I've been bloghopping a little lately, looking at sites that focus on philosophy (sic).
The term philosophy, by the way, is one I dislike and try to avoid. But it is necessary to use it as a tag, both in order to find blogs that may be of interest and so that this time capsule may someday be opened.
It is commentary enough that Technorati has no stand-alone tag for philosophy, but links the topic with religion. Similarly the metaphysics bag has come to be largely filled with spiritual goodies, while ontology now refers to the automation of knowledge. None of this is undesirable. And the postmodernists may well feel happily prescient.
Anyway, what I found was both daunting and illuminating. Daunting because there's some tough cookies out there in Blogland. Power lifters who have read the great thinkers and keep up with the latest stuff (watch me try later to use this against them). Illuminating because it sheds a little light into that cave of shadows in which my mind is trapped.
Ever since the days of the uber-sophist Socrates we've been skirmishing along the boundary between Opinion and Truth. Science, instead of restoring peace, simply added to the arsenal of data with which we cudgel each other. Being dissatisfied with mere facts is the hobgobblin of philosophic minds.
All of which is preface. What struck me most in my casual walkabout was the degree to which the various practioners of meta-theory/hyper-knowledge spend most of their time arguing with arguments. This is probably not their fault. For this is the way of the academy, the treadmill to degree and tenure. (Beware here of that trick in which latecomers discredit the conversation because they can't break in on it.)
No harm in this really. It improves blood flow to the brain, exerts a civilizing influence, enriches the culture. Much like music. But as Comrade Marx said, "It bakes no bread." (Whoops! Where did that come from?)
Another, but less remembered, denizen of the nineteenth century, Paulsen, put it about that "the true philosopher (sic) goes after the thing itself." For a long time I took it that he meant (as he probably did) the thing-in-itself. But I favor now the idea that he could as easily mean that the true object of speculative inquiry (the term I prefer) is the limits of actual existence. No discovery here. Sounds like science (which it is) and existentialism (which it isn't).
Don't get it? Don't buy it? Actually, I'd rather be in trouble at this point. For one thing, I'm in over my head. For another, I'm doing exactly the thing I like least--striving for a definition from which all else flows. I need to do what I think needs to be done and let the work create its own category and method.
What is it that forces us into perpetual oscillation between truth and opinion? Is it our fault for wanting absolutes in a relative universe? Can we not be content with the grain of sand that contains the universe? We ought to be since the physicists are continually filling in the details of the universe that contains the universe. Can there be anything beyond this worth knowing?
The short answer is probably the one on most people's minds: How are we going to survive as a species? (Granting, of course, that for some people this actually means: How can I prevent my life style from slipping to the level of the majority of people on the planet.)
Part of the answer is factual. But a lot of it lies in that branch of morality known as policy. This leads us back to the blurry realm of opinion, and (curiously) to the vain quest for foundational discourse, especially the sort based on an ever deeper reading of the texts.
Full disclosure requires that I identify myself as a recovering neo-scholastic. I so wanted there to be real substances underlying the myriad of forms. My discovery of these, I thought, would stop the noisy debate and require everyone to listen to me. Consequently I favored the hard-core logicians and epistemologists, the theorists of language, and above all miners for a Heart of Being.
I give them their due. But honestly I can't keep up. I'm more interested now in work that is less technical but more rooted in deep thought and broad culture.
The few that make the cut are ones like Buber and Santayana, perhaps Unamuno, Whitehead and Dewey. Not because I agree with them, but because I want to be them. They have wrestled with and mastered the conundrum posers, but only to leave them behind. They speak with the authority that comes from thoroughly processed experience. What saves them from ending on the scrap heap of Opinion is not their answers but their questions.
It is from such a vantage that one might best address our actual situation. That seems the proper goal for speculation in this world at this time. It is not longer legitimate to inquire whether we exist, but only how we can.
buber
santayana
unamuno
whitehead
dewey
scholasticism
epistemology
ontology
metaphysics
marx
paulsen
philosophy
The term philosophy, by the way, is one I dislike and try to avoid. But it is necessary to use it as a tag, both in order to find blogs that may be of interest and so that this time capsule may someday be opened.
