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What is Philosophy?
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In the thread that got into talking about the public good, I started reflecting on the direction philosophy has taken. This led me to two principal thoughts.One: philosophy, of course, means in the original Greek love of wisdom. But I frankly don't see much love of wisdom in the direction philosophy has taken in the past century or so. It seems to have become embroiled in processes of thought, not in the product of thought.
Two: the thread on public good was political in nature. Very few philosophers today consider politics a legitimate area of study for a philosopher. Yet for the Greeks, philosophy and politics were, if not one and the same, at least very closely entwined. The purpose of studying philosophy was to understand what it meant to live a virtuous life, and a virtuous life was very much a political lie. This was true up through Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, and their generation. But at some point after that philosophy and political parted ways, to the extent that what used to be called political philosophy by scholars is not political science in almost all university catalogs.
Perhaps it is fair to say, then, as another thread does, that philosophy is dead; the concept of philosophy which prevailed from 500 or so BC to about 1800 certainly does seem to be dead.
Everyman wrote: "In the thread that got into talking about the public good, I started reflecting on the direction philosophy has taken. This led me to two principal thoughts.One: philosophy, of course, means in..."
There is great truth in these comments.
Philosophy...thinking, thinking, thinking, and then listening.
Oi, please excuse me crashing in on this very philisophical conversation to ask a very mundane question. I notice there are some "currently reading" books set out there for the group, but I'm having a hard time finding current discussions going on re these books.
In fact this thread seems to be the most current one I could find.
Please excuse me if I sound lazy to search, but I truly have spent quite a bit of time searching...
Justin wrote: "I know many consider defining philosophy a philosophical pursuit in itself, approached as if it is a phantasmagoric abstract of the human psyche - it is not. It is exactly what the etymology implie..."Justin...could you summarize your point in one or two sentences? It sounds a bit like you are declaring what philosophy is and how it should be used, and then the Carlin quote at the end, which seems to say that you know what you are doing and others don't.
Is that the point? Unvarnished, as it were?
Traveller wrote: "Oi, please excuse me crashing in on this very philisophical conversation to ask a very mundane question. I notice there are some "currently reading" books set out there for the group, but I'm ha..."
Hi Traveller --
Plato's Laws are being discussed on this thread:
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/5...
Fear of Knowledge was being discussed by Aloha about post 109 of the introductory thread:
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...
Brian puts in a shout-out for Think on this thread:
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/2...
On Liberty was mentioned on this thread msg 8:
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/5...
We don't really do group book readings on this forum right now, so I try to keep the Currently Reading section stocked with books that have come up in recent debates or discussions.
Justin wrote: "Robert wrote: "Justin...could you summarize your point in one or two sentences?"No. First, explain to me the purpose for your post. Are you attempting to form an argument with me of some sort? If..."
No. To be clear, I read your post as a lecture of sorts, and the quote as an implied message to others. Maybe I misread it.
Tyler wrote: "Hi Traveller -- Plato's Laws are being discussed on this thread:
..."
Thanks so much for your trouble in replying, Tyler.
I think I should read a lot and try to catch up a bit on what is going on in this very stimulating forum of yours before I just jump into a discussion around here.
So I'll be lurking for a while.
Thanks again!
Hi Traveller --YW, and please de-lurk any time you'd like to add to the discussions.
Philosophy is the way one relates to the world, and relates to that relation.Every single human being is a philosopher.
Simon wrote: "Philosophy is the way one relates to the world, and relates to that relation.Every single human being is a philosopher."
I wholeheartedly agree!
I usually define philosophy in a sociological manner: 'philosophy' just refers to the institutions, books, essays, practices, etc, that are commonly referred to as philosophy. Given the significant differences between analytic philosophy, continental philosophy, Asian philosophy, etc, I doubt there's any other definition of 'philosophy' in general that would retain the conventional usage of the word. Even focusing on just one of those disciplines - say analytic philosophy - while we can identify some general conventions, I don't think any strict demarcation criteria can be given.
I think philosophy is one of the most misunderstood subjects. That it took so long to become a high school course, I think, attests to this. Even within academia, however, there seems to be confusion. Two PhDs expressed surprise at the title of my masters' thesis in Philosophy ("The Issue of Consent in Sex and Sexual Assault"); both seemed to think that philosophy was stuff like 'If a tree falls and no one's there, does it make a sound?' or 'Does the table really exist?' Philosophy is that. But not, at all, only that.Metaphysics (Is the table real?) and epistemology (What's the difference between believing something and knowing something?) are both areas of philosophy. So are ethics (How could/should we determine right and wrong?) and aesthetics (What do we mean when we say 'X is beautiful'?).
