher by those not of the tribe surely has a similar function as offerings made before the gods. It is a sign of proper piety.

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So it does matter, this label. The question I would like to pose and address then is, is the designation philosopher properly affixed to Benjamin Franklin? Part One: Philosophy. There is the most common usage in ordinary

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language, an example of which I heard just the other day while standing around the communal cigarette butt depository that is not 30 feet away from Linthicum Hall. Quote, "My philosophy of smoking is." Used in this sense,

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everyone is a philosopher, including, of course, Benjamin Franklin. It is a matter of having reflected about some principles of some things.

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Two, there is the usage of the Academy, the discipline designation that is warranted by type of training and certification that those who studied within the discipline have acquired.

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So philosophers are those who have been granted degrees in the subject and have been admitted to the Guild and have earned their gold from that occupation. Three, there are also historical usages that should be taken into

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account. But there too were pluralities of meaning of the appellation philosopher. One, for the Greeks it was used for those who were friends or lovers

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of wisdom, the seekers of knowledge, but knowledge in a different sense than that of attaining mastery of the crafts or techniques. The contemporary dictionary definition seems to cover this

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original usage. It is, and I quote, the theory or logical analysis of the principles underlying conduct, thoughts, knowledge and the nature of the universe.

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End quotes. Two, in retrospect we understand that it was applied to those who investigated nature. Those now referred to as scientists. Still, Newton's masterwork was called Philosophiae Naturalis,

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Principia Mathematica, The Mathematical Principles of the Philosophy of Nature. Third, during that historical period known as the Enlightenment, thinkers and activists who engaged themselves with social, cultural, historical, and political or

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legal concerns of broad range we're called les philosophes. Finally, the profession itself engages in practices that can be seen as establishing identifying markers.

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Selections from Franklin's works are often included in anthologies of American philosophy that include a historical survey. They're lumped in with selections from thinkers such as

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Jonathan Edwards, Thomas Jefferson, and slightly later, the Transcendentalists Emerson and Thoreau. It takes a generous view to designate any of these authors as philosophers.

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None of these writers have a clear claim to the designation, although they are certainly all thoughtful, and some of their reflections are indeed on themes traditionally associated with issues thought about by philosophers.

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Some of their works, along with some of Franklin's, are simply the nearest things to traditional philosophical work that we have from our early period of American civilization. The practice of including them in anthologies of philosophy

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constitutes them as philosophers. Section 2. Frames of a world view. Franklin's intellectual views are framed

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within the context of and in reference to the influence of religious views, something that's hardly surprising given the part which religion, especially Puritanism, played in the colonization of North America, coupled with the

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conviction that religion deals with ultimate things. Although basically self educated, born in Boston, Benjamin Franklin was raised within the Puritan milieu. His father was a pious man.

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On the other hand, Benjamin's brother James was alleged to have been a freethinker. Given all of the cliches of rigidity which do indeed have some truth to them,

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one of the remarkable factors of Puritan thought was its receptivity to, even welcoming of the natural philosophy of Newton, and in conjunction with that, the epistemological empiricism of John Locke.

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To be sure, some of the early Protestant savants resisted any knowledge not sourced in the Bible or in the works of the great theologians. But the works of both Newton and Locke were available in the

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seminaries, even the most conservative ones, such as Yale. One of the important intellectual issues of the day, both in Europe, where the Enlightenment had begun, and in

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North America, where it arrived later, was the question of natural religion. That is, did the study of nature itself offer access to the truths that are revealed through religion?

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Can reason alone bring some to see what others have been brought to see through faith? One response to that question became identified as deism, the doctrine that nature shows there is a creator of the universe,

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God, but one that does not interfere with the laws of nature. As a corollary, this involves that doctrines of morality can be grounded through reason and not through divine command, or

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that what virtue is is revealed by human nature in the context of human society. Although it seems hard to call forth in image of it, Benjamin Franklin was at one time a teenager, that stage of life

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after 12 and before 20 years of age, a stage of life which seems to bring with it certain erratic but often sharpened humors or spirits in the individual. From the autobiography we know that Franklin read Xenophon's

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work on Socrates and was much impressed by Socrates's manner of disputation. From this period of his life we have the first published works under the nom de plume Silence Do Good.

