Adam and I have been having an interesting discussion over email about this question. I'm just going to go ahead and post our whole email thread so far. Those few who are still reading this site, I'd love to get your thoughts. (I know I haven't posted anything for a long time, but I haven't forgotten about the Agora!)
Joey:
I just saw this meetup on a group that I'm subscribed to in D.C. (though I've never been to one of their actual meetings). Anyway, it reminded me of our conversation, and I thought you would find it interesting. It sounds like a great subject to discuss. My initial thought is that there is no such thing as a "professional philosopher" -- there are professional teachers of philosophy, or historians of philosophy. But one can be a "philosopher," a lover of wisdom, in any occupation. Philosophy is a way of life, a way of approaching life, rather than an occupation. I thought the list they gave of the day jobs of all those famous philosophers was pretty intriguing.
http://www.meetup.com/MarylandSocratesCafe/events/67044132/?a=ea1_grp&rv=ea1
Adam:
Very interesting topic. I agree with you that there is no such thing as a "professional philosopher" in the sense that someone can be a lawyer or a doctor. Of course, as you said, there are still plenty of people who make a living writing and teaching philosophy.
I guess I have also become skeptical of the whole enterprise of philosophy as a way of life. The word 'philosophy' means different things to different people at different times, so I am not even clear what a philosopher is and how such a person would approach life differently than any other person. For example, an analytic philosophy professor will surely approach life differently than a follower of new age spirituality, but both might considers themselves 'philosophers'. I can tell you how Socrates may have approached life (can we even know this?) or how Kant approached life, but I can't tell you how a philosopher should approach life. In fact, I am not certain that philosophers (if such people exist) have any special access to "truth" or "wisdom" over physicists, economists, or any other type of scientist.
Anyways, if one has religion, it is not clear to me why one needs philosophy (at least modern philosophy). Catholics might adhere to Aquinas's systematic theology, but even Aquinas considered himself a theologian over a philosopher and never thought that one could solely be a philosopher.
I still think that it is important to study philosophy for historical reasons, but it is not clear to me why it should be elevated to a status higher than any other subject.
Joey:
Adam, all good points. I think this is something that calls for an in-person discussion. But to respond to your thought about whether "philosophers" are even different from other people and whether "philosophy" constitutes a different way of approaching the world, I still hold that it does. Of course, it depends on how you define philosophy. If I define it as "the most fundamental or all-encompassing level of inquiry," though, then I can definitely make the cases that some people are much more "philosophical" than others.
Perhaps there is no decisive marker that shows some people to be philosophers and others not to be; rather, there is a spectrum of "more philosophical" and "less philosophical" people. I would say the more interested a person is in finding out the ultimate truths about reality, the more philosophical a person is. A philosophical person is necessarily very thoughtful and very curious; he continually questions his own assumptions and those of others, and pursues lines of reasoning to their broadest application. These are all necessary qualities of a philosophical person, but not sufficient, because one can have all these qualities but still have no interest in the most fundamental level of inquiry. For instance, someone can be very thoughtful, curious, and questioning when it comes to economics, but not interested at all in pursuing this questioning to the most fundamental level. I think there is a hierarchy of different levels of inquiry--maybe not a hierarchy in terms of value, but a hierarchy in terms of abstraction. I think philosophy basically comes down to metaphysics and epistemology--the most abstract level of inquiry, or what I have been calling the most "fundamental" level of inquiry. (Theology is also bound to metaphysics--they are essentially the same discipline. That's what Aristotle believed. So in that sense, I agree with Aquinas that one cannot be solely a philosopher. I think the philosopher is always, by definition, a theologian. Even an atheist philosopher is making pronouncements about the divine--namely, that there is no such thing--so, he is a kind of theologian.)
In this sense, yes, both a New Age spiritualist and an analytic philosophy professor can certainly be called philosophers. One may be an amateur and one may be a specialist, but they are both engaging with the ultimate questions about the nature of reality. This, however, brings up an interesting question: Is "questioning" a defining feature of being a philosopher? In other words, once someone has made up his or her mind and stops questioning, is he or she no longer a philosopher? You could make an pretty good argument that, to the extent that a person closes herself off from questioning, she is no longer a philosopher. However, that doesn't mean a philosophical person can never make up her mind about anything. If a long process of questioning and investigation leads her what she believes is a solid position, she might commit to that position, at least until further evidence comes to light that would give her reason to question it again. However, if she is truly a philosophical person, she will continue questioning, just she will have moved on to different questions. If a person completely closes himself off from all questioning at the most fundamental levels and forbids himself to ever think about metaphysics and epistemology ever again, then that person is basically forbidding himself from philosophizing.