But so are social philosophy (Why is there war? Are affirmative action programs fair?), political philosophy (Which is better – liberalism or socialism? What is the nature of the just society?), and philosophical psychology or philosophy of mind (What is the relation between the mind and the brain?). And some areas have fields pretty large in themselves: environmental ethics (Should we use animals for experimentation? Do trees have rights?); business ethics (Is profit an acceptable motive? How do we define, exactly, a conflict of interest?); biomedical ethics (Is it right to pay someone for their organ donation? Is euthanasia immoral?).
Truth is, philosophy is not so much a subject as a skill: philosophy is disciplined reflection. So there is, there can be, a 'philosophy of' anything or an 'anything philosophy': philosophy of science, philosophy of language, philosophy of education, philosophy of love, feminist philosophy, legal philosophy, etc. Whenever you're examining the conceptual foundations, especially for clarity or consistency, you're doing philosophy. Far from being the least relevant, philosophy is the most relevant: other disciplines deal with who, what, when, where, and how; philosophy deals mostly with why (after dealing with 'What exactly do you mean?').
One of the most misunderstood courses in university is a second year philosophy course called, variously, Critical Thinking, Clear Thinking, or Informal Logic. The template in such courses is 'I think X because Y'. The purpose of the course is to teach people to have reasons for their opinions – to have good reasons. Most of us know that something can't be A and not-A at the same time. But there are other rules of reason, rules we constantly break – and this constantly gets us into trouble. (Is your argument sound? Are your premises true? Are they valid – relevant and adequate?) What the course does is teach these rules of reason, the skills of thinking: it develops the capacity to analyze an issue, to break it down into its parts; to draw distinctions, identify assumptions, clarify concepts, understand connections; it trains one to check for coherence, consistency, and completeness. A philosophical analysis is a very careful examination and assessment.
A supervisor once said of me, after I had provided feedback on a sexual harassment brochure, 'I wish I had a mind like that'. It's a mind developed by the rigours of philosophy. It's a mind developed to be clear, to be precise, to be thorough. It's a disciplined mind. I may not tell you the answers. But by the time a philosopher's through, you’ll know what all the important questions are (as well as how they're connected). You'll also have a pretty good idea of the possible answers, each with their implications.
Whether or not to quit your job, whether or not to have an abortion, whether or not to kill yourself – these are all philosophical questions. Even trying to determine why you feel depressed involves philosophical skills – to uncover and clarify perceptions, assumptions, expectations. In fact, while here in Canada and the U.S. when we advise someone to get counselling or therapy, we mean psychological counselling, there is also such a thing as philosophical counselling. It's a well developed field in Europe: it has its own journals, its different schools of thought; one can become a certified philosophical counsellor and hang out a shingle for business, much like the familiar psychological counsellor here. As a parallel to psychoanalysis, it makes perfect sense. After all, philosophy is analysis.
After scrolling through two pages of answers I can only wonder why people don't even look at existing definitions -Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with reality, existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language.[1][2] Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument.[3]
I'm one of the people who feel rather sad about the ongoing mistreatment of philosophy, all the misunderstandings, claims that philosophy cannot be defined and is answering the question ''why'', that everyone is a philosopher and everyone can make up new definitions of what it is, whereas science for example is a serious thing and you cannot toy around with it in such ways. Just... no.
Thank you Austra for pointing out that 'philosophy' must be defended against the sloppy contemporary notion that it comes down to 'subjective opinions' as opposed to 'science'. In fact, per the very good definition you have found, science is never, ever without an implicit philosophical grounding of some kind, that is, explicit empirical science claims are never without some implicit background or framing presuppositions about the ultimate nature of reality, existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language.This is the real point of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). The paradigmatic underpinnings of science in different epochs that Kuhn brought forth or made clearer are the philosophical presuppositions that for most people at any time, including most work-a-day scientists, tend to lie implicit, beneath conscious reflection, as ontological assumptions grounding or framing the meaning of the conscious objects which we normally deal with in everyday experience and in empirical sciences.
For example, Kuhn shows how Aristotle's account of physics was so different than modern Newtonian physics because Aristotle assumed "motion" to be or to mean a change in the qualitative state of a thing moving, rather than to be or to mean merely and exclusively a change in the spatial location of a thing moving, as Newtonian physics assumed.
From this different basic assumption flows the whole purely "mechanical" or mechanized science of the moderns, so different from the ancients. But to inquire philosophically into differences like this is to weaken the hold of modern ideological assumptions upon us and to enrich our understanding of human thought and history.
