Category: Metaphilosophy

Neglected Philosophers

It is unfortunate that a philosopher like Heidegger receives a vast amount of attention, and indeed more than he deserves, while a philosopher such as Wolfgang Cramer is scarcely read at all. I have German correspondents who have first heard of Cramer from me, an American. I admit to being part of the problem: I have published half a dozen articles on Heidegger, but not one on Cramer, or on Maurice Blondel, or on Constantin Brunner, or on Brand Blanshard.

Jacques Derrida is another philosopher who has received an excess of attention. (Because he out-Heidegger's Heidegger?)  Why read him when you can read Blondel or Blanshard? Just because he has made a big splash and people are talking about him? Are you a philosopher or a fashionista?  Form your own opinion. Try this. Set a volume of Derrida side by side with a volume of Blanshard. Read a few pages back and forth. Then ask who you are more likely to learn something from. But being as perverse as we are, we often prefer the far-out, novel and radical, even when  incoherent, to the boringly solid and sensible.

Germans as Luftmenschen

Here is a delightful little passage from Brand Blanshard's outstanding essay, "The Philosophic Enterprise," in Bontempo and Odell, eds., The Owl of Minerva: Philosophers on Philosophy, p. 170. Don't take the passage too seriously, especially you denizens of the Land von Dichter und Denker.

It used to be said that to the English had been given the realm of the sea, to the French the domain of the land, and to the Germans the kingdom of the air; this meant of course the stratosphere, where philosophers are supposed to live, and indeed have been living ever since Thales wandered abroad with his head in the clouds and fell into a well.

The Philosopher as Luftmensch

Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (Penguin, 2002), p. 11:

Philosophy today gets no respect. Many scientists use the term as a synonym for effete speculation. When my colleague Ned Block told his father that he would major in the subject, his father's reply was "Luft!" — Yiddish for "air." And then there's the joke in which a young man told his mother that he would become a Doctor of Philosophy and she said, "Wonderful! But what kind of disease is philosophy?"

Well, to adapt a chess player's expression, better to make Luft than to make war! (One 'makes Luft' in chess by moving a pawn in front of the castled king's position as prophylaxis against back rank mate.)

When Is an Identification an Elimination, and When Not? Idealism and Eliminativism not in the Same Logical Boat

A reader, recently deployed to Afghanistan, finds time to raise an objection that I will put in my own words to make it as forceful as possible:

You endorsed William Lycan's Moorean refutation of eliminative materialism, but then you criticized him for thinking that Moorean appeals to common sense are also effective against  standard idealist claims such as Berkeley's thesis that the objects of ordinary outer perception are clusters of ideas.  You maintained that there is a crucial difference between the characteristic claims of eliminativists (e.g., that there are no beliefs, desires, intentions, pleasures, pains, etc.) and the characteristic claims of idealists (e.g., Berkeley's thesis just mentioned, McTaggart's thesis of the unreality of time, Bradley's of the unreality of relations.)  The difference is that between denying the existence of some plain datum, and giving an account of a plain datum, an account which presupposes, and so does not deny, the datum in question.  In effect, you insisted on a distinction between identifying Xs as Ys, and denying the existence of Xs.  Thus, you think that there is an important difference between identifying  pains with brain states, and denying that there are pains; and identifying stones and physical objects generally with collections of ideas in the mind of God and denying that there are physical objects.  But in other posts you have claimed that there are identifications which collapse into eliminations.  I seem to recall your saying that to identify God with an unconscious anthropomorphic projection, in the manner of Ludwig Feuerbach, amounts to a denial of the existence of God, as opposed to a specification of what God is.  Similarly, 'Santa Claus is a fictional character' does not tell us  what Santa Claus is; it denies his very existence.

Now why couldn't Lycan argue that this is exactly what is going on in the idealist case?  Why couldn't he say that to identify stones and such with clusters of ideas in the mind of God is to deny the existence of stones?  Just as God by his very nature (whether or not this nature is exemplifed) could not be an anthropomorphic projection, so too, stones by their very nature as physical objects could not be clusters of ideas, not even clusters of divine ideas.

