[lit-ideas] Re: Serious vs Modern
- From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2006 10:16:51 +0900
On 12/29/06, Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Nonsense. That there is debate over definitions does not mean that there is
isn't clarity over what an expression can't mean.
Phil is right. But he he omits is that qualification that the clarity in
question is limited to players of a particular language game, who have
agreed that to play their game an expression must be used in a particular
way.
Thus, for example, students in an introduction to philosophy class may be
told that the history of philosophy can be divided into Ancient, Medieval,
and Modern periods. As this (hypothetical) course unfolds they are told that
Plato is Ancient, Aquinas Medieval and Descartes the first of the Moderns.
If, then, on the final exam they identify Descartes as an ancient
philosopher, their teacher can say, unequivocally, "You're wrong."
Phil has said a number of things about the "modern" in "modern
philosophers." He has claimed that it is a term of art known and used by
philosophers to designate Descartes and later philosophers. If, then, Langer
is both writing as a philosopher and using a term of art as such, she is
being a sloppy philosopher.
My reply on this point is that, if you read the surrounding text, it is
clear that Langer is not using "modern philosophers" in the same sense as
Phil's term of art. He may reply that if she uses "modern philosophers" in
some different sense, she is not a member of the group he recognizes as
properly trained philosophers and, thus, he is free to hold her in contempt.
To me this is mere tribalism with elitist pretensions.
Phil has also claimed that "modern" makes a general distinction on a par
with that made by "serious" and described an everyday meaning of "serious"
that implies that being a serious philosopher is something like being a
serious beer drinker or serious cricket player—a description under which
Langer is surely a serious philosopher. This description cannot, therefore,
be whatever it was that Walter had in mind when he implied that Langer is
not a serious philosopher.
Which brings me to
This 'debate by
definition' is a rhetorical move that distracts from whatever substantial
issues are at hand.
Indeed. This is why I take Phil's haring off after the notion that "modern
philosopher" and "serious philosopher" make similar general distinctions to
be a red herring. I am still waiting for Walter to tell us what he did, in
fact, have in mind.
My imagination suggests someone like Walter's beloved Kant, a sober,
methodical purveyor of subtle distinctions who claims to have discovered
some absolute truths.
In contrast, Langer, while also a purveyor of subtle distinctions, makes no
such claim. In the introduction to _Form and Feeling_ she writes,
"A book, like a human being, cannot do everything; it cannot answer in a few
hundred pages all the questions which the Elephant's Chile in his 'satiable
curiosity might choose to ask. So I may as well state at the outset what it
does not attempt to do. It does not offer criteria for judging
'masterpieces,' nor even successful as against unsuccessful lesser
works....It does not set up canons of taste. It does not predict what is
possible or impossible in the confines of any art, what materials may be
used in it, what subjects will be found congenial to it, etc. It will not
help anyone to an artistic conception, nor teach him how to carry one our in
any medium. All such norms and rulings seem to me to lie outside of the
philosopher's province. The business of philosophy is to unravel and
organize concepts, to give definite and satisfactory meanings to the terms
we use in talking about any subject (in this case art); it is, as Charles
Pierce said, 'to make our ideas clear'."
Later she notes,
"There are certain difficulties peculiar to this undertaking, some of which
are of a practical, some of a semantical nature. In the first place,
philosophy of art should, I believe, begin in the studio, not the gallery,
auditorium, or library. Just as the philosophy of science required for its
proper development the standpoint of the scientist, not of men....who saw
"science" as a whole, but without any conception of its real problems and
working concepts, so the philosophy of art requires the standpoint of the
artist to test the power of its concepts and prevent empty or naive
generalizations."
It follows, then, that the philosopher must listen to artists, who are not
altogether articulate in talking about what they do.
"They speak their own language, which largely resists translation into the
more careful, literal vocabulary of philosophy....Their vocabulary is
metaphorical because it has to be plastic and powerful to let them speak
their serious and often difficult thoughts. They cannot see art as 'merely'
this-or-that easily comprehensible phenomenon; they are too interested in it
to make concessions to language. The critic who despises their poetic speech
is all too likely to be superficial in his examination of it, and to impute
to them ideas they do not hold rather than to discover what they really
think and know."
In an effort to reconstruct what artists think and know in "the more
careful, literal vocabulary of philosophy," the philosopher will often find
herself using terms in new senses. Thus,
"All the poor philosopher can do is to define his words and trust the reader
to bear their definition in mind. Often, however, the reader is not ready to
accept a definition—especially it it is in any way unusual—until he sees
what the author intends by it, why the word should be so defined...."
She requests from her reader, in other words, the openness of mind required
to reserve judgment and consider the possibility that expressions may be
used in ways different from those that the reader expects. Does that make
her non-serious? Not to me.
John
--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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