Overcoming
the Tradition as a Spiritual Act
Anti-Philosophy
& Anti-Academia
“…what
is the use of studying philosophy if all that it does for you is
enable you to talk with some plausibility about some abstruse
questions of logic, etc., and if it does not improve your thinking
about the important questions of everyday life, if it does no make
you more conscientious than any…journalist in the use of DANGEROUS
phrases such people use for their own ends.” (Wittgenstein,
1944)
Heidegger
too questioned the point of academic philosophy. Wittgenstein’s
position, as articulated above, is very close to Heidegger’s own
stance against academic philosophy.
Heidegger
thought that academic philosophy “has no heart…for radical,
revolutionary questioning” (Caputo, 1998). Indeed, although
the debates in the departmental seminars can get a little heated at
times (especially on trivial points of technical detail), the
“institutional discourse is never ultimately disturbed by these
debates, however lively [they are]” (Caputo, 1998). In fact, both
Heidegger and Wittgenstein thought that “philosophising is a living
act (Vollzug), a personal form of life” in which “the
philosopher seeks for himself to make things questionable” (1998).
It may not have been the case, however, that Wittgenstein thought,
like Heidegger, that philosophy “is a normalising” discourse
because Wittgenstein’s own radicalism isn't entirely of the same
timbre as Heidegger’s (as we have seen in previous sections). That
is, Heidegger’s radicalism is ultimately more political – yet
still ethical/spiritual - than Wittgenstein’s, whereas
Wittgenstein’s radicalism is of a more personal and spiritual bent.
So
both Wittgenstein and Heidegger had a “vision of a culture in which
philosophy was not a profession, nor art (Rorty, 1976)”.
Wittgenstein,
in a letter to the logical positivist Maurice Schlick, once said that
“from
the bottom of my heart it is all the same to me what professional
philosophers of today think; for it is not for them that I am
writing” (1932).
Yet,
strangely enough, it is, usually, only professional philosophers who
think that they have got Wittgenstein right. That is,
if professional philosophers accuse each other of “getting
Wittgenstein wrong”, then what hope have non-professional persons
got of getting him right? A few, though not many, Wittgensteinians
may say, however, that non-professional Wittgensteinians have more
chance of getting Wittgenstein right. Though this is certainly not
the general view amongst, say, analytic Anglo-American philosophers.
Despite
all that, Wittgenstein has of course been hugely influential outside
the Philosophy Academy in the sky. Films-makers have produced works
on him, poets have written poems about him, sociologists,
psychologists, linguistics and even religious thinkers have stolen or
used his ideas. Now this is strange, at a prima facie level,
if we bear in mind the considerable complexity of Wittgenstein’s
work – a complexity that also runs alongside considerable
profundity. However, if the views articulated in this essay about
Wittgenstein’s essential mysticism/spiritualism are correct,
then perhaps it's not so strange - after all - that he is well loved
outside philosophy departments. It may indeed be Wittgenstein’s
unthought or thoughtless esoteric prose-style that appeals to
all those people on the outside. (As well as all those people outside
all academies.) There must be something of a
non-complex or non-intellectual (or even anti-intellectual, as
in Heidegger) nature that appeals to all these non-philosophers. Can
we really accept the possibility, which some people (say, certain
analytic philosophers) may state, that all of these outsiders
have got Wittgenstein wrong?
The
Solution(s): Metaphilosophy and the Desire to Overcome Philosophy
“It
is [Heidegger’s What is
Metaphysics?] that Carnap
chose to attack…But both Heidegger and Carnap were claiming to move
beyond metaphysics, and Carnap’s article, for all its aggression,
was not the cheap trading in misunderstanding its has sometimes been
supposed to be…[Carnap argues that Heidegger] fails to take account
of the history of philosophy he is disengaging and with which he is
working…” (Marian Hobson, 1998) ¹¹
It's
not surprising, to an Anglo-Saxon at least, that most of the great
revolutionary and/or metaphilosophical philosophers of the past were
either Austrian or German (e.g., Hegel, Marx, Heidegger, Wittgenstein
and even the positivist Carnap written about in the above).
It
was Hegel, himself a revolutionary metaphilosopher, who implanted
into the psyche of the great Austro-German philosophical tradition
the imperative that each new generation of philosophers must
transcend the generation that had gone before. This was, to Hegel,
the “spiritual destiny” of all good German philosophers.
So
the philosopher Carnap, whose logical positivism claimed to “overcome
metaphysics”, analysed a “metaphysical work” - in order to
“overcome metaphysics” - which was itself attempting to
overcome metaphysics.
To
continue this interplay between Carnap and Heidegger: it's worth
noting that Heidegger himself borrowed one of Carnap’s titles for
one of his own works. All this shouldn't be too surprising, however:
both Heidegger and Carnap were not only against traditional
metaphysics: they were also against metaphysics for similar
reasons.