So, it's not that philosophers have special access to truth that economists or scientists don't have--it's that they're investigating a different level of truth. Economists and scientists, if they turn their mind to that realm, can be philosophers, too. However, if they have never studied philosophy, they will probably not be able to think about such things with as much facility as those who have. (On the other hand, sometimes the minds of those who have studied philosophy become muddled by the things they have read, so paradoxically, the amateur philosopher can sometimes have insights that the well-versed philosopher is unable to see. I think this comes about mainly when the well-versed philosopher attributes too much reality to mere words, forgetting that words are only symbols for something else. So, this is kind of a Wittgensteinian critique of academic/professional philosophy.)
Hm. Well, I wasn't intending to write an essay, but I couldn't help myself. I'm sure there is much more to be said on this subject, and I bet you have your own responses to what I have just said. I think I might post this on the Agora, actually. No one has posted there for a while. Do you mind if I post the whole email conversation?
Adam:
Thanks for your thoughts. I don't mind if you post our conversation on Agora.
Very briefly- I used to hold, more or less, the view you outlined below. It strikes me as basically an Aristotelian conception of the sciences. Recently my view has been more influenced by W.V. Quine, Donald Davidson, Hilary Putnam, and Richard Rorty. I have become less sure that there can be such a thing as a higher or more fundamental level of inquiry. While the concerns of the philosopher are certainly more abstract and general than other sciences, these differences come from how we use language when discussing philosophical concerns, but might not correspond to any real differences in kind. So, the notion that philosophers investigate a special level of truth might just be a fiction arising from our misuse of language.
I have no problem with the study of metaphysics and epistemology per se. What I have a problem with is when philosophers claim that they have objective and ahistorical access to metaphysical and epistemological truths. These 'truths'--if 'truth' is even the right word--strike me more as the guiding principles, or presuppositions, of the lower forms of scientific inquiry. So philosophy may still still be a 'higher level' of inquiry in that it investigates the heuristic principles and assumptions of lower forms, it cannot establish those principles on an objective footing. The most it can do is clarify how we think about and conceive of the world in our current forms of inquiry at this particular point in history.
I know these thoughts are rather inchoate. I hope to write a better 'argument' this week.
"Quite generally, Quine holds that philosophical concerns are typically more abstract and more general than those of other disciplines, but that these differences are a matter of emphasis and degree; there is no sharp difference in kind. Philosophy has no special vantage point, no special method, no special access to truth. Here we have the crucial idea of Quine's naturalism, discussed in the previous section."
Joey:
Hm. I don't think we're disagreeing here. I'm not saying that philosophers have any objective and ahistorical access to metaphysical and epistemological truth. I don't think any educated person really believes that that's possible anymore. Nor am I saying that the philosopher investigates some "special level" of truth that is closed off to others. I think I would agree with Quine that while philosophy is more abstract and general than other disciplines, this is a difference in degree rather than a difference in kind. That's kind of what I was saying when I said that people are either "more philosophical" or "less philosophical"--there are differences in degrees among people, but it's not necessarily a difference in kind. I think the more philosophical people are the ones who, in thinking about their chosen discipline (or about anything, really), pursue the lines of reasoning as far back as they can go, which means that they end up thinking about the guiding principles or presuppositions of the discipline at hand. So for them, everything always really comes back to those guiding principles and presuppositions. The philosopher, then, is a person who is more concerned with these basic assumptions and the relationships among the different disciplines based on these assumptions, rather than being concerned with the more particular, nuanced arguments going on within each particular field.
At the end of your last email you admit that "philosophy may still still be a 'higher level' of inquiry in that it investigates the heuristic principles and assumptions of lower forms," although "it cannot establish those principles on an objective footing." That seems like you're saying philosophy is different in kind from the other disciplines, the "lower forms" that it is investigating. It seems that you want to preserve philosophy's special status with regard to the other disciplines (being the discipline that overlooks them all), while also being careful to state that philosophy has no objective footing, either. I think I would agree with that.
