I endlessly struggle with the question of what philosophy is or just what I’m doing when I do philosophy (assuming I ever manage to do any philosophy!). What, for example, is it that distinguishes philosophy as an activity from science? This is an especially pressing question for a materialist and naturalist such as myself; for I’m repeatedly asked the question “if nature (immanence) is all there is, shouldn’t we just be doing science?” I don’t think so, but why? Is it just some sort of disciplinary commitment on my part that leads me to hold that there’s a crucial place for philosophy in human thought? Is it just a desire to maintain my job? Again, I don’t think so.
It might not sound particularly sexy– and it certainly doesn’t tell us what is worth thinking –but I can’t help but believe that philosophy is the critical and reflective investigation of basic concepts that guide our investigation of the world about us, how we ought to live our lives, and what form of governance might be best. Compare two figures. A scientist might ask,
what causes depression?
We can very well imagine a philosopher turning around and asking the scientist,
what is causality?
The scientist presupposes a concept of causality in her investigations. She uses this concept in her inquiry. Now she might have a sophisticated concept of causality or she might never have thought much about causality at all, using it in the sort of colloquial and unreflective way that Plato decried when, for example, people like Euthyphro talked about piety.
A whole cascade of questions arise when we raise a question like “what is causality?” We can ask whether or not causality exists at all. We can ask how we distinguish between correlation or two events that merely accompany one another from genuine causation. This, for example, was Hume’s question. But perhaps most importantly we can ask whether there is only one form of causality or many forms of causality. Is there only one-to-one causation; one cause and one effect? Is there many-to-one causation; or many events conspiring to produce an effect? Is there one-to-many causation; or one event producing a variety of different effects? We can even ask whether causality necessarily moves from past to present or whether there aren’t forms of causality that move from future to past!
read on!
Notice how our answers to these conceptual questions influence our inquiry. If our scientist works on the premise that there is only one-to-one causality she will look for a single cause of depression such as chemical imbalances. This will also determine her proposals for treatment. If, however, she also has a many-to-one concept of causality, she might look for conjunctions or confluences of events such as brain chemistry, diet, working environment, meaning, exercise, alcohol use, etc. This would lead to a very different model of treatment. Similarly, Freud works with a concept of causality that moves from past to present: the psychic maladies we suffer from in the present are the result of our childhood experiences. However, if humans are the sorts of systems that are futural as Heidegger argued, then the psychic maladies from which we suffer in the present might not be so much the result of our past, childhood experiences, as the way in which we project a future before ourselves. We get two very different psychic models here.
Concepts matter because concepts are like lenses. They draw our attention to some things, while plunging others that fall outside the concept into obscurity or invisibility. We can use concepts in an unreflective and unconscious way, taking their content for granted, or we can try to make them explicit (as per Brandom’s famous formulation), striving to determine whether or not they’re adequate, what they ought to include, and so on. For example, we can move from denouncing something as unjustice to asking “what is justice?”. We might here find that we have many more duties pertaining to justice than we ever imagined; ones that extend far beyond punishment.
Here I think it’s important to understand that philosophy is not so much a discipline as a style of thought or an activity. We are fortunate to have a discipline that houses those who engage in this sort of conceptual reflection, that provides a site for this reflection, and that preserves the thought of those who have reflected on basic concepts. However, I can imagine someone objecting that certainly the scientist can (and does!) ask questions like “what is causality?” To be sure. However, I would argue that when she does this she’s not doing science but rather philosophy. Philosophy doesn’t have to happen in a department to be philosophy, nor does it have to be in a particular section of the bookstore. One need not have a degree in philosophy to engage in this sort of reflective activity; though it certainly helps. It can take place anywhere and at any time.
What’s important to understand, I think, is that we’re engaged in a different sort of investigation than that of science when engage in this conceptual reflection. I am also not suggesting that this is exhaustive of what philosophy is, only that it is a core component of philosophy. This form of inquiry is not one that stands in contradiction or opposition to scientific investigation. However, it is investigating something that is prior to and different from, say, an observational account of some phenomenon in the world. It’s hard for me to see how circumstances could ever arise where conceptual reflection is not needed.
January 23, 2014 at 8:01 am
Of course Deleuze felt this was an old man’s question, something that came at the end of one’s work, when nothing else remained but to ask: “What have I being doing all my life?” Yet, as he and G said over and over philosophy is the art of forming, inventing, and fabricating concepts (What is Philosophy? p. 2).