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He wrote a series of letters to the newspaper that were spoofs of Cotton Mather's essays to Do Good. There's also the first essay that concerns itself with subject matter that falls within the realm of the Queen of the

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Sciences, Philosophy. At age 18, Franklin left Philadelphia to work as a printer in London and happened to assist in the printing of a work of Elysium Wollaston entitled Religion of Nature.

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He disliked the work and wrote a response entitled A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain. The first major point that Franklin makes puts him in a position contrary to orthodox Puritanism.

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If there is a God, which Franklin affirms, and he directs or permits actions to be done, then there is no self determination of the will. Thus no liberty and, quote,

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If there is no such thing as free will in creatures, there can be neither merit nor demerit in creatures. End quote. The creature can be neither blamed nor praised for his

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actions. Today we would refer to this doctrine as hard determinism. Secondly, Franklin argues against Wollaston's proof for immortality, which was based on the claim that since there's a

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larger amount of pain in this life than pleasure, there must be an afterlife in which the account is balanced out or God would not be benevolent. Franklin cleverly defines the capacity to feel pain as what

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distinguishes the living things from the non living things. Pain is the sole cause of desire, which in turn is the cause of voluntary action, and pleasure is the satisfaction of desire, and it must be that every desire is fulfilled, since

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every pain ends, even if only at death. Thus the pleasure-pain books are balanced at death, as Franklin remarks, and I quote, There is not on that account any occasion for a future

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adjustment. Franklin also attacks another proof that Wollaston had offered for immortality based on the immateriality of the soul. The tenor and text of this disputation not only involves a

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breaking out of the Puritan theological philosophical framework of his upbringing, but also a clear deviation from anything like standard Christianity. Franklin revisits these issues in 1732, and he does revise his

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positions away from the strict determinism and becomes an advocate of striving for virtue and away from the pure deism to a notion that God allows for special providences among humans, among human but not natural affairs.

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His reasoning was that prayer would be meaningless were it not possible that there could be intervention. And as there are a great many people and a great many peoples who pray, prayer must have been ordained, and God would not

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ordain something that is useless and absurd. Thus not all things in human affairs are preordained. It was perhaps not alone this argument from logic that convinced him, he said of his own early convictions in favour

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of deism that, quote, I began to suspect that this doctrine, though it might be true, was not very useful.

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End quote. Since, as he came to think, without belief in providential religion, the chief spur to morality would be lost, it becomes essential, if a good life were to be possible, that

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there must be belief in providential religion. As he says, quote, if men are so wicked as we now see them with religion, what would they be without it? As the earliest works show, Franklin had already decided

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that metaphysical speculative thought was really not worth the effort. Interesting from the perspective of the history of ideas. Is that these doctrines of Franklin, though he does not

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write about methodology, already contains strong tendencies in the direction of what will become two major schools of philosophy, utilitarianism, whose originating chief proponents were Bentham and mill, who emphasized pain and

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pleasure as the two great teachers of humankind and therefore propose the principle of utility, that is, the good is that which is useful for promoting the greatest happiness and and the greatest number for human conduct,

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and later American pragmatism, exemplified by William James's dictum in regard to pursuing knowledge, quote, the difference that makes no difference is no difference. Part 3.

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Natural Philosophy. It was Francis Bacon who proposed that much used and abused phrase knowledge is power. What he meant by it was that understanding the processes of

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nature would give man the ability to control it for the benefit of mankind. This, as Bacon asserted, was the primary goal of knowledge and thus should be the standard to guide the pursuit of knowledge.

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Benjamin Franklin was in complete accord with Bacon's stand on the matter, and that showed itself not only in Franklin's often other theoretical views about the nature of theory, that it's basically not interesting, and

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the development of science, but also in his own practical investigations of nature. Franklin simply did not admire at all the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake.

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It was only knowledge that could be applied that was valuable. The goal of life is happiness and wresting the satisfaction of the natural needs of man from nature is a necessity, is a necessary condition for the possibility of happiness.

