[lit-ideas] Re: Who is the philosopher, and who is the poet?
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 07 Jun 2008 15:48:24 -0700
Lawrence
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.”
I think you have badly misunderstood me, which means that I have
expressed myself badly; for what I love is the doing of it (meaning in
small part that I don't think it's entirely out of the question that I
should contribute in some very small way to the disentangling or the
clarification of some contemporary or historical philosophical problem).
Even a new insight into Aristotle would on my view come about through
doing philosophy. If ancient and modern texts did not engage me
philosophically, I would have no interest in discussing them; I have no
interest in them simply because they are ancient or modern
(Post-Cartesian) texts, or because these are the Big Texts. As one of my
very first philosophy professors once said to a student who'd responded
to something by saying, 'Mill says...,' 'Yes, I know what he says; but
what does it mean, and is it true?' I really have no interest in some
traditional philosophical canon. Hegel makes me positively ill, and
except for Hume, the British Empiricists are as interesting to me as
James G. Blaine.
On 1 April, of this year, I wrote the following in response to something
Irene had said
'Philosophy is an activity, not a body of knowledge like history or
what's contained in a telephone book. It does not 'lie' anywhere, any
more or any less than biology 'lies somewhere.' There are philosophers
and there are biologists and there are stand-up comedians. What
philosophers and biologists and stand-up comedians do officially is
philosophy; biology; and stand up comedy, respectively, although the
first and last enterprises mentioned sometimes overlap.'
OPf course, I would add now that of course historians 'do history.'
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.
Whatever Bloom says about the 'American Mind,' and lost knowledge (or
the bluff of erudition at cocktail parties), has never, if one discounts
the proliferation of new fields with 'studies' appended to them (as in
post-nirvana studies), affected the study of Western philosophy to any
extent. Most Western philosophy departments teach 'the classics,' not
because they're the classics but because the important philosophical
problems come from them.
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.”
No, it isn't. My lament was that such discussions are no longer
tolerated on lit-ideas, and this is discouraging to a few of us. Surely,
my last sentence should make this clear: it isn't that some of us are
advocating discussions of philosophical Great Books; it's that we've
tried, and lately failed, to find space here for any philosophical
conversations at all.
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.”
[See above citation from my April post.]
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?
I don't understand what's meant by the suggestion that doing philosophy
is 'out there beyond the edge where there are no rules and can be no
discipline.
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?
Hmm. I really can't speculate, but I see no reason why it wouldn't be
welcomed with open arms.
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.
Yes, people do philosophy today. List on request.
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.
'He too...' Pas moi, ami.
I thank Lawrence for doing what he does.
Robert Paul
The Reed Institute
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