Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Philosophy as a kind of rebellion

A thought occurred to me the other night, while I was more or less asleep, that seemed like a revelation. In the light of day it seems less exciting, and less certainly true. But, as I have to keep reminding myself or else I will never post anything, this is only a blog. It is just the place for these possibly significant but probably nothing thoughts. So here it is.

A philosopher's not being a member of any community of ideas is the other side of the coin that says to talk ethics is to run against the boundaries of language. In a community of ideas people think, speak, and behave in similar ways. Not to be a member of any such community is not to go along, not to join in. Of course (or: presumably), a philosopher so defined might go along here and there, or now and then, but accidentally, not out of conformity. This does not guarantee running against the boundaries of language (if we recognize such things as existing in the first place), but it does suggest unconventional movements within any such boundaries, and probably increased likelihood of running against them. It will not be conventional thinkers who run against these boundaries.

Another thing I would assume is that a philosopher will not run against the boundaries of language just for the sake of it. Rather, he or she will take their cue not from society or convention but from something else, and this is what will cause the unconventional thinking/speaking/behavior. If this something else is a voice in one's head, say, then the results might not be good. But if it is what you might call God or Nature then perhaps it will be.

 

20 comments:

  1. following Heidegger on tools and Dewey on habits I was with you that philosophers will be questioning/examining what others use without reflection but you lost me at "If this something else is a voice in one's head, say, then the results might not be good. But if it is what you might call God or Nature then perhaps it will be." why would this be and how would we sort out the call of Nature/God from our own?
    http://lnx.journalofpragmatism.eu/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Puolakka.pdf

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    1. Fair point. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that going against the crowd in this kind of way can sound heroic but might simply be crazy. Or evil. That's true even if the person doing it believes that they are doing what their conscience dictates. But, especially if they are doing what their conscience dictates, then there's a chance that they are doing something good.

      Come to think of it, I have no evidence for the "especially" here. But actions believed to be ethical seem more likely to be ethical than actions not so believed.

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    2. hmmm,perhaps in the narrow sense that if I doubt what I'm doing is ethical (or am sure that it's not) chances might be better that it isn't but can't think of many acts that haven't been rationalized as ethical. That aside there is often the shock of the new to deal with and probably much of what we now value was taboo/shocking at some earlier time, part of the Kierkegaardian leap of faith that we might be very wrong...

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    3. Yes, I mean it in the narrow sense. And there is always that risk of being very wrong.

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  2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjCBV6o_DSE

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  3. Do you distinguish between 'community of ideas' and 'community of language-speakers'?

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    1. Yes, although I suppose it might be tricky to know where to draw the line between the two (if you had to do so). I'm not sure what it would mean to say that a philosopher is not a member of a community of language-speakers.

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    2. When you say: "A philosopher's not being a member of any community of ideas is the other side of the coin that says to talk ethics is to run against the boundaries of language" - are you not running the two ideas together--'community of ideas' and 'community of language-speakers'?

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    3. I might be, yes. Running against the boundaries of language means something, I take it, like fleeing sense. But you flee from sense, from within the community of language-users. So someone who does this is a member of such a community, but a member who tends to leave, or try to leave, the community. At speed. So perhaps someone who feels like an animal in a cage or a prisoner who wants to escape.

      Not being a member of a thought community need not be the same as this. But there is a similarity between the two cases. "Two sides of the same coin" goes too far though.

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    4. Would you agree that being a member in a community of language-users is a condition for being a member in a thought community?

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    5. Yes. At least, you have to use a language to think. And you aren't going to be able to create your own language out of nothing.

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  4. It's like the Marxist idea: "I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member." (Groucho, that is.)

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  5. I have sometimes had that feeling, though I'm not sure I associated it with being a philosopher. (Maybe I should have?) I certainly have always felt, perhaps for a long time, suspicious of dogmatic creeds and official statements of belief. The need to be open to difference, novelty, and revision.

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    1. Maybe not, but it is the kind of thing I had in mind. Some people seem to be very attracted to groups and group membership, eager to demonstrate their loyalty and/or orthodoxy. Others are put off by stuff like that. Probably we all need to belong to some groups, but perhaps philosophers (or Wittgensteinian philosophers anyway, but I doubt they are at all unique in this regard) are less inclined to be joiners (especially intellectually) than others.

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    2. they seem pretty cliquish as philosophers at least in the academy, not many folks willing to push those boundaries/norms...

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    3. To some extent you have to conform to get anywhere, and the ideal of philosophy as a kind of science encourages this. I think there are non-conformists (of the rare, good kind) in academic philosophy, but the system doesn't encourage them. Perhaps no system ever could.

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    4. it's interesting how most go along with socialization without any real questioning and others can't help it, something like personality-types I suppose.
      http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04n1x7p
      Leaving the Orthodox Jewish community does not just mean forgoing your faith – it also means leaving a community, a life and in many cases your family. It can be so traumatic for many people that there are groups, set up to help people to distance themselves from the faith they feel encompasses every aspect of their lives.

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