{"id":7897,"date":"2014-06-16T16:42:06","date_gmt":"2014-06-16T16:42:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/06\/16\/from-an-interview-with-peter-unger\/"},"modified":"2014-06-16T16:42:06","modified_gmt":"2014-06-16T16:42:06","slug":"from-an-interview-with-peter-unger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/06\/16\/from-an-interview-with-peter-unger\/","title":{"rendered":"Can One Copulate One’s Way to Chastity? Notes on Wittgenstein and Unger"},"content":{"rendered":"

Grace Boey interviews Peter Unger about his new book Empty Ideas: A Critique of Analytic Philosophy<\/em>.  Excerpt:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

In a way, all I\u2019m doing is detailing things that were already said aphoristically by Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations<\/em>. I read it twice over in the sixties, pretty soon after it came out, when I was an undergraduate. I believed it all \u2014 well, sort of. I knew, but I didn\u2019t want to know, and so it just went on. And basically what Philosophical Investigations<\/em> says is that when you\u2019re doing philosophy, you\u2019re not going to find out anything. You find out some trivial things, you\u2019ll be under the delusion that you\u2019re doing a great deal, but what you should do is stop and do something more productive.<\/span><\/p>\n

But you didn\u2019t stop.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Neither did Wittgenstein. He kept scribbling away! What stopped him from doing that was terminal cancer. Only cancer had that desired effect. But it also had some other undesired effects \u2014 namely, ending his life. (Laughter)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There's something paradoxical about Wittgenstein's behavior and  Unger's too.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

Ludwig Wittgenstein had no respect for academic philosophy and he 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 academic hacks weren't plagiarizing his ideas they were misrepresenting them.<\/span><\/p>\n

The paradox is that his writing can speak only to professional philosophers, the very people he despised.  Ordinary folk, even educated ordinary folk, find the stuff he wrote gibberish. When people ask me what of Wittgenstein they should read, I tell them to read first a good biography like that of Ray Monk, and then, if they are still interested, read the aphorisms and observations contained in Culture and Value <\/em>(Vermischte Bemerkungen<\/em>). <\/span><\/p>\n

Only professional philosophers take seriously the puzzles that Wittgenstein was concerned to dissolve in his later work. And only a professional philosopher will be exercised by the meta-problem of the origin and status of philosophical problems.  So we have the paradox of a man who wrote for an audience he despised.<\/span><\/p>\n

"There is less of a paradox that you think.  Wittgenstein was writing mainly for himself; his was a therapeutic conception of philosophy.  His writing was a form of self-therapy.  He was tormented by the problems.  His writing was mainly in exorcism of his demons." <\/span><\/p>\n

This connects with the fly and fly bottle remark in the Philosophical Investigations<\/em> and a second paradox.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why does the bug need to be shown<\/em> the way out? Pop the cork and he's gone.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why did Wittgenstein feel the need to philosophize his way out of philosophy? He should have known that metaphilosophy and anti-philosophy are just more philosophy with all that that entails: inconclusiveness, endlessness, a labyrinth of distinctions and epicycles, objections and replies . . . . He should have just walked away from it.<\/span><\/p>\n

If the room is too smoky, there is no necessity that you remain within it. You are free to go, the door is unlocked. This figure's from Epictetus and he had the quitting of life in view. But the same holds for the quitting of philosophy. Just do it, if that's what you want. It can be done.<\/span><\/p>\n

What cannot be done, however, is to justify one's exit. (That would be like copulating your way to chastity.) For any justification proffered, perforce and willy-nilly, will be just more philosophy. You cannot have it both ways. You either walk away or stay.<\/span><\/p>\n

Peter Unger, too, seems to want to copulate his way to chastity.  Early on, as an undergraduate under the spell of Wittgenstein, he sensed that philosophy leads nowhere.  But that didn't stop him from scribbling book after book.  (His second-to-the-last, All the Power in the World<\/em>, is a stomping tome fat enough to kill a cat.)  Now Unger is an old man and he still cannot stop.  For his latest — which I just today ordered via Amazon Prime — is just more of the same, just more philosophy.  You cannot elude the seductive grasp of fair Philosophia by writing metaphilosophy or anti-philosophy.  That will just entangle you in her outer garments when you ought to be penetrating toward her unmentionables.  For again, the meta- and anti-stuff is just more of the same.  Why does Unger suppose that his empty ideas are worthier than anyone else's?<\/span><\/p>\n

I am quite sure that Unger will end up just another illustration of the first of Etienne Gilson's "laws of philosophical experience," namely, "Philosophy always buries its undertakers." (The Unity of Philosophical Experience<\/em>, Scribners, 1937, p. 306)<\/span><\/p>\n

