43. What Matters to Me and Why: Realism (2003)

What Matters to Me and Why: Realism 

January 15, 2003 

University of Southern California 

This was Dallas’s contribution to a series of lunchtime talks hosted by USC’s Office of Religious Life. The theme for the series was “What Matters to Me and Why.” 

Explanations of Terms: 

Philosophy:  “I like to describe philosophy as the attempt to understand by rational means the necessary structure of the world in which we live.” 

Realism:  “Realism means that all of those things that you apprehend and perceive really do exist, are right where you experienced them, and they would be there if you didn't see them.” 

For Further Study: 

 The Making of the Modern University: Intellectual Transformation and the Marginalization of Morality, is the book by Julie Reuben that Dallas recommended. 

“Naturalism’s Incapacity to Capture the Good Will” is the paper Dallas wrote about the idea that a purely physical entity would not be capable of goodwill. 

The poem Dallas read is “The Truly Great,” by Stephen Spender. 

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