Ask a Philosopher: I often get questions in emails about my blog or books. I have been replying to these on email but decided I might also start posting answers as part of a series “ask a philosopher.” Who wouldn’t want to ask a philosopher something?
Question: Philosophy presents itself as the way to seek the truth and love wisdom. However, philosophers disagree with each other as much as anyone else, maybe more. Why is this? Isn’t this proof that philosophy is a failure?
Reply: It is true that there is not much agreement among people who study philosophy. Stanley Fish, a professor of English and Philosophy, said that anyone who thinks studying these subjects will make you a better person hasn’t spent any time around English and Philosophy faculty.
On a superficial level it might seem that philosophers are basically the same and so should agree. If all things are the same, beliefs should also be the same. Let’s take that as true, and the reality of disagreement as a given, then it follows that since the beliefs are not the same all things are not the same. Something is relevantly different that gives rise to disagreement.
I see this as an opportunity to apply rational presuppositionalism. Critical thinking is a kind of buzz word in the academy that becomes empty of meaning. But we can renew it by using it to mean identifying our assumptions, or presuppositions, and using reason to test them for meaning. Thus: rational presuppositionalism. The philosophers who disagree can be asked questions to identify where their disagreement began. This is true for philosophers of the past, say Plato and Hegel, as well as for philosophers alive today.
Some examples of where these disagreements arise: in beliefs about what is good, what is real, and what is authoritative. These can be called the areas of ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology. The more we are familiar with our own beliefs in these areas the more we will be able to identify them in the philosophers we are thinking about. We can use it as a kind of exercise: pick a philosopher and identify the beliefs in each of these areas. Then pick one that disagrees with this first philosophers and do the same. Work back from less basic disagreements to the most basic disagreement between them.
Another way to start is from the other end: what does each philosopher believe is clear? Does the philosopher start with intuition? Experience? A pursuit of happiness? The forms? Mathematics? Or does the philosopher deny that anything is clear at all and embrace nihilism?
Finally, does the philosopher have integrity? Does the philosopher live consistently with what is professed? If the philosopher believes that all is matter or that knowledge is not possible, does the philosopher live consistently with this claim? Or, if the philosopher claims that nothing is clear, does the philosopher live consistently with this claim? If the philosopher claims to be committed to reason, is the philosopher able to show what is clear to reason?
The above gives three approaches for how to think about why philosophers disagree. The order of basic questions, what is clear, and integrity. If philosophy is the love of wisdom then we should expect philosophers, of all persons, to be able to show us what is wise by knowing what is basic. The alternative to the love of wisdom and knowing what is clear is vanity and meaninglessness–a chasing after the wind.