ON DOING PHILOSOPHY
AUGUST 15th 2004
There are two main ways of approaching philosophy (or resisting phobosophy). Wittgenstein, one of the great philosophers of the twentieth century, made the vital distinction - "Philosophy is not a theory but an activity" - which is a truth often unheeded.
One way then is to study the lives and work of the great ones. Not a few of them, incidentally, led shambolic lives. Reference to any standard general textbook of philosophy reveals that, after an exposition of the philosophy of Mr X, the objections to that view are set out. The next chapter seems very similar; the work of philosopher Y is expounded convincingly but then criticised rather radically. And so on and so on!
Soon you come to the rather pessimistic view that to study the works of the great philosophers is. mainly, to expose fallacious answers to such questions as ...... What is? How can we know the truth of what is? What sorts of actions are morally right? What is the ultimate meaning of it all?
Many great philosophers seem to have the gift for ponderous expression of the blindingly obvious. Two examples can be gleaned from Kant and Wittgenstein respectively.
Kant, speaking of morality, famously taught us to "act only on the maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law". At my mother's knee I was admonished by a basic negative version of this grand idea "How would it be if we all did what you have just done?" My mother had not read Kant.
Wittgenstein must have laboured hard and long to produce - "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent".
If you want a long compulsive read then try Russell on the History of Western Philosophy. To study the Thoughts of the Great Ones, even by reading the ever-kindly Russell, leaves the reader with little more than a 'road map' of assorted cul-de-sacs leading to insufficient corroboration of alleged eternal verities.
The other approach (no doubt the better informed for your getting started laboriously on the first approach) - following Wittgenstein's dictum at the start of this essay - is to Do Philosophy.
This activity is the exploration of the common sense ideas that surround you; try to identify the underlying, often unconsidered, assumptions and inconsistencies; expose the poorly attested facts; unravel the bogus logic and be ever vigilant against wishful thinking (How people do love to elevate possibilities to probabilities and to elevate attractive probabilities to comforting certainties).
But even strident scepticism raises problems of coherence. A recent writer coined the acronym NIAT - Nothing Is Absolutely True - but this brave notion is internally flawed. The NIAT man clearly believes that NIAT is itself absolutely true. The moral here is - try not to make statements that are necessarily illogical, statements that of necessity refute themselves. The most the NIAT man can claim coherently is that 'many supposed absolute truths have been shown be unfounded so, therefore, claims as to absolute truth should be examined with the utmost care'. But do not be seduced by postmodernism which highlights the notion that there is no such thing as objective truth - no such thing as truth independent of the stories we tell one another in our particular culture.
Truth claims are part of all our lives whether we be old men with word processors terminally comfortable on an island in the North Sea, or stone age hunters, or whatever and some truths are true irrespective of people, their cultures or anything whatever about their lives; the earth has one moon - not two moons not no moon - and no amount of cultural diversity alters this fact. But there can be an infinity of interpretations of fact, an infinity of reactions to it.
Plato (was it?) said of Aristotle (was it?) that the the unexamined life is not worth living. This statement about the limitations of the unexamined life is a great truth quite irrespective of who said it of whom and in what cultural context. This statement, or something like it, should the motto of all who aspire to do philosophy.
Before getting down to everyday examples of doing philosophy perhaps a word about common sense will not be out of place. Many common sense ideas survive critical analysis; many do not. There is a kind of natural election at work here. A common sense idea can survive for a long time time but can, eventually, be undermined. For example the flat earth theory was common sense in its day but, in the light of evidence, the globular earth theory supplanted it. Columbus and his men put their lives on the line supplanting the hitherto common sense flat earth theory. The rest is geography.
To 'do philosophy' is to challenge common sense and, sometimes, common sense comes out on top.
I have chosen three subjects in which received common sense does not survive minimal, but careful, analysis. One is the received wisdom that insulating one's house has necessarily good 'green' consequences. Another is that abortion on demand necessarily makes for greater female freedom. The third is that the UK should not adopt the Euro until the time is ripe.
