In Scruton-izing the West, Horace Jeffery Hodges at his fine site Gypsy Scholar summarizes Roger Scruton's take on the differences between us and them. Scruton finds seven key differences, the seventh of which, surprisingly, is alcohol. Jeff provides substantial excerpts and of course links to Scruton's article. Well worth your time. Jeff will be happy to accept your comments.
Category: Blogging
In Praise of Blogosophy
Philosophy is primarily an activity, not a body of doctrine. If you were to think of it as a body of doctrine, then you would have to say there is no philosophy, but only philosophies. For there is no one universally recognized body of doctrine called philosophy. The truth of course is one not many. And that is what the philosopher aims at: the one ultimate truth about the ultimate matters, including the ultimate truth about how we ought to live. But aiming at a target and hitting it are two different things. The target is one, but our many arrows have fallen short and in different places. And if you think that your favorite philosopher has hit the target of truth, why can't you convince the rest of us of that?
Thomas Mann on Blogging
Thomas Mann: Diaries 1918-1939 (Abrams, 1982, tr. R & C Winston), p. 194:
I love this process by which each passing day is captured, not only in its impressions, but also, at least by suggestion, its intellectual direction and content as well, less for the purpose of rereading and remembering than for taking stock, reviewing, maintaining awareness, achieving perspective . . . .
They Post Infrequently but Well
Jim Ryan and Franklin Mason, the proprietors of Philosoblog and The Philosophical Midwife respectively, are both analytically trained philosophers outside of academe. Their weblogs are well worth reading. Explore their archives: the things they write rise above the ephemeral. I have my differences with both, and they with each other. But the commonalities run deeper. On the off-chance they are not acquainted, I'll hazard a cyber-introduction: Jim, this is Franklin; Franklin, this is Jim.
Maverick Philosopher Makes The Times Online 100 Best Blogs List
A tip of the hat to Dave Lull for pointing me to A guide to the 100 best blogs – part I. Maverick Philosopher makes the cut. See page 5. Excerpt:
Two good philosophy blogs make the point that this is a subject made for bloggery. Philosophy is arguing, and arguing is what bloggers and their readers do best — or at least a lot, in an obsessive-compulsive sort of way. Both are highly recommended if you fancy stepping out into an intellectual blizzard with, occasionally, real snow.
I will resist the temptation to comment except to thank Bryan Appleyard for his article and also the MP Commenter Corps. Without them this site would be much less interesting. I have a half-marathon to run today, but later I hope to respond to at least some of the recent comments.
Why Do I Delete Comments?
Why do I delete comments? It is not because the commenter disagrees with what I say. In Epistemic/Doxastic Possibility I floated a definition that commenter Andrew Bailey refuted. He blew it clean out of the water. I acknowledged the refutation as soon as I became aware of it and proposed a different definition. Bailey refuted that one too. The discussion proceeded from there with what I hope was mutual benefit. Bailey's was an example of a good comment.
Would Schopenhauer Allow Comments?
If Schopenhauer were a blogger, would he allow comments on his weblog, The Scowl of Minerva?
I say no, and adduce as evidence the following passage that concludes his Art of Controversy, a delightful essay found in his Nachlass, but left untitled by the master:
As a sharpening of wits, controversy is often, indeed, of mutual advantage, in order to correct one's thoughts and awaken new views. But in learning and in mental power both disputants must be tolerably equal: If one of them lacks learning, he will fail to understand the other, as he is not on the same level with his antagonist. If he lacks mental power, he will be embittered, and led into dishonest tricks, and end by being rude.
The only safe rule, therefore, is that which Aristotle mentions in the last chapter of his Topica: not to dispute with the first person you meet, but only with those of your acquaintance of whom you know that they possess sufficient intelligence and self-respect not to advance absurdities; to appeal to reason and not to authority, and to listen to reason and yield to it; and, finally, to cherish truth, to be willing to accept reason even from an opponent, and to be just enough to bear being proved to be in the wrong, should truth lie with him. From this it follows that scarcely one man in a hundred is worth your disputing with him. You may let the remainder say what they please, for every one is at liberty to be a fool – desipere est jus gentium. Remember what Voltaire says: La paix vaut encore mieux que la verite. Remember also an Arabian proverb which tells us that on the tree of silence there hangs its fruit, which is peace.
Here is the same passage in the German original:
Das Disputieren ist als Reibung der Köpfe allerdings oft von gegenseitigem Nutzen, zur Berichtigung der eignen Gedanken und auch zur Erzeugung neuer Ansichten. Allein beide Disputanten müssen an Gelehrsamkeit und an Geist ziemlich gleichstehn. Fehlt es Einem an der ersten, so versteht er nicht Alles, ist nicht au niveau. Fehlt es ihm am zweiten, so wird die dadurch herbeigeführte Erbitterung ihn zu Unredlichkeiten und Kniffen [oder] zu Grobheit verleiten.
