Religion and Philosophy Interesting essay about philosophy as part of everyday life. Much more could be done with the theme, but this is a worthwhile introduction. Some notes : The author expressed a disdain for spirituality. To be sure there are some types of spirituality that are insipid, the Joel Osteen brand of Christianity, for instance, others that consist of a mix of buffoonery and self-conceit, still others that --like the New Age at its worst-- are based on wishful thinking or delusions of grandeur or even on hallucinations. However, any kind of generalized anti-religion outlook is unjustifiable. The observation has been made that every field consists of exemplars and everything else, with the "everything else," the mediocre norm, not worth much. This is true for science-fiction, for business management, for the theater, et. al., and for religion as well. But the existence of a mediocre norm hardly negates the value of the best that a 'field' offers, and certainly religion at its best offers much of lasting value. It is a serious limitation for anyone, especially a student of philosophy, not to understand this. There are obvious examples of philosophers who simply cannot be understood apart from their religious commitment, intellects who clearly have a great deal to teach the rest of us , such as Thomas Aquinas, Soren Kierkegaard, and the great Buddhist thinker Dharmakriti, who might be called the 'Aristotle of Asia.' But let me use just one example that is easy enough to comprehend from a more typically religious source, in this case, a sermon I recall from my teen years in a Baptist church in Chicago. The pastor pointed out in a sermon one Sunday that we are supposed to take faith seriously to the level of details in life. This is emphasized again and again in Paul's epistles. Then Dr. Hintz focused on how this principle applies to writing, something we all do, and sometimes every day. Each and every word will be judged by Jesus Christ, that was the pastor's message. To be sure, we cannot know this with certainty, but we surely ought to have this attitude. Jesus cares about not only the condition of your soul, or my soul, in a general way, he cares about your entire life from start to finish. So does the Father, for whom each blade of grass and each sparrow in the wild, matters, as well as the well-being of each human being. That is, each and every word you write is answerable to Jesus. You need to justify each paragraph, each sentence, and the choice of each word you put on paper --not to Miss Wormwood in English class-- to Christ himself. Or if some days there is a substitute teacher, you need to justify each word to the Holy Spirit. That is a pretty high bar. Let me guess that I have failed to clear that bar about 100,000 times in my lifetime. And it is no problem to admit that now and then the concept gets lost amidst other priorities. But the idea planted in my memory in church that long ago Sunday has had incalculable value from that time to this, decade after decade. It has made me a far better writer than would have been true any other way. All of my words matter, and all of the words that anyone writes matter for the same reason --even if other people have not had the advantage of hearing a Baptist sermon by a pastor who derived this unforgettable lesson from the New Testament to share with his congregation at some date in the mid 1950s. There were other sermons at other churches, there have been conversations with Buddhists and Hindus and Zoroastrians along the way also, not to mention Jews and Baha'is, and there have been innumerable similar lessons that, thankfully, I was able to learn, however imperfectly. All of this has had the greatest possible value. Greater still is the value of religion as counterpart to philosophy, something that makes both philosophy and religion better than either would have been without the other. Who have been the greatest of all philosophers ? Yes, some in this rare category have been non-believers, but the point should not be lost that others were intrinsically religious along with being world class as philosophers. Think of Immanuel Kant, or Hegel, or near the very beginnings of philosophy itself, Parmenides or Pythagoras. Ignoring the religious dimension of philosophy and what it can offer, or the philosophical dimension of religion and what it can offer, would be a terrible mistake. Billy _________________________________________
_Talking Philosophy_ (http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/) The Philosophers' Magazine Blog Metaphors for philosophical people Posted by _BLS Nelson_ (http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?author=24) on April 10, 2013 Recently _I argued_ (http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?p=4363) that philosophers aspire to possess four virtues: rigor in argument, reason-responsiveness in dialogue, humility in commitment, and insight in belief. [*] In all things philosophical, the philosopher tries to avoid being like King Lear — i.e., someone who asserts without argument, responds to reasons with evasions, is incapable of intellectual change, and believes only in what is expedient or socialized into them. In a subsequent post, I argued that you could build a _taxonomy of philosophical archetypes_ (http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?p=5363) by classifying the philosopher according to the virtues they exemplify. Those posts attempted to think about the ideal character types of some excellent philosophers. I did not make many specific references to the contemporary institution of philosophy, or to the great lumpenprofessoriat that staff university departments across the world. But, actually, it is misleading to characterize a discipline by showcasing its best members; not every golfer is Tiger Woods. Philosophy is not just a scholastic curio bequeathed to us from a bunch of dead icons. Philosophy is a living practice, performed by real people, and done for a point. The point of philosophy is