In taking a brief respite from my most recent string of essays, I wish to consider the subject of philosophy. Specifically its definition, but also its relationship to utility or what I have called instrumentality. With the turn of the modern epoch, the common understanding of philosophy has been transformed. Once the province of wisdom, it has metamorphosized into a creature of specialized knowledge–one that is increasingly called into question. In both the academic sphere and the common world of everyday life, philosophy is questioned on the basis of its utility or instrumentality.1 And such questioning is paradigmatic of the modern frame. But philosophy cannot be so easily cast aside; its defense is deeper and more profound than many would-be critics realize. The French philosopher Etienne Gilson perhaps said it best when he wrote: “Philosophy always buries its undertakers.”2 Along with Gilson, my understanding of philosophy here has been shaped most by Josef Pieper, and to a certain extent by William Vallicella.3
In a previous essay I touched upon what I called the classical conception of philosophy, which more or less reflects my own understanding of the subject. To reiterate, philosophy is the love of wisdom. Wisdom is necessarily that which is true–that which corresponds to reality, to the way things are. What is loved is also sought; we seek, search, and long for that which we love.4 Therefore, philosophy is an aspiration of the human heart and mind; a quest for that which is true; and it may be engaged in by anyone.5 It is the groping hand of humanity to apprehend reality itself. As such, philosophy draws upon all sources of life and existence, of experience and fact.6 Nothing less than the totality of being is grist for philosophy’s mill.7 The net is wide, and the ocean deep.
The beginning of philosophy–and this is no less true of poetry–is wonder.8 In wonder we encounter something that shocks us, stops us, causes us to pause, reflect, reexamine. In so doing, we transcend the daily cycle of instrumental activity. We step beyond the confines of mechanism and toil. To philosophize is to leave the workaday world behind, the world of means/end rationalism and utilitarian calculation; the world of economics and planning, efficiency and profit. It is to shed the world embodied by the instrumental stance and enter the world of the non-instrumental. The end or telos of philosophy–truth, wisdom, reality–is an end in itself. Philosophy is therefore, strictly speaking, useless. But therein lies its beauty and nobility. Therein lies its glory. What, after all, is the use of the sublime? Philosophy may bake no bread, but nor does man “live by bread alone”.9
Again, this is more or less the classical picture of philosophy that the West has inherited from the ancient Greeks. It is from this original and fundamental sense of philosophy that other senses of philosophy derive. The academic sense of philosophy as a field of specialized knowledge is no exception. With the rise of the printing press, the university, and the resulting formation of an educated class, the scope and body of knowledge increased. One result of this was specialization and the development of independent bodies of thought. Natural science, mathematics, political science, psychology, and others, were all once contained within the activity of philosophy. Now they exist as independent10 specialized fields more or less cut off from the understanding of the general public or non-specialist. Today, we find professional philosophers specializing in a given area of philosophy, such as epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of science, ethics, and so on. This has created a situation where it becomes possible to “do philosophy” in a way that has become detached from its original meaning as the love of wisdom. To philosophize on the one hand, and to teach, or even study philosophy on the other hand, are distinct and separable activities. Academics can teach or conduct research in such a way that the activity exists entirely within the confines of a specialized and closed domain of knowledge, posing or attempting to resolve problems with no view to the wider scope of reality. This, in fact, is the view of many people today when they think of philosophy and philosophers themselves.
For this reason perhaps, philosophy–as part of the humanities–has sometimes been questioned by the wider academic community,11 as well as the general public. Much of this questioning is rooted in philosophy’s utility or lack thereof. What do philosophers do? What do they make? How many jobs are available? The focus of governments and universities on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) is a case in point.12 Each of these fields is a paradigm example of usefulness and instrumentality, both in themselves and in the wider view as a benefit to society as a whole.13
Notwithstanding the connection to the ivory tower analogy, philosophy as specialized knowledge can be seen as an instrumental activity. One can, in fact, do it for a living. Professional philosophers go to work and return home in much the same way as factory workers or government employees. They teach or conduct research, and collect a paycheck. This does not preclude them from practicing philosophy in its original sense as the love of wisdom, but it does not require it either. In this way, humanity’s oldest aspiration in the disinterested pursuit of knowledge has been co-opted by the modern frame of instrumental rationality.
In a world increasingly characterized by utility and instrumentality the classical conception of philosophy must seem nearly unintelligible. The activity is unintelligible because the modern frame itself is structured in such a way that the criterion of what is good is what is useful; what is useless, is worthless. It is difficult to overemphasize the implications of the instrumental stance, particularly since the instrumental stance–like the modern frame itself–cannot recognize what is beyond or outside its purview. Everything must in some way be brought to bear upon its approach to the world. The instrumentalism of modernity is, therefore, totalitarian.
Lastly, I will touch upon the questioning of philosophy from some in the scientific community. As is well-known, natural science seeks a comprehensive understanding or knowledge of reality. The goal of philosophy is the same. But the methods of the natural sciences are rooted in empiricism, while philosophical methods are more basic or fundamental. This puts the question of knowledge front and center: Is knowledge derived from philosophy actually knowledge or simply a masquerade? If the methods of the natural sciences are the only reliable method to attain knowledge, then either philosophy should play a role submissive to the natural sciences, or acknowledge its status as outmoded. This view is sometimes called scientism–the view that science is the only reliable source of knowledge.14
A basic philosophical response to scientism is that it is self-refuting. The view that “science is the only reliable source of knowledge” is not a scientific but a philosophical proposition, thereby vindicating philosophy. To go slightly deeper, all scientific inquiry presupposes philosophical assumptions and presuppositions.15 The empiricism presupposed by the natural sciences–the view that knowledge is derived from sense-experience–is itself a philosophical viewpoint, and thus requires a philosophical defense. It is not my intention here to disparage the natural sciences; scientific knowledge is indeed knowledge. But it is not exhaustive of knowledge in the way that some have argued; indeed it presupposes a theoretical structure that is not itself scientific, but philosophical. It is in light of such debates that we can better understand Etienne Gilson’s dictum that philosophy always buries its undertakers.
