[lit-ideas] Re: Transcendental and otherwise
- From: wokshevs@xxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Eric Dean <ecdean99@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2008 18:19:06 -0330
Replies to Eric D ... with love, of course. ----------------->
Quoting Eric Dean <ecdean99@xxxxxxxxxxx>:
> Walter O. writes:
>
> "For all [understandings of philosophy other than as a transcendental form of
> inquiry] as far as I am aware, we have other terms to describe the form of
> inquiry and practice being referred to within such conceptions.
> Understanding philosophy as a transcendental form of inquiry is intelligible
> and justifiable, in my mind, since no other form of inquiry can be said to be
> unique to the discipline of philosophy. Only philosophy can do
> transcendental analysis, and all transcendental analysis is philosophical."
ED:
> I read Walter, here, as giving a relatively standard explanation of the role
> of philosophy as a professional discipline. The explanation rests on a
> presumption that different disciplines -- "forms of inquiry and practice" --
> should each have their unique labels and their unique attributes.
>
> But I'm not quite sure why that's the case. It seems to me that biologists
> find themselves constantly applying results from physics, chemistry,
> mathematics, etc. Why might not philosophy be such a discipline, i.e. one in
> which the forms of inquiry and practice of other disciplines are regularly
> brought to bear and possibly critiqued?
-----------> Philosophy is almost universally understood in the terms Eric
describes. Thus we have "philosophy of mind," "philosophy of science," etc.. As
well, philosophers make empirical claims and predictions, reconstruct
historical phenomena, and appeal to evolutionary theory to explain phenomena, as
Dennett does in his recent interesting attempt to explain religion on the basis
of principles of natural selection.
My point, however, is that there is nothing distinctive to philosophy in such
affairs; the topics, problems and issues pursued may be very well analyzed and
explained, and great contributions to knowledge may thus be made. But a
non-equivocal conception of philosophy identifies what this discipline does and
can do that no other discipline does or can do. And certainly philosophy can
appeal to other disciplines and fields for its data, but what it does with such
data is unique to its disciplinary orientation.
Consider: what other discipline does mathematics like mathematics does? What
other field or area of endeavor does what literature does? Is there anything
else in the world that does what poetry does? Or painting? Are there really any
meaningful alternatives to sex? (Pardons, I still can't get Mike G's post out
of
my head.) Why should philosophy be so different from
these?
ED:
> And if one might object to that by saying the biologist who's applying
> chemistry is *applying* chemistry, not *doing* chemistry, I first would ask
> why the deciphering of the structure of DNA -- something I think biologists
> could legitimately claim as their discipline's accomplishment -- isn't also
> first order chemistry, since it amounts to the analysis of a class of
> chemical compounds?
---------> I understand very little of these matters. If these two really are
differenr disciplines, then it follows that a biological study of a phenomenon
individuates that phenomenon in a unique manner, and the same with the
individuation of a phenomenon as "chemical." This would hold even given that
biologists study chemical phenomena and chemists study biological phenomena.
For the former pursue their study biologically, the latter chemically.
Similarly, a philosopher may not be speaking *as* a philosopher every time she
speaks. (We do have other lives you know.)
ED:
> and second, would assert that my point could have been
> made by saying that the biologist is doing applied chemistry, mathematics and
> physics, each of which can be considered disciplines in their own rights.
--------------> Yes, I have acknowledged this above regarding disciplines.
"Fields of inquiry," however, like practices, blend together knowledge from
different disciplines. But that does not mean that education, law, engineering,
nursing, comprise distinct disciplines. Disciplinary-specific inquiry is brought
to such practices. But such practices are not themselves disciplines of inquiry.
"Education," for example, is a practice, not a distinct discipline.
I must stop here as I'm informed that dinner is ready.
Walter O.
MUN
>
> Why is it wrong to apply the term 'philosophy' to a discipline that applies
> the forms of inquiry and practices of other disciplines? Why, in other
> words, must there be a form of inquiry that is unique to philosophy in order
> for philosophy to be a 'justifiable' discipline?
>
> Even there is a form of inquiry and practice which is unique to philosophy --
> transcendental analysis -- I think further explanation is needed for why that
> uniqueness somehow defines philosophy. One could single out lots of things
> unique to identifiable forms of activity but which do not necessarily
> represent the essence of the activity. For example, one might assert that
> only the framing
> carpenter can nail together the roof struts, and all nailing together of roof
> struts is framing carpentry. But there is much more to framing
> carpentry than nailing together roof struts.
>
> I suppose one counter would be that my analogy is ill-formed.
> Transcendental analysis is to philosophy as
> nailing frames together is to framing carpentry, not as nailing a particular
> class of frames together is. But that's exactly
> what I for one was suggesting needs explaining. Exactly why is it that
> transcendental analysis is so essential to philosophy? It looks to me like a
> portion of a branch of the discipline, not the trunk or tap root of the whole
> thing.
>
> Finally, John McCreery has asked for a definition of transcendental analysis.
> Walter earlier has said that transcendental analysis is the attempt to
> identify the conditions of possibility for statements, period. But I think
> that's an impossibility, because too many things can be the conditions of
> possibility. For example, one of the conditions of possibility for a moral
> judgment is that the judgment is not the box on the other table in this room,
> because if the judgment were the box in this room it would no longer be a
> judgment. And on and on. What, exactly, is it that makes such an assertion
> a silly or pointless condition of possibility and other things, like the
> conditions Habermas puts on moral judgments, not so silly and pointless?
>
> I think it can be productive to try to assert the (substantial) conditions of
> possibility for moral judgment, but not because anyone's going to resolve the
> question of whether the asserted list contains all and only the conditions of
> possibility, but because doing so may help illuminate some corner of the
> human condition in a way otherwise not readily available. I think of it as a
> highly elaborated form of the questions Socrates posed to the unwary.
> Socrates, though, in Plato's earlier dialogs anyway, had the modesty not to
> presume to have found the answers to his own questions. And The Parmenides,
> it seems to me, provides Plato's cautionary tale on taking even the more
> expository passages in his later work as too literal a rendering of Plato's
> own views about answers Socrates might have been willing to accept.
>
> Asking apposite, incisive questions seems to me a skill worth cultivating.
> Transcendental analyses can provide very useful tools for the questioner, so
> I wouldn't jettison them. But the idea that they constitute the whole or
> even the soul of philosophy seems misguided to me.
>
> Regards to one and all.
> Eric Dean
> Washington DC
>
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