Spring Philosophy Party 2024. Remarks by Ronen Grunberg, Vice-President Technology, Aurora Philosophy Institute

Hi Everyone,

It’s great to see you all here.

When I was asked to give a bit of a talk tonight, I wasn’t entirely sure of what I was going to say. But then it occurred to me that it might be interesting to tell you the story of how I got involved in philosophy. It’s really been an interesting journey.

Of course everything begins with your parents! My parents excelled at letting me think for myself. They created an environment where I had the freedom to form my own beliefs. I had, what I like to call “a tabula rasa upbringing”. To a lot of you this might sound liberating, right? Well, in some ways it was but it also had its challenges.

Growing up in a home where I was given the freedom to form my own beliefs turned out to be both a gift and a source of anxiety. While I appreciated the independence, it often felt like I was trying to figure out a puzzle but with absolutely no guide on how to solve it.

So at around age 15 or 16 I had a bit of an awakening. My English teacher, Miss Booker, somehow sensed my Existential struggle. One afternoon, at the end of school, she asked me to come see her at her office. She had a book on her desk, which she handed to me. It was Jean Paul Sartre’s “Existentialism is a Humanism”. She said that I might find it interesting and that I should really read it. Given my respect for Miss Booker’s opinions I read the book in under a day. The ideas in this short text had a profound impact on me. It was like a flashlight in the dark. It really opened my mind to the importance of philosophical ideas and how philosophy can have a profound emotional and intellectual impact.

Now initially, I thought of philosophy as a road map, a set of clear instructions to make sense of life. As I got older and matured, I realized that philosophy is not really a great road map. Rarely are you going to find an absolute answer to things. More often philosophy gives us a variety of perspectives from which we’ve got to choose. It's less about certainty and more about the journey itself.

So reflecting on my upbringing, while the hands-off approach had its merits, it also led to moments of feeling like a blank slate where I was forced to sketch meaning onto the canvas of existence.

And this, I believe, is where we all are. The Aurora Philosophy Institute is a place where our stories can converge. So I want to say thank you to my parents, Miss Booker, and all of you for being a part of my, and each other’s philosophical journey.

So cheers to independent thinking, self-discovery, and the friendships that grow through philosophical exploration. Enjoy the evening, and may our philosophical paths be as clear as the questions we ask.