Kuhn showed how implicit presuppositions tend only to be questioned at times when a particular science experiences a crisis, in which certain anomalies of fact remain stubbornly resistant to resolving into the generally established picture built up by that science. More generally this is a good explanation for why philosophical activity broadly (e.g., political, existential) gets most interesting during times of revolution or crisis in a society, when old assumptions have become weakened and human thought is challenged.
The philosopher is the person who goes beyond the normal assumptions of the day down to the ultimate roots of our beliefs about reality, existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language.
Tom wrote: "Kuhn shows how Aristotle's account of physics was so different than modern Newtonian physics because Aristotle assumed "motion" to be or to mean a change in the qualitative state of a thing moving, rather than to be or to mean merely and exclusively a change in the spatial location of a thing moving, as Newtonian physics assumed.....From this different basic assumption flows the whole purely "mechanical" or mechanized science of the moderns, so different from the ancients...".Tom – I would like to endorse your general comments about the conditionality of science, and its implicit dependence on a theory of knowledge. But I must admit to difficulties with Kuhn’s notion that it is impossible to decide between scientific paradigms; that they are incommensurable. I feel rather that there is some sort of observational basis on which we can and do decide. In the case of Aristotle, I wonder if his notion of science has anything to do with science at all. Qualititative changes are by definition outside of the scope of science as moderns conceive it. The ancients certainly had no concept of experimentation (Archimedes probably came the closest), and modern science probably begins with Copernicus and Galileo.
Andrew wrote:"I must admit to difficulties with Kuhn’s notion that it is impossible to decide between scientific paradigms; that they are incommensurable. I feel rather that there is some sort of observational basis on which we can and do decide. In the case of Aristotle, I wonder if his notion of science has anything to do with science at all".
It seems to me Andrew that your statement here lends support to Kuhn's claim about incommensurability or incommunicability between paradigms, shown insofar as you do not want to recognize what Arostotle did as "science" because it does not accord with our contemporary definition of science you feel is correct.
I'll admit I'm not particularly committed to Kuhn's notion of incommensurability, but I would argue that the banishment of "qualitative change" from the modern concept of science has proved a deeply problematic double-edged sword for the place of science. To deny something real because it is inconvenient to your methods is 'mad' when one claims at the same time that their methods are the sole means to knowing reality.
-Tom
Tom wrote:"I would argue that the banishment of "qualitative change" from the modern concept of science has proved a deeply problematic double-edged sword for the place of science. To deny something real because it is inconvenient to your methods is 'mad' when one claims at the same time that their methods are the sole means to knowing reality.
..."
Tom, I agree that the qualititative (and temporal) is an essential component of reality, but I think that it is important to be clear what we mean by 'science'. If we forget that the nature of the scientific method is to abstract from this broader reality and to be quantitative, then we are liable to misunderstand the source of the power of science and the hold that it retains over the modern imagination.
The problem with a one-size-fits-all definition of philosophy is that it will usually refine away all the content that usually makes philosophy live inside the minds of people. Therefore, it will be so schematic as to be virtually meaningless. Take the one offered above:“Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with reality, existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language.[1][2] Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument.[3]”
As soon as we strive to endow it with content, we run into difficulties. For instance, what on earth should we mean by “general” and “fundamental”? Compare what thinkers as different as Aristotle and Kant understood by these terms. For Aristotle, the terms meant we should engage in a metaphysical study of the fundamental categories of reality. For Kant, on the contrary, the -same words- led him to pursue a study of the fundamental categories of the mind. On this basis, one built an ontology, and the other a critical study of the foundations of knowledge. This makes a world of difference. As for the second portion, how does that cover someone like Pascal, Nietzsche or Kierkegaard?
And to prove just how problematic such definitions are, Tom, while purportedly agreeing with it, proceeded to subjectivize it:
“The philosopher is the person who goes beyond the normal assumptions of the day down to the ultimate roots of our -beliefs- about reality, existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language.”
I learn what philosophy is from people's recounting of their practice. Philosophy is a human practice. Finding a lowest common denominator to all such practice may be possible only at the End of philosophy, when we at last reach the terminus point of Wisdom and know what it was all about. As it is, we're each fumbling in the dark and carving out each our own path, trying to strike gold. And to somehow denigrate the value of philosophy simply because it won't slavishly emulate the method of science and instead pursues its own pattern of rigour is misguided, imo.
I guess I might as well offer my own two cents':I think philosophy is first and foremost the sustained -attempt- to emancipate thought from culture, history, nature (the cycle of instinct), worldview and society. It has been, since Socrates, an attempt to develop the autonomous use of reason so as to further both individual freedom and cultural progress (they are dependent upon one another - if the individual is not free to question the authority of tradition, culture and revelation, culture itself will fossilize into dogmatism).
