Skip to main content

More on the Definition of Philosophy

I wrote here last week about William James' discussion of what "philosophy" means in the early pages of his last book.  I paraphrased his views somewhat, saying that "James believes that philosophy is only thinking about the world in an exceptionally rigorous way.” 

A friend wrote and questioned the validity of this paraphrase. In one of my direct quotes from James, after all, I have him referring  to exceptional men’s “imagination,” not their “rigor.” My friend finds this significant because if we define philosophy by the “rigor” of one's thought, we suggest that any intelligent person, by dint of application, can make a contribution to philosophy. 

On the other hand (says further my inquisitive and analytical friend) to say that philosophers are distinguished by “imagination” implies that some faculty of which some people have far more than others is required. 

So which is it: are philosophers a specialized caste, naturally as well as institutionally?, or is anyone a philosopher who puts his mind to it?

I am certain that James would say, and rightly say, that philosophy partakes of both of those conditions. The elitist and the populist account are both true.
 
Consider music. In one broad and perfectly legitimate sense anyone is a musician who is intrigued by sounds and the patterns that they can form. If you find that the simple arrangement of notes, of higher and lower frequencies, into a "scale" is a matter of interest: you are a musician. And music is only attending to that and analogous arrangements of notes in an exceptionally rigorous way.

Yet not everyone is likely ever to be a famous pianist of the stature of Paul Wittgenstein, just as not everyone is every likely to be a philosopher of the stature of his brother Ludwig. There is a something extra with which some are gifted and of which others, however rigorous their efforts, are deprived. There is no real point fussing over the names of that "something other."

James at one point speaks of the philosophic imagination as the ability to "see the familiar as if it were strange." Maybe the musical gift, quite analogously, is the ability to hear the familiar as if it is strange. And maybe the contrary gift, the ability to hear the strange as if it is already familiar, marks the calling of a music critic.    

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Story About Coleridge

This is a quote from a memoir by Dorothy Wordsworth, reflecting on a trip she took with two famous poets, her brother, William Wordsworth, and their similarly gifted companion, Samuel Taylor Coleridge.   We sat upon a bench, placed for the sake of one of these views, whence we looked down upon the waterfall, and over the open country ... A lady and gentleman, more expeditious tourists than ourselves, came to the spot; they left us at the seat, and we found them again at another station above the Falls. Coleridge, who is always good-natured enough to enter into conversation with anybody whom he meets in his way, began to talk with the gentleman, who observed that it was a majestic waterfall. Coleridge was delighted with the accuracy of the epithet, particularly as he had been settling in his own mind the precise meaning of the words grand, majestic, sublime, etc., and had discussed the subject with William at some length the day before. “Yes, sir,” says Coleridge, “it is a majesti

Five Lessons from the Allegory of the Cave

  Please correct me if there are others. But it seems to be there are five lessons the reader is meant to draw from the story about the cave.   First, Plato  is working to devalue what we would call empiricism. He is saying that keeping track of the shadows on the cave wall, trying to make sense of what you see there, will NOT get you to wisdom. Second, Plato is contending that reality comes in levels. The shadows on the wall are illusions. The solid objects being passed around behind my back are more real than their shadows are. BUT … the world outside the the cave is more real than that — and the sun by which that world is illuminated is the top of the hierarchy. So there isn’t a binary choice of real/unreal. There are levels. Third, he equates realness with knowability.  I  only have opinions about the shadows. Could I turn around, I could have at least the glimmerings of knowledge. Could I get outside the cave, I would really Know. Fourth, the parable assigns a task to philosophers

Searle: The Chinese Room

John Searle has become the object of accusations of improper conduct. These accusations even have some people in the world of academic philosophy saying that instructors in that world should try to avoid teaching Searle's views. That is an odd contention, and has given rise to heated exchanges in certain corners of the blogosphere.  At Leiter Reports, I encountered a comment from someone describing himself as "grad student drop out." GSDO said: " This is a side question (and not at all an attempt to answer the question BL posed): How important is John Searle's work? Are people still working on speech act theory or is that just another dead end in the history of 20th century philosophy? My impression is that his reputation is somewhat inflated from all of his speaking engagements and NYRoB reviews. The Chinese room argument is a classic, but is there much more to his work than that?" I took it upon myself to answer that on LR. But here I'll tak