What Is Philosophy?
Copyright © 2023 Bruce W.
Hauptli
It is often surprising to
non-philosophers that philosophers should find it difficult to answer this
question. Nonetheless, the very
question “What is philosophy?” is itself
a philosophical question! To help
us gain an initial understanding of the philosophical enterprise I will quickly
discuss three views of the nature of philosophy (two of which, I will argue, are
deficient).
1. The “Wondering” Conception of
Philosophy:
Philosophers as diverse as Plato,
Aristotle, and Schopenhauer have contended that philosophy is, or begins with, a
kind of wonder (or refusal to take things
for granted)[1]
David Pears characterizes the
relevant sort of wonder as follows:
...the question,
why a particular species of animal exists, is answerable by zoology, but the
question, why anything at all exists, cannot be answered by any science....the
question whether a particular scientific argument is valid can be settled by
reference to the accepted standards of...validity, but the question whether the
standards themselves ought to be accepted cannot be settled in any such way.[2]
According to Pears, “philosophy
originates in the desire to transcend the world of human thought and experience,
in order to find some point of vantage
from which it can be seen as a whole.”[3]
The “wondering” is sometimes called the attempt to see the world
sub specie aeternitatis.[4]
It certainly captures part of
what philosophizing is. But such
wondering is, at best, only the beginning
of the philosophic enterprise—if this was all there were to it, philosophizing
would be a particular brand of
day-dreaming. Indeed, if the
“wondering conception” were the whole story, such wonders would seem pointless
and disconnected with our lives, and complaints like that offered by
David Stove (in the “Preface” to his
book The Plato Cult) would be
appropriate. Stove maintains that
the “wonderings” of many philosophers are without purpose or meaning:
Parmenides [~500
B.C.E.] said nothing can move. Yet
he traveled and knew he traveled around
Plato [~427-~347
B.C.E.] held that no particular thing can be
really white, or round, or
human...that only whiteness is really white....In another and better world, he
said, such ‘universals’ exist on their own, unmixed with space, time, or each
other....Yet Plato was a particular thing himself, of course, and was human
too....[6]
Philosopher’s
theories, then, are often so exceedingly strange that we are obligated to
postulate some non-rational cause, in order to explain the philosophers’
believing them.[7]
Later in his book, Stove summarizes
his criticism of the “wondering” characterization of philosophy by saying that
“...philosophy typically begins in
pseudo-wonder....”[8]
His complaint is that the wondering of
many (or most) philosophers seems
idle.
That is, without a clear-cut goal (or end-in-view), it seems to be little
more than day-dreaming.[9]
The “second” conception of philosophy, which I will now discuss, can help
us see what is “missing” from the first one.
2. The “Enduring Questions” Conception
of Philosophy:
To get at what the “wondering
conception” leaves off, let me ask you this question:
Is the discipline of philosophy famous
for answering its questions or resolving its wonderings?
While individual philosophers are,
of course justly famous for their own particular “answers” to the questions
which they consider, in any introductory course in philosophy students easily
come to see the inadequacy of several famous “answers.”[10]
Certainly, then, the answer to the above question has to be a resounding
“No!” In many cases, the same
questions are debated anew with each generation.
What, then, is it that makes this discipline famous (or infamous)?
We could contend that philosophy
is famous for its questions.
This leads us to what I will call the “enduring questions” conception of
philosophy. To understand it, we
will need to distinguish two sorts of questions (or problems):
Removable questions are those that can be firmly and finally answered or
resolved). Here I have in mind such
questions as “What is the boiling point of water,” or “How can we vacuum-pack
potato chips?”
Enduring questions, on the other hand, are questions that have not been,
or perhaps can not be, firmly or finally resolved.
-According to
this conception of philosophy, these questions arise for all of us (they arise
for each individual, generation, society, or culture) because we are the sorts
of creatures we are, and because of the nature of the world, or environment,
which we inhabit. Examples of such
questions include:[11]
--questions
about our relationship to others
(about our moral responsibility, political and social obligations, etc.);
--questions
about “nature” (about the
existence of a deity, the fundamental character of reality, the relationship of
minds and bodies, the existence of a rationale for the world, etc.);
--questions
about our cognitive abilities
(about the consequences of human fallibility, the distinction between science
and pseudo-science, the justification of our knowledge claims, etc.); and
--questions
about ourselves (about the nature
of personal identity, the meaning of our lives, etc.).
