Category: Metaphilosophy
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Academic Philosophy (with an addendum on Human Corruption)
Academic philosophy too often degenerates into a sterile intellectual game whose sole function is to inflate and deflate the egos of the participants. But this is no surprise: everything human is either degenerate or will become degenerate. …………………….. Addendum: 2:45 PM Long-time blogger-buddy and supplier of high-quality links and comments, Bill Keezer, comments: Academic anything…
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Doubt, the Engine of Inquiry
Paul Brunton, Notebooks, vol. 13, part II, p. 10, #48: It is the first operation of philosophical training to instill doubt, to free the mind of all those numerous suggestions and distortions imposed on it by others since childhood and maintained by its own slavish acceptance, total unawareness, or natural incapacity. Or as I have…
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The Philosopher and the Conservative
One cannot be a philosopher without believing in the power of reason. But one cannot be a conservative without doubting its power to order our affairs and ameliorate our condition. Equally, one cannot be a philosopher without doubting — doubt being the engine of inquiry — and one cannot be a conservative without believing, that…
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Invective, Philosophy, and Politics
A new reader (who may not remain a reader for long) wrote in to say that he enjoyed my philosophical entries but was "saddened" by the invective I employed in one of my political posts. I would say that the use of invective is justifiable in polemical writing. Of course, it is out of place in…
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All Roads Lead to Rome
Under protracted consideration every philosophical question inevitably raises questions about the nature, methods, and goals of philosophy. All philosophical roads lead to metaphilosophical Rome. Not that we will find in Rome what we could not find on the way there.
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Philosophy is a Useless Major; All Praise to Philosophy
Here is a list of the most useful and useless college majors: The top 10 most useful college majors:1. Nursing2. Mechanical engineering3. Electrical engineering4. Civil engineering5. Computer science6. Finance7. Marketing and marketing research8. Mathematics9. Accounting10. French, German, Latin and other common foreign languages. The top 10 most useless college majors:1. Fine Arts2. Drama and theater…
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Metaphysical Grounding and the Euthyphro Dilemma
The locus classicus of the Euthyphro Dilemma (if you want to call it that) is Stephanus 9-10 in the early Platonic dialog, Euthyphro. This aporetic dialog is about the nature of piety, and Socrates, as usual, is in quest of a definition. Euthyphro proposes three definitions, with each of which Socrates has no trouble finding…
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Magnificent in Aspiration
Philosophy is magnificent in aspiration, but miserable in execution.
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A Wittgenstein Paradox
Ludwig Wittgenstein had no respect for academic philosophy and steered his students away from academic careers. For example, he advised Norman Malcolm to become a rancher, a piece of advice Malcolm wisely ignored. And yet it stung his vanity to find his ideas recycled and discussed in the philosophy journals. Wittgenstein felt that when the…
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Should We Abandon the Deep Problems for Problems Amenable to Solution?
UPDATE: London Ed does an excellent job of misunderstanding the following post. Bad comments incline me to keep my ComBox closed. But his is open. Fred Sommers' "Intellectual Autobiography" begins as follows: I did an undergraduate major in mathematics at Yeshiva College and went on to graduate studies in philosophy at Columbia University in the…
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Arguments and Proofs in Philosophy
London Ed writes: Philosophers always refer to their arguments as 'arguments' and never as 'proofs'. This is because there is nothing in the entire, nearly three thousand year history of philosophy that would count as a proof of anything. Nothing. This obiter dictum illustrates how, by exaggerating and saying something that is strictly false, one…
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Literal or Antiphrastic?
Elliot writes, When I began to read your “Who doesn't need philosophy?” post, I immediately started to think of reasons why adherents of religious and nonreligious worldviews need philosophy as inquiry. Indeed, one can think of many good reasons why such adherents (especially the dogmatic ones) need philosophy. However, as I continued to read, I…
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Blanshard on Santayana’s Prose Style
Brand Blanshard, On Philosophical Style (Indiana University Press, 1967), pp. 49-50. Originally appeared in 1954. Emphasis added. The most distinguished recent example of imaginative prose in philosophy is certainly George Santayana. Santayana was no man's copy, either in thought or in style. He consistently refused toadopt the prosaic medium in which most of his colleagues were writing. To…
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Philosophy: Who Doesn’t Need It?
Who doesn't need philosophy? People who have the world figured out don't need it. If you know what's up when it comes to God and the soul, the meaning of life, the content and basis of morality, the role of state, and so on, then you certainly don't need philosophy. If you are a Scientologist…
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Philosophize We Must
Philosophize we must and philosophize we will. The only question is whether well or ill.