Questions for Philosophy
For this article I wanted to give an insight into the field of philosophy. Who better to ask then UCD philosophy professor Patrick ‘Paddy’ Quinn, author of Philosophy of Religion A-Z.
How did you become interested in philosophy and how long have you been teaching it?
Well I studied philosophy when I was an undergraduate going to university and after that then, you know, after doing a few things I became a teacher. When I was working in the Law Society I decided I’d study philosophy again and do a Master’s in it and so I did that. I was working in the Law Society for about two years and then I decided ‘you know I’d like to go on do a master’s in philosophy. I went back teaching in another school where I was teaching English and also, I was the guidance counsellor there and at the same time I able to manage to study in a Masters in philosophy in UCD and then I had to do a couple of exams at that. So after I finished that I decided I’d go on and study philosophy and at the time in UCD . The supervisors I had, well I had one supervisor mainly, he wasn’t that helpful in terms ofseeing me. My wife, Marian, saw that there were a couple of places in England that I could go to study for a PHD, a doctorate for philosophy. I decided to head for Liverpool. What I would do then was that I’d fly back and forth from Liverpool. I would show the professor that was supervising me what I had written. So that took me four years to do and at the end of that then I had gotten my doctorate. I was able then to take early retirement from the school I was working in and work in philosophy full time.
What’s it like being a philosophy teacher?
Well, it’s very interesting. I’m semi-retired now and I’ve always thought that philosophy is a good subject to help you to think much better than you might ordinarily do. I’ve found it interesting to do and I’ve been able to write some books on philosophy and I’m still teaching. I teach two courses now in philosophy, one in University College Dublin out in Dun Laoghaire and the other than is in Lumen Institute of Adult Education which is a Dominican college down in Sion Hill, and at the moment I’m trying to write a book as well, so I find it very interesting to do.
Which philosopher interests you the most?
Well, I’ve changed over the years. I did my PHD thesis on St. Thomas Aquinas and it was looking at the influence that Plato’s thinking might have had on Aquinas. But in recent years now I would be much more interested in Ludwig Wittgenstein who was from Vienna and had spent some years here in Ireland. I’m very interested in him. I’ve written a book on him and his understanding of the connection between thinking, learning and teaching and I’m working my way through another book on a different aspect on Wittgenstein’s thinking.
Have there been any notable Irish Philosophers?
By and large, philosophy is not something that Irish scholars have really taken up. In the 1600s there was Berkeley and he would certainly had been an important Irish philosopher. In recent times? It’s hard for me to think of any notable modern Irish philosophers. I think most of the philosopher that would be notable would come from Germany, France, England. So, I would be hard put to say which Irish philosophers would stand out. There have been Irish philosophers, but in terms of notable ones? Before Berkeley there was Scotus Eriugena and he was very important. I suppose those would be the two that I would see as notable Irish philosophers.
Would you be more interested in ancient philosophers such as Plato and Socrates or more modern ones such as Marx and Nietzsche?
I prefer Socrates and Plato. And I think the reason for that is that in western philosophy, Socrates was very, very important because before him philosophers tended to study nature a lot. But when Socrates came along, what he wanted to study was how human beings should live together. He was very interested in ethics and he was the thinker who influenced Plato and Plato really, I suppose, of all the philosophers, certainly in the West (and maybe globally), he’s the single greatest philosopher in the sense that, first of all the way he wrote, he wrote plays, he didn’t write straightforward books, and he really covered everything there was to cover in the field of philosophy. So they are the two that stand out.
Who and what were the most influential philosophers and philosophies.
My goodness that’s quite a big question because, I suppose to some extent, most philosophers were influential. Marx was certainly an influential philosopher, but so was Aquinas in his time. I’d say out of all the philosophers, again, Plato would really be THE most influential philosopher, whereas Socrates, was based in Athens, and certainly Greek philosophy would be influenced by him. Plato’s philosophy is universal and there’s a famous saying about Plato ‘Every philosopher after Plato was writing a footnote to what Plato had already said’. But in general there have been quite a lot, Heidegger and other philosophers at the present, Mary Midgley, a lot of women philosophers have become very important particularly from the 20th Century so Midgley would be one, Hannah Arendt, a German philosopher. There are many, many philosophers who would have left their legacy and would be seen as important thinkers.
How important is philosophy in our modern world?
I think it’s very important because often when people are learning, say in school, they learn things about what happens, but what philosophy does is it helps you to think through what you’re doing and what people say, for instance, we’re having an election and you can look at the election and what various parties are saying they will do. So, philosophy helps you to be very sharp in terms of identifying what’s good and what’s bad and that’s really important for human beings. The most important thing for human beings is to know how to live together, in such a way that they all get on. So, philosophy certainly helps you with that, particularly in terms of the ethical aspects of philosophy.
