Category: Actual philosophical discussion!

It seems like we might distinguish between two ways of pursuing wisdom (meaning: metaphysics and values). We might pursue wisdom as a society/culture/species, which would be something like a scientific approach to the questions “What is real?” and “What is valuable?” Or we might pursue those same questions as individuals: “What do I take to be real?” and “What do I take to be valuable?”

Of course, so long as these questions are asked by individuals, one would expect each individual to come up with the same answers to these sets of questions. (My answers won’t be different to “What is real?” and “What do I take to be real?”) But there still is a difference in the approaches. When I pursue wisdom as an individual, I am interested in working out who I am. Maybe I need to do this in order to sort out some confusion I’ve encountered, or to make sense of my past, or struggle through some obstacle in my path. It’s existential and more personal than when I pursue wisdom on behalf of my species, which I might do solely out of curiosity, or even as part of my job.

The distinction, I guess, amounts to whether philosophy is done personally or impersonally. I think philosophers typically try to do or at least present their philosophy impersonally, perhaps in the hope of emulating scientists. But there is a need to make philosophy personal; this is philosophy’s therapeutic value. Sometimes people don’t need psychological therapy so much as philosophical therapy, which targets the questions and problems people ought to have (as opposed to the ones they shouldn’t be burdened with).

Individuals, as they pursue wisdom in their own ways, can help each other along by asking probing questions and objections and insisting on authenticity. I can call you on the carpet, and ask whether you really believe what you are telling yourself; or how you square what you believe with other things you should believe; or whether you practice what you preach; and so on. You do the same to me. The big question — “But is what I believe really true?” — ends up getting set aside, since all we can really do, in the end, is work out our beliefs, and hope for the best. Or maybe the way to put it is this: we can only work out ourselves, and hope for the best.

Philosophy alumnus Mike H. recently posted this comment under the on-going “Religious Authenticity” discussion, but I thought it was different enough and interesting enough to post it separately:

It seems like a lot of people think the world is a place where you’ve got a ton of different packaged worldviews and your mission is to choose between them and pick one, put it on like a helmet with goggles and your world will forever be transformed by it. You “understand” the people with different worldviews because you understand their helmet.

Truly understanding people is quite different because each person’s view of the world is really their own. A person’s view of the world is mostly guided by things that are outside of his/her control (environment, culture, indoctrination, etc.). So understanding myself and my view of the world is a discovery process not a construction process. It’s similar when I change my view of the world. I read something or understand some new concept and can’t help but be changed by the concept.

I think some story like this is the human process and I think arguments about this camp vs that camp don’t really get anything done. So… I wouldn’t pair Spinoza and Einstein [as being in the same camp] and I view all people as having distinct worldviews. If I were to pair people by worldviews I’d probably be more likely to use culture as a metric. Culture seems to have a large impact on human behavior and therefore seems like something we could (should?) work on directly to make a better world. Metaphysics is largely impotent and has been for quite some time. Looking around… “American” is what defines the people I see in regard to behavior much more than Christian or Atheist or Buddhist.

Choosing camps… choosing faiths… maybe those aren’t really choices we have? OR how is it that we gain that level of control over “reality”?

Mike H. sent me this link to a brief response to a recent book on Plato by Simon Blackburn (author of “Think,” which hasn’t been as popular as “Blink” — go figure). The book is about how a number of neocons in the Bush administration were students of Leo Strauss, who understood Plato to claim (convincingly, I guess) that the state can decide to do whatever it wants and mislead the people in any way it wants in order to get its tasks done.

It’s certainly true that Plato thought some people were wiser than others, and the rulership should be entrusted to the wisest. And, if the political leaders truly are wise, as Plato understands wisdom, then the state doing “whatever it wants” would be a good thing (since what it wants is what wisdom would endorse). I would say, though, that at least several of these neocons either had an imporperly inflated sense of their own wisdom, or else (more likely) renounced the obligation to follow wisdom, and followed some sort of “will to power” instead; perhaps believing, as they learned from their teacher, that that’s exactly what Plato would advise.

Further thoughts?

From brother Nietzsche:

“… today if one hears anyone commended for living ‘wisely’ or ‘like a philosopher’, it means hardly more than ‘prudently and apart’. Wisdom: that seems to the rabble to be a kind of flight, an artiface and means for getting oneself out of a dangerous game; but the genuine philosopher — as he seems to us, my friends? — lives ‘unphilosophically’ and ‘unwisely’, above all imprudently, and bears the burden and duty of a hundred attempts and temptations of life — he risks himself constantly, he plays the dangerous game…”

Comments?