This is a brief note on the quandary of how to recognise the part of the
philosopher that is irreducibly a man. Let's for the sake of simplicity say
that there's two kinds of philosophers; the German's have the term
_Fachphilosoph_, i.e. a trained philosopher, or, more precisely, someone
who is trained as a philosopher. On a different side of the field stands
what we could call the organic philosopher: he who does philosophy. While
the former is an academic, or at least academically trained, the later can
be a child, an eccentric or a senior level manager. Anyone can
philosophize.
Since we cannot reduce philosophy to a programme of training, and since we
cannot specify how philosophy differs in substance from other thinking
activity we are challenged by the question of how to distinguish the
philosopher qua philosopher from the philosopher as man. How is this
important?
Let's look at some analogous fields of operation. First, in the realm of
literature we have figures such as Celan, Pound or Hamsun. Clearly authors
of outstanding works of literature they still ended on the wrong side of
history. Most of us today are able to recognise that this is a question we
need to resolve at its most intimate: unless we want to resort to the
ancient rite we know as autodafe we actually need to recognise the value of
these authors' works while also taking to heart their unpalatable
extra-literary views. Today people read Pound. They read Celan and Hamsun,
and often we hear about connections between these authors' social views and
their literature. We receive such analyses with praise. The literature is
read. Readers are engaged. Culture survives and thrives.
We could go on to consider film. Leni Riefenstahl. Griffith. Etc.
Now how about philosophy? Does the undecidability between philosophy and
the realm outside it make it impossible to allow philosophers to be on
anything but the right side of every historical turn? We know intuitively
that this conclusion is wrong. And yet we haven't been able to resolve our
key quandary: how do we allow a philosopher to be wrong in matters outside
his philosophy?
Happy birthday, Robert Paul.
Mvh. / Yours sincerely,
Torgeir Fjeld, PhD
http://torgeirfjeld.com/