For
example, both of them were against the metaphysician’s desire to
grab hold of morality and turn it into some kind of quasi-science in
which the objects of study would be moral pre-existent ideas rather
than objects, processes, etc. Heidegger thought that this shouldn't
even be attempted. That is, morality and theology should have some
kind of autonomy from philosophy. Carnap, on the other hand, thought
this couldn't be done (at least during the period referred to
here). He thought that the domains of theology and morality were
empty and therefore not open to quantification. (Despite what some
may call Carnap's “free and easy” attitude towards conceptual
schemes or conventions.)
Heidegger
also used the term “destruction” (as in the “destruction of
metaphysics”). The term itself was borrowed from Martin Luther –
his word destructio. (This in fact was Luther’s own tool for
cutting through medieval scholastic intellectualism in order to
re-find the pure truth and spirit of the New Testament.) And
the post-structuralist movement in turn borrowed and then adapted
this word to come up with the now famous term “deconstruction”.
Despite
what both Heidegger and Wittgenstein (perhaps Derrida later) may have
thought about their own destructivist, deconstructionist or
therapeutic work, they weren't doing something new - or at least they
weren't doing something that was entirely new. Rorty makes
this clear in the following passage (which can be taken to be a
potted history of meta-philosophy):
“Heidegger
[and Wittgenstein?] is not the first to have invented a vocabulary
whose purpose is to dissolve the problems considered by his
predecessors, rather than to propose new solutions to them. Consider
Hobbes and Locke on the problems of the scholastics, and Carnap and
Ayer on ‘pseudo-problems’. [And consider Socrates retreat from
pre-Socratic natural philosophy.] He is not the first to have said
that the whole mode of argument used in philosophy up until his day
was misguided. Consider Descartes on method, and Hegel on the need
for dialectical thinking…In urging new vocabularies for the
statement of philosophical issues, or new paradigms of argumentation,
a philosopher cannot appeal to antecedent criteria of
judgment…Descartes and Hegel may
have seemed ‘not real philosophers’ to many of their
contemporaries, but they created new problems in place of the
old…Many philosophers – practically all those whom we think of as
founding movements – saw the entire previous history of philosophy
as the working out of a certain set of false assumptions, or
conceptual confusions…But only a few of these have suggested that
the notion of philosophy itself – a discipline distinct from
science, yet not to be confused with art or religion – was one of
the results of these false starts.”
(Rorty, 1976)
As
far as Heidegger is concerned, although the German philosopher
thought that metaphysics could only be overcome by “ceasing all
overcoming and by leaving metaphysics to itself” (Heidegger), he
didn't, in fact, succeed - at least not according to Jacques Derrida.
The French philosopher thought that
“any
attempt to claim an escape from metaphysics necessarily involves the
blind appeal to at least one metaphysical concept which compromises
the escape
the moment it is claimed” (see Bennington, 1997).
That
is, according to Derrida himself, “complicity with metaphysics”
is unavoidable. And elsewhere, referring directly to Heidegger,
Derrida said: “…Heidegger, for example, worked within the
inherited concepts of metaphysics.” Then Derrida goes even further
by claiming that
“Since
these concepts are not elements or atoms, and since they are taken
from a syntax and a system, every particular borrowing brings along
with it the whole of metaphysics.”
So,
for example, not only did Heidegger, as it were, inadvertently
“borrow” the concept [Being], as Derrida seems to imply, I think
that he wanted to and knowingly borrowed such a concept
so as to connect himself with the metaphysical tradition he tacitly
still admired or respected. This is the tradition that had more or
less began with Aristotle and, to take just one example from the late
19th century, was still going strong with Brentano’s
thoroughly Aristotelian philosophy.
To
turn to Wittgenstein.
Although
he was very anti-academic, it mustn't be forgotten that he spent at
least twenty years as an academic (as did Heidegger). And throughout
Wittgenstein’s life he spent most of his time almost exclusively in
the company of other intellectuals (if not always with philosophers).
So, perhaps for Wittgenstein, there was “no doing philosophy that
does not engage (even if in the mode of denial) with the history…of
philosophy” (Bennington, 1998). Though my own take on the thesis
that if one assumes a meta-philosophical position, or “deconstructs
the philosophical tradition”, or whatever, one is still
contaminated, polluted or corrupted by that which one is attempting
to overcome.
For
example, I don't believe, in a certain sense, that Marx was actually
a complete Marxist (as it were). Despite the fact that he “turned
Hegel on his head”, it was still Hegel he turned on his
head. So rather than saying that Marx was a “Left Hegelian”, why
not simply say that he was a Hegelian simpliciter (or an
Aristotelian rather than a “Left Aristotelian”)?
Similarly
with Nietzsche.