By emancipation, of course, I do NOT mean divorce. Such would not be emancipatory but paralyzing (if it weren't also impossible). Questioning and reflection, momentarily standing apart and placing a region of quiet between ourselves and the day-to-day attachments to received beliefs and forms of expressions that clamour for our attention is precisely wherein emancipation lies. It is this basic act of thought that I think lies at the heart of all philosophy.
Take for instance the interaction between reason and its worldview. Our worldview provides not only the basic schema which form the materials with which we reason, but it also shapes certain crucial cognitive modes we as a culture take for granted. Plato is often mentioned, and he indeed shaped the basic cognitive mode which provided the basic patterns of thought and conceptualization all later philosophers in our tradition depended on. Key aspects of this cognitive mode would be, for instance, his basic dichotomizing of thought into universals/particulars, reality/appearance, essence/attribute, concept/sensation, with a positive valuation of the former item. Not to mention his setting up FORM as the basic aesthetic criterion for the formation of the concepts with which reason should operate. From him we inherit the now taken-for-granted notion that to know something, we must look for its form, and delineate in thought its clear outline (ie, define it).
What was his vision has become our culturally-patterned form of cognition. It is only with exposure to 1) the sciences of man and 2) other cultures, that we realize this isn't the “natural” form our reason takes, but that it IS in fact culturally patterned and that there are, in fact, other ways of thinking. Other cultures do not carve out these fundamental dichotomies, and they work with different fundamental schema (instead of form as the criterion for good conceptualization, some cultures such as China prefer a more gestaltish and metaphorical compounding of ideas).
So we inherit the constructions of Plato which provide the scaffolding for our reasoning, and use this scaffolding as a basis for questioning – including the scaffolding itself. Thus we start from a basis of tradition and incrementally proceed to emancipate ourselves from the hold received concepts have on our minds through critical questioning and open thus new avenues for expressing our humanity through thought.
All philosophy, imo, is based on this emancipatory, questioning act of thought. Everything else proceeds from this.
So far we have had access to one tradition of reasoning – our own. Who knows what other traditions might teach us about ourselves, about wisdom, and about reason itself.
I too believe it is a question that can be answered by philosophy alone and - to close the circle - it follows from what philosophy is. So let me throw in my view.Elena described the emancipatory movement of thought. I agree. And I dare to dig the tunnel also from the other side and ask what makes this emancipatory movement possible.
For as I see it, philosophy is specific by character of its question. We may ask countless questions about being things and none of them can be strictly philosophical. But behind them there always lurks a deeper and much more radical question. A radical gap, a dissociation in the ground of being producing question so general it questions itself and leaves nothing unquestioned. The other side of the emancipatory movement is the fact we are destined to the question, we cannot honestly avoid it. I believe philosophy are questions and answers stemming from this source.
But there are also many answers to this question we usually do not call philosophy, e.g. science or religion, although sometimes they are called philosophical in broader sense. These are answers without proper question. Something always drops into the question before being asked. Our world is prefabricated and there are always answers prepared. Unlike them, philosophy is specific by consciousness of the radical question.
This specificity mirrors also in language used to articulate and answer the question. Why must it be so painful, artificial and unintelligible? Of course, it questions everything, so it must be metalanguage built from the ruins of the world put in question. We cannot have proper words that could question everything and speak of being.
What puzzles me: is philosophy necessarily left to this awkward language? Wouldn't it be beautiful if someone took these stuttering sounds and sketches and put them in a fluent and poetic speech?
Philosophy is great thinking. The application of philosophy (metaphysics) is science (physics), and great process (epistemology).Projects in applied philosophy can build the things we need - and differentiate these from the things we want.
Meaningful lives are those spent building projects that are worthwhile; that measurably build good lives in sustainable societies ... where idle happiness, children, and religious piety in themselves are not meaningful nor worthwhile.
what philosophy is For me, Philosophy id way of thinking, a method of thinking which helps to know about anything
*How can philosophy help a person?
Philosophy can teach us how to think clearly, to know about yourself, your world, and to make the right decision
*What would you like to get out of a "philosophical" discussion?
To learn how can I read and understand deeply about philosophy books and philosophers mind, like Heidegger, when I read his book "Being and Time" sometimes I cannot understand the meaning of sentences.
*How can we apply philosophy in daily life?
In critical and philosophic thinking course in Aukland University, which I attended two years ago, I learn how to stop myself and pause for thinking before making an agile decision, I learned how can I think critically, in a philosophic way.
Philosophy is a critical view of everything, you, your life and your GOD.