It seems you owe us an account of why the reduction of physical objects to clusters of ideas is not an identification that collapses into an elimination.  If you cannot explain why it does not so collapse, then Lycan and Co. will be justifed in deploying their Moorean strategy against both EM-ists and idealists.  They could argue, first, that idealism is eliminationism about common sense data, and then appeal to common sense to reject the elimination.

Continue reading “When Is an Identification an Elimination, and When Not? Idealism and Eliminativism not in the Same Logical Boat”

Of Berkeley’s Stones and the Eliminativist’s Beliefs

I lately endorsed William Lycan's Moorean refutation of eliminative materialism (EM). But I disagreed with Lycan on one point.  Lycan thinks that Moorean arguments refute Bradley and McTaggart and that there is no essential difference between the characteristic claims of the British Idealists and the characteristic claims of eliminativists in the philosophy of mind: both deny what common sense must affirm.  I believe he is  wrong about this, and I will now try to show why.  It seems that there are three main positions on this issue.  To have some handy labels, I will call them R, L, and V.

R.  Just as Berkeley cannot be refuted by kicking a stone, the eliminativist cannot be refuted in any simple Moorean manner.  Idealist and eliminativist claims are in the same logical boat, a boat that cannot be sunk by Moorean torpedoes.

L. British and other idealists can be refuted in Moorean ways, and so can eliminativists in the philosophy of mind.  Idealist and eliminativist claims are in the same logical boat, a boat that is exposed to Moorean attack.

V. The 'same logical boat' assumption made by R and V must be rejected. There is a crucial difference between what eliminativists are doing  and what idealists are doing.  The idealist does not deny the existence of physical objects, or time, or relations.  Berkeley, for example, does not deny the existence of stones and other meso-particulars.  He offers a theory of their ontological constitution.  His question is not whether they are, but what they are.  His answer, roughly, is that stones and trees and the like are bundles or collections of ideas.  Thus he gives an immaterialist account of ordinary particulars.  They exist all right, but their status is mind-dependent, the ultimate mind in question being God's. 

The eliminativist, however, flatly denies the existence of mental items such as pains, desires, and beliefs.  It should be obvious, then, that there is an important difference between what idealists do and what eliminativists do.  Idealist accounts are not existence-denying, but they do have an ontologically demoting upshot.  If physical object are mind-dependent in the Berkeleyan manner, then they cannot exist in themselves, but only in relation to another, God, who exists in himself.  Idealism thus reduces the being-status of  physical objects from what it would be on a realist approach.  The eliminativist, by contrast,  is not engaged in ontological demotion, but in flat-out denial.  He does not say of beliefs that they are mind-dependent, or mere appearances, or less than ultimately real; what he says is that they don't exist at all.  If the eliminativist said that mental items exist as appearances he would be giving up the game. A pain, e.g., is such that to be = to appear.  If you admit the appearance of a mental event such as a pain, you admit its reality.

Whatever the objections that can be lodged against Berkeleyan idealism, it cannot be refuted by kicking a stone.  But eliminative materialism can be refuted by simply noting that one desires a beer.  Moorean arguments are worthless when deployed against the positions of the great idealists, and this for the reason that the prosaic Moore simply did not understand what they were arguing.  But when someone denies a plain datum, then he does run up against common sense in an objectionable way.

Wisdom from Putnam on Science and Scientism

Hilary Putnam, Mathematics, Matter and Method (Cambridge University Press, 1975), pp. xiii (emphasis added):

. . . I regard science as an important part of man's knowledge of reality; but there is a tradition with which I would not wish to be identified, which would say that scientific knowledge is all of man's knowledge. I do not believe that ethical statements are expressions of scientific knowledge; but neither do I agree that they are not knowledge at all. The idea that the concepts of truth, falsity, explanation, and even understanding are all concepts which belong exclusively to science seems to me to be a perversion . . .

Putnam does not need the MP's imprimatur and nihil obstat, but he gets them anyway, at least with respect to the above quotation. The italicized sentence is vitally important. In particular, you will be waiting a long time if you expect evolutionary biology to provide any clarification of the crucial concepts mentioned. See in particular, Putnam's "Does Evolution Explain Representation?" in Renewing Philosophy (Harvard University Press, 1992).