The “enduring questions conception” of philosophy holds that philosophers
are concerned with asking and answering such enduring questions.
While this is partially the case, we
must note that theologians, novelists,
and science fiction writers (as well as many others) also raise and endeavor
to answer such questions. Thus, it
is not the questions themselves (nor the endeavoring to supply answers to them)
which constitutes what is unique or special about the philosophic enterprise.
3. The “Dialectical” Conception of
Philosophy:
In place of the “wondering” and
“enduring questions” conceptions of philosophy, finally, I wish to offer what I
will call the “dialectical conception.”
Rather than concentrating on the
origins or objectives of the
philosophical enterprise (the wondering and answering), this conception draws
our attention to the particular
methodology which philosophers
employ as they respond to the wonders, questions, and problems.[12]
Now it should be noted that for many individuals (at many times),
any sort of response or answer to an
enduring question will be satisfactory.
After all if we have pressing questions, we often need to adopt some
responsive stance [any stance] quickly.
In the long run, however, the dialectical conception of philosophy
emphasizes that we will be best served by (and we often desire)
critical or rational responses to
these questions. It is here that
philosophy has a distinctive role to play:
according to the dialectical conception,
philosophers seek to develop, critically
examine, and rationally defend answers or responses to the sorts of
questions (and wonders) noted above.
In short, philosophy is here conceived of as a
critical enterprise.
‘Dialectic’[13]
(in the sense in which I am using it here [in the “Socratic” as opposed to the
usage of Aquinas, Hegel, or Marx)[14]
consists of rational argument—it is the enterprise
of
meeting arguments with arguments:
-dialectical
advancement, development, and critical examination of our rational responses to
the enduring questions helps to ensure that the responses which we offer are
meaningful, that their implications are clear, that they fit together in a
meaningful whole (a consistent world-view), that they are adequate, and that
they are rationally justified.
-Toilet Paper
Roll Example: (the “perennial question” as to which way it should roll off
the roll, and the “rational” response regarding “outward” and patterned paper).
Of course, the problems or questions we will be concerned with are more
“serious.”
A passage from James Rachels’
The Elements of Moral Philosophy
summarizes this conception of philosophy nicely:
philosophy...is
first and last an exercise in reason—the ideas that should come out on top are
the ones that have the best reasons on their sides.[15]
4. Ending a Philosophical Dialectic:
A reasoned dialectic is completed
when the participants rationally accept an argument, explanation, or problem-
resolution. Here we can see a
parallel between philosophic dialectic and science:
why do we feel
that the sciences and medicine have progressed during the last two thousand
years? Do we know the truth in
science or medicine? Might our
present answers be wrong?
-Do we have any
idea what the endpoint would look like?
-How are our
present theories better in science and medicine?
Avoiding past mistakes and resolving
(better than they did) past problems.
Philosophers may claim the same
success! Neither science nor
philosophy arrives at an answer that is final but, rather, each finds an
endpoint in a critical and tentative
rational agreement amongst the participants.
What happens if other participants join in or if new considerations arise
later? The dialectic is again taken
up! This is why philosophical
arguments are often characterized as “perennial”—they
arise anew for each age as each group of individuals carries on the dialectic
and assesses the answers of its ancestors.
To many this suggests that philosophers will never solve any of the
problems (or answer any of the questions), and this leads them to think that the
contrast between philosophy and science is not at all favorable to philosophy.
After all, the scientists are able to reach broad intersubjective
consensus as to whether or not a scientific question is answered or a scientific
problem is resolved. In his “Thomas
Kuhn, Rocks and the Laws of Physics,” Richard Rorty offers a discussion which
may help mitigate such a critique:
the trouble is
that intersubjective agreement about who has succeeded and who has failed is
easy to get if you lay down criteria of success in advance [and, he suggests,
this is what scientists are able to do].
If all you want is fast relief, your choice of analgesic is clear (though
the winning drug may have unfortunate belated side effects).
