Dr. Daniel Kolak Q & A

Dr. Daniel Kolak is an author and philosophy professor at William Paterson University.

How did you get your start in philosophy? I was a physics student and I was called into my advisor’s office and told that if you keep asking questions like this you should go across the quad to the philosophy department. This was the University of Maryland, College Park. So I did that. I went across the quad, found the philosophy department, I had never heard of it and didn’t know what it was really. I didn’t even have a class in it. I was terrafirma, when the Pope comes back Rome and kisses the ground. It was like a revelation. All the issues I had been having, you know like calculus with the infinitesimals. Your math professors are like, “That’s not a problem just calculate it in your calculator” and where as the philosopher is like, “Yeah of course that’s Berkeley’s problem.” Then you realize all these problems that you’ve been having, there’s like a whole history of weirdos like yourself who just don’t gobble up whatever they’re being served by the all knowing scientific geniuses. If it don’t go down, it don’t go down.

You find that all the problems you’ve been having are actual problems, but they’re philosophical problems that mathematicians and physics just have to put to the side because you can’t get on with the work. Then where there’s the next revolution, the next paradigm shift of course, they find a different way around the problems. Still, the problems are there and if you’re comfortable with those problems in the sort of “Twilight Zone” area of the netherworld parental questions, philosophy is your home away from home. That’s how I ended up there. Years later I was getting an award, back in College Park and that same physicist came up to me and said “Dan what happened to you, what took you over to the dark side?” I’m like, “Don’t you remember you sent me over there?” he said, “Dan, that was a joke, I was joking!”

Courtesy of Albert Bustos

What is your favorite subject to teach in philosophy? That’s sort of like asking who is your favorite composer or your favorite painter, it’s too much to bare. It just depends on what gallery you walk into. It depends on what book you pick up or what music happens to be playing. If it’s great, it’s great and if you love it, it’s all good.

Who is your favorite philosopher? I am. Besides me? Who's the close second?  I suppose Kant or Hegel, because I’m teaching Hegel right now. Wittgenstein and Descartes are always refreshing. But even Heidgger and Sartre right now because I’m working through them with my students in “Existentialism and Phenomenology.” I always had that trouble. I remember many years ago we had a thing with the department, I had only been here a couple years, sort of talking about this kind of thing, who are your favorite philosophers? Part of my problem is that I have trouble not liking a philosopher. If I’m reading any philosopher, I tend to not look at the critically wrong thing with it as you’re trained to do in graduate school. You’re trained to look for the problems. You look at a canvas, whether it’s Van Gogh or Dali, some people look at Dali and see oh, schlock, I don’t see that. I see unbelievable profundity. With Magritz and Miro, some people see globs of paint, I have trouble looking at Miro and not liking it. I have trouble listening to any great music and not being moved by it. So I guess I’m kind of like an intellectual slut. I’m so easily moved by great works, in just about any area, in any discipline. I have trouble seeing the criticism and I kind of don’t want to criticize it really. But philosophers are very critical, "think critically, think critically." I’d be terrible movie critic. I’d be like, “God what a great movie.” People are always looking for the negative stuff. It doesn’t bother me.

You get something profound, if you spend a lifetime writing a novel or painting a painting. You know what you’re doing and there’s something in it. If the painter spent a lot of time on it, there’s something in it. There’s something profound in there and it's up to you to look and see it. I guess it has always been easy for me to see something neat in there that jumps out.

Courtesy of Croatia.org

How can WPU students apply philosophy to their everyday life? Why would you want to apply anything to your everyday life? Screw everyday life. Everyday life sucks. It’s boring and repetitious. So you can die with a few bucks in your pocket? I don’t think so. Try not to have an everyday life. Maybe that’s how it can help you. It can help you not to have an everyday life, where everyday is an extraordinary day. You turn on the TV and you hear the shit the politicians are saying and they’re not even pseudo-arguments. It’s kind of like amateur night. You see the really beautiful stuff done right, then the amateur stuff doesn’t really sit well. You don’t like schlock, and everyday life is so full of schlock. It’s one garage band after another.