Butler, one of the most influential philosophers of her generation, used her honorary doctorate address to mount a passionate defense of the humanities at a time when they were under increasing pressure to justify their existence in economic terms. 'Can we measure their impact, their output, their profits?' she asked, echoing the skeptics. Her answer was that the value of humanities education was precisely its immeasurability. Reading carefully across languages and cultural differences taught students to 'see beyond where we are, to find ourselves linked with others we have never directly known.' The transformation she described wasn't vocational training — it was the deepening of a person's capacity for empathy, critical thinking, and engagement with complexity. 'We cannot quantify such knowledge without losing the very value that such knowledge has for us.'