If you know that all you want out of science is accurate prediction, you
have a fast way to decide between competing theories (though this criterion by
itself would, at one time, have led you to favor Ptolemaic over Copernican
astronomy). If you know that all
you want is rigorous demonstration, you can check out mathematicians’ proofs of
theorems and award the prize to the one who has proved the most (although the
award will then always go to a hack, whose theorems are of no interest).
But intersubjective agreement is harder to get when the criteria of
success begin to proliferate, and even harder when those criteria themselves are
up for grabs [as they are, he suggests, in philosophy].[16]
I’ll have more to say about this
below in Section 8.
5. How to Read Philosophy:
I believe that a “successful”
reading of any philosophical text will comprise the asking and answering of the
following four questions:
1. “What is being argued here?”
2. “What are the stages of the argument?”
3. “Were good reasons presented for the thesis?”
4. “Why is it being argued?”
It is not as easy as it might seem
to ask, and answer, these questions!
But if you are to understand what a philosopher says, you must know what
is being argued, what steps there are to the argument, why it is being argued,
and whether or not the arguments are adequate.
6. Regarding The “Interpretations”
Presented in this Course:
It is necessary to note that in
this course I will be presenting you with
interpretation of the thought of several philosophers.
The introductions and interpretations I will provide are meant to be just
that however. I am also asking
you to read the thinkers themselves,
and I want you to form your own
considered views about their theories.
My interpretations and introductions are intended as aids to this latter
process. Here the remarks of
another philosopher, Richard McKeon, are appropriate.
McKeon makes this statement in his “Preface” to his edition
of The Basic Works of Aristotle:
...some aid is
needed, however, and therefore a method of reading Aristotle’s works is
suggested in the Introduction by a
brief statement of the interrelations and continuity of his doctrines.
The reader is advised to treat this interpretation skeptically until and
unless he can find it confirmed in his own reading of the text, for it is useful
only as a device by which to permit Aristotle to speak for himself.
The achievement of Aristotle can be discovered only by reading and
rereading his works, and the appreciation of that achievement depends quite as
much on the deepened sense of value and the precision of criteria which he
inculcates as on the materials he treats.[17]
McKeon and I want you to develop
your own appreciation and interpretation of the thinkers we are exposing you to,
and our remarks are meant to facilitate that rather than to be taken as some
privileged set of observations and interpretations.
7. Philosophy
vs. Rhetoric—The Goals of
Philosophizing:
While the philosophical enterprise
revolves around argumentation, philosophical argumentation must be distinguished
from rhetorical argumentation. Wikipedia
says:
rhetoric
is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic …),
is one of the three ancient arts of discourse.
Rhetoric aims to study the capacities of writers or speakers needed to
inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations.
Aristotle defines rhetoric as “the faculty of observing in any given case
the available means of persuasion” and since mastery of the art
was necessary for victory in a case at law; or for passage of proposals in the
assembly; or for fame as a speaker in civic ceremonies; he calls it “a
combination of the science of logic and of the ethical branch of politics.”
Rhetoric typically provides heuristics for understanding, discovering,
and developing arguments for particular situations, such as Aristotle's three
persuasive audience appeals: logos, pathos, and ethos.
The five canons of rhetoric or phases of developing a persuasive speech
were first codified in classical Rome: invention, arrangement, style, memory,
and delivery.
From Ancient Greece to the late
19th century, rhetoric played a central role in Western education in training
orators, lawyers, counselors, historians, statesmen, and poets.[18]
The phrase I used
above, “meeting arguments with arguments,” may be misunderstood (and the
characterization of philosophy which I have just offered may be misconstrued) if
we think of arguments simply as disagreements amongst individuals, as
simply purposed toward persuasion, or as stylized debates where
individuals seek primarily to “score points” against one another.
Aristotle cites (above) winning in court, passing legislation, and
seeking fame as a speaker, but rhetoricians can also simply enjoy spirited
competition with friends, or may seek to “win a judged contest.”
Generally rhetoricians seek to inform, persuade, or entertain an
audience.