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One could say that he was a proponent of the position that technology is the future of mankind. If it is to have one at all, the forces of nature are to be dominated.

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It was out of this conviction that Franklin called for the organization of the American Philosophical Society, later named the American Philosophical Association. In a text entitled A Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge

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among the British Plantations in America, he wrote that in 1743, and in it he proposes, quote, that one society be formed of virtuosi, or ingenious men, residing in the several colonies.

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That at Philadelphia there must be always at least seven members, a physician, a mathematician, a chemist, a mechanician, a mechanic, a geographer, and a natural philosopher.

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The organization continues to exist as the APA, the American Philosophical Association, but its meetings now serve as a venue for discourses that on the whole, have little to do with wresting secrets from nature, which would surely make Franklin

00:24:25.060 - 00:24:46.720

frown. But it also serves as a practical-contact-slash-clearing house that is a meat market for the recruitment of new members to positions in the profession, an activity which Franklin would

00:24:46.720 - 00:25:07.080

surely approve. The list of accomplishments that Franklin instigated in the realm of... and improvement of useful implements is long and pretty well known, so I won't discuss them.

00:25:07.760 - 00:25:37.150

What is clear throughout in is his adherence to the orientation of the tasks of natural philosophy as understood by Bacon that is expressed by the motto knowledge is power. Part 4, Social Political Visions. There is no doubt that the

00:25:37.150 - 00:26:01.110

diplomatic work of Franklin in getting the French to to support the colonists and their war of independence against Great Britain was essential to achieving that goal. It is further true that his influence at the Constitutional

00:26:01.110 - 00:26:22.150

Convention made possible the approval and adoption of that document that unified and unifies this nation. It is also the case that sometimes the mythical aura that develops around a hero is more powerful, more important, more

00:26:22.150 - 00:26:46.570

useful than the facts about the person. The image we have inherited and perpetuate of Benjamin Franklin in regard to his visions concerning the nature of society and politics is just not very much in tune with the sum

00:26:46.570 - 00:27:03.820

of him. The irony is that the revolutionary hero was not much of a fan of revolution. Franklin was an Anglophile and until quite late thought that

00:27:03.820 - 00:27:25.820

the grievances of the colonists could easily be resolved within the Empire, and that they would be better off as part of that empire than to be independent of it. It was in this spirit that he served in various capacities as

00:27:25.820 - 00:27:46.890

a colonial representative to the Crown. In 1757, as an agent of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, Franklin asserted that his political faith is, and I quote, what our superiors think is best for us is really

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best. End quote. At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Franklin agrees to sign the final draft of the Constitution, of which he does

00:28:00.600 - 00:28:12.610

not entirely approve, in a speech that included the following passage. Quote, Sir, I agree to this constitution, with all its

00:28:12.610 - 00:28:30.240

faults, if they are such, because I think a general government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people, if well administered.

00:28:31.320 - 00:28:52.610

And I believe farther, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being

00:28:52.610 - 00:29:05.580

incapable of any other. End quote. It is interesting, I think, to contrast this with the famous phrase of Jean Jacques Rousseau, the philosopher known as the

00:29:05.580 - 00:29:18.840

father of the French Revolution. And he says in the social contract, quote, the people is never corrupted, but it is often deceived. End quote.

00:29:20.640 - 00:29:42.760

What interested Franklin all of his adult life is what we would call the project of social or civic virtue. This interest accounts for his reflections and practical proposals on education, on the role of government, and his

00:29:42.760 - 00:30:10.440

thoughts concerning philanthropy. In an early work that is clearly patterned on on the Dialogues of Plato and was written roughly between the time of Berkeley's three dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, which was in 1713,

00:30:10.440 - 00:30:35.450

and Hume's Dialogues on Natural Religion written around 1750, it appears that British dialogues have must have been in the air while Franklin was in England. Franklin emphasizes that in order to obtain happiness it is

00:30:35.450 - 00:30:58.960

necessary to have virtue. In a short piece entitled A Second Dialogue between Philacles and Horatio in 1730, Horatio, the devotee of pure pleasure, thanks Philacles for an earlier lesson.

