Greetings from the undisclosed foreign land that is presently tolerating my presence. All's well here. I write to let you know that I had the opportunity this morning to employ one of my favorite conversational tropes. A young philosopher asked me about my current research. I responded that I'd been working on issues pertaining to x, y, and z. He responded, "Interesting. But who do you use in discussing these things?" I replied, "Who do I use?" He said, "Well, yes... what philosophers, what figures, do you do X, y, and Z with?"
And so the trope... I replied: I don't do philsoophy with any other philosopher. I do philosohpy against other philosophers.
Seriously: I've been noticing that philosophers allied with methods/traditions/approaches (or whatever) that classify themselves as something distinct from something called "analytic" philosophy increasingly describe their research in terms of the figures they discuss. They tend to say things like, "I work on questions of x through the lens of philosopher P," or they say "I'm wiritng a book on Justice, the main figures I'll be discussing are P, Q, and X." So I ask: How is this not equivalent to saying, "I have no original philosophical thoughts or theses of my own, I'm just a toadie for some philosopher who, lucky for me, had his/her own mind"?
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7 comments:
Great to "hear" from you, and that all is well on your journey.
I think I've already ranted to some degree about the topic you're describing. I suppose, that the "working on questions X via Philosopher P" and the like are equivalent to "second tier" philosophizing. And this is even on their own terms. Philosopher P, having come up with a particular framework, is "tier one," and the "tier two's" (followers) apply, engage, and tweak the work of the "great" Philosopher P's ideas. Continental training is problematic, in that it promotes this sort of adulation as research. Since the primary methods taught in Continental depts. do not focus on argument in any serious way, but instead focus on the methods of Historical research, what one finds is a very mistaken conflation of the methods of History of Philosophy with all areas of contemporary philosophical research. Having been in one of these programs, I speak from experience. A program will include History of Philosophy courses, say the examination of Husserl's works (one thing), and encourage very good work on historical interpretation, the results go awry such that students training in History of Philosophy don't engage it argumentatively, but are encouraged to apply, say, problems from Husserl, to contemporary issues as though nothing else has happened since then, or the Husserlian project will somehow, despite everything else that has happened since then, provide relevant philosophical insights.
I think what these sorts of claims indicate a confusion between what I consider legitimate Historical research methods and philosophy itself. Another bad result is an isolation that results from this "confusion." Everyone engaging issue X through Philosopher P never needs engage anyone else outside that framework--whether analytic philosophers or those involved with Philosopher Q (Kristeva), Philosopher Z (Habermas), etc.
So not only are they admitting they have no original ideas (at best, original ideas via and about philosopher P), but are also insuring that the relevance of their "view" is limited only to others doing work through Philosopher P. If they were satisfied with doing History of Philosophy, it would be a different story. But then laughable to claim that Philosopher P has all the answers. I don't confuse my research into a very long-dead Philosopher P with philosophy itself, and I would hope that people would laugh at me if I did. A new interpretation/analysis of long-dead Philosopher P, might change how people teach the History of Philosophy, and appreciate historically specific problem spaces. Ironically, the long-dead Philosopher P would, in my view, completely support the activity of philosophy as arguing from *one's own ideas* as being what philosophy is. So I would run afoul of the very message of the figure I research in claiming that his philosophy is THE philosophy!
Speaking of research...I just signed a contract for a book of my translations on Philosopher P. Small press, nothing grand, but good company.
Well, I guess, you're in France
729:
"Everyone engaging issue X through Philosopher P never needs engage anyone else outside that framework." Exactly. Moreover: if you're engaging as issue in a way that puts you out of touch with what those who disagree with you, you're not really engaging the issue in the first place.
Anon:
Good guess. My understanding, though, is that Frege, Russell, and Quine are more popular in France today than Derrida ever was. So maybe there's hope for them after all.
. . . and thinking about philosophy like this is nuts. Unless one is a proper scholar of the collected works on any one figure, then saying that one worked on X's views on Y is an admission that, well, they don't know X beyond Y nor Y far beyond X. Which is pretty weak.
Brooks:
Agreed!
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