One important and enlightening way of understanding what philosophy IS is to look at what philosophy is NOT -- i.e, to contrast it to things (disciplines, approaches, methodologies, writers) which are "not philosophical". Without this sort of more or less practical approach to scribing the limits and creating boundaries (if even imperfect ones) among such areas as "non-philosophy", "pseudo-philosophy", and "genuine philosophy", you're confined by a vague, amorphous view of what philosophy is, unable to make meaningful distinctions between philosophy and other things, and just spinning your intellectual wheels. This results simply in the stating of opinions about the nature of philosophy, with no objective approach to understanding it. In short, that's not a philosophical approach to understanding what philosophy is.Everyone, of course, has his or her right to an opinion. But that doesn't make the opinion intelligible or helpful in understanding what it's supposed to be an opinion of.
Also, avoid the temptation to come up with a "definition" of philosophy, and instead pursue a theory of philosophy or model of philosophy and the philosopher. Only in this way can you move forward in understanding what philosophy is and what it is not -- and avoid meaningless and uninformative claims and irresolvable disputes about it. Unless, of course, what you're really after is an unending irresolvable dispute -- but that's not what philosophy is about, despite appearances at some points. :-)
I’m completing a marketing questionnaire for my publisher and would welcome any suggestions you might have. Before the questions below, there is first a list of book and chapter titles; epigraphs accompany each chapter title. Second, there is a brief description of the book. Finally, the questions.Many thanks for taking the time to take a look.
Title: Philosophical Turns: Epistemological, Linguistic, and Metaphysical
Chapter 1) Philosophical Turns.
The history of the fashions of philosophizing may be sketched briefly by tracing the subject matters in which philosophers have found their basic distinctions.
McKeon, Freedom and History, p. 164
Chapter 2) McKeon’s Pluralism
Words may be thought to designate things, signify thoughts, and induce actions, if things, thoughts, and actions are thought to exist apart from and prior to words. Or words may be thought to be the sources and causes of what things, thoughts, and actions are thought to be, and therefore, are.
McKeon, “Pluralism of Interpretations and Pluralism of Objects, Actions, and Statements Interpreted,” p. 54.
Chapter 3) The Linguistic Turn: A Narrative
[T]he characteristic of language is that meanings are arbitrary; therefore, any word can mean anything and, in fact, does.
McKeon, On Knowing: The Natural Sciences, p. 190.
Chapter 4) Meillassoux: Metaphysical Turn as Chaotic Pragmatism
[I]f we are in direct contact only with what we do and say and make, with language and with operations, we come ultimately to the problem of the relation of what we say or make--artifacts, institutions, sciences--to what we do not say or make.
McKeon, Thought, Action, and Passion, p. 186.
Chapter 5) Harman: Metaphysical Turn as Perspectivalism
Principles are conceived metaphysically when knowledge is treated as a relation of consequences established in thought to consequences encountered in things.
McKeon, “Principles and Consequences,” p. 388
Chapter 6) Turn against Turn
[I]t is no less true that the nature of things, in so far as it is known, is determined by philosophic principles than that philosophic principles are determined, in so far as they are verified, by the nature of things.
McKeon, “Philosophic Bases of Art and Criticism,” p. 464.
Description of book
Kant’s turn from thing to thought is widely known (Critique of Pure Reason, Preface to Second Edition). Less attention is paid to what this turn, like any philosophical turn, reveals about the subject matter of philosophy. For such turns paradoxically do and do not change the subject matter of philosophy. In Kant’s case, on the one hand, the subject matter does not change insofar as it continues to include things and thoughts. On the other hand, the subject matter does change because the order of priority between the two is changed. Instead of examining how thought conforms to thing, Kant examines how thing conforms to thought, thereby prioritizing thought.
Richard McKeon’s in-depth command of the history of philosophy broadens this paradox. On the one hand, philosophy’s subject matter does not change insofar as philosophy is always about things, thoughts, words, and acts. On the other hand, philosophical turns prioritize these differently, sometimes prioritizing thing, sometimes thought, and sometimes word and act. Moreover, McKeon finds in the history of philosophy that these turns occur in cyclical order: thing, to thought, to word and act, then back to thing to resume the cyclical.
Hence, in McKeon’s classroom at the University of Chicago in the 1960s, in the midst of the heyday of the linguistic turn, when nothing seemed more unlikely than a metaphysical turn to thing, I was amazed and fascinated to encounter a view of philosophy that predicted precisely this turn, a prediction that today’s emergent metaphysical turn may confirm, depending on how it plays out in the decades ahead.
What is involved in a turn, then, is a change in priority that changes the subject matter of philosophy. A turn is a change from one priority to another. But simply saying that is one thing, whereas a very different thing is identifying exactly what it is in the subject matter to which one turns that makes it prior to the other possibilities. This can turn out to be challenging.
