25.6.2006
When people learn that I have studied philosophy, they sometimes ask
whether I would recommend any particular book that gives a good introduction
to modern philosophy without getting too technical. Most times this happens
I suggest Robert Nozick's The Examined Life. There is a bunch of
reasons for that. I'd like to explain some.
In calling a philosophical text 'technical' I mean not only that it may
make heavy use of a specialized terminology, or jargon; it is a well-known
fact that contemporary philosophy has a strong tendency to present its
arguments as reflections about logic, language and scientific achievements.
It is easy to get the impression that most of these reflections are about
something that doesn't matter much to most of us. Surely the important
things in our lives are not exclusively to be found in that rule- and
number-governed world? Any good account of the important issues that
philosophy is about must cover the whole of reality, must address topics like
the fundamental structure of the world around us (the physical world of
objects in space and time as well as the social world which we are part of
as human beings), what guide we can have in leading a (morally) good life,
how truth or beauty relate to us. It seems unlikely that all this can be
found in the details of logical analysis, or in the laws discovered by
physics and other sciences.
On the other hand, it is evident that no serious answer to the questions
that matter to us can be simply formulated in the language and the style of
thinking employed two-hundred years ago (in some countries, books are still
published every year which read as if the authors were unaware of the fact
that nobody any longer talks in the obscure, incomprehensible jargon of, say,
Hegel, or one of his contemporaries - and nobody can understand it save a
handful of academic philosophers specialized in historical subjects). This
would mean to be 'technical' in another, equally unfavourable way.
Permitting our stance to be framed by very old books carries the danger
that not the best minds of a period would be our guides. I am not referring
to the original authors here. Aristotle, Kant or Wittgenstein certainly
deserve that predicate. But our account of their views is more or less shaped
by today's scholars that translate and interpret their work for us. Although
this is an intellectual achievement on its own, it is still doubtful whether
it is on a par with the achievements which they are about. Yet the
intellectual atmosphere of our time is to a considerable degree shaped by
thought that is not just related to, but dependent on some earlier work.
(Even the selection of names I have mentioned some sentences ago is just part
of an agreed-upon canon.)
(Compare this with a neighbouring academic discipline, literary science.
A corresponding situation here would be tantamount to having no longer any
literature written and published at all, but continuing the practice of
editing, interpreting and discussing the existing works which makes out the
academic daily work. While this would still be worth doing, it would look to
us as if something important had gone.
Writing an essay about the particular use a poet made of a certain sort of
phrase is a common exercise in literary science; similarly, it is a typical
contribution of scholars in philosophy to analyze the particular use a
philosopher made of a certain concept. But there is a difference here - or
there should be one, anyway - because philosophy, as opposed to literary
science, has no counterpart: there is no analogue in philosophy to what poets
are in literary science. Restricting the field to the set of tasks that are
similar to the one described, philosophy would constrain its own area
substantially.)
There is of course no question that every serious philosophy must start
somewhere from a set of previously gained insights. But there is a difference
between departing from such a set of insights and viewing every own
contribution as an elaboration or interpretation of one or more of its
members. Interpretation of existing insights may be instrumental in finding
new ones; drawing contrasts may sometimes be the only way to explain them;
but what matters most is still a new insight that must be able to stand on its
own from a certain point on.
Philosophy has always a reflexive component in that there can be no
philosophical position that does not feature an account of its own place. This
self-defining (or self-locating) element in philosophical positions may be
(more or less) implicit or explicit, but it is always there (or else it would
not be justified to speak of a philosophy at all). Taking it as a matter of
course that philosophy consists in working out the consequences of some
position crafted a long time ago means implicitly committing oneself to a
definition of philosophy that makes it dependent on a doubly contingent
heritage. First, every information about something past could have been lost
(records can be destroyed, memories are lost, etc.). Nothing has come down to
us with historical necessity. Secondly, philosophy (the particular
philosophers) in the past could have taken a different course.
There are certain philosophical outlooks that are compatible with such a
commitment. In Hegel's view, for instance, there is a necessity in the
development of thought, and therefore the contingency here is only apparent.
But note that this is an explicit statement that also requires its defenders
to underwrite Hegel's philosophy of history in general. (Which may not be
desirable, and precisely so because most of its consequences are grossly
incompatible with the actual course history has taken since Hegel's day.
Recent attempts to modernize similar views, like Francis Fukuyama's version
of the thesis of the end of history have come and already gone again.)
Opposed to the idea (whether implicit or explicit) that the core of our
philosophy is to be found in views that have actually come to us but may have
not, or could have been different, are those that try to make out the
fundamental motivation of philosophy in the self-standing rationality of human
beings (I sometimes associate this with Stoic philosophy, because for me the
prime example of this is Seneca's position). By concentrating on the use of
reason for achieving a good life (or at least coming nearer to leading one),
such an approach would be at least suspicious of that idea. Now, an example
of a relatively recent book that exemplifies this is Nozick's The Examined
Life. Although both informed by the technicalities of contemporary
analytical philosophy and open to the insights of predecessors all over the
history of philosophy (and not only western philosophy), the book takes very
seriously the idea that it is rational self-government that makes the most
important contribution to leading a fuller and better life - and this directly
contradicts the idea that it is the history that leads toward us that mostly
shapes who and what we are. This is stated clearly in Nozick's introductory
remarks.)
From a Stoic point of view, it is respect for the capacity of thinking
(and acting) reasonable in ourselves and others that should guide a
philosophical outlook. This is motivated (in the original Stoics, like Seneca)
by the thought that being rational is the distinctive human nature, that which
makes human beings human.
Now, the notion of nature is not only in itself unspecific and unclear,
it has been subject to such a long history of interpretation that it is almost
impossible to build a position on it in the same way as Seneca did. In
Nozick's account, the role of the central notion is played by 'reality'
instead of 'nature'. The good life, in Nozick's mind, is marked by being more
real (it is extensively discussed what that could mean), not by what is the
life that is most in accord with human nature. (By this I do not mean to
imply that Nozick has been motivated by an explicit consideration of the
shortcomings of the notion of nature, nor do I want to attribute to him an
interest in the question whether a neo-Stoic philosophy may be viable under
modern conditions; whether or not there is an actual influence is not of
interest to me.)
Still, the approach taken by Nozick is explorative and particularistic
when it comes to the discussion of that central notion. There is no
theoretical backend for his notion of reality in the same manner as (for
instance) Kant's critical philosophy provides a fundament for his ethics.
More similar to the Stoics, Nozick takes understanding of the central notion
as not so much to be constituted by theoretical study than by learning and
mastering the requirements of living in accord with the philosophical stance
created by it.
(to be continued)