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That, quote, self denial was really the greatest good and the highest self-gratification and absolutely necessary to produce even my own darling soul good pleasure. End quote.

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Horatio has come back for a kind of moral philosophy tune up and asked Philacles to show him immediately this good and to do so more clearly. In this dialogue, the second one, Philacles reinforces

00:31:43.100 - 00:31:53.760

this lesson and answers quote, I've shown you what it is not. It is not sensual, but it is rational and moral good.

00:31:54.520 - 00:32:12.050

It is doing all the good we can to others by acts of humanity, friendship, generosity, and benevolence. End quote. For all of what he says here, Franklin certainly thought that

00:32:12.050 - 00:32:34.170

happiness and virtue required the attention of each person to his or her own self-interest, as measured by the avoidance of pain and the attainment of pleasure. The satisfaction of necessities was a precondition for

00:32:34.170 - 00:33:00.650

happiness. The 13 virtues of the list he composed are really the means for being able to pursue self-interest successfully. His plan for training himself, or for training the virtues into

00:33:00.650 - 00:33:20.440

himself is laid out in the autobiography Keeping a Daily Account, Bookkeeping as the path to virtue. These virtues also serve as grounds for many of his well known aphorisms.

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He contemplated the formation of a League of Virtuous Men, what he called later the United Party for Virtue, to further the practices of disinterested benevolence to others. He saw, though, that a problem is that since each person should

00:33:51.550 - 00:34:14.290

look out for his or her own self-interest, charity or benevolence to individuals would harm that recipient's self-reliance. Thus, benevolence practiced indirectly would seem to be the

00:34:14.290 - 00:34:35.000

most benevolent benevolence. This doctrine will be resurrected a century later during the age of the Robber Barons in the essay The Doctrine of Wealth by Andrew Carnegie that philanthropy should never

00:34:35.000 - 00:35:02.430

be directly to individuals, but only for those kinds of institutions which will allow people to help themselves. What fascinates about Franklin, aside from his intelligence and his myth, is that he has about him, I think, the very aspects

00:35:02.430 - 00:35:27.320

that will later, by both foreigners and ourselves, be used to articulate the ambivalent American character. Practical but also idealistic. Self-made man, but also very much involved in society.

00:35:28.560 - 00:35:50.600

Shallow yet anchored, hard headed yet religious. The rugged individual but also very much concerned about reputation. Clever but anti-theoretical, pragmatic but also principled.

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Is Benjamin Franklin a philosopher? Perhaps a response in the spirit of Franklin might very well be tis an idle question, the answer to which could bring us no advantage.

00:36:13.400 - 00:36:50.540

And that's where I stopped. Please feel free to... Well, you often seem to use interchangeably in this course of your talk religion and philosophy, which is a reflection of your department in

00:36:50.540 - 00:37:05.840

many respects, philosophy and religious studies. At what point, or can you make a bifurcation? Are they separable with right? Oh, I think so.

00:37:09.040 - 00:37:23.960

But I would like to point out that our department is the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, not religion, which is a different animal. It used to be religion.

00:37:24.800 - 00:37:29.600

Yes. Yes. Yes. No, no.

00:37:29.800 - 00:37:55.360

For a while after 1969 still, yeah. It's of course something that we have talked about in the department and it's something that philosophers, professionals, particularly in the last century, have wanted to

00:37:55.360 - 00:38:21.360

say, OK, listen, there's a clear demarcation. Philosophy has to do with reason, and there are certain kinds of tools, et cetera, that are the professional tools of philosophers, and that are not the tools of religionists,

00:38:21.360 - 00:38:41.190

except in a secondary sense. But recently again, there have been some fairly important thinkers, I'm thinking of Kolakowski, who's Polish, who says, look,

00:38:41.190 - 00:39:04.280

philosophy in the 20th century took a wrong turn. We cannot abandoned the considerations that religion thinks are so significant, that these are the kinds of issues that need to be thought about in terms of the human condition.