I think E.J. Lowe out of the Analytic tradition said it with equal equanimity:
“Philosophy is an intellectual discipline that provides a forum in which the boundary disputes between other disciplines can be conducted” (Metaphysics, p. 2).
Your notion that philosophy is “is not so much a discipline as a style of thought or an activity,” needs a little more explication, yet I can see where your moving with it. You seem to see philosophy as a sort of physical material process, an action that is not specialized in the sense that a particular science, say microbiology might be, narrowing its focus toward a particular set of problems. But instead you see philosophy as a mode of existence, a mind-set, a way of approaching the problems through the use of conceptual tools rather than material processes in themselves.
Am I right or wrong on this… and, if wrong, can you explicate?
January 23, 2014 at 12:59 pm
I would certainly agree that the failure to recognize that scientists *also* philosophize is part of the problem in this respect… this is tied up in the gradual elevation of the researcher into the role of priest, alas.
All the best,
Chris.
January 23, 2014 at 5:23 pm
excellent remarks
January 23, 2014 at 6:45 pm
Some good thoughts here, Levi. The one thing that I want to push back against is the idea that concepts are like lenses. This for me is the wrong metaphor—it presupposes a more or less stable human subject that can switch amongst concepts at will, issuing only in a change of perspective in an otherwise stable subject (for me it does, anyway). It also runs straight into a kind of multiperspectivalism (i.e., a unified world “out there” with multiple perspectives lined up “in here”). In my understanding concepts cut much deeper than this, and this is particularly the case when we deal with self-referential concepts that deal what, exactly, a “human” is. Subjects are transformed through their use (and perhaps use by) concepts. Concepts, I think, are more tactile, more amenable to a kind of structural coupling than visual metaphor, if that makes sense. I’m not sure that pragmatically this point makes much of a difference, but I thought it worth mentioning.
January 23, 2014 at 6:59 pm
Adam,
I think that’s a rather uncharitable reading of my claims that attributes far more to me than anything I say in the post (and that would be suggested by positions I’ve repeatedly defended elsewhere in different contexts). Nothing I’ve said presupposes a unified subject that can pick up concepts and discard them at will. All I claim is that philosophy works with concepts. I’m entirely agnostic as to what sort of subject might do that work or whether it even involves a subject at all. That aside, I do think concepts are like lenses that illuminate the world in particular ways. If you prefer we could talk about aletheia or distinctions. What’s important is that certain things are largely unthinkable and are not even discernible without particular concepts.
January 23, 2014 at 7:08 pm
Noir,
You write:
In this post I’m trying to do what might be called “meta-philosophy” or “philosophy of philosophy” that captures what is common to divergent philosophical orientations. For that reason, I can’t defend something as specific as the idea that philosophy is a sort of physical material process. Both a dualist like Plato and Lucretius are engaged in conceptual analysis, while Plato certainly wouldn’t accept the thesis that forms are material physical processes. What I’m trying to do when I describe philosophy as a style of thought or activity is to desuture philosophy from the idea that there are eternal philosophy specific questions like “what is knowledge?”, “what is being?”, “what is beauty?”, etc., that would be unique to philosophy. Rather, I think philosophy, in part, is a reflection on basic concepts. Often these basic concepts are concepts pertaining to knowledge or justice or beauty, but that could just as easily be questions like “what is depression?” When we pose a question like that we’re exploring a concept, a sense, rather than engaging in an empirical investigation. This style of thinking need not occur in philosophy departments and be conducted by people who have philosophy Ph.D.’s. The research psychologist is engaging in this philosophical activity when she seeks to delimit or define what depression is so as to conduct her empirical research.
January 23, 2014 at 7:11 pm
Ok, thanks, Levi that clarifies your thinking for me.
[Just happened to be doing a post at this moment so saw your reply. Again, thanks…] Steven
January 23, 2014 at 7:35 pm
I’m on board with the post in general, Levi. My point in raising the issue of the simile is, first, I just don’t think it’s a good one. And second, because I already know a bit about your work, I was surprised to see you deploy it in this context; as I mentioned for me the lens metaphor is at odds with how we both construe human subjects (i.e., as plastic, open, adaptable etc.) because lenses are taken often and discarded.
More interestingly, our disagreement appears to be an interesting case of what you’re describing above: It’s not just other subjects or events that we cognize through concepts; it’s the also the case that we cognize other concepts through concepts (or through similes, as the case may be). For me cognizing concepts through the second concept/metaphor of “lens” just doesn’t do the work I need done. So, we have a disagreement on that front, but I’m certainly not trying to disparage your whole post or previous writings on the subject with which I largely agree.
