Continuation of replies to Eric D at the point I left off yesterday --------> Quoting Eric Dean <ecdean99@xxxxxxxxxxx>: > > > > Walter O. writes: > > "For all [understandings of philosophy other than as a transcendental form of > inquiry] as far as I am aware, we have other terms to describe the form of > inquiry and practice being referred to within such conceptions. > Understanding philosophy as a transcendental form of inquiry is intelligible > and justifiable, in my mind, since no other form of inquiry can be said to be > unique to the discipline of philosophy. Only philosophy can do > transcendental analysis, and all transcendental analysis is philosophical." > > I read Walter, here, as giving a relatively standard explanation of the role > of philosophy as a professional discipline. The explanation rests on a > presumption that different disciplines -- "forms of inquiry and practice" -- > should each have their unique labels and their unique attributes. > > But I'm not quite sure why that's the case. It seems to me that biologists > find themselves constantly applying results from physics, chemistry, > mathematics, etc. Why might not philosophy be such a discipline, i.e. one in > which the forms of inquiry and practice of other disciplines are regularly > brought to bear and possibly critiqued? > > And if one might object to that by saying the biologist who's applying > chemistry is *applying* chemistry, not *doing* chemistry, I first would ask > why the deciphering of the structure of DNA -- something I think biologists > could legitimately claim as their discipline's accomplishment -- isn't also > first order chemistry, since it amounts to the analysis of a class of > chemical compounds? and second, would assert that my point could have been > made by saying that the biologist is doing applied chemistry, mathematics and > physics, each of which can be considered disciplines in their own rights. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTINUATION OF REPLIES ED: > Why is it wrong to apply the term 'philosophy' to a discipline that applies > the forms of inquiry and practices of other disciplines? Why, in other > words, must there be a form of inquiry that is unique to philosophy in order > for philosophy to be a 'justifiable' discipline? ---------------> I don't recall speaking of "a 'justifiable' discipline." I did refer to my view of philsophy as the discipline that inquires into transcendental questions and proceeds transcendentally to be a justifiable one. Is that what you mean? ED: > Even there is a form of inquiry and practice which is unique to philosophy -- > transcendental analysis -- I think further explanation is needed for why that > uniqueness somehow defines philosophy. One could single out lots of things > unique to identifiable forms of activity but which do not necessarily > represent the essence of the activity. For example, one might assert that > only the framing > carpenter can nail together the roof struts, and all nailing together of roof > struts is framing carpentry. But there is much more to framing > carpentry than nailing together roof struts. ---------> I think I answered that yesterday. But perhaps another example. When Aristotle asks what "sensible men" deliberate about, he asks an empirical question. His answers comprise part of his ethics as a whole. But what makes his ethics philosophical are his questions and his answers to such questions as: Is it possible to deliberate about just anything?, How does poesis differ from praxis?, What is the proper function (end) of man? These are all transcendental questions. ED: > > I suppose one counter would be that my analogy is ill-formed. > Transcendental analysis is to philosophy as > nailing frames together is to framing carpentry, not as nailing a particular > class of frames together is. But that's exactly > what I for one was suggesting needs explaining. Exactly why is it that > transcendental analysis is so essential to philosophy? It looks to me like a > portion of a branch of the discipline, not the trunk or tap root of the whole > thing. -------> I don't know what more to say about this. Sorry. > Finally, John McCreery has asked for a definition of transcendental analysis. > Walter earlier has said that transcendental analysis is the attempt to > identify the conditions of possibility for statements, period. But I think > that's an impossibility, ---------------------> If you claim that this is necessarily so, then you have just made a transcendental claim. Or you might mean that hitherto we have never succeeded in ..... The latter is an empirical claim. > because too many things can be the conditions of > possibility. For example, one of the conditions of possibility for a moral > judgment is that the judgment is not the box on the other table in this room, > because if the judgment were the box in this room it would no longer be a > judgment. And on and on. What, exactly, is it that makes such an assertion > a silly or pointless condition of possibility and other things, like the > conditions Habermas puts on moral judgments, not so silly and pointless? --------------------> Some apriori conditions are more illuminating of the practice or language-game that produces the judgements under consideration than others. Statements of identity - i.e., X is what it is and not something is - don't tell us much about the necesssary conditions for the practice. (Perhaps I should also say that there is a great variety of empirical conditions that must be met before one can engage in a practice and hold the competences required for/by that practice. Such as having food to eat, a functioning cerbral cortx, air, single malt scotch, to mention but a few. But empirical conditions are not apriori. Or "gramatical," in Witters' sense. Perhaps somebody else, more conversant with W than I, can explain what W means by this expression. It may help in this context.) ED: > I think it can be productive to try to assert the (substantial) conditions of > possibility for moral judgment, but not because anyone's going to resolve the > question of whether the asserted list contains all and only the conditions of > possibility, but because doing so may help illuminate some corner of the > human condition in a way otherwise not readily available. I think of it as a > highly elaborated form of the questions Socrates posed to the unwary. -----> I don't think so. Socrates' objectives and questions were all ultimately moral, or ethical. Transcendental questions attempt to reconstruct universal and necessary epistemic conditions (of morality, science, etc.) ED: > Socrates, though, in Plato's earlier dialogs anyway, had the modesty not to > presume to have found the answers to his own questions. ---------> Or did he only claim that he did not know anything that he could teach to others? Perhaps one of our classicists on the list may help here. > And The Parmenides, > it seems to me, provides Plato's cautionary tale on taking even the more > expository passages in his later work as too literal a rendering of Plato's > own views about answers Socrates might have been willing to accept. ---------> I was never quite sure that Plato ever got Socrates right. Minimally, you need a really good memory and the temperance not to saddle others with views you yourself believe to be true. ED > Asking apposite, incisive questions seems to me a skill worth cultivating. > Transcendental analyses can provide very useful tools for the questioner, so > I wouldn't jettison them. But the idea that they constitute the whole or > even the soul of philosophy seems misguided to me. ----------> We all do philosophy as we understand it, and as best we can. Many sincere thanks to Eric D for some truly interesting and critically probing questions. No doubt I have done a poor job answering them. I am especially thankful for the development of arguments with which I disagree. (Imagine discoursing only with the already converted. As if philosophy were a form of religious liturgy.) Walter O MUN > > Regards to one and all. > Eric Dean > Washington DC > ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html