[lit-ideas] Who is the philosopher, and who is the poet?
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2008 14:50:48 -0700
In reading Robert's note (included below), I recalled something said by
Schopenhauer, something to the effect that no teacher ever became a
philosopher. Of course his statement was not taken terribly seriously. He
had Hegel in mind if memory serves me. He hated Hegel. But he has a bit of
a point. There is a difference between doing philosophy and discussing or
teaching the philosophy of someone who has done philosophy in the past. I
may be misreading Robert, but his brief seems to be that of Alan Bloom
rather than of someone wishing to "do philosophy." Bloom in his The Closing
of the American Mind bemoaned the loss of the Classics. It used to be that
everyone who was educated embraced "the classics." This was a body of
literature (including philosophy) that educated people held in common. But
when it became politically correct to abandon merit in favor of something
else like minority rights, the American Mind became closed.
Is not Robert saying something like that? "Once, for example, it was
possible to discuss specific passages from the Tractatus, with law
professors at Northwestern, Eric Dean, and others; Hume (and sometimes
Popper) with Donal; Kant with Walter and Phil; contemporary British
philosophy with JL (and so on, I want to say, in order to disguise my
failing memory). As far as I can see we have lost the ability and the
collegial politeness to tolerate such discussions."
I looked in Robert's comments for something that implied "doing philosophy"
and found, "What is it that motivates you to pursue and promote this
discipline? Walter asks. My own answers are modest: I enjoy the 'distinct
form of inquiry and analysis,' and I believe deeply that someone who takes
philosophy seriously, even without committing his or her life to it, will be
drawn to think, however briefly, however confusedly, about a way of life, in
that old Greek sense; about how one should live. Fine words."
So what is "this discipline"? A given philosopher's philosophy might
involve a "discipline," but doesn't Robert mean the "study of philosophy"
rather than the practice of doing of philosophy? The study is a discipline,
the doing is out there beyond the edge where there are no rules and can be
no discipline. And if we are concerned about the embracing of the study,
the dwelling upon what the great minds of the past have written, aren't we
in Bloom country?
And perhaps I was drawn to write as I did in this note because I was unhappy
with the way we left the matter of literature. Literature seemed to be the
same sort of thing as philosophy in Robert's note, the study of Hawthorne or
Eliot or Stevens. What if someone wrote something and posted it here on
Lit-Ideas and what it if was as good as something written by Nathaniel
Hawthorne or T. S. Eliot or Wallace Stevens. Would those who are members
here recognize it for what it is and acclaim it? Or would it be beyond them
because it isn't Nathaniel Hawthorne or T.S. Eliot or Wallace Stevens?
The doing of literature has greater value than the knowing of the literature
created by someone in the past - assuming reasonable levels of competence.
I don't know if the same thing can be said about philosophy. Does anyone
"do" philosophy today? Lots of people on the other hand "do literature."
I'm not referring here to writers who are self-deceived, who fancy they are
better than they really are. I've read a lot of it and there is quite a
lot that is pretty good, well worth doing whether or not it quite measures
up to Hawthorne or Eliot or Stevens.
I recall the note of Paul Stone mildly bemoaning the lack of literature on
lit-ideas much as Robert Paul bemoans the lack of philosophy, but I wonder
what David Ritchie, Mike Geary and a few others thought of Stone's comment.
I have the impression that if Ritchie and Geary upped their production
ten-fold that still wouldn't satisfy Stone, that he didn't have the "doing
of literature" in mind when he wrote but the "discipline," the study of past
"doers of literature." And that he too is living in Bloom Country.
Lawrence Helm
San Jacinto (not just Bloom country)
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Robert Paul
Sent: Saturday, June 07, 2008 1:33 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Why Philosophy. (Was: On Nip Thievery)
Walter asks
> What is the role of philosophy in these postmodern, internetized,
globalized,
> multicultural, post 9/11 days? Why do we continue to teach this
discipline? Is
> it for its relevance to contemporary problems and issues, or is there a
> timeless, intrinsic worth to philosophy independent of any promotion of
> interests and consequences for states-of-affairs in the world? (Note how
your
> answer to this question influences how you go about teaching philosophy.)
