On The Questions That Matter: Rowan Williams

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Richard Dawkins On "Useless" Things

When me and my friends were in your age, the times when we were much younger (and full of hope), one of the people that we have read casually was Richard Dawkins, and this is one man from whom I believe we can learn a lot.

The video below is a comment on why humans do these "useless" things (part of which, I think, involves talking about other people talking about uselessness). What do you think?

And for those who are more into any of the writings and ideas of Dawkins, here is another video (this is quite long) which features him in a dialogue with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who, mind you, is one of the greatest minds of this century, a brilliant philosopher and theologian who frequently engages in friendly intellectual discussions with also one of the greatest theologians of our time, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger or Pope Benedict XVI.

About The Professor

Leovino Ma. Garcia, Ph. D. is a professor of the Department of Philosophy of Ateneo de Manila University. He finished his degree in humanities under the guidance and tutelage of Fr. Roque Ferriols, S.J., and eventually attained his doctorate degree in Philosophy in the Catholic University of Louvain. He was the dean of the School of Arts and Sciences from 1988 to 1994 as its first lay dean, and then became the dean once again, this time of the School of Humanities from 2001 to 2007. He is the second recipient of the Natividad Galang-Fajardo Lifetime Chair for the Humanities in 2011 and currently the President of the World Conference of Catholic Philosophers (COMIUCAP).

But most of all, he is a thinker, a life teacher, a lover of the arts, and, as he always claims to be, "the poor boy who knows the fields and rivers of the Cagayan valley," truly human in his own way.

These lectures delivered for the school year 2012-2013 are transcribed and summarized by Earl Allyson Valdez (AB Philosophy, Pre-Divinity Track 2010), once his student and now his teaching assistant.