Just as one must understand the
rhetorician’s goal if one is to understand their activity, the end-in-view
of a philosophical dialectic must be understood if we are to understand the
philosophical argument.
Unfortunately, as you might expect, philosophers disagree as to the end-in-view
of the philosophical enterprise. Here are
four of the many differing goals of philosophizing which have been advanced by
various philosophers over the centuries from Plato's time to today.
(a)
Rational Understanding and Truth:
many traditional philosophers contend that philosophy seeks
rational understanding (that is,
“truth supported by reason”). They
claim that we can attain this sort of understanding only if we develop a
coherent system of critically-considered theories (or responses).
Such a coherent system of critically held theories is often called a “world-view”—these
philosophers don’t claim that philosophers seek to master the many particular
truths which are true of the world (the number of grains of sand on the beach,
the age of the highest mountain, the exact amount of one’s check-book balance),
instead a coherent set of extremely general truths are sought.
Here rational understanding is not sought because it facilitates some
other goal, instead it is seen as intrinsically valuable (or the search for it
is conceived of as an intrinsically valuable activity).[19]
In a similar vein, Robert Nozick contends that philosophy should be
directed toward providing explanations:
“many philosophical problems are ones of understanding how something is or can
be possible. How is it possible for
us to have free will, supposing that all actions are causally determined?”[20]
(b)
The Happiness of the Rational Life:
some philosophers contend that human beings can not be
happy (or lead the
good life) unless we develop
critically-considered rational responses to the wonders and enduring questions
noted above (or a critically considered overall world-view).
Here it is happiness which is claimed to be intrinsically valuable, and
philosophy is conceived of as a necessary means toward its attainment.
While criticism is, of course, emphasized here, it is valued for what it
can get us (happiness or the good life).
Often this view is raised not by talking about criticism but, rather, by
talking about the “intellectual virtues”—it is claimed that the “life of reason”
is the only truly fulfilling life for human beings.
(c)
Rational Understanding and Worship:
still other philosophers contend that the end-in-view of philosophy is the
understanding (and proper worship) of a deity.
These philosophers contend that the appropriate end for man is
philosophical understanding of a deity (that such rational understanding is our
primary purpose, obligation, and the only appropriate form of worship for a
rational creature).
(d)
The Empowerment of Individuals
via Reason: finally, some
philosophers contend that the goal of philosophizing is the empowerment of
individuals via the liberation of their thought, culture, and lives from the
prejudice and provincialism which culture, upbringing, and convention instill in
us all. For example, Martha
Nussbaum maintains that the “...pursuit of logical validity, intellectual
coherence, and truth delivers freedom
from the tyranny of custom and convention, creating a community of beings who
can take charge of their own life story and their own thought.”[21]
Nussbaum cites Epicurus who says that:
empty is that
philosopher’s argument by which no human suffering is therapeutically treated.
For just as there is no use in a medical art that does not cast out the
sicknesses of bodies, so too there is no use in philosophy, unless it casts out
the suffering of the soul.”[22]
As noted above, the rhetoricians
had their students study logic and argumentation to help them become more facile
in arguing for (or against) whatever these students happened to want to argue
for (or against). The critical
orientation that the dialectical conception of philosophy champions is,
similarly, “plastic” in that it allows for a variety of ends which one might
pursue with this methodology.
The dialectical methodology is uncompromising, however, in its adherence
to the ideal of rationality—it is to
be used to offer others (and to help oneself find) rationally-persuasive
responses to enduring problems or questions.[23]
Where the dialectical methodology in philosophy is pursued without
keeping the enduring questions in sight, it is perverted from one of its primary
controlling factors. Similarly,
when philosophy focuses on the questions while losing sight of the dialectical
arguments, it is perverted from the other of its primary controlling influences.
In his Pragmatism: An Open
Question, Hilary Putnam says that:
philosophy which
is all argument feeds no real hunger; while philosophy which is all vision feeds
a real hunger, but it feeds it Pablum.[24]
8. Concluding
Thoughts on Distinguishing and Characterizing Philosophy:
In his Experience
and Nature, John Dewey advances a conception of philosophy as
criticism which is important:
...philosophy
is inherently criticism, having its distinctive position among various modes
of criticism in its generality; a criticism of criticisms….Criticism is
discriminating judgment, careful appraisal, and judgment is appropriately termed
criticism wherever the subject-matter of discrimination concerns goods or
values. Possession and enjoyment of
goods passes insensibly and inevitably into appraisal.