Chapter three, the chapter on the linguistic turn, offers an example of just how challenging it may prove to be. This turn took decades to find out exactly what it is that makes language prior, so much so that even the history of the turn began to confuse many. At later stages, one even finds Derrida being identified as an architect of this turn when in fact it began before he was even born. Chapter three narrates this history in a sequence of three main stages. Derrida’s role in the turn is important but it does not appear until stage three. This narration reveals that in the linguistic turn there is a “transmutation of philosophy into rhetoric” (McKeon, “The Methods of Rhetoric and Philosophy”), a transmutation philosophers of this turn tended not to recognize but that helps to explain how it provided the context in which rhetoric began in the later decades of the twentieth century to enjoy a historic revival.
Part of the problem of the linguistic turn had in its initial stage was separating itself from what it was turning from. Something similar is happening in the initial stage of the metaphysical turn, as evidenced in different ways in the chapters on Meillassoux and Harman. These chapters offer detailed analyses celebrating their achievements on the one hand and, on the other hand, calling attention to their difficulties in separating themselves from what they are turning from.
Philosophical turns all allow direct access to the subject matter to which they turn. The linguistic turn makes language, sometimes conceived as action as in speech-act theory, the fundamental subject matter of philosophy. This turn, in prioritizing language, denies the possibility of directly accessing either thing or thought. Access to either is possible only through the mediation of language. But access is direct to language itself and the fashion in which it performs this mediating function. Analogously, Kant denied direct access to thing, allowing limited access through the mediation of thought, but thought itself, as exhibited massively in Critique of Pure Reason, is accessed directly.
The subject matter of philosophy differs from turn to turn but always functions as the arbiter in debates among philosophers over exactly what it is in the prioritized subject matter that makes it prior to the other possibilities. In this sense, the subject matter is thing-like even when it is not thing, testifying additionally to the senses in which language and thought are components of reality. One finds in all turns the pattern sketched in the epigraph to chapter six.
Direct access to language and thought also appears in the metaphysical turn, which claims direct access to everything in philosophizing about everything. The turns from the metaphysical turn, first to thought, then to language, both make an issue of access while deflecting attention from the limited areas of direct access that they reserve for themselves.
The evidence of the turns, chapter six concludes, argues for the superiority of the metaphysical turn. The alternative turns, in the end, narrow the scope of philosophy, limiting its relevance.
Whether this conclusion goes beyond McKeon’s pluralism is debatable, although this is an issue treated only in passing, leaving it for a debate among McKeon scholars. The cyclicality of the turns would appear by itself to go beyond a pure pluralism, where one might expect turns to occur not in a regular order like the seasons, but haphazardly, akin to winter occasionally following spring, and so on. Having lived in an age of mediation, we are familiar with arguments rejecting direct access to things. But Meillassoux registers the effect of this narrowing in a famous passage in After Finitude when he complains that by virtue of the constraints of correlationism “contemporary philosophers have lost the great outdoors” (7). Perhaps greater awareness of the turns would result in the turns giving way to permanent metaphysical prioritizing of things,
Questions
List the 5-7 key features of your book that would interest customers and encourage their purchase, such as major or special topics, a new, unique, or innovative approach, and so on.
List magazines, journals, newsletters, and trade publications that should receive review materials on your book.
List three to five prominent individuals from whom we can solicit endorsements.
List journals or websites where print or online ads should appear.
List associations, corporations, and other groups that would be interested in your book.
List any email discussion lists or Web sites that can be used to promote your book.
List any professional meetings and conferences where your book could be debuted and exhibited.
List any presentations, workshops, and/or public appearances where your book could be promoted.
List papers, alumni magazines, and TV and radio shows; civic, professional clubs, and organizations that may be interested in your book.
List anyone who would consider the book for course or workshop adoption.
That's one tough battery of questions, Bob W. But I'll mull them over and contribute what I can in the next few days.
Bob Wess: here are my suggestions on how to flesh out that list.Possible publishing companies to contact
Routledge
Hackett Publishing
Basic Books (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_B...)
Rizzoli
Pantheon
Dover
Ancient Wisdom Publications
Humanitas
Orion
Shambhala
Sextant
Bureau of Public Secrets
Bread & Circuses
Pendulum
MIT press (German Thought Series)
Harry N. Abrams
OUP (Oxford University Press)
Barnes & Noble: in-store readings program?