January 23, 2014 at 8:11 pm
I don’t see why such a framework wouldn’t work with a Foucaultian epistemology where there is no subject of knowledge and where there are various epistemes or a Kuhnian paradigm theory or Heideggerians sendings and the open. Indeed, Heidegger uses similar similes when describing aletheia. All analogies are imperfect and all that’s intended is that something, constructed or otherwise, is brought into relief.
January 23, 2014 at 9:28 pm
We certainly can deploy such a framework using Foucault, Kuhn, and Heidegger (and Bachelard, we should probably add). My concern is that the visual metaphors—”lens,” “perspectives,” “views”, etc.—have come to dominate much of how we interpret the work that concepts do (the same could be said for paradigms and epistemes), and I want to know if these metaphors don’t themselves hide something else about the nature of concepts we should also be dealing with. Certainly, becoming aware of multiple perspectives is important, but I’m interested in taking the discussion in a different direction using terms like “prehension,” “enaction,” or “coupling.” These are all tactile metaphors that help me deal with the thing-like nature of concepts in a way the visual metaphors don’t. Of course this could be totally idiosyncratic, and I may be running down a dead end, but it’s worth checking out, I think.
January 24, 2014 at 4:37 am
My two cents: Of course we will always have the “investigation into basic concepts” called philosophy that operates by such ‘philosophy of…’ and ‘what is..’ questions, but I have to rebut this ‘knowledge based’ route and call it what it is: critical ideological or cultural theory. At least if we were to begin with this and then assert philosophy everyone might have a better understanding of what is really going on with ‘philosophy’, and the disclaimer might then prompt philosophy to actually contribute something more than reifying the ideological norm.
I would say: philosophy is the situating of terms upon truth. If one has to ask ‘what is…’, specifically in reference to, here, truth, and ask it as if it is a significant question, and be quite serious about it, then I’m sure they are quite comfortable in their position of supporting the problematic ethical reality. They have acquired their horse on the merry go round, each time thinking the ring is new, whereas it has been fashioned from the same mold, the same measure of brass, the same metal smith; needless to say, the hole they toss it into a new box.
Such a question of truth needs be asked, I suppose; but since this question does arise, such a philosopher would indeed be hard pressed to see how their effort is one of situating terms, instead of investigating concepts. So philosophy continues thinking it much more than an ideological assertion of propriety upon the ‘less thoughtful’. At least we do have an admitting of its effort in the attempt for justice – but to where does this justice lead ? By investigating the concepts, as a mode of method, a foundational impetus, I would say, this philosophy leads only to a perpetuation of injustice, justified in a plausible denial of ones ideological position for the effort.
What reflection is occurring when one reflects upon concepts? How is one able to ‘reflect’ oneself? I think this is the more philosophical question. No concept of reflection is needed, except when the reflection itself is based in injustice. Let’s just call such ‘what is…’ philosophy what is is: ideological justification, critical cultural theory.
January 24, 2014 at 5:51 pm
[…] R. Bryant has a couple of thought full posts on his blog Larval Subjects (here) and (here) dealing with the twined subjects of philosophy’s work and reality probing. In the […]
January 24, 2014 at 8:35 pm
[…] Thoughts on Philosophy and Science Thoughts on What Philosophy Is by Levi R. […]
January 25, 2014 at 9:44 am
A part of the answer to what philosophy ought to be is contained in my article “What philosophy ought to be”, 2014. In: Tandy, C, (ed.) Death And Anti-Death, Volume 11: Ten Years After Donald Davidson (1917-2003). Ria University Press: Palo Alto, California, USA, available online at http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1400215/ .
January 25, 2014 at 5:56 pm
Looks like an interesting article– though I think you meant to write part of YOUR proposal, not part of THE answer –but I wonder if it doesn’t suffer from two problems. First all sorts of disciplines do what you suggest so it appears to broad. For example, sociology and ecology both do these things as well. In other words, you haven’t captured what is unique to philosophy but are talking about a telos shared by a variety of endeavors (and one could ask whether philosophy ought to be restricted to the telos you propose). Second, what I’m trying to ask here is what is uniquely distinctive about philosophical thought regardless of what questions it happens to ask. I worry that when we give a telos of philosophy this specific we end up excluding important things philosophy has done unrelated to your particular and personal project. I think it’s great to assist in trying to solve humanities problems, but believe phosophy also does other valuable things that aren’t quite so messianic.