The Sociology of Philosophy: A PhilPapers Survey

What percentage of philosophers are atheists?  What percentage theists?  Are there more compatibilists than libertarians when it comes to the freedom of the will?  More libertarians than deniers of free will?  These are questions in the sociology of philosophy.  The general public has wildly inaccurate beliefs in this area, but practicing philosophers also cherish misconceptions.  Here are the results of a sophisticated PhilPapers survey.

Mildly interesting, but what does this contribute to philosophy?  I was pleased to see that a solid majority favors the analytic-synthetic distinction.  But surely I cannot use this merely sociological fact as any part of my justification for accepting the  distinction.  Or can I?

A Note on Analytic Style

The precise, explicitly argued, analytic style of exposition with numbered premises and conclusions promotes the meticulous scrutiny of the ideas under discussion. That is why I sometimes write this way. I know it offends some. There are creatures of darkness and murk who seem allergic to any intellectual hygiene. These types are often found on the other side of the Continental divide. "How dare you be clear? How dare you ruthlessly exclude all ambiguity thereby making it impossible for me to yammer on and on with no result?"

Ortega y Gasset somewhere wrote that "Clarity is courtesy." But clarity is not only courtesy; it is a necessary (though not sufficient) condition of resolving an issue. If it be thought unjustifiably sanguine to speak of resolving philosophical issues, I have a fall-back position: Clarity is necessary for the very formulation of an issue, provided we want to be clear about what we are discussing.

Fiction and Philosophy: Does Fiction Do it Better?

John Gardner, On Writers and Writing, p. 225:

. . . at their best, both fiction and philosophy do the same thing, only fiction does it better — though slower. Philosophy by essence is abstract, a sequence of general argument controlled in its profluence by either logic (in old-fashioned systematic philosophy) or emotional coherence (in the intuitive philosophies of say, Nietzsche and Kierkegaard). We read the argument and it seems to flow along okay, make sense, but what we ask is, "Is this true of my mailman?" . . .

Fiction comes at questions from the other end. It traces or explores some general argument by examining a particular case in which the universal case seems implied; and in place of logic or emotional coherence — the philosopher's stepping stones — fictional argument is controlled by mimesis: we are persuaded that the characters would indeed do exactly what we are told they do and say . . . . If the mimesis convinces us, then the question we ask is opposite to that we ask of philosophical argument; that is, we ask, "Is this true in general?"

Continue reading “Fiction and Philosophy: Does Fiction Do it Better?”

Philosophy, Fiction, and Bullshit

In On Becoming a Novelist (Harper & Row, 1983), John Gardner raises the question of what the aspiring writer should study if he goes to college:

A good program of courses in philosophy, along with creative writing, can clarify the writer's sense of what questions are important . . . . There are obvious dangers. Like any other discipline, philosophy is apt to be inbred, concerned about questions any normal human being would find transparently ridiculous. [. . .] All human thought has its bullshit quotient, and professional thought about thought has more than most. Nevertheless, the study of philosophy, perhaps with courses in psychology thrown in, can give the young writer a clear sense of why our age is so troubled, why people of our time suffer in ways in which people of other times and places suffered. (93-94)

Continue reading “Philosophy, Fiction, and Bullshit”

Mary Midgley on Complaints about Clarity

Mary Midgley in The Owl of Minerva: A Memoir, Routledge, 2005, p. 13, reminisces about her headmistress, Miss Annie Bowden:

I also remember something striking that she had said when I had complained that I knew the answer to some question but I just couldn't say it clearly. 'If you can't say a thing clearly,' she replied, 'then you don't actually know what it is, do you?' This is a deep thought which I have often come back to, and it is in general a useful one. It lies at the heart of British empiricism. Though it is not by any means always true, I am glad to have had it put before me so early in life. It's a good thought to have when you are trying to clarify your own ideas, but a bad one when you are supposed to be understanding other people's. Philosophers are always compaining that other people's remarks are not clear when what they mean is that they are unwelcome. So they often cultivate the art of not understanding things — something which British analytic philosophers are particularly good at. (Bolding added.)

My added emphasis signals my approbation.