personal growth — to try to become wiser, and to live better lives. So I would like to start to set the record straight, just in case the record needed straightening. I’d like to use the ‘four virtues’ framework to talk about the self-image of philosophers in general, both professional and otherwise. In particular, I would like to articulate some of the different ways that philosophers have thought that their education helped to affect their development as persons. In this, my aim is both critical and reverential. Each metaphor describes a disposition or skill-set that is evenly balanced between virtues and vices. [**] The point can be made clearest by drawing analogies to people and practices that we are already acquainted. In this post, I examine three metaphors for philosophers as people: you can think of philosophers as intellectual detectives, as rational therapists, and as curious children. I might examine three other metaphors in a future post, assuming readers do not heave this post overboard as they would a dead sailor at sea. (http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/wp-content/uploads/4012/08/pirates.gif) I think I can see why Wittgenstein _loved detective stories_ (http://books.google.ca/books?id=UEIpweCEyaUC&lpg=PA208&ots=Ffcwqt9G59&dq=wittgenstein%20d etective%20novels&pg=PA208#v=onepage&q=wittgenstein%20detective%20novels&f=f alse) . On some occasions, I am tempted to think of the philosopher as a kind of intellectual detective. Like storybook gumshoes, the philosopher has a problem to solve, and has to rely primarily on their wit and sense of reason to come to a solution. Like the detective, the philosopher needs to have a healthy acquaintance with forms of reasoning in order to try to resolve their problems — namely, the use of deduction and inference to the best explanation. Although he never explicitly compares the philosopher to a detective, I think the following passage from _Barry Stroud_ (http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/27654057?uid=3739448&uid=2&uid=3737720&uid=4&sid=21101833593573) [***] gives expression to the general idea: “The philosophers I admire most possess [a] kind of acute sensitivity to philosophical difficulties. They are open to potential philosophical riches, and they find them, in what look to most of the rest of us like very unpromising places. And, what is equally important, those philosophers I admire most know how to keep searching when they know they haven’t really found the right thing yet. This is not the only kind of philosophical ability there is… but for me, those I most admire have a firm foothold in reality and a “ nose” or feel for real problems, along with the patience to unfold the detail of what has to be overcome to achieve the kind of understanding that can mean the most to us.” This analogy gains strength when we think about how some epistemologists think in earnest about philosophical problems. The philosophical detective has a few intuitive questions — a few real hum-dingers, a pocket full of paradoxes — and she believes that any philosopher that is not attempting to find the correct answer to these questions is not doing philosophy at all. The detective wants to actually get to the bottom of philosophical worries, and not just settle for a lingering sense of satisfaction with basking in the aura of the big questions. And many of the greatest philosophers of our time have arrived at systems of intuitions which indicate that finally, at long last, the great questions have either been solved or mooted. The detective metaphor is a healthy source of motivation for the independent thinker. If you think you have good reasons to believe you have arrived at the truth, then there is usually no fault in saying so. The truth is out there and sometimes the truth is frickin’ awesome. But, that having been said, the metaphor of the intellectual detective is sometimes misused when it only serves as a smokescreen for dogmatism. The author linked [_here_ (http://moufawad-paul.blogspot.ca/2013/01/fallacy-detection-machines.html) ] is right when he makes just this narrow point. On occasion, students of philosophy will sometimes treat the informal fallacies as if they were falsity-detectors, divining rods which lead the philosopher to strike pay-dirt. But actually, any competent teacher of logic will tell you that a skill for critical thinking does not by itself confer the expertise to determine which conclusions are true and which are false. Rather, part of the value of critical thinking is that it helps the good-faith reader and listener to figure out for themselves how they stand in relation to arguments put before them. *** When I lived in Toronto, the subway commute was generally unpleasant. The Toronto subway was decorated with advertisements for a sketchy new-age institute that branded itself as a school of Philosophy. I experience similar feelings of grouchitude when I walk into a bookstore and notice that the Philosophy section is invariably bookended by sections on Religion and Spirituality. Any student of analytic philosophy will reliably try to avert their eyes when exposed to commercial efforts that conflate philosophy and spirituality, else be forced to suffer through the minor indignity of being audience to false advertising. Well, whatever. To some extent, the philosophical tradition has it coming. One of the worst kept secrets in analytic philosophy, and philosophy in general, is that part of the point of learning philosophy is to learn how to cope with living. When conceived in this way, the philosopher functions as a kind of rational therapist, who attempts to persuade people to accept palliative insights. With few exceptions, modern professional philosophers are generally quite lousy at providing such consolations. (It is instructive that De Botton’s _The Consolations of Philosophy_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Consolations_of_Philosophy) ended with two 19th century philosophers, both of whom were by reputation inconsolable.) But