00:39:05.000 - 00:39:36.930

I think for early American thought, the only intellectual life, the only colleges, as you well know, I mean, they were all founded to be seminaries for the training of clergymen. So all of the intellectual products of the early years, the

00:39:36.930 - 00:39:56.120

public ones, were within the context of both religious authority and religious impulses. Do you want any more than that from me? Well, then put it in the Franklin context, right?

00:39:57.760 - 00:40:17.420

Yeah. OK. So Franklin, I think, as soon as he gives up the notion, which was very early on, that theory is worth pursuing for its own

00:40:17.420 - 00:40:34.640

sake. He thinks that, A, the society he's part of, you know, is a religious society. So those are the issues that you have to deal with as a thinker.

00:40:34.920 - 00:40:56.900

It's a given. But B, he also seems to think that practically speaking, it's impossible to have a moral society if you don't have a foundation for that based on the belief that it matters

00:40:56.900 - 00:41:19.440

whether you're good or bad and so on. And he thinks that religion is the way to do that. As you well know, the religious creed that he then adheres to, as far as I know,

00:41:19.440 - 00:41:45.160

his entire life was one that certainly didn't involve recognizing the, what's the word I'm looking for, the sacredness of Jesus. But he certainly didn't speak out against it either.

00:41:46.240 - 00:42:11.140

His #13 is Socrates and Jesus. I find it hard to judge how much of an imp of humour Franklin was under, but I mean, I'm sorry, I think there's something terribly funny in using as the example of the virtue of humility that one

00:42:11.140 - 00:42:27.920

is to be as humble as Socrates and Jesus. I mean, you're identifying yourself there with a pretty important group of people. Well, yes, very much.

00:42:27.920 - 00:42:45.000

Franklin had read Shaftesbury. Whether he adhered to him or not, Shaftesbury's philosophy was one cut across the grain of Judeo-christian belief that man is a regenerate, basically bad.

00:42:46.240 - 00:42:59.700

And yet Franklin believed in Shaftesbury's idea of refinement, that we can put forth a good face and so on. Did he ever, does Franklin hold with that judeo-christian belief or

00:42:59.700 - 00:43:21.130

does he, does he ever, do you know, come over to the Shaftesbury side that people are basically, basically benevolent? He behaves that way, tells us that we should behave that way, his Almanac is filled with... Yeah, my sense is, and I am not a

00:43:21.130 - 00:43:33.900

scholar of Franklin. I have not read all 10 volumes of the works, nor do I intend to. I have to say this. But from the autobiography and from some

00:43:33.900 - 00:44:00.240

of the specific, and some of the works that are specifically designated as philosophical in content, I think that Franklin felt he didn't have to decide those kinds of issues. That he is somewhat suspicious of human nature and he doesn't

00:44:00.240 - 00:44:22.320

think that without guidance people will be purely benevolent, but that with guidance or the proper framework, they can be led to being benevolent most of the time at least.

00:44:25.000 - 00:44:45.790

And I don't think that he sees there's any reason or any way to decide these ultimate kinds of things, good and evil and so on. He did read a lot of the British and particularly the Scottish

00:44:45.790 - 00:45:16.770

moralists, so he knew what thinking was going on. But already in the air was this moving toward a kind of utilitarianism, which could be, after all, put either within a religious framework or could be put into this is what the human

00:45:16.770 - 00:45:40.960

species has learned through experience and therefore this is how things work the best toward attaining happiness. You know, completely independently of any theistic position.

00:45:41.600 - 00:46:00.400

He affirms in everything that I've read that he believes in God, but it's sure not the God that, you know, most church- going people celebrate, I think. Oh, he didn't go to church Right.

00:46:00.400 - 00:46:07.640

He himself did not go to church. He contributed all the churches, right, including the Mikveh Israel synagogue. Largest contributor.

00:46:10.840 - 00:46:27.000

Was there any influence of the Quaker belief system in his life? As far as I could tell, actually not, which is interesting. One would have expected that.

00:46:29.080 - 00:47:03.010

He certainly seems to have a respect for the Quakers, but what he didn't feel comfortable with were what he called enthusiasms, and that's in part how he got away from Puritanism also, that the Great Awakening that happens in about 1740 is

00:47:03.010 - 00:47:30.600

based on the notion of a religion of the heart, that it's what one feels, it was for them similar to what the Quakers maintain, that it's not by the book, but by the heart that one knows the word of God.