We owe it to ourselves and our readers to be as clear as we can. But the whole point of philosophy is to extend clarity beyond the 'clarity' of everyday life and everyday thinking. The pursuit of this higher clarity, the attempt to work our way out of Plato's Cave, results in a kind of talking and thinking that must appear obscure to the Cave dweller. Well, so much the worse for him and his values. To demand Cave clarity of the philosopher is vulgar and philistine.  Got that, Ludwig?

For more on this topic, see Adorno on Wittgenstein's Indescribable Vulgarity.

The Philosopher and the Religionist

The philosopher and the religionist need each other's virtues. The philosopher needs reverence to temper his analytic probing and humility to mitigate the arrogance of his high-flying inquiry and overconfident reliance on his magnificent yet paltry powers of thought. The religionist needs skepticism to limit his gullibility, logical rigor to discipline his tendency toward blind fideism, and balanced dialectic to chasten his disposition to fanaticism.

Is Philosophy Bullshit?

Intuitions about the value of philosophy vary wildly. For many it is just bullshit, "bullshitting about any topic" as a particularly benighted student of mine once wrote on a teaching evaluation. (What a joy to be quit of the classroom for good!) But anyone who says this sort of thing understands the nature of bullshit as little as he understands the nature of philosophy. He also does not understand that philosophy is needed to comprehend the nature of that under which philosophy is being subsumed, namely, bullshit. For instruction as to the essence of bullshit we of course turn to a philosopher, Professor Frankfurt. A statement is bullshit if it is

. . . grounded neither in a belief that it is true nor, as a lie must be, in a belief that it is not true. It is just this lack of connection to a concern with truth — this indifference to how things really are — that I regard as of the essence of bullshit." (emphasis added)

George Santayana on the Three Traps that Strangle Philosophy

From Animal Faith and Spiritual Life, ed. John Lachs, Meredith, 1967, p. 168:

There are three traps that strangle philosophy: the Church, the marriage-bed, and the professor's chair. I escaped from the first in my youth; the second I never entered, and as soon as possible I got out of the third.

Perhaps we could call them the theological trap, the tender trap, and the tenure trap. But are they truly traps? That might be disputed.

George_santayana Nietzsche might be brought in as a witness concerning the marriage trap, not that he had any experience in the matter. Somewhere in his Nachlass he compares the philosopher burdened by Weib und Kind, Haus und Hof with an astronomer who interposes a piece of filthy glass between eye and telescope. The philosopher's vocation charges him with the answering of the ultimate questions; pressing foreground concerns, however, make it difficult for him to take these questions with the seriousness they deserve, let alone to answer them.

But in another place Nietzsche balances this harsh observation by noting that the man without Haus und Hof, Weib und Kind is like a ship with insufficient ballast: he rides too high on the seas of life and does not pass through her storms with the steadiness of the solid bourgeois weighted down with property and reputation, wife and children. The judgments of such a high-rider on matters local and temporal should not be taken too seriously.

Wonder: Theaetetus 155 d with Aristotelian and Heideggerian Glosses

Plato puts the following words in the mouth of Socrates at Theaeteus 155 d (tr. Benjamin Jowett): "I see, my dear Theaetetus, that Theodorus had a true insight into your nature when he said that you were a philosopher, for wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder."

Aristotle echoes the Theaetetus passage at 982b12 of his Metaphysics: "It was their wonder, astonishment, that first led men to philosophize and still leads them." Martin Heidegger, commenting on both passages, writes in Was ist das — die Philosophie?:

Das Erstaunen ist als pathos die arche der Philosophie. Das griechische Wort arche muessen wir im vollen Sinne verstehen. Es nennt dasjenige, von woher etwas ausgeht. Aber dieses "von woher" wird im Ausgehen nicht zurueckgelassen, vielmehr wird die arche zu dem, was das Verbum archein sagt, zu solchem, was herrscht. Das pathos des Erstaunens steht nicht einfach so am Beginn der Philosophie wie z. B. der Operation des Chirurgen das Waschen der Haende voraufgeht. Das Erstaunen traegt und durchherrscht die Philosophie.

Continue reading “Wonder: Theaetetus 155 d with Aristotelian and Heideggerian Glosses”