Digital (platforms):
Project Gutenberg
Wordpress
Blogspot (to make your own blog)
Digital (periodicals)
Leonardo
Scientific American
Omni
Digital, essayists, existing blogs etc
LessWrong.com
RationallySpeaking.com
https://www.overcomingbias.com/
Online content providers
Academia.edu
Scrib'd
JSTOR
SimplyCharly
SAGE Journals
SEP (Stamford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
IEP (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
brick-and-mortar
The Henry George School
https://brooklynfriends.org/contact-us/
https://www.schoolofthought.org/
https://philosophy.nyc/
Meetup.com
https://philosophyworks.org/
StackExchange
LibraryThing
podcasts
https://courses.newschool.edu [The New School]
University Departments of Philosophy ---contact any major school of liberal arts & sciences
private sector:
Cato Institute
Brookings Institute
The Mises Institute
Mensa Institute
other:
NPR radio?
public information/public access television?
nonprofits, 501c's?
college campus lecture circuit?
college radio stations?
authors to contact
Stephen Pinker
(I don't know if these are alive)
Justus Hartnack
Roger Scruton
Lewis White
Dieter Henrich
George diGiovanni
Michael Gelven
Hubert L. Dreyfus
Michael Inwood
other philosophy authors from the OUP VSI series
Feliks, many thanks. Many of these suggestions are new to me. I appreciate the effort you took to put the list together.
Good luck, Bob. I hope it helps. And I'm sure what I gathered is not even comprehensive --there must be many more periodicals out there. For instance, 'Reason' magazine which Alan mentioned a day ago. That's one I didn't know.And this morning, these others occur to me. These are all bloggers on the theme of Rationality. Just Google each name; let me know if any prove difficult.
Alyssa Vance
Beeminder
Elizabeth Van Nostrand
Gwern Branwen
Jacob Falkovich
Jeff Kaufman
Katja Grace
Kelsey Piper
Paul Christiano
Robin Hanson
Sarah Constantin
Zack Davis
Zvi Mowshowitz
Create an account on Usenet to reach "newsgroups". Newsgroups were one of the earliest forms of social media on the internet, they are a hangover from the old 'b.b' (bulletin board) mode.
I think your book should warrant great interest among certain circles. If your prospective publisher doubts this, then we can certainly satisfy that doubt and get you rolling!
Is this a book about McKeon? If so, I think you should discuss his role in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.If it's not, I'm not sure why you discuss him at such great length. He hasn't ever been considered much of a player, I don't think.
Feliks, thanks for the list of bloggers. Good bloggers are valuable but hard to find.
Aye Bob. But the weakest section of what I suggested were the 'think-tanks'. I feel there must be some Beltway think-tanks who may deal with Kantian topics, but I just couldn't come up with solid choices. "Brookings" and "Cato" are frankly, ludicrous.
It worth it to round up more data on this --these outfits have money, names, and prestige to boost new authors.
Walter, you're right, McKeon has not received much attention. The book offers a reason for reevaluation of his work. It does that by offering a way of looking at philosophy, mainly but not exclusively Anglo-American philosophy, over the last hundred years. Kant gets brief attention in a few places. McKeon's project was "philosophia perennis, " as David J Depew suggests in his essay in the collection of essays entitled Pluralism in Theory and Practice: Richard McKeon and American Philosophy, eds. Eugene Garver and Richard Buchanan. Whether such a project is possible is, of course, debatable, but it does suggest that the thing to look for in McKeon is less a philosophy than a way of understanding philosophies. Philosophical turns are the dimension of philosophy on which I focus.Maybe we see Pirsig differently. Like others who spent time in McKeon's classroom, I've read Pirsig, in my case a long time ago. Email has enabled a number of former McKeon students to keep in touch over the years. I think it is fair to say that we would put Pirsig not in the tradition of commentary on McKeon but in the tradition of reactions to the experience of being in McKeon's classroom, which was an intellectual boot camp. Susan Sontag encapsulates the spectrum of responses to this experience. She says she revered him even though he terrified her. No one ever left McKeon's classroom with an inflated sense of self-esteem.
Ach. I wrote a fairly lengthy comment on this thread on my phone this morning, but it apparently never made it here. I hadn't seen your response to my earlier post at the time, though, so maybe it's just as well to start over. No doubt, though, I'll leave something out. First, I said that I thought it would be hard to find a prominent philosopher to endorse your draft since the only well known contemporary thinker you mention in your summary is Harman, and he's in his mid-eighties. I noted too, however, that you know much more about McKeon scholarship than I do (I didn't even recognize that as a subfield), so maybe you can get someone who's published a couple of papers on him to endorse your manuscript.
Second, I noted that it's customary for publishers of scholarly books to look for published journal articles by prospective authors in the same area as their manuscript, so I hoped that you have a couple of those. FWIW, getting my own book on democratic theory published was quite the slog. I got about 20 rejections from publishers before Rowman and Littlefield finally gave it the green light. It's hard and can be depressing! OTOH, it's also kind of fun, at least if you eventually get the result you're looking for.