First and immature experience is content simply to enjoy.
But a brief course in experience enforces reflection; it requires but
brief time to teach that somethings sweet in the having are bitter in
after-taste and in what they lead to.
Primitive innocence does not last.
Enjoyment ceases to be a datum and becomes a problem.
As a problem, it implies intelligent inquiry into the conditions and
consequences of a value-object; that is, criticism.
If values were as plentiful as huckleberries, and if the
huckleberry-patch were always at hand, the passage of appreciation into
criticism would be a senseless procedure.
If one thing tired or bored us, we should have only to turn to another.
But values are as unstable as the forms of clouds.
The things that possess them are exposed to all the contingencies of
existence, and they are indifferent to our likings and tastes.[25]
...of
immediate values as such, values
which occur and which are possessed and enjoyed, there is no theory at all; they
just occur, are enjoyed, possessed; that is all.
The moment we begin to discourse about these values, to define and
generalize, to make distinctions in kinds, we are passing beyond value-objects
themselves; we are entering, even if only blindly, upon an inquiry into causal
antecedents and causative consequents, with a view to appraising the “real,”
that is the eventual, goodness of the thing in question.
We are criticizing, not for its own sake, but for the sake of
instituting and perpetuating more
enduring and extensive values.[26]
If a man believes in ghosts,
devils, miracles, fortune-tellers, the immutable certainty of the existing
economic regime, and the supreme merits of his political party and its leaders,
he does so believe; these are immediate goods to him, precisely as some color
and tone combinations are lovely, or the mistress of his heart is charming.
When the question is raised as to
the “real” value of the object for belief, the appeal is to criticism,
intelligence. And the court of
appeal decides by the law of conditions and consequences.
Inquiry duly pursued leads to the enstatement of an object which is
directly accepted, good in belief, but an object whose character now depends
upon the reflective operations whose conclusion it is.
Like the object of dogmatic and uncritical belief, it marks an “end,” a
static arrest; but unlike it, the “end” is a
conclusion; hence it carries
credentials.[27]
It is easier to wean a miser from
his hoard, than a man from his deeper opinions.
And the tragedy is that in so many cases the
causes which lead to the thing in
question being a value are not reasons
for its being a good, while the fact that it is an immediate good tends to
preclude that search for causes, that
dispassionate judgment, which is pre-requisite to the conversion of goods
de facto into goods
de jure.
Here, again and preeminently, since reflection is the instrumentality of
securing freer and more enduring goods, reflection is a unique and intrinsic
good.[28]
Here it is
the connection between “criticism” and values that I want to draw attention to.
For Dewey values arise in experience and can be immediately/primitively
experienced, and they can then be critically assessed and become more enduring
and extensive values. In both cases
we have fact—something is valued and the conditions leading to such experiences
are critically considered to allow for more of these valued experiences.
When these valuations are themselves critically examined and assessed, we
come to have finally, however, critical reflection can assess the valuations
“goods de jure”—that is, values
reflectively credentialed. When
prehistoric persons first tasted meet which fell in their fire, it tasted good
(a primitive good, sorry for the pun).
When they reflectively and critically perfected cooking such immediate
goods became stable goods. Finally,
when the value of cooked food was reflectively and critically assessed we came
to the level of a “reflectively credentialed good.”
Dewey would certainly point out, however, that critical reflection would
surely show that there are good foods which should not be cooked.
I want to tie this discussion to our discussion of the nature of the
philosophical activity, so let me ease into another point.
I believe
that neither science nor philosophy arrives at answers that are
final. Instead, each finds uncertain but acceptable stopping-points in
a critical and tentative rational
agreement amongst the participants.
While, ideally, the answers will be completely convincing to all, this
ideal is rarely attained.
Nonetheless there are factors which mitigate against continuance of the critical
process: the costs (economic, temporal, and or social) of further inquiry may be
unsupportable, there may be a pressing need for action which constrains further
inquiry, participant may be exhausted, etc.