00:47:31.080 - 00:47:49.520

And that just made him very uneasy. He perhaps had only a prejudice there based on being a printer, but he really liked the written word and he wanted to see documents.

00:47:49.880 - 00:48:05.840

So. But more than that, I don't know. Does anyone else know? What was the question? About the Quakers. Oh, he was part of the Quaker party.

00:48:05.960 - 00:48:22.190

I mean, as a politician and that's how he was elected to the Pennsylvania assembly. But at the time when he was very sympathetic to the western counties being attacked by French and Indian in alliance

00:48:22.190 - 00:48:38.660

together against the settlers. He created the first militia and was even offered leadership. You elected, as a militia, you elected your leaders. He refused to become a leader and wanted only to be a a quick

00:48:38.660 - 00:48:50.880

soldier among them. And that seriously breached his relationship with the Quakers, who were pacifists and didn't want to have a militia. But he was able to overcome that and also to maintain ties to

00:48:50.880 - 00:49:08.820

them at the same time. He was a constant politician, but he was never sympathetic to the Quaker religious views and often fought them on these, on those bases. I want to inquire into the influence of

00:49:08.820 - 00:49:22.750

John Locke for Franklin, because it seems pretty evident that he has great influence for American social and political philosophy, for the revolutionaries. But outside of that context, particularly with his theory of

00:49:22.750 - 00:49:35.720

knowledge, does Locke have a great deal of influence? Yeah, I think so. There was. And you know, I'm a little bit vague on this.

00:49:35.720 - 00:49:56.000

It's been a long time since I taught this course and so I don't remember all that. But as I remember it, as I understood it at at the time, the Puritans were open to Locke really for two reasons.

00:49:56.560 - 00:50:27.640

The first of which was that Locke provided an epistemological basis for the doctrines of nature of Newton, and the important thing for them there was yes, nature is totally regulated and works according to an inviolable system.

00:50:29.160 - 00:50:56.640

And Newton made the claim that these scientific laws were understood by means of inductive reasoning that is based on experience. Locke gives an epistemology that would make that thinkable.

00:50:57.720 - 00:51:10.600

So that's the first reason why. And Franklin, too, thinks, you know, yes, the laws of nature are inviolable. You know, they work all the time and everywhere.

00:51:10.880 - 00:51:39.560

So there's no exceptionalism there. But the second thing was that the epistemology of Locke takes away the issue of, do our experiences really correspond absolutely to how things are in themselves?

00:51:39.840 - 00:52:01.960

Because for Locke, the sensations we have are the effects of objects on our senses. So there's no way that we can make a comparison. And so we don't have to bother to ask.

00:52:02.640 - 00:52:27.730

They're just unwise things to ask about. If I say that this is green, green is simply the effect of the interaction between the object and my eye, my mind, and it's a useless thing to ask, but what color is it really in

00:52:27.730 - 00:52:46.560

itself, that this is the great step forward, so empiricists thought, of empiricism. You do away with foolish metaphysical questions. And certainly Franklin was very much in that vein.

00:52:46.560 - 00:53:00.560

You said that when it came to religion, Franklin preferred the written word. If I recall correctly from his autobiography, he mentioned that there's a person, a group that created a new religion, and a

00:53:00.560 - 00:53:10.830

lot of people in the community were very fearful of this new religion. And Franklin told the guy, like, why don't you guys just write up the tenets of your religion so the people can know what you

00:53:10.830 - 00:53:22.370

guys believe, and they wouldn't be afraid of you. And the guy said, well, we don't want to do that yet because we're not really sure of all of our own tenets yet. And we don't want to just, like, write up something and then

00:53:22.370 - 00:53:33.210

we're stuck to that system of belief. We want to have time to work things out and find out what the truth is. And I think, if I recall correctly, Franklin thought this

00:53:33.210 - 00:53:43.920

was a good approach that they, that they had to wait. Yeah, yeah. That instead of, instead of relying on the written word list, just think it out first, right?

