On Analytic philosophy

In the twentieth century a small group of English and American philosophers proposed to overthrow the authority of the classic texts of philosophy. Although these new philosophers did not necessarily have any pretensions of elevating themselves into a new authority, they have clearly become a new authority to the present generation of philosophy students. The question every student of philosophy must ask, it seems to me, is this: If we accept the claim made by the present generation of teachers that Frege, Russell, Quine, Putnam and Davidson are authoritative texts whose content must be learned, how can we in good conscience reject the claim made by earlier teachers that Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Descartes and Kant are authoritative texts whose content must be learned? If we accept the idea that authority is a legitimate factor in deciding what to read, why limit ourselves to the most recent authorities? Is there something about temporal proximity that legitimates authority?

The present generation of philosophers views the new analytic philosophy as a philosophical analog of the Copernican revolution. In the wake of this revolution, earlier philosophical texts, like earlier cosmological texts, have been reduced to antiquarian artifacts of merely historical interest. Are these pretensions justified? Copernicus clearly fulfills cosmology’s aim of describing the universe far better than his predecessors. Philosophy, however, offers not merely descriptive knowledge but also, perhaps even primarily, prescriptions and exhortations. How should I live? (ethics) How should I comport myself with regard to truth? (epistemology) And to beauty? (aesthetics) And to reverence? (theology) A prescriptive text that relies on incorrect facts or fallacious reasoning would be of no more interest today than obsolete cosmology. But few classic philosophical texts can be wholly dismissed on this basis. The Stoics present a certain way of life in the hopes that it will appear beautiful or noble. Plato presents a certain way of comporting ourselves to truth in the hopes that it will appear beautiful or noble. The authority of exhortatory or prescriptive texts is based on the fact that they have been successful in persuading many past readers to alter their behavior and comportment to truth. How could the authority of such texts ever be annulled by something analogous to a Copernican revolution? Texts that offer articulate and compelling aesthetic or moral arguments about the best way to live and to pursue truth never become obsolete in the way that cosmological truth claims sometimes do. Insofar as we accept the legitimacy of authority in philosophy at all, then, the opinions of past teachers about what texts are authoritative are no less relevant that the opinions of present teachers.

The aversion of present-day students to studying the authoritative texts of all times and places arises partly, of course, from mere indolence, but it also comes from a desire to avoid exhortations to ways of life and ways of pursuing truth different from the ones that are held in high esteem in the present. We are all afflicted to one degree or another with a “presentism” that leads us to think that the opinions of our generation are somehow superior merely because we happen to belong to it. This is analogous to, and hardly less objectionable than, the all too common racism that leads us to think that our race is superior merely because we happen to belong to it.

When an authoritative text must be superseded, the noble form of supersession is seldom merely to ignore the text in defiance of its authority, but rather an attempt to retain, and even augment, the exhortatory elements that make the text worthy of its authoritative status, while at the same time refuting false arguments and false cosmological claims. Three examples of this noble form of supersession seem worthy of mention. The first is Spinoza’s attempt, in his Theologico-Political Treatise, to reinterpret Biblical events in symbolic rather than historic or cosmological terms. The second is Kant’s attempt, in his Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, to reinterpret the New Testament as a call to transform statutory religion into a religion of pure reason. The third is Rudolf Bultmann’s attempt, in his New Testament and Mythology, to disentangle the New Testament proclamation from the “mythical world picture” in which it is embedded.

A far less noble, but unfortunately far more common, form of supersession is one that impudently raises its middle finger to the authoritative texts of the past, and seeks to obviate their authority in its entirety. The most flagrant example of this ignoble form of supersession is perhaps David Hume’s petulant demand that any book that contains no “reasoning concerning quantity or number” and no “experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact” should be summarily committed to the flames. Few analytic philosophers make their contempt for authority as explicit as this. But the dearth of references to classical literature and the flippant, philistine style of writing make the raised middle finger visible enough. In order to be rightfully acknowledged as an authority, it seems to me that a text must show respect and deference to prior authorities, even in the act of refuting them. John Rawls tells us that an intolerant sect has no right to complain of intolerance. And a generation of philosophers with no regard for the authority of earlier generations has no right to complain if later generations disregard its authority. It is laughable that the present generation of analytic philosophers, with their cacophonous, philistine style of writing and their willful refusal to acknowledge the aesthetic, moral and intellectual authority of the great works of the past, now consider themselves to be authorities worthy of emulation.

Today's philosophy teachers have given up the desire to cultivate genius. They seek rather to churn out philosophical proletarians who can diligently do their part in the division of labor economy. Brian Leiter says, “What distinguishes analytic philosophy ... is its adoption of the research paradigm common in the natural sciences, a paradigm in which numerous individual researchers make small contributions to the solution of a set of generally recognized problems.” For the collective good—i.e., advancement of knowledge—we are willing to sacrifice each particular student, make her merely an instrument useful in solving some specific problem, rather than a complete human being capable of appreciating the human condition to the utmost that her intellectual capacity allows. The study of philosophy, which might have consisted of the joyous and exhilarating activity of discovering great books that fan and fuel the quest for truth, is turned into a tedious exercise in learning to recite their doctrines.

The pedants have decided in advance that their students won’t be geniuses. “It is a bit silly,” says Professor Leiter, “to think that Philosophy Departments can train Nietzsches.” Genius, he hopes, will find its way in the world without philosophy departments. Perhaps Professor Leiter is right that he can’t create geniuses. But he certainly can destroy them. He can so overwhelm his students with the division of labor that no trace of desire for the perfection of the intellect remains. Then students, like their teachers, will seek to cramp, contort and distort the intellect until it fits into some insignificant nook in the intellectual biosphere, and then live there, like a sulfur breathing organism in a hydrothermal vent, never coming out to see the light. How much of the pedant’s cruelty to his students derives from a desire to avenge the intellectual cruelty inflicted upon him by his own teachers? I don’t know. But I cannot help but hope that it might be possible to stop the generational cycle of intellectual abuse, and return to cultivating genius rather than trying to make students into sacrificial lambs for the greater good.

Socrates is reputed to have viewed with indifference the attempts of his contemporaries to accumulate facts. What he professed was not a cold-hearted diligence in discovering facts, but a reverent, devoted pursuit of virtue and wisdom. A philo sophos, in the etymological sense of the word, is not a functionary in the global enterprise of accumulating facts. She is a lover of wisdom. This etymological meaning bears almost no resemblance to the activity practiced today in departments that bear its name. American philosophy departments don’t seek to impart or cultivate a passion for truth. In fact, the few students who have this passion will find it in danger of extinction at every step. The genuine lover of truth would find poetry that expresses the passion to learn and bear witness to the truth at least as relevant as the rules of logic. Yet poetry is about as welcome in America’s philosophy departments as in its engineering departments.