From: Matt Kundert (pirsigaffliction@hotmail.com)
Date: Sat Apr 02 2005 - 19:35:58 BST
Hey Ham,
Ham said:
I asked what the distinction was between philosophy and philosophology that
you implied couldn't be made.
Matt:
Yeah, well, I've been telling you.
The distinction that I don't think can be made is between
philosophy and philosophology
philosophy's substance to philosophy's history
philosophy's center to philosophy's periphery
philosophy's heart to philosophy's bladder
The "natural kind" of philosophy pans out, as far as I can see (and as I
mentioned before), to the "problems of philosophy," whatever those may be.
By saying that the "problems of philosophy" are naturally conspicuous to all
you can supposedly teach, e.g., "the problem of free will" without teaching
Aristotle, Hobbes, Spinoza, Hume, Kant, blah, blah, etc., etc.
Except you can't. Because even if you drop their names and their idioms,
you're still inadvertantly teaching them because without them we wouldn't
even know what counted as a "problem of free will," let alone an answer.
See, it doesn't matter really what I say about the distinction, how its
held, what it amounts to, because I don't want the distinction. All me
defining it will do is empty out my experience of dealing with people who do
hold the distinction. What matters is how _you_ define it, how _you_ hold
it. Because it certainly isn't incumbent upon me to answer what the
substance of philosophy is, 'cuz I don't think there is one. However, it is
incumbent on you to answer the question, "What is this fire people are
circling, but never getting warm by?" with more than "the substance of
philosophy" because I already know that part. What _is_ the substance of
philosophy?
Everything in your replies to me is a reflection of your first: "Matt,
you're glorifying philosophology." But that begs the question. It is the
distinction between philosophy and philosophology that is at issue. I don't
think philosophy would turn into some polite after-dinner conversation
(though that's not bad either), but the only reason you think so is because
somehow what we (or some people at least) are doing now is _different_ from
dilettantish, intellectual gossip, that you are performing a serious Kantian
superscience and I would simply have us enact a snippy Socratic
conversation, and it hinges on our maintaining a distinction between
philosophy's substance and philosophy's history. However, I'm arguing that
_nothing would change_ in our actual practice of philosophy because our
actual practice of philosophy doesn't hold a distinction betwen philosophy's
substance and its history. Philosophy would go on its own merry way,
changing, evolving, all depending on the idiosyncratic needs of the present
culture and participants _just as it always has done_.
Obviously, you think differently on that last point, but whatever else,
philosophy's practice couldn't possibly hold the distinction. Substance and
history are, if they are distinguishable, inextricably bound together.
The point I'm trying to make, essentially, is that what we do here, the
exchange of (more or less) informed opinions, is not peripheral to
philosophy, not just something we do in our "spare time" whereas _real_
philosophy is our regular job, as you would have it, but just as much apart
of philosophy as sitting in solitude writing a thesis on the ontology of
Being. Its _all_ philosophy. Plato's Dialogues, Aristotle's treatises,
Augustine's Confessions, Montaigne's essays, Spinoza's
geometrically-inspired proof on God/reality, Kant's transcendental
deduction, Hegel's Phenomenology, Nietzsche's polemics, Frege's logic,
Carnap's semantics, Wittgenstein's Tractatus, Wittgenstein's aphorisms,
Camus' novels, Sartre's plays, Heidegger's voice of Being, Foucault's
genealogies, Derrida's deconstruction, MacIntyre's histories, Pirsig's
quasi-novels/metaphysics, Rorty's dilettantish
essays-about-whatever-it-is-he-feels-like-writing-today-----------------they're
all philosophy.
Matt said:
I think modern philosophy has shown itself to be a dead end. We need to
find something else for philosophy to be.
The reason we want to understand the past is to understand what the past was
up to and that way be able to decide whether or not we want to continue
doing it.
Ham said:
This sounds suspiciously like political expediency. Are we to decide what
our personal philosophy should be on the basis of whether it matches the
current trend or not? There would seem to be some lack of intregity in that
approach. (Incidentally, I fear that our friend Mr. Pirsig may have fallen
into that trap.) Do you not concede that a philosopher should march to the
beat of his own drum, regardless of what others do? If I felt that my
thesis had nothing new to offer, I would not have tried to get it published
or put it on the Internet.