Joey:
I just saw this meetup on a group that I'm subscribed to in D.C. (though I've never been to one of their actual meetings). Anyway, it reminded me of our conversation, and I thought you would find it interesting. It sounds like a great subject to discuss. My initial thought is that there is no such thing as a "professional philosopher" -- there are professional teachers of philosophy, or historians of philosophy. But one can be a "philosopher," a lover of wisdom, in any occupation. Philosophy is a way of life, a way of approaching life, rather than an occupation. I thought the list they gave of the day jobs of all those famous philosophers was pretty intriguing.
http://www.meetup.com/MarylandSocratesCafe/events/67044132/?a=ea1_grp&rv=ea1
Adam:
Very interesting topic. I agree with you that there is no such thing as a "professional philosopher" in the sense that someone can be a lawyer or a doctor. Of course, as you said, there are still plenty of people who make a living writing and teaching philosophy.
I guess I have also become skeptical of the whole enterprise of philosophy as a way of life. The word 'philosophy' means different things to different people at different times, so I am not even clear what a philosopher is and how such a person would approach life differently than any other person. For example, an analytic philosophy professor will surely approach life differently than a follower of new age spirituality, but both might considers themselves 'philosophers'. I can tell you how Socrates may have approached life (can we even know this?) or how Kant approached life, but I can't tell you how a philosopher should approach life. In fact, I am not certain that philosophers (if such people exist) have any special access to "truth" or "wisdom" over physicists, economists, or any other type of scientist.
Anyways, if one has religion, it is not clear to me why one needs philosophy (at least modern philosophy). Catholics might adhere to Aquinas's systematic theology, but even Aquinas considered himself a theologian over a philosopher and never thought that one could solely be a philosopher.
I still think that it is important to study philosophy for historical reasons, but it is not clear to me why it should be elevated to a status higher than any other subject.
Joey:
Adam, all good points. I think this is something that calls for an in-person discussion. But to respond to your thought about whether "philosophers" are even different from other people and whether "philosophy" constitutes a different way of approaching the world, I still hold that it does. Of course, it depends on how you define philosophy. If I define it as "the most fundamental or all-encompassing level of inquiry," though, then I can definitely make the cases that some people are much more "philosophical" than others.
Perhaps there is no decisive marker that shows some people to be philosophers and others not to be; rather, there is a spectrum of "more philosophical" and "less philosophical" people. I would say the more interested a person is in finding out the ultimate truths about reality, the more philosophical a person is. A philosophical person is necessarily very thoughtful and very curious; he continually questions his own assumptions and those of others, and pursues lines of reasoning to their broadest application. These are all necessary qualities of a philosophical person, but not sufficient, because one can have all these qualities but still have no interest in the most fundamental level of inquiry. For instance, someone can be very thoughtful, curious, and questioning when it comes to economics, but not interested at all in pursuing this questioning to the most fundamental level. I think there is a hierarchy of different levels of inquiry--maybe not a hierarchy in terms of value, but a hierarchy in terms of abstraction. I think philosophy basically comes down to metaphysics and epistemology--the most abstract level of inquiry, or what I have been calling the most "fundamental" level of inquiry. (Theology is also bound to metaphysics--they are essentially the same discipline. That's what Aristotle believed. So in that sense, I agree with Aquinas that one cannot be solely a philosopher. I think the philosopher is always, by definition, a theologian. Even an atheist philosopher is making pronouncements about the divine--namely, that there is no such thing--so, he is a kind of theologian.)
In this sense, yes, both a New Age spiritualist and an analytic philosophy professor can certainly be called philosophers. One may be an amateur and one may be a specialist, but they are both engaging with the ultimate questions about the nature of reality. This, however, brings up an interesting question: Is "questioning" a defining feature of being a philosopher? In other words, once someone has made up his or her mind and stops questioning, is he or she no longer a philosopher? You could make an pretty good argument that, to the extent that a person closes herself off from questioning, she is no longer a philosopher. However, that doesn't mean a philosophical person can never make up her mind about anything. If a long process of questioning and investigation leads her what she believes is a solid position, she might commit to that position, at least until further evidence comes to light that would give her reason to question it again. However, if she is truly a philosophical person, she will continue questioning, just she will have moved on to different questions. If a person completely closes himself off from all questioning at the most fundamental levels and forbids himself to ever think about metaphysics and epistemology ever again, then that person is basically forbidding himself from philosophizing.