Then, I said that I disagreed with the suggestion you make at the beginning of your summary that there hasn't been much discussion of the effect of Kant and Kantianism on the practice and procedures of philosophers. I think there's actually a huge literature on that, including by such heavyweights as Strawson and Sellars. I'd think, at any rate, that there are several hundred books that have focused on that subject...as well as thousands of papers. These began with the early post-Kantians and have extended to last week.
Turning to your discussion of Persig, I think the fact that you can comment on that subject and were a McKeon student yourself gives you a huge advantage with prospective publishers. I'd absolutely play up that connection! Motorcycle Maintenance was one of the biggest selling philosophy books in history and the ensuing gossip regarding McKeon (though folks like me were never exactly sure it was him) was extremely intoxicating. That you can comment on that bruhaha from up close is, I think, very important--much more exciting to publishers and the general public than any arguments, however powerful they might be, that you can make regarding Kant and metaphilosophy. They'll want the tea!
At all events, I wish you much luck in this endeavor! I'd be interested in reading a draft if you'd like to send it to me, but I'm afraid there are a couple of books ahead of it in my queue. I regularly review democracy books for "3:16 AM Magazine" here: https://www.3-16am.co.uk/articles/.c/... and have made some promises I'd like to keep.
Cheers!
Walter, thanks for your comments and suggestions.Regarding Kant, I’m well aware of his massive influence on modern philosophy. The first sentence in my book description stresses that his turn is “widely known.” While my main focus is the linguistic turn and the current metaphysical turn in Graham Harman and others, I add Kant not only to include the third of the three turns that recur in McKeon’s view of the history of philosophy but also because he is so well known that he serves as a perfect introductory illustration of what I mean by a philosophical turn.
What I suggest in the opening sentences of the description is that less attention is given to what turns like Kant’s reveal about the subject matter of philosophy. Changes in the subject matter of philosophy are a major theme in the book. The main argument in the book for a reevaluation of McKeon centers on the point that his view of turns in the history of philosophy predicted the current metaphysical turn seventy years ago. That, it seems to me, is evidence that McKeon was onto something in his view of the history of philosophy.
I find it odd that you know of “gossip” about Pirsig and McKeon that was “intoxicating.” Intoxication seems extreme. I’m left wondering what could have stimulated it.
Regarding Harman, by the way, he is in his early fifties. He was born May 9, 1968.
I do have a publisher; the questions I posted with my book description are questions from my publisher (My first sentence: “I’m completing a marketing questionnaire for my publisher”). Hence, there is no longer time for any changes that might be prompted by your responses to a draft. But I appreciate your generous offer to look at a draft and would, of course, be interested in your response to the book. At this point, I don’t yet have a firm date of expected publication. I’ll keep you posted.
Thanks for your reference to your review page. Having read Applebaum's latest book few months ago, I read your review of it and found it stimulating and interesting. I largely agree with it. My sense is that the “elites” coming out of the Reagan era lost credibility by failing to confess that they didn’t think through the consequences of globalization carefully enough.
Again, thank you for your interest.
Hi, Robert. I thought we were talking about the famous Harman: Gilbert. He's 84: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert... Graham may be his son. Dunno.
Re the interest in Pirsig and his hostility toward his philosophy prof (who turned out to be McKeon), I was not alone! There was an absolute frenzy about this matter back in the day. Everybody in academia wanted to know who this alleged ogre was!
Sorry I misunderstood that you already have a publisher. Congrats! And thanks for your kind words about my Applebaum review. Her book really made me mad.
Best, WH
I don't think Philosophy is anything to anyone that does not practice it. Philosophy in action is to philosophize.
And philosophizing to me is what it was to Montaigne:
"To philosophize is to learn how to die".And this squares beautifully with what Albert Camus asserted to be the primary philosophical problem.
"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy."
There are a lot of definitions of philosophy (as noted above) and all of them add a slightly different perspective to the subject. As with all words, how they are used varies with context and perspective. Perhaps poetry is a good example of this because it often approaches it's subject obliquely, and this makes you think of something from a different angle.Anyway, I just wanted to add another definition...
Philosophy is thinking about thinking.
Thank you for your thoughtful remarks. As more members join, they'll bring their own interests to the group, and we can keep expanding the scope and complexity of topics under discussion.
I for my part would like to thank our members for keeping the discussions going -- You, Rhonda, John, Patrice, and Everyman, among many -- and for thinking of new topics, too. There remain many subjects yet to be discussed -- economics, for instance. With enough participation, we'll soon be able to cover many more bases.