even so, this is not a reason to disbelieve that many philosophers throughout history have done what they do in order to learn how to live in the right kind of way. And on some occasions, the enterprise can be productive. After you read Nietzsche, Arendt, Russell, Nussbaum, or JS Mill, you may come away a different kind of person. Anyone who receives a philosophical education without reading and reacting to any of these figures is someone who has received an education unfulfilled. Certain strains of philosophy have been influential as vehicles that help to live the everyday life: for example, according to its adherents, the technique of cognitive-behavioral therapy owes a debt to the writings of the _Stoics_ (http://tuftsjournal.tufts.edu/2008/04/features/06/) . This is not necessarily to suggest that even the best rational therapists are always good at it. I might as well share a personal anecdote to illustrate the point. We all have difficult times in our lives, moments where we look for guidance and for wisdom. One night, after a stressful day, I laid in bed, shivering from melancholy. Thinking he could help, I plucked a copy of Meister Eckhart’s writings from the shelf. Eckhart was a Dominican philosopher with a (mostly deserved) reputation for deep, probing insight. I am not much of a believer in the divine, but occasionally Eckhart is able to pin down an idea with such honesty that it is difficult not to admire him. So I opened the book to a random page. I read this passage: All that [perfect detachment] wants is to be. But to wish to be this thing or that — this it does not want. Whoever wants to be this or that wants to be something, but detachment wants to be nothing at all. …and then I threw the book across the room and opted for sleep. I’m sure the contradiction in that passage can be resolved, but the only time you should try is in the light of day. (http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/aww/aww12.htm) *** Increasingly, professional philosophers will try to paint themselves as expert reasoners, capable of handling difficult problems using sophisticated logical techniques. But this is a feature of the modern academy. In the past, it was more often said that the philosopher is like a curious child, constantly engaged in dialogue, asking questions that others think too obvious to contemplate. Consider: Why is there something rather than nothing? If God is omnipo tent, omniscient, and good, why is there evil? These are highly general, entirely reasonable questions, and you do not need any special authority to ask them. All you need is humility, and to seek to persuade others to be humble in kind. Socrates is maybe the most obvious example of someone who pretended to be a curious child, a patient rational inquirer who was given to constant self-effacement when interrogated. The Socratic Method is also meant to be intellectually egalitarian: hence, the intuitions of Socrates and the slave child Meno are supposed to be on the very same level. There is nothing wrong with approaching a subject afresh, as if you were the first Martian anthropologist put in charge of understanding the people of Earth. Actually, there is quite a lot that is right with this approach. But the trouble with innocence is that there is only a finite supply. When the would-be philosopher has thought about some subject matter for a significant length of time, they must either claim that they have found a special form of expertise, or else persist in assuming a pretence of innocence and hope no-one will see behind the ruse. Nietzsche may have been a mean old man, _but he puts the point in an amusing way_ (http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/nietzsche/beyondgoodandevil1.htm) : ”What’s attractive about looking at all philosophers in part suspiciously and in part mockingly is not that we find again and again how innocent they are… but that they are not honest enough in what they do, while, as a group, they make huge, virtuous noises as soon as the problem of truthfulness is touched on, even remotely.” To think through difficult issues philosophically often means making an attempt to dump one’s prejudices as far as it is possible, and to let inquiry guide you to the right solution. But the elimination of prejudice must not come at too high a cost. The elimination of prejudice should not be used as grounds for undermining a capacity for good judgment. ____________________________________ [*] The first post received a _welcome debugging_ (http://rustbeltphilosophy.blogspot.ca/2012/08/psychosophy-just-as-bad-as-it-sounds.html) from Eli Horowitz over at Rust Belt, whose focused attention forced me to think about how I can improve the presentation of the argument I’m trying to make. Still, whatever its faults, I think the basic thrust of the first post was defensible. And the second post _received_ (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/22/stone-links-paul-ryan-pussy-riot-and-philosophy/) _attention_ (http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2012/08/four-kinds-of-philosophica l-people.html) _from_ (http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/09/a-philosophical-myers-briggs.html) _diverse_ (http://www.rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/show/rs71-on-science-fiction-and-philosophy.html) _quarters_ (http://www.anotherpanacea.com/2012/09/philosophical-personalities/) , so I guess I got something right (or at least got something wrong in an interesting sort of way). [**] It is easy to sell philosophy by characterizing it in terms of one kind of trope or another, or to mock philosophers for their ostensibly unearned pretentions. By looking closely at each metaphor, and finding the imperfections of each, we are in a position to appreciate the best philosophers as ones who cannot easily fit into a caricature. [**] Hat-tip to my friend and colleague _Olivia Sultanescu_ (http://yorku.academia.edu/OliviaSultanescu) for the quote. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