It is commentary enough that Technorati has no stand-alone tag for philosophy, but links the topic with religion. Similarly the metaphysics bag has come to be largely filled with spiritual goodies, while ontology now refers to the automation of knowledge. None of this is undesirable. And the postmodernists may well feel happily prescient.
Anyway, what I found was both daunting and illuminating. Daunting because there's some tough cookies out there in Blogland. Power lifters who have read the great thinkers and keep up with the latest stuff (watch me try later to use this against them). Illuminating because it sheds a little light into that cave of shadows in which my mind is trapped.
Ever since the days of the uber-sophist Socrates we've been skirmishing along the boundary between Opinion and Truth. Science, instead of restoring peace, simply added to the arsenal of data with which we cudgel each other. Being dissatisfied with mere facts is the hobgobblin of philosophic minds.
All of which is preface. What struck me most in my casual walkabout was the degree to which the various practioners of meta-theory/hyper-knowledge spend most of their time arguing with arguments. This is probably not their fault. For this is the way of the academy, the treadmill to degree and tenure. (Beware here of that trick in which latecomers discredit the conversation because they can't break in on it.)
No harm in this really. It improves blood flow to the brain, exerts a civilizing influence, enriches the culture. Much like music. But as Comrade Marx said, "It bakes no bread." (Whoops! Where did that come from?)
Another, but less remembered, denizen of the nineteenth century, Paulsen, put it about that "the true philosopher (sic) goes after the thing itself." For a long time I took it that he meant (as he probably did) the thing-in-itself. But I favor now the idea that he could as easily mean that the true object of speculative inquiry (the term I prefer) is the limits of actual existence. No discovery here. Sounds like science (which it is) and existentialism (which it isn't).
Don't get it? Don't buy it? Actually, I'd rather be in trouble at this point. For one thing, I'm in over my head. For another, I'm doing exactly the thing I like least--striving for a definition from which all else flows. I need to do what I think needs to be done and let the work create its own category and method.
What is it that forces us into perpetual oscillation between truth and opinion? Is it our fault for wanting absolutes in a relative universe? Can we not be content with the grain of sand that contains the universe? We ought to be since the physicists are continually filling in the details of the universe that contains the universe. Can there be anything beyond this worth knowing?
The short answer is probably the one on most people's minds: How are we going to survive as a species? (Granting, of course, that for some people this actually means: How can I prevent my life style from slipping to the level of the majority of people on the planet.)
Part of the answer is factual. But a lot of it lies in that branch of morality known as policy. This leads us back to the blurry realm of opinion, and (curiously) to the vain quest for foundational discourse, especially the sort based on an ever deeper reading of the texts.
Full disclosure requires that I identify myself as a recovering neo-scholastic. I so wanted there to be real substances underlying the myriad of forms. My discovery of these, I thought, would stop the noisy debate and require everyone to listen to me. Consequently I favored the hard-core logicians and epistemologists, the theorists of language, and above all miners for a Heart of Being.
I give them their due. But honestly I can't keep up. I'm more interested now in work that is less technical but more rooted in deep thought and broad culture.
The few that make the cut are ones like Buber and Santayana, perhaps Unamuno, Whitehead and Dewey. Not because I agree with them, but because I want to be them. They have wrestled with and mastered the conundrum posers, but only to leave them behind. They speak with the authority that comes from thoroughly processed experience. What saves them from ending on the scrap heap of Opinion is not their answers but their questions.
It is from such a vantage that one might best address our actual situation. That seems the proper goal for speculation in this world at this time. It is not longer legitimate to inquire whether we exist, but only how we can.
buber
santayana
unamuno
whitehead
dewey
scholasticism
epistemology
ontology
metaphysics
marx
paulsen
philosophy
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