[lit-ideas] Re: What is philosophy? Susan Langer writes....
- From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 09:52:21 +0900
On 12/27/06, Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
It isn't clear how this is a response to the strawman set up in the
passage
from Langer. After all, Geertz' 'thick description' is aimed at something
that can't be adequately accounted for solely with empirical descriptions.
1. Is Langer's argument a strawman? I am perfectly willing to agree that
Langer may have been describing the habits of the philosophers she met at
professional meetings and symposia circa 1950 and that philosophers habits
may have been different before or after that time. But Phil's "strawman" is
like Walter's "serious philosophers." Both count for nothing more than a bit
of snide without some indication of what, precisely, those who utter them
are talking about.
2. Neither Geertz nor Langer is a naive empiricist.And Geertz, at least,
spent his carrier arguing for a view of interpretation that regards all
"empirical" descriptions as embedded in presuppositions about what the
"facts" might mean. (Thus, just one example, his use of Ryle's tics, winks,
and theatrical simulations of winks.)
On the other hand, Phil's "can't be accounted for solely with empirical
descriptions" is, while true and once an insightful remark, now a pompous
cliche. Consider, by way of contrast, Langer's dismissal of those who refuse
to search for definitive answers on the assumption that no definitive
answer is possible.
"When everybody is duly impressed with the impossibility of really meeting a
challenge, we can claim too much indulgence; any failure may be excused as a
'mere approximation.' Consequently there is today, practically no standard
of philosophical work. Professional journals are full of stale arguments
that do not advance their topics in any way, and forums leave their profound
questions exactly as unanswered and unanswerable as they were before. The
sort of effort and ingenuity that goes into solving scientific or historical
problems would immediately analyze and blast the questions, replace them
with more leading and suggestive ones, and then invent means of finding real
answers. When there is a premium on definitive answers, people spend a good
deal of time and labor on intellectual devices for handling difficult
issues. Scientists rarely talk about scientific method, but they often find
most elaborate and devious ways of turning a question so as to make it
accessible to *some* method of investigation that will yield a solution. It
is the problem that dictates the approach. Philosophers, on the other hand,
usually decide on an approach to philosophical problems in general, and then
tackle the age-old chestnuts--so traditionally chewed over that they have
capitalized names: the Problem of Being, the Problem of Evil, etc."
Langer may be wrong about what philosophers actually do. What she writes may
be anachronistic or slander. Being only a philosopher wannabe, I will
happily wait for Walter or Phil to tell me what they have in mind. A couple
of examples would be most welcome.
John
--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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