dondeg on 09/03/2013 11:56pm

How about: philosophy is a bare naked expression of our ignorance of the conditions of our existence. The operative term being “bare naked”. Almost all human activities are expressions of this ignorance, but what distinguished philosophy from almost all other human activities is an unceasing wandering and meandering though the infinite labyrinth and byways of the mind; a constant reflection on the thoughts and echoes, and the echoes of the echoes of this experience we call “mind”; a constant struggle trying to convert this experience into words, then getting tangled in the thicket of words and how they string together to express meaning, which we all intuitively know but do not know why we know it intuitively. Put in Plato’s terms: philosophy is that subject that studies, not the shadows, but the cave wall itself in such utter detail it periodically needs to be reminded it is studying the cave wall, and also has the job of reminding others involved in the other forms of human ignorance that they are merely studying some shadow or another on the cave wall. Philosophy is a grand expression of human ignorance in all its naked glory. Yay!

freeyourmindinsc on 30/01/2013 12:18am

Interesting as this article is, its view of the enterprise of philosophy is short-sighted. The question one may ask is, What does philosophy actually contribute to civilization? In answering this question, it hardly seems helpful to characterize its task as "to solve philosophical problems." That's not quite circular, but it's dangerously close.

Allow me to single out one of Professor Hacker's paragraphs which might shed light on the problem: the paragraph on whether our brain thinks. Obviously it sounds odd to say that my brain thinks, along with Professor Hacker's other musings: whether my brain can be liberal or conservative, etc. Here's the problem: most scientists, including a lot of cognitive scientists, are materialists in at least the operational sense of that term if not in the metaphysical sense, and some are out-and-out metaphysical materialists. That is, they believe that materialism in some sense affords us the best body of ideas about what kind of world this is, what reality is limited to physical entities or systems in some sense of those terms that obey mathematically describable laws--the idea needs more elucidation, I am aware, but this is a blog comment and not a refereed journal article; one must start somewhere. Consider the possibility that materialism is true, however we define it. In that case, given that my brains is where my cognitive activity takes place (processing experiences from my senses, reasoning about them, etc.), then from a scientific standpoint it is entirely reasonable to say that it is my brain that thinks; and if linguistic philosophy has a problem with that, then so much the worse for linguistic philosophy.

Cognitive scientists who subscribe to materialism believe they have solved the problem of whether mind and brain (or, perhaps, brain-and-central-nervous-system) are one and the same. Eliminative materialism, of course, holds just this, adding that our "folk psychological" descriptions of ourselves as thinking, having beliefs, etc., is just plain wrong scientifically, that it reflects nothing more than the ability to command a vocabulary--the equivalent of our saying "The sun is rising" when the scientific truth is that the Earth is turning so that the sun is coming into view from our location.

How should the philosopher respond to this on its own terms? To my mind the most responsible way of handling this line of reasoning is to realize that the rejection of metaphysics, still very much in vogue in mainstream Anglo-American philosophy even if the positivism that gave rise to it is dead and buried, was premature. Metaphysical propositions in fact demand study on their own terms. Materialism is in fact a metaphysical global perspective or worldview; it is more of a premise than a proper conclusion of any empirical science based on inferences from scientific data or replication or logical extrapolation. Metaphysics thus should be revived as a viable domain in which the advantages or disadvantages of materialism in its various guises can be discussed; and if we have figured out that certain metaphysical theses cannot be formulated and defended consistently--if, that is, their truth would render truth-attaining cognitive activity as impossible--in effect "sawing off the conceptual tree limb they are sitting on," this would be a discovery of the first importance. It would be, moreover, not an empirical discovery but a philosophical one, and it would be about a very general feature of the world (the necessary existence of nonmaterial agencies) and not simply an unpacking of our concepts.

