On Formalising Philosophy
Simon
Blackburn comments on the formalising tendencies which began the
tradition of analytic philosophy. He traces it back to Frege. This means, among other things, that the frequent arguments against “traditional metaphysics” certainly didn’t
begin with the logical positivists. It began with Frege and no doubt
existed even before that (as with
Francisco
Suárez and his repudiation
of Aristotle). As Blackburn explains it:
“Many
philosophers thought that they were on the verge of replacing
‘old-fashioned woolly metaphysics' with a rigorous, formalised
philosophy that had as its core a logically perfect language, shorn
of the vagaries or ordinary discourse. Once we had translated
philosophical problems from ordinary language into this purified
language of logic, the solutions to philosophical issues would follow
as surely as night follows day. That optimism only lasted until
roughly the Second World War.”
It's
strange, then, that the “ordinary language philosophers” thought
more or less the same thing as the philosophical formalists. Only
this time the solution to “woolly metaphysics” was going back to
ordinary language. That is, not only away from what the
metaphysicians has said (or the way they put it), but also away from
the formalisers (as epitomised by Frege, Russell and the early
Wittgenstein). The ordinary language philosophers wanted to translate
arcane metaphysics into ordinary language and in so doing sort out
its problems or show them up to be of the metaphysicians’
own making (i.e., “pseudo problems”).
On the Mind-Language-World Triangle
Blackburn
offers three approaches which philosophers since Hume have seen as
been of primary importance to the whole of philosophy:
“You
might say the first thing to do s to understand ourselves, as Hume
does, for example; you might say the first thing you’ve got to do
then is understand our language, and so do the philosophy of
language; or you might think, no, what you’ve got to do is settle
the nature of the world, the things that surround us and after that
our own nature and the nature of language will fall out. That in a
sense is the scientific approach – the rest is stamp collecting.”
So
why not all these approaches at
the same time?
Or why not work with all three and see how they interact with each
other (even if only at the peripheries)? Why the obsessive need to
create a hierarchy (or pyramidical system) with one discipline at the
bottom and all the rest on top of it?
It's
also interesting that previous notions of First Philosophy aren't
included in Blackburn’s list. Thus ontology was First Philosophy
for Aristotle and others. Epistemology was First Philosophy for
Descartes. Psychology (or “human nature”) was First Philosophy
for Hume. The philosophy of language (in its logical guise) was First
Philosophy for Frege. The scientific nature (or description) of the
world was First Philosophy for the logical positivists and arguably
for Quine and others. And from the 1960s onward, the philosophy of
mind has more or less become First Philosophy for many philosophers - superseding
or simply incorporating the philosophy of language.
One
may conclude from all this that we should completely suspect the very
idea of a First Philosophy and simply accept the interconnections
between the philosophical disciplines. And it's one step on from this
rejection of First Philosophy to take an “interdisciplinary
approach” to philosophy and incorporate linguistics, computer
science, cognitive science and other disciplines into its purview.
This in itself can be seen as an acknowledgement of “philosophical
holism” in whatever form it may take.
In
summary, then, we have a “triangle” which includes psychology (or
ourselves), the philosophy of language and the world itself.
We needn't take any of these as being primary or fundamental.
On Philosophical Prose
Simon
Blackburn has little time for those philosophers who glory in the
complexity of their disciple or just in their own philosophical
writings. He says that he thinks philosophy's “difficulties we compounded by
a certain pride in its difficulty”. It's ironic, then, that some of
the great philosophers were also good writers. Blackburn cites
Russell, Ryle and Austin. I would also cite Plato, Hume, Quine,
Putnam, Searle and particularly various American analytic philosophers
- as opposed to English ones. (It's often the case that as the English
philosophers are to American philosophers, so Continental
philosophers are to English philosophers.)
Bad
writing, technicality and sheer pretentiousness, however, shouldn't
imply that all work on the minutia of philosophy should be shunned or
limited. Of course not. Some papers are bound to be complex. Not
necessarily because of the subject’s difficulty; but just because
the issues and problems will be technical in nature and therefore
have a high number of unknown technical terms. Indeed some technical terms
will be needed and others may well be gratuitous – it depends on
the philosopher concerned.
Blackburn makes some other interesting points about philosophical
prose – at least in its bad guise. He quotes John Searle stating: “If you
can’t say it clearly you don’t understand it yourself.”
So
all the times I thought critically of myself for not understanding a
particular philosopher’s prose, perhaps all along he didn’t
understand his own prose; or, more importantly, he didn't understand
the philosophical ideas he was trying – badly – to express. I
assumed my own cognitive limitations or the damned complexity of the
subject. However, perhaps all along it was just a case of the
philosopher concerned being a bloody poor writer – regardless of
the complexity of his ideas. Either that or he might well have been
just plain pretentious! Certainly philosophers like this don’t
follow the Quintilian dictum (as quoted by Blackburn): “Do not write so
that you can be understood, but so that you cannot be misunderstood.”
