[lit-ideas] Serious vs Modern
- From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2006 12:59:13 +0900
On 12/27/06, Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
My point is that it is odd to require, for the purposes of this
discussion, more precision regarding the meaning of the expression 'serious
philosopher' when the expression 'modern philosopher' is taken to be
sufficiently precise to make the argument.
I will counter that, in the context provided by my quotes from Langer,
"modern" is far more specific than "serious."
A careless critic might go haring off in search of a definition of
"modern," which could lead to a very far-ranging discussion, indeed.
Remaining within the Western tradition, one might argue whether
modernity begins with the Rennaissance, the Enlightenment, or during
the late 19th-early 20th century when in several fields (Pointillist
painting, genetics, quantum mechanics, the early Wittgenstein, etc.)
there appears to have been a major shift in dominant intellectual
currents from a continuous to a particulate view of reality. Stepping
outside the Western tradition, one might note the argument advanced by
a book on modernity in Japanese literature (Excuse me, I can't lay my
hands on it just now and thus can't provide a proper citation) that
the first instance of a debate between the Moderns and the Ancients in
Japan occurs in _The Tale of Genji_ , a novel which is thought to have
been completed around the year 1021.
A careful reader of even just the bits of Langer I've provided will
note that when Langer says "modern philosophers," she seems to have in
mind primarily her contemporaries, the people she met at professional
meetings, whose writings she encountered in the professional journals
about which she writes so scathingly.
Ambiguity remains; but the image and the setting are relatively
concrete and the ambiquity about just who, precisely, she was talking
about when she wrote "modern philosophers" is a fairly straightforward
historical question.
The "serious" in "serious philosophers" is a different sort of
adjective entirely. It expresses a dismissive attitude toward
philosophers regarded by the writer as non-serious. But there the
matter stops. What "serious" is supposed to mean besides "philosophers
whose work I admire" is utterly unclear. The dismissal floats in thin
air.
As I remarked in my thanks to Professor Paul, a discussion of the
meaning of "serious" might be very productive, indeed. There is
"serious" versus "frivolous," which in business circles involves
issues of scale, but in sporting or game-playing settings seems more a
matter of commitment or lack thereof in a more personal sense, e.g., a
bridge player's complaint that her partner is not being serious, i.e.,
not paying enough attention to the bids and the order in which cards
are played. There is seriousness in the sense of passionate
commitment, where the strength of emotion is a critical factor, and
seriousness in rational choice, where allowing emotion to interfere
would be seen as non-serious.
There is also the kind of brainstorming in which I am now engaged,
serious in its objectives but non-serious in its method, turning off
the censor that imposes limits on what we can imagine to free
ourselves to consider ideas that might seem silly at first (people
staring at clocks as they ride up and down on elevators) but might
also lead to profound insights (the Special Theory of Relativity).
We might get serious about the meaning of "serious," but this is a
challenge which neither Phil or Walter has accepted.
Happy New Year to All,
John
--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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