Matt:
This is the same thing as before. Expediency as opposed to what? How are
we to figure out what we are supposed to do? Do people naturally wake up
one day and go, "OH MY GOD!!! If we live in a cause and effect world, how
are we to have free will? And if there's no free will, how are we to have
moral responsibility?!?" No, they go to Phil 101 and Teach pumps'em full of
that nonsense. If if they do wake up one day thinking something like that,
what does that mean for almost everyone else who sleeps soundly? Are they
dumb? Ignorant? Unenlightened? Inattentive to their humanity?
And who said anything about basing personal philosophies on current trends?
Oh, wait, that was you----because what else could the "problems of
philosophy" be except the current trends of philosophy. Except that you
think the "substance" of philosophy is eternal, perennial, never-changing
(oh, and also unknowable). Well, then how do you account for the
conspicuous changes in philosophy? The fact that Plato isn't really
interested in the same things as Descartes, and certainly not the same
things as Carnap? Plato never had a picture of the "mind" as a
philosophical concept. Plato never thought there was a problem with free
will. How do you account for these changes? Are the _real_ problems of
philosophy coming to be found as we more forward, make progress in
philosophy? But what about all this other crap going on? How do you
distinguish the "correct trends in philosophy," the ones that unearth what
philosophy's really always been about, from the "incorrect" ones, the red
herrings? _Especially_ if "ultimate truth is beyond reach of intellect," as
you say.
See, I don't think we need to match our philosophy with current trends,
obselete trends, dominant trends, peripheral trends, or non-existent trends:
we can do whatever we want. The question is: what do you want to do? If
you want to become a professional philosopher, then you'd better study the
"current trends" because that's the only way you'll get a job. But what
about after that, after you get tenure? At that point, you _can_ do
whatever you want and keep your job. But why would we call you a
philosopher if you talked about the economic progression of contemporary
Russia, if that's what you wanted to do? What's more, what if you don't
want to be a professional philosopher? How would you know what you wanted
to do was philosophy? Except maybe by looking at the "trends" of philosophy
(old or new)?
So while I don't think we need to "match" our philosophy with anybody elses,
there's a question as to whether what we are doing should be called one
thing or another, despite the author's wishes. What makes philosophy
philosophy? And not literature? Or physics?
Ham said:
Matt, I have no aversion to informed opinions and, in fact, find you
extremely well informed in Philosophy. What I'm challenging is the general
reluctance of MD participants to go out on a limb and stand for something --
whether it meets with popular/professional/historical acceptance or not. If
nothing else, a philosopher should be autonomous.
Matt:
I do find it funny that you would accuse people here of not going out on a
limb. It seems to me that people here do just about anything they want
whether or not it has an obvious hook into what people would traditionally
call "philosophy." It sounds like babble sometimes, but that's the price of
autonomy.
Basically, while attempting to protect the professional's charge of the
"substance" of philosophy, what real, serious philosophers would all be
doing, you go for the great antiprofessionalist stick, which is exactly what
Pirsig and most people here do, and is exactly what the
philosophy/philosophologist distinction is for: "There would seem to be some
lack of intregity in [Matt's trendy, historically conscious] approach. ...
Do you not concede that a philosopher should march to the beat of his own
drum, regardless of what others do?"
Then why the _hell_ should I give a damn about your "substance" of
philosophy?
And that's the question you can't answer, as far as I can see, with a
philosophy/philosophology distinction intact.
Matt
p.s. I have to apologize for the Thorn essay because I won't be able to
read it. I have much too much on plate already to read it, try and figure
out what its about, and then write something coherent and/or interesting
about it. My (barest) impression of Rand (besides political revulsion) is
that she seems like a pragmatist in some respects, but in the end she
becomes a foundationalist (why else all that "objective" junk, after all?).
All I can suggest for getting to know my position any more than you already
do is using Pirsig as our "mutually experienced object" and most of my
current position is spelled out in my "Confessions" and "Philosophologology"
essay (though there is also a review posted, and another one on McWatt
hopefully soon to be posted, not to mention two or three other essays in the
works, and then of course our conversation).
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