Of
course, literally speaking, if one writes “so that you cannot be
misunderstood”, then one must also be writing “so that you can be
understood” – the two approaches go together. However, Bernard
Williams (also quoted by Blackburn) offered the obvious riposte to
this “impossible ideal”:
“Williams
snapped at that and said it was 'an impossible ideal. You can always
be misunderstood', and of course he’s right. But I think the point
of Quintilian’s remark isn’t 'write so as to avoid any possible
misunderstanding’ but to remember that it’s difficult and that
it’s your job to make it as easy as you can.”
It's
interesting to note here that Williams’ impossible-ideal argument can also be used in favour of the idea that there will
always be someone in one’s own culture - no matter how rational -
who'll misinterpret at least something you write or say. Indeed
perhaps everyone who reads or listens to you will misinterpret you in
some small or large way. The idea of a perfect communication of a
complete and perfect meaning to a perfect interpreter seems to be a ridiculous ideal. It seems to be almost – or even literally –
impossible and for so many reasons. So you'll always be
“misunderstood” by someone in some way. Indeed each
person will misunderstand you in some way - whether that way is large
or small. All we have left, as writers or philosophers, is to realise
that “it’s [our] job to make it as easy as [we] can”. We can't
be expected to do more than this. We can't guarantee the perfect
communication
of our ideas or the perfect understanding
of our
ideas by other people (as anyone who uses social media already knows). And even if we allow this slack, perhaps, in
the end, it simply doesn't matter that much because communication
doesn't require either determinate meanings or determinate
interpretations. We seem to manage quite well in most situations
without perfect languages and other philosophical ideals. It's only
certain philosophers who get hot under the collar about the
possibility (or actuality) of the problems of meaning or translation.
You can't (to use Derrida's term)
“mathematicise”
meaning or interpretation/understanding. We now know, after all, that
formalised or artificial languages have many severe limitations and
we can even say that natural languages are far more expressive and
pragmatically efficacious than even the sum of their alternatives.
On the Importance of Philosophy
Blackburn
comments on the importance of philosophy and places it within the
wider context of Western culture as a whole. He says:
“The
high ground has got to be just that it’s one of the world’s great
literatures. If you’re ignorant of Aristotle, Hume and Wittgenstein
it’s like being ignorant of Shakespeare, Jane Austen or George
Eliot and this ought to be regarded as shameful in the same way as
ignorance of great literature would be.”
Not
many would think of any philosopher’s work being great literature
even if it's philosophically
great. However, it's often difficult to disentangle the two -
especially in the case of a philosopher like Plato. This is also the
case if one accepts Jacques Derrida’s idea that there's no
difference in kind between philosophy and literature: only a
difference in degree. (I suppose this will partly depend on the
philosopher we're talking about.)
For
example, this would be easy to argue in the case of Plato (again).
However, could we really see the work of Rudolf Carnap in the same
way? We can also say that just as Shakespeare, Austin and Eliot have
shaped the world, so too have Blackburn's philosophical examples –
namely, Aristotle, Hume and Wittgenstein. I would add many other
philosophers to the list of philosophers who've shaped Western
culture: Plato, Aquinas, Descartes, Locke, Kant, Hegel, J.S. Mill and
so on. However, I’m not sure if I would regard it as “shameful” if people hadn't read the philosophers on Blackburn’s list. I've
never read much Montaigne or Plotinus and I've never read certain
other well-known philosophers. (I suspect that Blackburn hasn't
either.) However, if one hasn't ready any
of these, then perhaps that is shameful and indeed quite remarkable.
Apart
from (some) philosophy being “great literature”, Blackburn cites
“pragmatic grounds” as to why philosophy is of vital importance –
and has always been of vital importance. He writes:
“A
much more interesting, pragmatic ground is that I really do think
that unless people have some tools for reflecting on the language
they use they’re apt to be behaving unselfconsciously, and
unreflective behaviour is often behaviour that’s at the mercy of
forces which we don’t understand. So I think that realising the
state of your language is a very important device for realising he
state of your culture at this time in history, and in politics.”
This
isn't just a strong suggestion to study language in the
philosophy-of-language sense: it's also a suggestion to study and
critically analyse the words and concepts we use every day to see how
they shape what it is we think; as well as the way they shape how we actually experience
the world.
For
a start, people will soon come to realise how our words and concepts
not only reflect world and culture; but also determine or shape them.
When we realise that, we can't help but reflect on the words and
concepts we use and how we apply them. If we don’t do this, as
Blackburn puts it, we'll be “at the mercy of forces which we don’t
understand”.
************************************
*)
All the quotes in this piece are taken from the book, What
Philosophers Think.
In this book Julian Baggini and Jeremy Stangroom interview various
philosophers and scientists.