After I read Unger's book, I will probably have more to say.  I suspect much of his and others' disenchantment with analytic philosophy is due to the hyperprofessionalization, over-specialization, and science-aping that took off like a rocket, for a number of different reasons, in the 20th century.  That, together with the decoupling of philosophy from any sort of spiritual quest or search for wisdom. What good is philosophy so decoupled?  What good is it if it does not conduce to living well or wisely, or does not point beyond itself to revelation or enlightenment or at least ataraxia<\/em>?  Philosophy is not itself a science, as should be abundantly clear by now, and it cannot aspire ever to tread the "sure path of science" (Kant).  If it pulls in its horns and tries to play handmaiden to the sciences, it consigns itself to irrelevance.  How many working scientists read philosophy of science?  <\/span><\/p>\n

The Unger interview is here<\/a>.  (HT: Awais Aftab)<\/span><\/p>\n

Update<\/strong> (6\/17): Unger's new book arrived today, just one day after I ordered it via Amazon Prime.  That's what I call service!  Of course, if the federal government controlled book distribution, I would have received it in half a day and at half the price.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today's mail also brought me Peter van Inwagen's latest, Existence<\/em>, a collection of recent essays.  I will be reviewing it for Studia Neoaristotelica<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

In a way, all I\u2019m doing is detailing things that were already said aphoristically by Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations<\/em>. I read it twice over in the sixties, pretty soon after it came out, when I was an undergraduate. I believed it all \u2014 well, sort of. I knew, but I didn\u2019t want to know, and so it just went on. And basically what Philosophical Investigations<\/em> says is that when you\u2019re doing philosophy, you\u2019re not going to find out anything. You find out some trivial things, you\u2019ll be under the delusion that you\u2019re doing a great deal, but what you should do is stop and do something more productive.<\/span><\/p>\n

But you didn\u2019t stop.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Neither did Wittgenstein. He kept scribbling away! What stopped him from doing that was terminal cancer. Only cancer had that desired effect. But it also had some other undesired effects \u2014 namely, ending his life. (Laughter)<\/span><\/p>\n

– See more at: http:\/\/www.3quarksdaily.com\/3quarksdaily\/2014\/06\/philosophy-is-a-bunch-of-empty-ideas-interview-with-peter-unger.html#sthash.TKAGeGmN.dpuf<\/span><\/div>\n

\n

In a way, all I\u2019m doing is detailing things that were already said aphoristically by Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations<\/em>. I read it twice over in the sixties, pretty soon after it came out, when I was an undergraduate. I believed it all \u2014 well, sort of. I knew, but I didn\u2019t want to know, and so it just went on. And basically what Philosophical Investigations<\/em> says is that when you\u2019re doing philosophy, you\u2019re not going to find out anything. You find out some trivial things, you\u2019ll be under the delusion that you\u2019re doing a great deal, but what you should do is stop and do something more productive.<\/span><\/p>\n

But you didn\u2019t stop.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Neither did Wittgenstein. He kept scribbling away! What stopped him from doing that was terminal cancer. Only cancer had that desired effect. But it also had some other undesired effects \u2014 namely, ending his life. (Laughter)<\/span><\/p>\n

– See more at: http:\/\/www.3quarksdaily.com\/3quarksdaily\/2014\/06\/philosophy-is-a-bunch-of-empty-ideas-interview-with-peter-unger.html#sthash.TKAGeGmN.dpuf<\/span><\/div>\n

\n

In a way, all I\u2019m doing is detailing things that were already said aphoristically by Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations<\/em>. I read it twice over in the sixties, pretty soon after it came out, when I was an undergraduate. I believed it all \u2014 well, sort of. I knew, but I didn\u2019t want to know, and so it just went on. And basically what Philosophical Investigations<\/em> says is that when you\u2019re doing philosophy, you\u2019re not going to find out anything. You find out some trivial things, you\u2019ll be under the delusion that you\u2019re doing a great deal, but what you should do is stop and do something more productive.<\/span><\/p>\n

But you didn\u2019t stop.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Neither did Wittgenstein. He kept scribbling away! What stopped him from doing that was terminal cancer. Only cancer had that desired effect. But it also had some other undesired effects \u2014 namely, ending his life. (Laughter)<\/span><\/p>\n

– See more at: http:\/\/www.3quarksdaily.com\/3quarksdaily\/2014\/06\/philosophy-is-a-bunch-of-empty-ideas-interview-with-peter-unger.html#sthash.TKAGeGmN.dpuf<\/span><\/div>\n

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Grace Boey interviews Peter Unger about his new book Empty Ideas: A Critique of Analytic Philosophy.  Excerpt: In a way, all I\u2019m doing is detailing things that were already said aphoristically by Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations. I read it twice over in the sixties, pretty soon after it came out, when I was an undergraduate. … Continue reading “Can One Copulate One’s Way to Chastity? Notes on Wittgenstein and Unger”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-metaphilosophy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7897\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}