[lit-ideas] Re: Serious vs Modern
- From: Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2006 08:50:43 -0400
John McCreery wrote:
"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."
But for philosophers, 'modern philosophers' is a technical expression,
referring to particular philosophers during a particular time period. And
this usage was established well before Langer was writing. If Langer meant
her contemporaries, then she was being remarkably sloppy. Yet, her argument
was that philosophy ought to have the precision found in history. So we
have someone arguing that philosophers ought to have the methodological
discipline found in historians, yet, on John's account, using philosophical
terms in an undisciplined fashion. This doesn't inspire me to read anything
of Langer's.
John again:
"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."
Virtually all university-trained philosophers will tell you that 'modern
philosophers' most likely includes Descartes, maybe even Bacon, and probably
runs up to at least the end of the 19th century. Virtually no
university-trained philosopher would agree that who is to be included as a
'modern philosopher' is a 'fairly straightforward historical question'. The
reason for this is that the term 'modern', in philosophy, refers not
primarily to a historical period but to ... well, here the debate begins.
Is it a methodology? A set of assumptions? Hence the debate around the
expression 'post-modern philosophers'. Again, if Langer takes 'modern
philosophers' to be those she rubs shoulders with, then she isn't using the
expression as most philosophers use it.
John continues:
"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."
I didn't take it that way at all. I took the term to be one that
distinguishes people who are occupied by philosophy, where occupied is not
just occupation, from those who engage in philosophical thought
occasionally. One might also distinguish between serious hockey players and
beer league players. Or serious writers from email-list contributors. On
this reading of 'serious', it has the same purpose as 'modern', namely, to
distinguish in very general terms.
John concludes:
"We might get serious about the meaning of "serious," but this is a
challenge which neither Phil or Walter has accepted."
No one else accepted the 'challenge' so I wonder what John takes to be the
significance of the silence? That John singles out Walter and myself is, on
the otherhand, significant.
Sincerely,
Phil Enns
Glen Haven, NS
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