In such circumstances if a decision needs to be made critical inquiry may
need to tentatively end and the politics of decision-making will have to take
over. I won’t pursue this further
except to say that here I am a fan of Dewey’s view that such decisions are best
made within a process which is deeply democratic.
Moreover, as
the quotation from Rorty at the end of section 4 above indicates, philosophic
inquiry differs from scientific inquiry in that in the case of science rational
agreement is often facilitated as the inquirers often concur regarding what the
“criteria of success” are which acceptable answers must measure up to.
In philosophical inquiry however, Rorty notes “…intersubjective agreement
is harder to get when the criteria of success begin to proliferate, and even
harder when those criteria themselves are up for grabs [as they are, he
suggests, in philosophy].”[29]
The differences over the criteria can be intense, especially when they
arise in the areas of ethical and social-political thought, and I’ll reiterate
my comment about Deweyan democracy here.
But I want to veer in another direction as it is of central importance
both to this point and to our understanding of how to characterize the
philosophical endeavor.
One of the factors mitigating against agreements on criteria in
philosophy is the prevalence of paradox
in the problematic situations leading to such inquiry.
In
his Working Without A Net: A Study of
Egocentric Epistemology, Richard Foley maintains that:
…it can be rational for you to believe
each and every proposition that you defend in your book even though it is also
rational for you to declare in the preface that at least one of the propositions
is false….
Situations of this sort are not
even uncommon. Most of us have very
strong but not altogether certain evidence for a huge variety of propositions,
evidence that makes these propositions rational for us.
And yet we also have strong evidence for our fallibility about such
matters, evidence that can make it rational for us to beliefs of a set of such
propositions that at least one is false.
If it were always and everywhere irrational to be knowingly inconsistent,
this would be impossible. It would
be impossible for us knowingly and rationally to have these kinds of fallibilist
beliefs. But it isn’t impossible,
and any theory that implies otherwise should be rejected for this reason.[30]
We find our critical processes both stretched and unperturbed sometimes by such
paradoxes, and rather than try and resolve them we often proceed with the
particular inquiries rather than confront the paradox head on.
While our ordinary “conceptual scheme,” or world-view (our
day-to-day set of beliefs and theories), is full of various “responses” which
allow us to “cope” with our “wonders” and “enduring questions,”
it is not consistent and doesn’t always present rational responses.
Conceptual inconsistencies are often readily apparent when we try to
bring together our fundamental views from distinct areas of concern.
For example:
mind-body dualism arises as we
consider our unshakable faith in the physical sciences and their fundamental
understanding of our world while also trying to hold onto our undeniable
consciousness and our conscious experiences (which seem impervious to
physicalistic explanation).
similarly, people who hate the
present crime-ridden society and would like to “lock up” all “suspicious
persons” find themselves torn when they reflect upon what makes this society so
attractive (its commitment to the political freedom of individuals and the
recognition of their basic or inalienable rights).
These individuals, for example,
demand that the Internal Revenue Service
prove that they intended to defraud
the government rather than merely miscalculated a sum before they can be “locked
away”—no matter how “suspicious" their tax-returns may be!
Such examples remind us that
we don’t confront the enduring questions
(or philosophical wonders) in a vacuum—we have a lot of conceptual baggage that we may find
helpful or harmful as we approach philosophical questions.
We often discover that what we believe on one topic conflicts with what
we believe on another. Thus one
important motivator for the philosophic activity is the
clarification and elucidation of our
basic background concepts—it is a form of “conceptual geography” designed to map
(in both a descriptive and a
prescriptive fashion) our conceptual
landscape.
A final important point regarding the effort to offer a concise characterization of the nature of the philosophical activity is best introduced and discussed with an insight from the Twentieth-Century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. In his Blue and Brown Books he points to the philosophic danger of asking for and seeking explicit, simple, fully general characterizations of seemingly simple concepts. Consider the question: “What is a game.” Surely, one says, if we can concisely say what a triangle is, we can do the same with games! Well. is there some simple way to characterize chess, soccer, hide and seek, wild card poker, playing house, dance party, and dress up? Don't just assume there must be a common or defining characteristic, instead try to actually identify it!