So, it's not that philosophers have special access to truth that economists or scientists don't have--it's that they're investigating a different level of truth. Economists and scientists, if they turn their mind to that realm, can be philosophers, too. However, if they have never studied philosophy, they will probably not be able to think about such things with as much facility as those who have. (On the other hand, sometimes the minds of those who have studied philosophy become muddled by the things they have read, so paradoxically, the amateur philosopher can sometimes have insights that the well-versed philosopher is unable to see. I think this comes about mainly when the well-versed philosopher attributes too much reality to mere words, forgetting that words are only symbols for something else. So, this is kind of a Wittgensteinian critique of academic/professional philosophy.)
Hm. Well, I wasn't intending to write an essay, but I couldn't help myself. I'm sure there is much more to be said on this subject, and I bet you have your own responses to what I have just said. I think I might post this on the Agora, actually. No one has posted there for a while. Do you mind if I post the whole email conversation?
Adam:
Thanks for your thoughts. I don't mind if you post our conversation on Agora.
Very briefly- I used to hold, more or less, the view you outlined below. It strikes me as basically an Aristotelian conception of the sciences. Recently my view has been more influenced by W.V. Quine, Donald Davidson, Hilary Putnam, and Richard Rorty. I have become less sure that there can be such a thing as a higher or more fundamental level of inquiry. While the concerns of the philosopher are certainly more abstract and general than other sciences, these differences come from how we use language when discussing philosophical concerns, but might not correspond to any real differences in kind. So, the notion that philosophers investigate a special level of truth might just be a fiction arising from our misuse of language.
I have no problem with the study of metaphysics and epistemology per se. What I have a problem with is when philosophers claim that they have objective and ahistorical access to metaphysical and epistemological truths. These 'truths'--if 'truth' is even the right word--strike me more as the guiding principles, or presuppositions, of the lower forms of scientific inquiry. So philosophy may still still be a 'higher level' of inquiry in that it investigates the heuristic principles and assumptions of lower forms, it cannot establish those principles on an objective footing. The most it can do is clarify how we think about and conceive of the world in our current forms of inquiry at this particular point in history.
I know these thoughts are rather inchoate. I hope to write a better 'argument' this week.
"Quite generally, Quine holds that philosophical concerns are typically more abstract and more general than those of other disciplines, but that these differences are a matter of emphasis and degree; there is no sharp difference in kind. Philosophy has no special vantage point, no special method, no special access to truth. Here we have the crucial idea of Quine's naturalism, discussed in the previous section."
Joey:
Hm. I don't think we're disagreeing here. I'm not saying that philosophers have any objective and ahistorical access to metaphysical and epistemological truth. I don't think any educated person really believes that that's possible anymore. Nor am I saying that the philosopher investigates some "special level" of truth that is closed off to others. I think I would agree with Quine that while philosophy is more abstract and general than other disciplines, this is a difference in degree rather than a difference in kind. That's kind of what I was saying when I said that people are either "more philosophical" or "less philosophical"--there are differences in degrees among people, but it's not necessarily a difference in kind. I think the more philosophical people are the ones who, in thinking about their chosen discipline (or about anything, really), pursue the lines of reasoning as far back as they can go, which means that they end up thinking about the guiding principles or presuppositions of the discipline at hand. So for them, everything always really comes back to those guiding principles and presuppositions. The philosopher, then, is a person who is more concerned with these basic assumptions and the relationships among the different disciplines based on these assumptions, rather than being concerned with the more particular, nuanced arguments going on within each particular field.
At the end of your last email you admit that "philosophy may still still be a 'higher level' of inquiry in that it investigates the heuristic principles and assumptions of lower forms," although "it cannot establish those principles on an objective footing." That seems like you're saying philosophy is different in kind from the other disciplines, the "lower forms" that it is investigating. It seems that you want to preserve philosophy's special status with regard to the other disciplines (being the discipline that overlooks them all), while also being careful to state that philosophy has no objective footing, either. I think I would agree with that.
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