Die einzig sichere Gegenregel ist daher die, welche schon Aristoteles im letzten Kapitel der Topica gibt: Nicht mit dem Ersten dem Besten zu disputieren; sondern allein mit solchen, die man kennt, und von denen man weiß, daß sie Verstand genug haben, nicht gar zu Absurdes vorzubringen und dadurch beschämt werden zu müssen; und um mit Gründen zu disputieren und nicht mit Machtsprüchen, und um auf Gründe zu hören und darauf einzugehn; und endlich, daß sie die Wahrheit schätzen, gute Gründe gern hören, auch aus dem Munde des Gegners, und Billigkeit genug haben, um es ertragen zu können, Unrecht zu behalten, wenn die Wahrheit auf der andern Seite liegt. Daraus folgt, daß unter Hundert kaum Einer ist, der wert ist, daß man mit ihm disputiert. Die Übrigen lasse man reden, was sie wollen, denn desipere est juris gentium, und man bedenke, was Voltaire sagt: La paix vaut encore mieux que la vérité; und ein arabischer Spruch ist: »Am Baume des Schweigens hängt seine Frucht der Friede.«
Blogging as Exercitium Spirituale
And you thought blogging could only be a shameless expression of vanity?
But a quotidian assembling in this newfangled medium of reminders, admonitions, maxims and the like, performed in the right spirit, is no less a spiritual exercise than the daily jottings of a Marcus Aurelius.
Karl Kraus on Blogging
Karl Kraus, Beim Wort Genommen, p. 124:
Warum schreibt mancher? Weil er nicht genug Charakter hat, nicht zu schreiben.
Why do many write? Because they don't have enough character not to write. (tr. BV)
A Reason to Blog
Chary of embalming in printer’s ink ideas that may be unworthy of such preservation, due perhaps to underdevelopment, or lack of originality, or some more egregious defect, the blogger satisfies his urge to scribble and publish without burdening referees and editors and typesetters, and without contributing to the devastation of forests. He publishes all right, but in a manner midway between the ephemerality of talk and the finality of print.
The Direction of This Weblog
This from a reader:
I have been following your blog for some time, from the move to PowerBlogs to the recent move to TypePad. I have two questions I’d like to ask:
First, are you going to post your opinions on the election? I have particularly enjoyed reading the reactions of several conservatives . . . . As such, I would love to hear your own thoughts on the issues.
Second, why have you never taken Brian Leiter to task? His utter distaste for anything conservative; his mockery of anyone who votes Republican as “war mongers,” religious fanatics, etc.; his politicizing of philosophy, and his obsession for status, fame, and power; all these appear to run directly counter to everything you stand for and believe in. [. . .]
This e-mail gives me an opportunity to comment on the direction of this blog.
1. I am by nature apolitical. The political sphere impresses me as a realm of mendacity and illusion and a distraction from what truly matters, namely, one’s self-actualization. At the moment this impression is very much in the ascendancy. This explains why I haven’t posted anything about the election. Thus I expect this incarnation of Maverick Philosopher to contain less material on currect political events. But one cannot ignore this stuff since one’s ability to live in freedom is put in jeopardy by government. So I will continue to keep an eye on developments and will speak out when sufficiently moved to do so.
2. I will however disallow comments on all posts except those of a technical philosophical nature. Discussions of politics and religion, and indeed of anything that cannot be precisely and rigorously articulated, are often a waste of time, and almost always a waste of time when there is insufficient common ground between the interlocutors.
3. My reader asks why I have never taken Brian Leiter to task. My reader and I seem to share the view that Leiter is a contemptible fellow, a status-obsessed careerist, and a living example of how corrupt academic philosophy can become. To pay any attention to him or his ravings would be a waste of time. I’ve done my bit to counter the ideas of the Left, and it is ideas, not persons, that count in the end.
The Presumptuousness of Blogging
Immanuel Kant, The Conflict of the Faculties/Der Streit der Fakultäten, tr. Gregor (University of Nebraska Press, 1979), p. 177:
To want to entertain others with the inner history of the play of my thoughts, which has subjective importance (for me) but no objective importance (valid for everyone), would be presumptuous, and I could justly be blamed for it.
There is no doubt about it: we bloggers are a presumptuous and vain lot. We report daily on the twists and turns of our paltry minds. In mitigation, a couple of points. First, I don’t force my posts on anyone. If you are here, it is of your own free will. Second, there is something fascinating to me about the origin of my own and others’ ideas and how they in their abtractness percolate up out of the concretion of their authors’ Existenz. The blogs of most interest to me combine the existential with the theoretical, the autobiographical with the impersonal. The question of the origin of ideas must not be confused with the question of their validity or lack thereof. (Got that, Fritz?) But both questions are fascinating, and how exactly they connect is even more so. Now if I find the intertwinement of the existential and the theoretical interesting, then perhaps you do as well; herein may reside some justification for reports on “the inner history of the play of my thoughts.”
I oppose the nomenclature whereby individual weblogs (as opposed to group weblogs) are referred to as ‘personal’ weblogs. This blog is more impersonal than personal and I fret over the ratio. Objektive Wichtigkeit should predominate over subjektive. But by how much?
By the way, Streit der Fakultäten is a fascinating book. I’m an old Kant man; I wrote my dissertation on the ontological status of the transcendental unity of apperception in the Critique of Pure Reason. But it is only recently that I cracked The Conflict of the Faculties. This is a nice edition: German Fraktur on the left, good English translation on the right.