TOoT on 14/01/2013 10:58am

The above article offers a rather fragmentary view of philosophy. This, however, is only to be expected: It appears to be written from an institutionalised view rooted in the analytic tradition, on the one hand, while it also suffers from the general fragmentation so characteristic of human thought, on the other.
The article neither reflects the fairly common notion that philosophy might just have to do with enquiring, with looking at serious questions with an open mind and heart. Instead of such openness we are told, somewhat authoritatively, “how things are.” For example, we are told that metaphysics is an illusion that ‘besets philosophers from generation to generation’, which illusion needs to be ‘dispelled by good philosophy’. But isn’t that an implicit claim of absolute certainty, a ‘god-like knowledge’ of what is true, right, just, etc.?
An even more immediate concern is that whilst apparently the article purportedly sets out to explain why anyone should choose to study philosophy, it is riddled with incoherent notions and inconsistent arguments. As a direct consequence, the article simply isn’t particularly meaningful.
The physicist turned philosopher Prof. David Bohm often approached the question of meaning from the point of view of coherence; the word ‘coherence’ coming from the Latin cohaerent-, meaning ‘sticking together’. For instance, it is easy to see that if elements of a story do not “stick together” well, then the story as a whole will not be particularly meaningful. Furthermore — and no doubt importantly with regard to a discussion on philosophy — we may also glimpse here briefly the implication that ‘wholeness’ is obviously connected with coherence and meaning.
If philosophy is indeed concerned with ‘how we ought to live, what kind of society we ought to aspire to, and what system of laws befits rational beings living under the rule of law’, then it is obviously aimed at looking at the general coherence and wholeness of human life. In which case, however, it is clearly far more than just a ‘unique technique’ — as also suggested in the article — that does not ‘contribute to human knowledge’ but “simply” aims to resolve “problems” basically around the way people use words.
And surely neither is ‘good philosophy’ (as defined and apparently represented by the author) the only field of human endeavour that confronts questions like how we ought to live, what kind of society we ought to aspire to. Obviously, both the major fields of art and religion (fragmentary as these also tend to be) also claim to do just that.
One possible conclusion is that maybe the same way as ‘the sciences are not immune to conceptual confusion’, neither is the ‘good philosophy’. But the reason for this lack of “immunity” might actually be rather simple: Philosophy itself is obviously a product of human thought.
Indeed, I would suggest that it all in fact comes down to thought — and I wonder whether the general task of philosophy, in our age, should not be precisely to enquire into the system of fragmentary thought, which system is not only common to and is shared by just about all human beings, but has come to dominate our lives with disastrous results.
As Prof. Bohm suggested — no doubt following on from his numerous discussions with the extraordinary philosopher, J. Krishnamurti — there is a pervasive fault in thought, affecting all areas of thought and everything thought does, including everything thought creates. Which, as I wrote elsewhere, ‘is obviously an awful lot — pun half intended. Society, culture, our various world-views, religion, philosophy, nationalism, the law, the financial system, technology, authority, jealousy, greed, aggression, hope, notions of individualism, a feeling of self, the "me", etc., are all put together by thought and rely on thought. To all of these and more, any fault and incoherence in thought is inevitably passed on. The pollution upstream affects everything downstream: If there is a general incoherence in the movement of thought, it is there at every turn.’ [source: www.theorderofthought.com]
It is plain to see that the general fragmentation so characteristic of thought has been wreaking havoc in all fields of human endeavor for rather long now and, if I may suggest respectfully, maybe it is time philosophers, and all of us interested in philosophy, the human condition, etc. started to pay attention to what is actual.
For instance, what Sir Ken Robinson described as the ‘catastrophic division’ of intellect and emotion has been one major consequence of the fragmentary activity of thought. However, instead of unearthing and exposing (or at least mentioning) this pertinent issue — which obviously has a great deal to do with the widespread incoherence and the general loss of wholeness, holiness, and meaningfulness of human lives — the article even asserts the necessity of this assumed division: We are told that ‘good philosophy’ needs to be distanced from the “passionate half” of human beings, philosophy needs a degree of detachment to make reason and reasonableness possible.
But if “philosophy”, thus circumscribed, obviously isn’t and cannot ever claim to be concerned with the wholeness of human beings and the wholeness of life, could such philosophy, or philosophising even, ever be at all coherent or meaningful? The answer follows, doesn’t it, even purely logically…