Philosophy: Technic or Confession
John Cottingham's review of Stanley Cavell's latest -- Little Did I Know: Excerpts from Memory -- offers a pessimistic take on the state of modern philosophy:
Notwithstanding constant announcements that religion in educated Western Europe is "on the way out", many intelligent young people seem to have a keen desire to learn about traditional spiritual frameworks of human understanding.
But frustration often ensues as the aspiring philosophy student climbs higher. The university study of philosophy in the anglophone world now offers little by way of a grand synoptic vision of human life and our place in the scheme of things. Instead, the subject has fragmented into a host of highly technical specialisms, whose practitioners increasingly model themselves on the methods of the natural sciences. By the time they reach graduate studies, most students will be resigned to working within intricate, introverted "research" programmes, whose wider significance they might be hard pressed to explain to anyone outside their special area.
The thesis of the review is that Cavell is an exception to the rule, but I’m more interested in the rule: Why has philosophy willingly become less relevant and less interesting?
The easy way to approach this question is through intellectual history. The progenitors of modern analytic philosophy were frustrated by debates that seemed irresolvable. Their solution was to divide philosophy into narrow questions, to be answered finally through relentless logic chopping. Some philosophers philosophized themselves out of philosophy, deciding that because metaphysical questions were untestable in the physical world, they were meaningless -- absent a test, our answers to metaphysical questions were necessarily reflections of our internal sentiments, rather than of reality. So, they thought, philosophy could only be useful as a handmaiden to science, by shoring up its conceptual foundations, perfecting its methods, and exploring the limits of its knowledge.
Cottingham claims that continental philosophy has “been less concerned with minute piecemeal analysis and more sympathetic to addressing grand existential questions about why we are here and how we are to make sense of our lives.” I think this is only partly true. Does that description remind you of Jacques Derrida?
There are scattered philosophers, like Cavell, and scattered schools, like the Straussians, still interested in the love of wisdom. But most philosophy published in academic journals today has no bearing on how we might live and see the world, and still less pertains to anything we might call ‘wisdom.’ It’s such a disappointment to those of us who were so thrilled the first time we picked up Plato or Nietzsche.
But I suspect that the cause of philosophy’s descent may be more psychosocial than historical. Academic philosophy may be trapped in the cult of professionalism. Cavell writes of his philosophy as a kind of autobiography, which recalls Nietzsche’s saying that “every great philosophy is a personal confession of its author and a kind of involuntary and unconscious memoir.” But confession is forbidden in professional life. Adults believe there is a moral obligation to be boring, serious, and undifferentiated, and this moral obligation is spoken of in euphemism as “professionalism.”
The farther philosophy moves away from logic puzzles and toward existential questions, the more self-revelation it requires, and the more differentiation on the basis of personalities it engenders. One’s answers to questions like “How do you think we ought to live?” and “What do you think is beautiful?” -- ethics and aesthetics -- provide a clue to who one is in a way that one’s papers on modal logic don’t. If the quests for objectivity and professionalism require a removal of self and subjective personality, they necessarily push us away from the big ethical and existential questions and toward logic chopping.
Modern analytic philosophy’s big idea was to finally resolve philosophical quandaries by methods and techniques that mirrored the scientific method; the goal was to take the philosopher out of philosophy, just as the scientific method did to the scientist. But I think a philosophy without a philosopher -- a human voice and human experience -- behind it will never engross its students. And questions that can be solved only through the application of technique and the exclusion of personality may not be worth asking. Until philosophy changes its purposes and goals it may continue to march toward irrelevance.
Anyways, those scattered ruminations on modern philosophy were inspired by that fine review, and my sad realization that no graduate education in philosophy would be satisfying. I welcome additions, and contrary perspectives.
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May '10
Re: Philosophy: Technic or Confession
Matthew Shaffer:
The soul has no place in modern philosophy. Theology is necessarily nothing more than philosophy which accepts the premise of a soul and / or a spiritual Authority. Yet modern academic philosophers avoid it like the plague. They begin their estimation of humanity by excluding that which most defines and drives us.
My "Asian philosophy" course (Confucianism, Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism) was merely an elective and taught by an atheist (the department head, whom I greatly admired). Western "religion" was a different department entirely.
One can err in the opposite direction as well. There's more emphasis in academia on identifying legacies than on understanding them (more on "Who said what?" than on "Why is this logic stronger than another?"). Critical thinking takes a backseat to proofs of education.