Let us look at these in turn.
In a typical case a householder may spend, say. thirteen hundred pounds sterling a year to maintain the temperature of his home at an acceptable level. By adequate insulation it can well be that the required annual expenditure could be reduced by three hundred pounds. We are encouraged to think that installing the insulation is, of necessity, a green thing to accomplish and this encouragement may well take the form of subsidies or tax breaks. Common sense lets the case rest there.
The inquiring mind will ask "What does the householder do with the three hundred pounds a year that he has gained?" The answer is - any of a great variety of environmentally damaging things. The most absurd possibility is for the householder to spend his three hundred pounds a year on more fuel so as to make his hitherto adequately warm house that much warmer. Insulation has enabled him to inflict an extra three hundred pounds worth of environmental damage each year. Try to think of ways of spending three hundred a year on goods or services with outcomes that are NOT environmentally adverse. You will find difficulty in this quest. Insulating your house is not as automatically green as we are, in common sense, tempted to believe.
Then there is the abortion question and what I have to say is independent of any strong convictions one might have on the subject. I make herein no claims for pro-life or for pro-choice.
Consider the following very realistic legal possibilities. A) Abortion could legally be available on demand by any pregnant woman and B) Any pregnant woman is legally at liberty to apply for consent for abortion via a lawful tribunal of some sort set up to hear such applications. (It being illegal to abort without such consent).
It is clearly a common sense inference that a pregnant woman has more freedom under scenario A) than under scenario B). I suggest that this common sense view is not undeniably tenable but that a little philosophical analysis points to a contrary inference.
Consider the following perfectly realistic hypothetical case.
A happily married couple with two children (of twelve and five years of age) lived in a house convenient for their family needs. Contraceptive accidents can occur and another pregnancy happened. The father thought that the two existing children were enough and that the third pregnancy should be aborted. The mother thought otherwise and they disagreed - quite amicably.
If we define the woman's freedom as the opportunity to have things her way then it is clear that, if the legal scenario is A) then her husband need only put pressure upon her to go for termination. If, on the other hand, the legal scenario is B) then the wife can put her case against termination to what may well be a sympathetic tribunal and her husband's preference for termination could well be set aside and the wife would then get her way.
Thus she would likely enjoy the freedom to have things her way far more easily under scenario B) than she would under scenario A).
This likelihood is precisely the reverse of the common sense view - that it is clearly a common sense inference that a pregnant woman has more freedom under scenario A) than under scenario B).
The fact is that if you have an absolute right to do something then you are potentially vulnerable to pressure from even just one influential person who wishes you to exercise that right. If the right in question is mediated by the authorised power of third parties then those third parties have the opportunity to diminish that vulnerability. In short, some restriction can, paradoxically, result in more actual freedom. That is a counter common sense perspective revealed by careful analysis of likely realities.
The common sense statement that "Britain ought not adopt the Euro too soon" seems self-evident - indeed, considering the meaning of 'too' it seems incontrovertible. But a little philosophical analysis soon uncovers some hidden assumptions : 1) that the question of our joining the Euro Zone is one that the UK alone can answer - that it is simply up to us to join when we wish. The possibility that the existing members may be unwilling to admit the UK to membership is not even considered in public. (We were refused entry to the original EEC at our first attempt - why should they have us now merely on our sayso?) Hidden assumption 2) is that the possibility of our leaving it too late to apply is not even considered publicly. The alleged common sense statement that "Britain ought not adopt the Euro too soon" is simply not self-evident. It is a misleading statement potentially false and, publicly, we do not acknowledge this.
Many items of received common sense can be demolished simply by thinking in a disciplined way about them. The philosopherÕs job is to expose dubious assumptions and slack logic - to combat phobosophy at every turn.
Almost anyone can cook an acceptable meal; few aspire to be great chefs. Almost anyone can do philosophy but we amateurs do well to remember that we are but midgets standing precariously on the shoulders of giants.
E.S..
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