Wittgenstein thinks that there is
a deep philosophical malaise which arises as one asks seemingly innocent
questions as “What is knowledge?”
“What is right?” “What is just?”
or “What is Philosophy?”
Instead of expecting, as Plato contends, that there should be a simple
essence which can be identified
through a dialectical process, Wittgenstein suggests we accept that there may,
instead, be a family resemblance
between games, distinct types of knowledge (deductive, perceptual, arising from
testimony, etc.).
To motivate this he asks his reader to consider what happens if
from 4 till 4:30 A expects B to come to his room for tea?
“If one asks what the different processes of expecting someone to tea
have in common, the answer is that there
is no single feature in common to all of them, though there are many common
features overlapping. These
cases of expectation form a family; they have family likenesses which are not
clearly defined.”[31]
From this and other exercises he draws attention to the fact that:
...in general we
don’t use language according to strict rules—it hasn’t been taught us by means
of strict rules, either.
We, in our discussions on the other
hand, constantly compare language with a calculus proceeding according to exact
rules.
This is a very one-sided way of
looking at language....We are unable clearly to circumscribe the concepts we
use; not because we don’t know their real definition, but
because there is no real ‘definition’
to them. To suppose that there
must be would be like supposing that
whenever children play with a ball they play a game according to strict rules.”[32]
Now I want to build on his point here at we continue to address the
question: “What is philosophy?”
Plato would want a clear-cut, concise, species-genus definition, and his
influence upon subsequent philosophizing makes this a pervasive expectation.
Wittgenstein’s response is to say this is not how we learn our concepts
and it is mistaken to expect that the search for such essences will be
successful. Suppose he is right,
what are we to say, then, as we look at our introductory experience?
Plato’s early dialogues expose us to the general character of the process
he attaches so much importance to.
Like Socrates, he devotes his life to pursuing and promoting the activity of
philosophical inquiry believing it provides a path to knowledge, virtue, and the
worthwhile life. The Wittgenstenian
side of me points out there surely are
many sorts of worthwhile lives, and no reason to believe there should be one
model for all persons, and, perhaps, no reason to believe that any individual
should lead a life devoted to any single “good.”
As human beings intersubjectively reflect upon their values (primitive,
reflective, and reflectively credentialed) while recognizing that there may be
multiple reflectively credentialed goods each of which (individually or in
combinations) may sustain lives well worth living, we may come to better
understand the contributions philosophy may offer.
[1]
Cf.,
Plato,
Theaetetus 155 d, trans. F.M. Cornford, in
The
Collected Dialogues of Plato, eds. Edith
Hamilton and Huntington Cairns (Princeton:
Princeton U.P., 1961); and Aristotle,
Metaphysics Book I: Chapter 2; 982, trans.
W.D. Ross, in
The Basic
Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon (New
York: Random House, 1941).
[2] David
Pears,
Ludwig Wittgenstein (Middlesex: Penguin,
1969), p. 13.
[3]
Ibid.,
emphasis added to citation.
[4] That is,
“under the aspect of eternity,” or “in its
essential or universal form or nature,” or “from
the outside.”
[5] David
Stove,
The Plato Cult (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
1991), p. ix.
[6]
Ibid.,
pp. ix-x.
[7]
Ibid., p.
x.
[8] David
Stove, “‘I Only Am Escaped Alone to Tell Thee:’
Epistemology and the Ishmael Effect,” in his
The Plato Cult,
op. cit.,
pp. 61-82, p. 69.
Emphasis added to passage.
[9] Where one
substitutes ‘explanations’ for ‘wonders’ it may
seem that the appearance of day-dreaming can be
avoided.
We need to remember that explanations
must also be in service of some end however.
Individuals may offer explanations to
escape blame, to clarify causal connections, to
cover-up actions, to elaborate what they take to
be the truth, etc.
Unless a standard of explanation is
offered, little more “progress” toward what an
adequate conception of philosophy is will be
made here—magic, religion, statistics, and
chance are all appealed to by various
individuals as “explanations” for certain
phenomena.