00:53:43.920 - 00:54:02.840

But at some point, if you want it to be believed, it has to be written. It seems to me that that's just in keeping with his way of dealing with most things.

00:54:05.080 - 00:54:33.740

He certainly doesn't believe, or he doesn't allow himself to be brought to affirm that what's in the Bible is true, but he doesn't say it's false either. In some sense, for him it doesn't matter, that the

00:54:33.740 - 00:54:55.880

framework of the book is sufficiently vague that he can be in adherence to some of it and not all of it. But as long as he has the printed word there, all will always know what is being spoken about. So.

00:54:57.440 - 00:55:15.060

You mentioned the concept of civic virtue, and that was very important to Franklin, wasn't that a concept that was very common among the revolutionary thinkers and thinkers of that time, and they

00:55:15.060 - 00:55:31.180

took it from the Greeks and Romans. Yes, thank you. That's right. This idea does come from the Greeks and the Romans, and it

00:55:31.180 - 00:55:56.350

was very much a part of... I'm trying to find a word that's not too biased here. The ruling gentry of the colonies. They saw themselves, or at least a lot of them saw themselves as

00:55:56.350 - 00:56:16.760

reenacting somehow these virtues and ideals of the Romans with Seneca and and Stoicism and so on. But unfortunately, they also thought they had it and the common people didn't.

00:56:17.480 - 00:56:32.440

And so you sort of had to make it so the common people would have it too. And that was why Franklin and the others too, I think, but Jack can speak to this far better than I can,

00:56:34.360 - 00:56:50.640

wanted to find structures for associations that would assure virtuous behaviour, if not virtuous thoughts. Rules are good. That's a great thought.

00:56:51.720 - 00:57:04.840

It seems like Franklin identified, I mean, I'm, I haven't read that much about him, but identified himself with the common man more than the ruling gentry. Or maybe not... Called the printer.

00:57:05.120 - 00:57:31.600

Some days yes, some days no. I think that what I became aware of, and I read the autobiography again this week so I could remember something. What was really striking is not only, as Jack said, that

00:57:31.600 - 00:57:50.680

Franklin was really a consummate politician in the sense of knowing how to bring interests into accord with one another, and very often that involve his own self-interest, but he really did that well.

00:57:51.480 - 00:58:19.680

But secondly, always seem to be a kind of step ahead in preparing the ground for the possibilities of those kinds of arrangements that might in some sense benefit everyone. And as part of that, I think he was a little bit of what we

00:58:19.680 - 00:58:45.220

would now call a spin doctor or a PR man about himself. He knew what kind of things would leave favorable impressions even in advance with different groups. Jack pointed out the last time, he knew what he was doing, when

00:58:45.220 - 00:59:07.600

he went to the French court and wore his plain fur hat. Yes, that one, exactly. It's actually marten. That this made him a man of the people. But he wasn't a man of the people all the time either.

00:59:08.080 - 00:59:20.000

So, well, it's all these times. I mean, I had not read Franklin. I'm thinking of a, a remark that was made some years ago about David Hume.

00:59:20.000 - 00:59:29.640

Like, you know, the person who's in the position to make this remark. He said David Hume didn't have a religious bone in his body. And as a result, he really had a tin ear for religion.

00:59:30.480 - 00:59:39.960

And to me, it sounds like Franklin doesn't have a religious bone in his body. And, you know, it's more PR to leave, you know, religion in its place.

00:59:39.960 - 00:59:56.040

It's really not interested, it seems to me, is that impression off the mark? I'm going to leave that to Gary. Who's going to do the talk on Franklin religion.

00:59:56.040 - 01:00:11.320

I do have interest to critique it, but I'll leave it to Gary. One thing you might say is that who is the real Ben Franklin? I mean because he he showed himself to be a master of creating characters.