Relativism is influential. Philosophies are presented like toys, rather than forces which propel civilizations to victory or ruin. Life is spiritual war, not playtime.
Nov '10
Re: Philosophy: Technic or Confession
Interesting post - I'm only sorry it came across at 1 am local time...But briefly, don't give up on philosophy! Keep it alive, at least on Ricochet, it is very relevant. I have no background in it (other than via art and math), but I'm getting schooled in it by my collaborator model (who does have a formal background). I'm finding it a wonderful framework to explore all kinds of questions - ranging from parallels between probability mixtures and linguistics, to the politics of the nude and its depiction, to the photograph as a lingua franca and its effect on preconception vs perception. Could Einstein have developed relativity without the aesthetic changes of the 19th C?
Anyway, it sounds like grad school in philosophy is a bit like grad school in pure maths. I loved pure maths for awhile, but then I realized their job is simply to keep the swords sharpened, and I much preferred the applied side, where you actually get to use them. Maybe there's something similar in philosophy?
Feb '11
Re: Philosophy: Technic or Confession
What sort of experience you have in a graduate philosophy school is going to depend on which individuals you work with.
Criticism of ‘Analytic Philosophy’ is usually fairly ridiculous. There was a generation or two of philosophers who really were focused on puzzle-solving (Gettier problems, Trolley Car problems, Brain in a Vat problems), but I don’t see it anymore. To be an analytic philosopher, today, is to be able to speak the *language* of analytic philosophy — perhaps it is to have been trained by analytic philosophers. It really means no more than that. Do an Amazon search of Thomas Nagel. Do the titles look like their topics are of no significance? Search for John Searle or for Charles Taylor or Harry Frankfurt or Martha Nussbaum. Search for Philippa Foot. And these are just names I can think of off the top of my head: perhaps some puzzles here and there, but no mere puzzle-solvers these.
Oct '10
Re: Philosophy: Technic or Confession
Funny how academics seem to think that philosophy and poetry must progress via peer review and conferences ...
... while philosophers and poets listen only to the honored dead.
"A scholar can never become a philosopher ... he who lets concepts, opinions, past events, books, step between himself and things ... will never have an immediate perception of things and will never be an immediately perceived thing himself; but both these conditions belong together in the philosopher, because most of the instruction he receives he has to acquire out of himself and because he serves himself as a reflection and brief abstract of the whole world."
Nietzsche, Schopenhauer as Educator
Aug '10
Re: Philosophy: Technic or Confession
I'm getting a dissertation started at the University of Chicago. Philosophy here is a pure joy.
Before turning to ethics, my last project argued that though aesthetic value is objective--in the sense that there are right and wrong, better and worse aesthetic judgments--this is consistent with a proper understanding of aesthetic value maintaining an ineliminable role for the subject. While making an aesthetic judgment is an outbreathing of our response to an object, our response is still to the value an object actually has. To develop one's tastes, to refine one's critical capacities requires refining oneself--the proper response to what beautiful objects demand of us.
One thing philosophy-aspiring-to-be-science misses is that the proper instrument by which to discover certain truths is, indeed, Man. (E.g. aesthetic truths.) That there can be no other instrument with which verify such truths is anathema to philosophy scientistically conceived. It cannot allow that rather than undermining these truths, it exalts them and bids us rely on each other as correctives as we pursue them.
This kind of thinking is celebrated here, where Cavell is a hero. Unfortunately, in most departments, he's, well... not.
Jan '11
Re: Philosophy: Technic or Confession
I have a master's in philosophy. (I actually hold a papal licentiate, a PhL,. which entitles me to teach philosophy "anywhere in Christendom," but these days, that seems to be about four square blocks worth of territory!) So I'm well-versed in the frustrations with contemporary philosophy.
But let me bite on this apple. We might go a few rounds on this one. Here's my pitch ...
Philosophy is the study of assumptions. In our everyday lives, we can't re-examine every idea afresh. The only way to survive everyday life is to take a lot for granted. Well, on occasion, we revisit the ideas we take for granted, and we discover that they're somewhat slippery.
We all know what knowledge is, right? We all know what truth is, or beauty, right?Don't we? Funny. The more we examine them, the less simple they turn out to be. Knowledge is especially dense. It's filled with other assumptions that we also take for granted. As we peel the assumptions apart, they reveal layer after layer that we just skipped over before.