[10] Thus
introductory students learn the deficiencies of
Plato’s conception of the state, Anselm’s
ontological argument, Descartes’ dualistic
conception of the self, and Kant’s moral theory.
[11] This
sample “division” of the questions is not meant
to be exhaustive, nor does it perfectly parallel
the “standard” division of the philosophic
terrain into ethics, metaphysics, epistemology,
etc.
[12] Of
course, as the ensuing will show, the origins
and objectives may not be ignored by this
conception.
[13]
Philosophers use single quotes to surround a
word when they are
mentioning it rather than
using
it.
For example in the sentence “‘Long’ is a short
word,” the word ‘long’ is
mentioned
(discussed) while the word ‘short’ is
used!
[14] Aquinas’
method was called “dialectical” because it
proceeded by first asking a specific question;
second his opponents’ objections to his thesis
(in regard to the question) were stated; third
he stated his own position (beginning with “On
the contrary...”, or “I answer...”); and
finally, he replied to the objections which were
raised.
Hegel’s method consisted of the statement
of a thesis, then of an anti-thesis, and then a
“synthesis” was developed.
Marx’s “dialectic” defies simple
characterization, but was central to his
“historical” and developmental conception.
[15] James
Rachels,
The Elements of Moral Philosophy (New York:
Random House, 1986), p. vi.
[16] Richard
Rorty, “Thomas Kuhn, Rocks and the Laws of
Physics” [1997], in
his
Philosophy and Social Hope (London: Penguin,
1999), pp. 175-189, p. 180.
The essay originally appeared in
Common
Knowledge v. 6 (1997).
[17] Richard
McKeon, “Preface,” in
The Basic
Works of Aristotle,
op. cit.,
pp. vii-x, p. ix.
[18]
"Rhetoric," Wikipedia, accessed February
25, 2020. The citations from Aristotle are
from his Rhetoric, Book I, Chapter 2,
Section 1359.
[19] An
intrinsically valuable goal, or activity, is one
that is pursued for its own sake.
Such values are contrasted with
extrinsic
values—here the goal or activity is valued for
what it will allow one to achieve.
Health, for example, might be
intrinsically valuable (good-in-itself), while
wealth is usually conceived of as extrinsically
valuable (good-for-what-it-can-get-us).
[20] Robert
Nozick,
Philosophical Explanations (Cambridge:
Harvard U.P., 1981), p. 4.
Emphasis added to passage.
[21] Martha
Nussbaum,
The Therapy of Desire (Princeton: Princeton
U.P., 1994), p. 5.
Emphasis added to the passage.
[22]
Ibid.,
p. 13.
[23] Of
course, two of the ends-in-view may require a
qualification of this statement.
The skeptical conception of philosophy
which sees philosophical criticism aiming at the
suspension of belief, and the religious
conception which sees it as ending up in worship
both constitute “compromised” commitments to the
ideal of rationality.
But this is a complex story that requires
extended argument.
[24] Hilary
Putnam,
Pragmatism: An Open Question (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1995), p. 23.
[25] John
Dewey,
Experience and Nature (New York: Dover,
1958), pp. 398-399.
Emphasis [bold] added to the passage.
[26]
Ibid.,
p. 403.
Emphasis [bold] added to the passage.
[27]
Ibid.,
p. 405. Emphasis
[bold] added to the passage.
[28]
Ibid.,
p. 406.
[29] Richard
Rorty, “Thomas Kuhn, Rocks and the Laws of
Physics” [1997],
op. cit.,
p. 180.
[30] Richard
Foley,
Working Without A Net: A Study of Egocentric
Epistemology (N.Y.: Oxford U.P., 1993), p.
165.
Emphasis added to the passage.
[31] Ludwig
Wittgenstein,
The Blue
Book, in
The Blue
and Brown Books (N.Y.: Harper and Row, 1958
[posthumously]), p. 20.
The book was dictated by Wittgenstein to
his class at Cambridge in 1933-1943.
[32]
Ibid.,
p. 25.
I greatly appreciate comments and corrections--typos and infelicities are all too common and the curse of "auto-correct" plagues me!
Email: hauptli@fiu.edu
File revised on 09/27/23.