Still–I have not, nor would I–argue that philosophy is the only reliable source of knowledge (or wisdom). It is rather, the love of such things; the continual striving to understand and comprehend reality itself. “For to love wisdom is also to love science, and prudence; it is to seek peace in the inner accord of each mind with itself and in the mutual accord of all minds.”16 William Vallicella observed that philosophy always resurrects its dead.17 What he is talking about is that even the oldest philosophers who have long turned to dust have a voice; their writing reverberates throughout the ages still. None has triumphed with finality, yet nor have they been defeated with complete and absolute certainty. Each contributes to what Mortimer Adler called “the great conversation”. Classically conceived, philosophy is not a doctrine or body of knowledge. Philosophy is a lover, whose glimpse of the beloved is more pleasing and sweet than an exact knowledge of any other thing.18
Notes:
1. As previously mentioned, much of what today is classified under the natural sciences was once within the province of philosophy. As time passes we see scientific knowledge becoming more and more specialized, developing subdisciplines and subcategories. Thus, as one popular view would have it, over time philosophy’s subject matter is confined to less and less, until one day it will be entirely eclipsed by the natural sciences.
2. See Etienne Gilson, The Unity of Philosophical Experience, Part Four. Gilson’s point is this: The history of philosophy is littered with proclamations of its imminent death and futility, but yet is always followed by its revival and resurrection. To the consternation of many, philosophy always seems to have the last word. In more everyday terms, I would add the following: One cannot condemn or criticize philosophy without engaging in the activity itself, thereby validating it by implication or presupposition.
3. See Etienne Gilson, The Unity of Philosophical Experience; Josef Pieper, Leisure The Basis of Culture, In Defense of Philosophy, and Only The Lover Sings. See also his excellent essay, “The Philosophical Act”. William F. Vallicella is a retired American philosopher who maintains the blog Maverick Philosopher. Each of these writers have been influenced by both ancient Greek and medieval thought.
4. Plato goes so far as to identify philosophy with Eros. In many ways our longing for knowledge or truth is beyond our control–it is built in to our nature, as it were–and in this way the Platonic comparison between the philosopher and the lover is not without basis. Although Plato’s conception of eros transcends the merely physical and mortal, reaching toward the ideal (or Form) of beauty itself, the identification can also be made with the more common understanding of the word as sexual (erotic) desire. Both conceptions appear to be bound up with the longing for the eternal and immortal. See Plato, Symposium.
5. There is a sense, I think, in which everyone engages in philosophy, whether they realize it or not. For the time being I will set this aside. The more lofty conception of philosophy, as that characterized by reflecting on the ultimate meaning of reality as such, is not one that people are commonly disposed to engage in. Thus, this conception is not a common occurrence, yet it remains open to everyone. See Josef Pieper, In Defense of Philosophy.
6. The totality of life and existence as the potential subject matter of philosophy has led some to see philosophy as leading necessarily to (or culminating in) theology. Or theology as building upon and perfecting philosophy. This was the view of many medieval writers, who saw philosophy as the “handmaiden of theology”. Aquinas is perhaps most notable here.
7. To philosophize means to take a position on something, and seek to provide the best analysis or explanation or defense for that position. In so doing the philosopher seeks to take account of as much as possible–the “totality of being”–all sources of life and existence, of experience and fact.
8. The idea of wonder as the concern of both poet and philosopher was observed by Aquinas in his commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Another relation may be observed in that both poetry and philosophy resist identification with the notion of progress.
9. I am indebted to William Vallicella for this insight. See Matthew 4:4.
10. It should be mentioned that they are not entirely independent, as each field exists within a theoretical structure which itself amounts to a philosophical basis.
11. The state of the humanities at the contemporary university is regularly debated. See, for instance, Benjamin Schmidt, “The Humanities Are In Crisis“; James McWilliams, “The Humanities Are Dead. Long Live The Humanities.“; Adam Kirsch, “Stop Worrying About the ‘Death’ of the Humanities“; Justin Stover, “There Is No Case For The Humanities“.
12. See the U.S. Department of Commerce’s STEM: Good Jobs Now and for the Future.
13. This appears to be fueled, at least partially, by the nature of competition, both between corporations and governments. The endless search for improvement and innovation is another characteristic of the modern frame.
14. Lawrence Krauss is perhaps the most popular contemporary advocate of this view. The philosopher Alex Rosenberg is another example.
15. In his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn writes about theory-laden ideas in science. See also Michael Jubien, Contemporary Metaphysics, Chapter 1. For a more robust defense of this view, see Edward Feser, Aristotle’s Revenge: The Metaphysical Foundations of Physical and Biological Science.
16. See Etienne Gilson, The Unity of Philosophical Experience, Part Four.
17. See Maverick Philosopher, “Philosophy Always Resurrects Its Dead“.
18. I am paraphrasing–of all people–Aristotle, whose usually dispassionate writing excludes him from such talk. Given the source, the content should carry all the more weight. See Aristotle, Parts of Animals, I, 5:644bff.