And some of the assumptions deserve to be examined, and debunked.
(continued ...)
Jan '11
Re: Philosophy: Technic or Confession
(continued)
I understand the aggravation with the empiricists and analytic schools, but I'm inclined to allow them a lot of forgiveness. When Quine challenges the comfy assumptions behind "analytic" and "synthetic" propositions, and what the word "fact" means, I say he's doing the Lord's work. He's popping assumptions that, on reflection, deserve popping.
I don't like philosophy when it's merely academic. When the jargon gets too thick, I get bored. After a while, I can't remember what Strawson said about anything, and how his theory would have matched up against Derrida. Yawn. Got any Guinness?
But when Quine talks about "what there is," it's because he's grappling with reality, not just trying to impress his teaching assistants. So I'm willing to let him wrestle that tiger, because the human experience is there, just as much as poetry.
Nov '10
Re: Philosophy: Technic or Confession
I love it when this can of worms is opened, and look forward to another cage match between Bougeureau and Pollock.
As for refinement - artists tend to be a rather dissolute lot. Maybe that's just fallout from the fact that one of the primary drives in art is towards self-direction, or maybe it comes from the fact that great art upsets tradition and tradition might be the same as morality. Who knows. In any case, one thing I wouldn't broadly tag artists with is refinement. And if not, how could one appreciate their work through refinement?
May '10
Re: Philosophy: Technic or Confession
In Fides et Ratio, John Paul II identified a crisis of confidence in modernity regarding Reason's ability to reach truth. I think he's entirely right. Radical skepticism is intellectual infirmity masquerading as sophistication. Philosophers are too timid and mediocre in their aspirations.
Here is my story: I was a high school slacker without any serious academic interest or ambition. I just wanted to live for God--be a youth minister or an evangelist or some such. I discovered the life of the mind at a conference on Christian Culture in my junior year in college. It was the manifest evangelical force of intelligence illumined by faith that first drew me. I approached the most engaging speaker and asked how I could get what she had? She pointed me to a Philosophy of Love course being offered the following semester.
That course was so phenomenally illuminating and intellectually fortifying that I signed up for as many electives as I could, then went on to graduate school.
My school was a tiny academy in Liechtenstein dedicated to phenomenological realism. Truth was its whole aim and focus. Not just any truth, but fundamental truth. Deep truth. Essential truths. It was joy.
May '10
Re: Philosophy: Technic or Confession
The "modern philosophy" you speak of is alien to me--nothing like my experience. I hate the excessive professionalism of philosophy. Hate the "publish or perish" nonsense of academic. True philosophy requires leisure. It's rooted in contemplation. It is existential.
The only class I didn't love in grad school was one on formal logic, where the professor constantly urged us to prescind from reality and consider it a game.
I didn't want brain teasers. I wanted Truth.
Oct '10
Re: Philosophy: Technic or Confession
Yes!
May '10
Re: Philosophy: Technic or Confession
My brush with "academic philosophy" found that the ideology was the same as any other you'd expect in academia (way left of left of center). I'm sure there are good conservative philosophizers and students of philosophy out there, but I never met any...
So, is the agenda of the left driving modern philosophical thought, and the analyses of past philosophers? In other words, has the left hijacked philosophy, or does the study of philosophy drive people left?
I think I know the answer, but when a profession is dominated by an ideology (left or right), doesn't it automatically denegrate that profession?
Oct '10
Re: Philosophy: Technic or Confession
Philosophy, divorced from religion, has become a tool for the deconstruction of reality, leading to nihilistic despair, lacking as it does a framework of absolute truth within which man is able to validate his existence as a transcendent being with transcendent value.
Philosophy as a tool of theology (which I believe was the perspective of the scholasticists in the Middle Ages) is effective in seeking Truth (in Greek, alithea, meaning original reality). This perspective is what led to the common understanding that Theology is the "queen of the sciences". Those who study and use philosophy as a tool for purpose of understanding man in relation to God and his creation, if they use the tool effectively, will not be disappointed.
Philosophy as an end in itself, like anything precious, when sought for its own value, will, in the end corrupt those who attempt to use it for this end. “Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things” Rom 1:22
Jan '11
Re: Philosophy: Technic or Confession
Aaron Miller
There's more emphasis in academia on identifying legacies than on understanding them (more on "Who said what?" than on "Why is this logic stronger than another?").