The
19th century German philosopher was utterly shaped and
formed by the Christianity he was trying to overcome. So much so that
he even wrote a work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in the
Old-Testament style (as well as other works in the New Testament
style).
So
it may have been with Wittgenstein.
He
profoundly reacted against, for example, Cartesian internalism (even
if he had never read Descartes). He therefore, in a sense,
turned Descartes on his head and in so doing became a kind of
proto-externalist (of the late 20th century variety). Of
course, certain Wittgensteinians may say, along with certain
Derrideans, that the “binary opposition” (Derrida’s term),
externalism/internalism, is false; or it's at the least simply
counterproductive in that its use will trap philosophical radicals
within the system they are trying to overcome. (Of course,
Wittgenstein had read Frege, Russell, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer,
Kant, and many others, despite his protestations to the contrary.) In
my view, again, it was Cartesian internalism and individualism that
he most rejected. On the other hand, Kant, Schopenhauer,
Kierkegaard, Frege and Russell were the philosophers he most
accepted.
Wittgenstein’s
spiritual path beyond the tradition, like Heidegger’s, wasn't so
pure after all. Indeed, if one wants to achieve a state of pure
unthought or thoughtlessness, then perhaps reading or writing lots -
or even a little (in Wittgenstein’s case) - philosophy is perhaps
not the best way to achieve that. (Even Zen unthought or
thoughtlessness requires a hell of a lot of normal thought
before it can achieve that state: if such a state can ever, in fact,
be reached.)
In
many cases Wittgenstein thought that the causes of philosophical
confusion were philosophical questions themselves. In this sense he
is like Heidegger and Derrida who both thought that in order to
overcome or deconstruct western philosophy, we mustn't use its
tools, confront its problems, or even ask traditional philosophical
questions. (Derrida, however, unlike Heidegger, thought that we could
never truly escape metaphysics.) In fact, Wittgenstein himself said,
of philosophical questions (or at least traditional
philosophical questions), that it “makes no sense to ask” (1947)
these sort of questions in the first place.
Though
it wasn't only Wittgenstein (in the Anglo-American analytic
tradition) who had this sort of attitude towards the problems and
questions of philosophy. The philosopher G. E. Moore, before
Wittgenstein, said that the world itself didn't present him with any
problems. (Not problems that made him want to philosophise anyway.)
He claimed to have been turned into a philosopher not through a love
of philosophy or a sense of metaphysical perplexity or astonishment;
but because of the nonsense talked and written about by other
philosophers. (Not only was this term “nonsense” often used by
Wittgenstein too, it was also a favourite put-down used by all types
of 20th century analytic philosophers.)
As
Heidegger put it, we “must strive to overcome” these questions if
we are to be free from them. We can't be free of them, on the other
hand, if we still insist in trying to refute or answer them. (At
least this is what Heidegger thought and Wittgenstein might
have thought.)
Conclusion
It
may be wise to finish with a passage from a philosopher who –
sometimes - attempts to walk across the dangerous no-man’s land
between Heidegger’s Continental philosophy and Wittgenstein’s
Anglo-American analytic philosophy. And because of his precarious
position between these two (sometimes) warring factions, it's perhaps
not surprising that he neither venerates Wittgenstein nor drags him
down.
Here
is Richard Rorty on Cavell’s Wittgenstein:
“…[Cavell’s
philosophy] helps us realise what Wittgenstein did for us…[He]
raised the question of the
moral worth of our
epistemology courses, of our discipline, of our form of
life…Wittgenstein suffered from, and constantly complained about,
the company he had to keep in the course of this endeavour…[he]
produced writings…a host of commentators will not be able to
construe as offering ‘philosophical theories’ or ‘solutions to
philosophical problems’.” (Rorty, 1980-81)
In
many respects, the analytic philosophers who've claimed Wittgenstein
as their own, may be, in many cases, precisely the kind of
philosophers, and perhaps people, that Wittgenstein said he
“suffered from” and “complained about”.
Heidegger
too questioned “the moral worth” of our philosophy courses. And
yet the philosopher who's so like Wittgenstein in so many ways is
also the philosopher whom many analytic philosophers have
traditionally suspected or even despised.
***********************************************************
Notes:
1)
The many American academics who've taken on board the Continental
tradition, and who also almost entirely sympathise with it,
have also taken on board its style/s as well as its philosophical
obsessions.
2).
I similarly appreciate Rorty’s “demystifications” of the
parallel self-conscious obsession with analytic and stylistic purity
in Anglo-American analytic philosophy, as well as, at times, its
quite obvious pedantry that often hides under the label “analysis”.
3)
Or, on the other hand, what Tyler Burge calls the “obscure,
evocative, metaphorical, or platitudinous” discussions of “social
factors” in philosophy (1979, in his ‘Individualism and the
Mental’).