01:00:12.080 - 01:00:29.850

And the autobiography itself, I think, is a masterful piece of that kind of work. I always ask my classes, how is it that Mark Van Doren, Carl van Doren, Carl van Doren in 1938 to write a biography that's

01:00:29.850 - 01:00:42.450

over 800 pages long? And Franklin's biography is about 200 pages. Now, of course, Franklin doesn't carry it all the way to the end of his life, but I would say, did Van Doren know more about

01:00:42.450 - 01:00:57.480

Franklin than Franklin knew about Franklin? But of course, you've got to remember that Van Doren is writing under the influence of the the New Deal too, so that in some respects, Franklin maybe like Franklin Roosevelt.

01:01:01.280 - 01:01:26.200

Yes, these are the, these things are part of what constitutes the sort of mythical status... substituted Washington, so that Washington became in the latter part of the 19th century... ...are pushed aside.

01:01:26.760 - 01:01:42.040

You know, the the very description of Franklin is that that he looks something like that Santa Claus with a fur hat, you know, but actually he was quite, a quite impressive physical specimen himself.

01:01:43.360 - 01:01:58.320

Great swimmer, you know, thought a great deal of taking care of himself, exercise, you know, and so on. And he was also a lot taller than the pictures that they seem to present.

01:01:58.600 - 01:02:18.520

That's John Adams, smallest. You can't come away from the relationship of Adams and Franklin not disliking one of them. Yeah, I think that's right.

01:02:18.520 - 01:02:38.760

We think it's Franklin's mythical stature that prevails. People do include it in anthologies and philosophy and, and maybe this is unfair to press you on this given your conclusion of your talk, but from what you presented of of of

01:02:38.760 - 01:03:01.320

Franklin's ideas, they seem to be largely derivative and not making a major contribution that 18th century thought. And so is that the reason he's included or is it the dearth of other philosophy in America in the 18th

01:03:01.320 - 01:03:30.400

century or is there, you know, some other... My first thought is that it's a dearth. I mean, it's no more a stretch to include Franklin than to include Thomas Jefferson or Jonathan Edwards.

01:03:31.800 - 01:04:00.960

My second thought is Franklin is smart, but I agree with the way that you formulated it, that I don't think he makes major intellectual contributions to the 18th century except in the fields of applied sciences and perhaps in diplomacy.

01:04:00.960 - 01:04:33.300

I don't know enough about that. And the third thing is in a kind of more positive sense that since there came to be, although it's not the dominant philosophical stream now, since there came to be a period of

01:04:33.300 - 01:04:59.060

dominance of American pragmatism running roughly from 1880 to 1930 or 40, in some ways, he's much more embraceable within that context. And so even though there wasn't a lot there, what the

01:04:59.060 - 01:05:13.080

hell, put him in. You know, I'd say two things here. And one is he's left out a lot being public and philosophy, as is Jefferson.

01:05:13.600 - 01:05:26.990

But I would argue that Jonathan Edwards makes a great deal more sense to him too, than does Benjamin Franklin. He's a very vigorous, rigorous mind and his analysis of the relation between, you know, the the free will, you know, problem

01:05:26.990 - 01:05:37.640

is, is quite powerful. So he is someone who who does Newton and perhaps even Berkeley, You know, he does Locke, and he does in a very philosophical and metaphysical one.

01:05:39.320 - 01:06:10.200

So it's a different Berkeley. But exactly, then, if you're going to include him, you almost need Franklin as a counterweight, not only because of the points of view on those issues, but also as the secular and divine kind of approach, I think.

01:06:13.640 - 01:06:29.680

Yeah, sure. But I mean, philosophy has been fighting this battle since Socrates accused all those other guys of being sophists. And, you know, so it's in some sense the same problem.

01:06:30.840 - 01:06:44.960

But we don't have to exclude anybody. We're very generous in this way. Any other comments? Thank you very much.

01:06:44.960 - 01:07:05.700

Well, thank you very much. From the library. Good, gifts. Thank you. Very thought provoking discussion here and we hope it

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is. It's wonderful to have students and faculty participating. So we hope to see you here next week. Next Friday, George Hahn, we'll talk about Franklin and satire,

01:07:16.700 - 01:07:25.520

so it should also be very interesting. And then Gary Wood, Franklin and religion. So thank you all again. Have a nice weekend.