If Walter's question is understood in a certain way, philosophy has
(would have) no role at all, for postmodernism, the view that everything
is something else, is antithetical to serious philosophy, and to ask how
philosophy should proceed post-9/11, or under the hegemony of the
internet is to ask-it seems to me, although it might not to Walter-that
philosophy should somehow accommodate itself to certain historical
periods and states of affairs, for if it failed to do so it would risk
being dismissed in that familiar '70s way as 'irrelevant.' (Those who
derided people, practices, ways of thinking, areas of study as
irrelevant seldom stopped to what the objects of their scorn or pity
were irrelevant to: they were just irrelevant.
So, I've tipped my hand when it comes to whether and how philosophy
might be 'relevant' to contemporary problems and issues (and perhaps to
their disentanglement and solution). If it is, it is only fortuitously
so. Philosophers are alleged to be good at analyzing problems and
thinking clearly about them; but philosophers can no more think clearly
about Dunham-Bush Big-4 (Direct Drive) Compressors, or about the effects
of El Nino on the rain in Coos Bay, than can any ordinary person. (Most
philosophers, of course, are quite ordinary persons.)
Enough beating around the bush. Walter asks if 'there's a timeless,
intrinsic worth to philosophy independent of any promotion of interests
and consequences for states-of-affairs in the world...' Yes, there is,
there surely is. But mustn't this be argued for? Doesn't philosophy have
to prove itself? Doesn't it somehow owe the doubters who wouldn't for a
moment think about trying it out themselves, a justification for its own
existence? Someone to whom the very idea of something's having intrinsic
worth is absolutely mysterious will not be helped by being told that
this is something philosophy has. So be it. 'I won't even consider it
until you can demonstrate its benefit to me.' Then philosophy is not for
you; I'm not here to proselytize.
> All of us who work in the discipline have made significant sacrifices in
order
> to contribute to the philosophical literature and/or to help others
develop
> philosophical skills and dispositions - sacrifices similar to, if not
identical
> with, sharing living quarters with lizards. We all, surely, have our
"lizard"
> stories. But what is it that motivates you to pursue and promote this
> discipline? ("Discipline" here not simply as a distinct scholarly form of
> inquiry and analysis but also in the Greek sense of a way of life, an
acquired
> and educated attunement to the world, others, and oneself.)
What is it that motivates you to pursue and promote this discipline?
Walter asks. My own answers are modest: I enjoy the 'distinct form of
inquiry and analysis,' and I believe deeply that someone who takes
philosophy seriously, even without committing his or her life to it,
will be drawn to think, however briefly, however confusedly, about a way
of life, in that old Greek sense; about how one should live. Fine words.
Philosophy does not flourish on lit-ideas, as it once did on Phil-Lit.
Try having a philosophical discussion (a discussion about some
philosophical problem), and before long, someone will intercede with the
discussion breaker that Aristotle was full of beans and has nothing to
say to the 'modern' mind; or that Aristotle thought (as did Frege,
later, with a vengeance) that it was possible for certain concepts to
have sharp boundaries, and that recent sociology (or Wittgenstein, or
Eleanor Rosch) have all shown how silly this is.
Any attempt (this has been my experience) to examine an issue carefully
and in detail is soon met with hoots and jeers, barrages of overripe
tomatoes, and charges of super-hyper-masturbatory-latte-drinking
intellectualism. So, I scarcely bother any longer-for my own peace of
mind I scarcely bother. Once, for example, it was possible to discuss
specific passages from the Tractatus, with law professors at
Northwestern, Eric Dean, and others; Hume (and sometimes Popper) with
Donal; Kant with Walter and Phil; contemporary British philosophy with
JL (and so on, I want to say, in order to disguise my failing memory).
As far as I can see we have lost the ability and the collegial
politeness to tolerate such discussions.
Thus we have the curious situation in which philosophy is asked to prove
that it's gainfully employed, and the ongoing ridicule of it, which
ridicule, if warranted, would make the original question unnecessary.
Robert Paul
The Reed Institute
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