I've been meaning to comment on a few interesting and related posts for a while. The first was Bill Vallicella's post on philosophy being between Wissenschaft and Weltanschauung. That was about the tension between philosophy as a quest for wisdom and philosophy as scholarship and "science." I had last year a similar post on Schulbegriff and the Weltbegriff in Kant. That was basically the different between scholasticism and the universal concept. Roughly the difference between philosophy as science and philosophy as tied to ones lived life. I suppose one could cast it as the application of current structures of knowledge versus inquiry into new structures or reworking structures. That is the difference between re-thinking or taking up anew and that of working out the implications of our current beliefs. Related to all this was Brandon's post on proving before defining. This was a response to those folks we've all encountered who demand explicit and definite definitions before we argue. But of course the useful thing is the inquiry into the world which may not fit our definitions and intuitions. It is, I think, the same idea as what Kant is getting at. Do we merely extend our current structures or do we seek to move past them to the reality itself?
It is important especially given the strong language basis for a lot of philosophy, largely due to the influence of Wittgenstein. So, for instance, one might argue that what is at question in philosophical questions is the meaning of the sentences in terms of our language. Consider one example we've discussed a lot here the past year or two. Free will. When we ask if we are free are we asking a question in terms of what we linguistically or in terms of our intuitions mean by free? Or are we grasping towards a sense of "freedom" as entailed in the world itself - a sense that may not match up at all to our language. I think as typically discussed, especially in the Analytic tradition, it is the question in terms of the language. But, for example, is this what Kant was getting at with his antimony regarding the relationship of free will and causality (roughly determinism)?
As I said in that post last year regarding Kant, I think a lot of this gets to the division between the Analytic and the Continental. It's not exact of course. There is plenty of inquiry in Analytic thought. (Thus for example the position of revisionism with respect to the free will issue and responsibility) But I do think that what one might call a tyranny of language besets Analytic thought more than Continental. It's also true that the influence of language as almost a ground for our question is very common among Continental thought. But as I was saying yesterday relative to Peirce there is a real sense that reality escapes our categories. We are left with just hints or traces of the things themselves.
Put an other way, it seems quite silly to assume that the structures of language are isomorphic to the structures of reality. This has powerful implications.
I think if you take realism or meta-realism out of analytic philosophy, you are left with nothing but logic, which is impotent.
So I see analytic philosophy not so much as playing language games, (which are also meaningless per se), as to doing logical analysis of metaphysical propositions, so that we can refine them to be coherent both with logic and with our common sense, linguistic intuitions about what the world is like.
Or in other worlds analytical philosophy is to intuition as theological philosophy is to revelation, the higher level is meaningless without the lower, but the lower cannot be proven, except inductively by sense and sensation.
So we cannot conclude anything about reality by philosophy alone, we can only refine and harmonize our intuitions and experience of it.
experience of reality, being-in-the-world, that is.
I really wish everyone -- and I mean everyone, scientists and theologians especially -- would brush up on their Kant. He's relevant to so many of the current debates (or we might say dilemmas...I have a post on the subject today which, if a bit 'literary', is I hope still interesting).
As far as your distinction between philosophy as scholarship and philosophy as the pursuit of wisdom, you might be thinking of the end of the Critique when Kant distinguishes between philosophy as the product of history and philosophy as the product of reason (in the Methodology). Someone who understands a philosophical system historically knows what the system is and can even give the reasons why one holds that system as opposed to another, but until (and Derrida might come in here) one has *reiterated* it through his own process of inquiry, it will remain indistinct from any number of other historical facts (and narratives). I think the distinction in some way draws upon a very interesting foot-note (I can't remember where) in which Kant claims that intelligence is the ability to intuit rather than simply to follow rules. This might also look towards that element of genius which is unpredictable precisely because it is the product of an intelligence in the Critique of Judgment. So much for that.
As relates to proving before defining, Kant also says in the Methodology (which is really a gem, I think) that philosophical inquiry, unlike mathematics, *starts* from definitions and then complicates them.
On free will -- this is rather unrelated, but I've been reading GEB and I begin to wonder whether the real question in terms of 'free will' or 'freedom of choice', as one might recast it, is not what 'freedom' is but what exactly constitutes a 'choice' (and this seems germane to certain questions about AI).
Alex
". . . so that we can refine them to be coherent both with logic and with our common sense, linguistic intuitions about what the world is like."
That's ultimately the step I find most problematic. It assumes that linguistic intuitions tell us anything about what the world is like beyond the "common" realm of experience.
"linguistic intuitions" is a bit of a misnomer, what we really are talking about is common sense - which is derived from shared experience. For example, the taste of salt, or pain, or memory, or regularity.
The situation here is not that common sense is kind of fuzzy, it is that if we abandon common sense we are left with nothing. Logic is impotent without data to work from. And sense and sensation (being-in-the-world) are our only source of data.
So one can invent the most beautiful logically coherent theories about the world and never have a clue about whether they are actually true. Though the semantics of truth are externalist, the only metric we have to test a theory is experience. So we are left with convergence to truth and reality, and not perfect transcendental apperception of it, except in fuzzy feel good inspiration style, which is hardly distinguishable from intuition anyway.
Those that knock sense and sensation level the bridge over which all metaphysical and scientific theories must cross to be good for anything.
But common sense also has limited applicability in my opinion. The solution as I see it can be found in Peirce's notion of critical common sensism. Common sense is very well tested but is simultaneously very vague and has a limited region of application. Almost always moving from common sense to metaphysics is an error. (IMO)
Then all metaphysical theories are equally valid, so far as we can tell. A theory of time, B theory of time, free will, determinism, fairies, little green men, reality, unreality makes no difference whatsoever.
I disagree. For instance one can tie metaphysics to advanced physics and so forth. It isn't as if we can't learn beyond common sense.
To add to that last comment. In one sense the evidence for most metaphysical positions is extremely weak. So in that sense we often can't distinguish them. That doesn't mean metaphysical inquiry isn't useful.
But I definitely do agree, to some extent at least, with Peirce's basic pragmatic approach. For a difference to be a difference it must make a difference. Part of the utility of inquiry into metaphysics is to show how they make differences in our inquiry. (Since metaphysics is the a priori we project as we interpret the world around us) Often though we can't decide between metaphysical projects. That in itself though can make a big difference in how we approach inquiry and interpretation.
I've closed comments in order to avoid spam since I don't check this older blog as much anymore.
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