Introduction: The Sting and Wisdom of Common
Characterizations of Philosophy
Over the
course of the last few months I've been advised to visit with a number of
specialists in the fields of dermatology and oncology to rule out a possible
brush with a rare form of skin cancer.[1]
Since I'm in my twenties the office visit small talk invariably revolves around
whether I'm in school, what I'm studying, and so on. Having engaged in this
type of ritual over and over within a short period of time, certain patterns
begin taking shape when I've mentioned that I've just completed an
undergraduate degree in philosophy. These patterns seem to me to be indicative
of how the discipline-practice is commonly understood in a society, such as ours,
which is crucially career oriented and pragmatic. Mixed with the prospect of
death hanging in the air, something that never fails to sober things up, these
patterns take on a bit more weight and bite.
Apart from
polite indifference and polite affirmation, one typical response is to imply
that the study of philosophy is narrowly impractical for the workforce:
"What do you plan on doing with that? Do you want to teach?" Another
involves citing the reputation of academic philosophers for careful argumentation
and reasoning to the point of irrelevant hair splitting, sophistry, or poor
sportsmanship: "I sure don't want to get in an argument with you!" A
final pattern references the sheer
intellectual complexity of the contemplative subject, perhaps signaling it's
intoxication with and compulsive obsession in intellect: "Man, that's more
difficult than med. school..." After running through some variation on
these characterizations, the focus is then shifted to the explicit reason for
the visit. When I walk away from such encounters, however, I feel the typical
sting of being cut down to some extent, and this sting - when it becomes
searching - acts to fuel my already present suspicions of a field which is so
often, in John Dewey's phrase, a "self-indulgence for the few."[2]
There is a
kind of wisdom of the crowds that such characterizations flow from. In this
case it's against, or at least suspicious of, the kind of technicalization and
specialized projects which philosophers have taken on since perhaps they moved
into the university and took their subject professionally serious. Candidacy
for the sort of project I have in mind would be those which require a lot of
back story to explain why anyone would undertake them and why they are worth
the candle - and yet still seem hard to justify much effort. Perhaps an example
would be the problem of Non-Being, sometimes called "Plato's Beard",
in Ontology, which seeks to account for the type of being Non-Being has.[3]
While this
wisdom has much purchase there is a sense also that it is superficial - or at
least not the whole story. Thus the sting. What I would like to consider here
takes a stab at the whole story and lies at the source of the searching
component of this sting. Another way to put this is that I would like to give
weight to the best aspects of both sides of philosophy, the formal and the
informal. I wish to honor both, as they both deserve our honor. Put in the form
of a question my concern is, What is the value of philosophy and why should it
be engaged in? My feeling is that taking an expansive step back and turning the
philosophical gaze back upon itself will serve to give context to philosophy's
disparate functions, some of which have gone largely unfulfilled in recent
centuries, others of which have been misunderstood both by the layman and the
professional. Perhaps too closing in on why philosophy is valuable will serve
to keep our philosophical efforts properly motivated when they become stale,
cloudy, and ostracized against - as they so often do.
In
any case, since responding to the question of value would be to utilize some
vision of what philosophy is, and further, what it's functions are (for
society, oneself, etc.), anyone taking on the value question must also take on
these descriptive and functional aspects. It's in this way that the value
question really breaks into a few parts. With this in mind, it will bear
alluding to two stumbling blocks that tend to crop up naturally when talking
about "philosophy" as such. These stumbling blocks may be referred to
as the tunnel-vision tendency, which seems to arise out of philosophy's
vastness and special seriousness, and the arrested-development
objection, which seems to arise out of an anachronistic comparison between
the "goods" of philosophy and the "goods" of science. After
pointing these out I will be in a position to properly take up an analysis of
what I think is a full response to the question of value - Bertrand Russell's
response as in the last chapter of The Problems of Philosophy. My
analysis will reveal that Russell posits three distinct values for philosophy:
one springs from it's epistemic and speculative function, one from it's
preservative function (of philosophical space), and the final springs from it's
transformative potentiality. I will demonstrate that this threefold vision is
meaningfully conversant with what I have referred to above as the formal and
informal aspects of philosophy. Following insights from Richard Rorty, Richard
Shusterman, and Alexander Nehamas, among others, I will show how these aspects
refer to the "two basic forms" or poles of philosophy. Baldly, these
poles, which can be seen as a spectrum, stretch from the critical-theoretical
side of philosophy which tends to be formal and knowledge oriented, and the
practical-transformative (or art-of-living) side of philosophy which tends to
be less formal and oriented around producing flourishing or transformative
insight for individuals and their communities. Final remarks will beef up
Russell's account with some suggestions about philosophical lifestyle and the
importance of non-intellectual educational mechanisms (which spring from the
transformative function of philosophy), both of which Russell fails to say much
about. Whereas Philip Kitcher has argued that a renewal of philosophy can be
achieved by turning "philosophy inside out" - or by turning to it's
fringe areas - I will argue that this renewal has much to do with re-balancing
the two sides and bringing the art-of-living out from marginalization.