That attitude has been around for a long time. When I was a student in the 60's I noticed that the philosophy students I met were not interested in the strength, usefulness, or validity of an idea; but they'd argue for hours about who said it first.
This inspired me to avoid philosophy classes like the plague.
And BTW, there's no equivalence between pure math and philosophy. Mathematicians use a wastebasket.
May '10
Re: Philosophy: Technic or Confession
Philosophy as a tool of theology (which I believe was the perspective of the scholasticists in the Middle Ages) ...
Philosophy as an end in itself, like anything precious, when sought for its own value, will, in the end corrupt those who attempt to use it for this end. “Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things” Rom 1:22 · Mar 14 at 10:29am
I agree that Philosophy has become a tool for the deconstruction of Reality, or, in other words, completely corrupt--a kind of anti-philosophy. But I can't agree that the answer is to render Philosophy a tool of theology. Rather, I point again to Fides et Ratio, and hold that in order for Philosophy to fulfill its true mission and function, she needs her measure of autonomy. "She is no handmaiden if not free."
Oct '10
Re: Philosophy: Technic or Confession
katievs
Philosophy as a tool of theology (which I believe was the perspective of the scholasticists in the Middle Ages) ...
Philosophy as an end in itself, like anything precious, when sought for its own value, will, in the end corrupt those who attempt to use it for this end. “Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things” Rom 1:22 · Mar 14 at 10:29am
I agree that Philosophy has become a tool for the deconstruction of Reality, or, in other words, completely corrupt--a kind of anti-philosophy. But I can't agree that the answer is to render Philosophy a tool of theology. Rather, I point again to Fides et Ratio, and hold that in order for Philosophy to fulfill its true mission and function, she needs her measure of autonomy. "She is no handmaiden if not free." · Mar 14 at 11:14am
You intimate that philosophy has its own mission. I ask you, Is there anything in the universe, material or immaterial, philosophy included, whose purpose is not to reveal the glory and the manifold wisdom of God?
Jan '11
Re: Philosophy: Technic or Confession
"Modern analytic philosophy’s big idea was to finally resolve philosophical quandaries by methods and techniques that mirrored the scientific method; the goal was to take the philosopher out of philosophy, just as the scientific method did to the scientist."
On reflection, I don't really buy this.
Analytic philosophy spawned logical positivism, and positivism rejected metaphysics. Metaphysics is where all the "human" fun is, because the only way you can get to metaphysics is through human experience. And like science, positivism rejects anything that can't be verified.
But as I say, I'm willing to forgive analytic philosophy. Not all of it is positivism.
Before you can ask "what is the meaning of life?" you have to ask what meaning is. That's where the analytics have something useful to offer. When you explore "meaning," you find yourself immersed in assumptions, most of them about Language. Most symbolic and modal logic is focused on charting the way language works; i.e., the mechanics of making propositions, and the dangers lurking along the way.
Learning more about how Language works is good. The rejection of metaphysics is just arrogance.
Edited on Mar 14, 2011 at 1:29pmMay '10
Re: Philosophy: Technic or Confession
Good Berean
You intimate that philosophy has its own mission. I ask you, Is there anything in the universe, material or immaterial, philosophy included, whose purpose is not to reveal the glory and the manifold wisdom of God? · Mar 14 at 12:27pm
Well, in one sense, of course yes. Because philosophy's mission is to search out and unfold Truth, it glorifies God, who is Truth.
But theology is not co-terminous with God, nor with faith. It is a human science of God, proceeding according to its own method. It is faith seeking understanding, while philosophy is reasoning upon experience.
May '10
Re: Philosophy: Technic or Confession
In other words, the two sciences have different starting points, different methods, different aims, different materials, though each in its own way has to do with Reality, which is ultimately one.
May '10
Re: Philosophy: Technic or Confession
And if each is to fulfill its mission, it has to be left free to do so without undue interference from other fields.
JP II suggested--again in F & R-- that he thinks it no longer quite right to conceive of philosophy as a handmaid to theology.
I draw an analogy with feminism. For all the disasters radical feminism has caused, could we think for a moment that the solution is to go back to a social model whereby women were subordinate (legally and morally) to their husbands?
I think rather that just as good men realize that they, too, are better off when their wives' personhood is given scope for full flowering, the Church understands that though the newly-insisted-upond autonomy of philosophy as caused terrible problems, it is nevertheless right and good that she be autonomous--that, in fact, she can't fulfill her true function vis a vis theology unless her autonomy is duly respected.