4)
The following passage touches on the ‘private language argument’:
“…in
the Third Meditation,
when Descartes attempts to identify his essence as a subject by
feigning a set of impossible conditions. He proposes to close his
eyes, shut his ears, suspend his senses, efface from his thoughts all
images of corporeal things…But Descartes’ effort to achieve a
more familiar acquaintance with himself could only take place through
an interior conversation with himself, which implies the use of
representation and the exchange of signs – that is to say, the
material and thus necessarily metaphorical character of language –
at the very moment when he pretends to exclude from his thoughts all
images of corporeal things.” (page 46, Derrida and
Deconstruction, edited by Hugh J. Silverman, 1989)
5)
This is despite the fact that I have much stronger leanings towards
the Anglo-American analytic tradition than I have towards most of the
Continental tradition/s. So it may be interesting to read this
comparison between Wittgenstein and Heidegger that occurred within
the analytic tradition:
“The
state of affairs ‘presented’ by the picture or sentence is thus
presented by us,
by our making a picture. Therefore, a picture or a sentence is the
act
of presenting a state of affairs…one could believe one was reading
Heidegger.” (Stenius, 1963)
6)
That is, if a man thinks that it will rain, then he must
exist.
7)
There's also this passage from Kant’s Critique:
“ …the
principles of reason…do not conduct us to any theological truths…we
recognise [reason’s] right to assert the existence of a perfect and
absolutely necessary being, [but] this can be admitted only from
favour, and cannot be regarded as the result of irresistible
demonstration.” (Critique of Pure Reason,
Transcendental Dialectic)
See
also S. Körner:
“ The
Critique of Pure Reason
has made room for faith… Although ‘morality leads unavoidably to
religion’ an act of faith is required to close the logical gap
between morality and the Idea of God…” (pg. 169, Kant,
by S. Körner)
What
I call the “Protestant strand” of Catholicism (or, at the least,
of Catholic theology and philosophy) has a much longer lineage than
is commonly thought by many people on the outside of the faith -
especially many Protestants. Indeed, as Kierkegaard says in this
essay, it can be traced back to St. Paul (see Kierkegaard’s
passage near the top of the ‘Religion, Metaphysics and Reason’
section).
9)
This is an historical account of Germany’s attitude towards reason
and rationalism:
“Theory
was not the strong point of movements devoted to the inadequacies of
reason and rationalism and the superiority of instinct and will. They
attracted all kinds of reactionary theorists in countries with an
active intellectual life – Germany is an obvious case in point.”
(Eric Hobsbawn, in his Age of Extremes, 117)
It's
also worth noting Wittgenstein’s anti-Semitism here.
Biographically, most of the Wittgenstein family had converted to
Christianity by 1838 and Wittgenstein’s grandfather promptly
developed a reputation for being an anti-Semite. What of Wittgenstein
himself? For example, he once wrote that “the Jew lacks those
qualities which distinguish the races that are creative and hence
culturally blessed” (1931). He also referred to “the Jews’
secretive and cunning nature”.
10)
For example, Michael Dummett and what he sees as Wittgenstein’s
destruction of “the grounds” that would be needed in order to
construct a “viable theory of meaning”.
11)
See also Marian Hobson: “…only a little later than these works of
Heidegger, Rudolf Carnap’s logical positivism proclaimed the
‘overcoming of metaphysics’ and famously used examples from
Heidegger’s Was ist Metaphysik? (1929) to show that they
couldn't be turned into logical-syntactically well formed sentences
(Carnap 1932)…Carnap [however] is tolerant of Nietzsche because
what he wrote was ‘literature’. (Note 14, page 237, Hobson). It's
also worth saying here that Derrida too couldn’t really “overcome
metaphysics”, as he admitted. Indeed that was probably partly the
case for simple geographical or cultural reasons. That is, he was
brought up in the midst of the Austro-German-Franco philosophical
tradition he tried to overcome. And because he couldn’t overcome
traditional philosophy and still be a philosopher, perhaps
that’s partly why he turned almost exclusively to literature and
other non-philosophical areas in his later years. Had he been an
American or an Englishman, he would have found it so much easier to
overcome the tradition. After all, the metaphysical tradition doesn’t
actually mean that much to the average Anglo-American. This is why, I
think, Rorty is more successful, in certain ways at least, at
criticising the tradition, if not overcoming it, than Derrida. He is
certainly more so than Heidegger. Though Rorty too has turned to
literature and other non-philosophical areas. I think that in this
endless parade of one-upmanship, both Derrida and Rorty went too far.
The truth of the philosophical tradition is blindingly simple as well
as being very unsexy. That is, some parts of the tradition are right
and some parts are wrong. Or, conversely, some parts of the backlash
against the tradition are right and some parts are wrong. Rorty’s
blanket dismissal of, say, analytic philosophy and much of
continental philosophy simply doesn’t work in its entirety.
