What is Philosophy?
Philosophy
has been called "thinking about thinking", questioning and answering
the very process of questioning and answering itself. Human thought, and
thus the human world, is dominated by pairs of opposites. The most
basic is belief (which we can label ‘positive’) and doubt (which we can
label ‘negative’). Belief is an answer or answering, and doubt is a
question or questioning.
According
to Hegel, one of my favorite modern European philosophers, human
thought is an endless battle between dogmatism and skepticism. In
systems of thought, dogmatists lean towards answers and affirming the
truths of the system stating "There are certain facts, morals and
truths", while skeptics lean towards questions and doubting the truths
of the system, asking "Are there certain facts, morals and truths?". In
politics, conservatives lean towards believing and affirming the
traditions and institutions looking to the stability and consistency of
the past, while progressives lean towards doubting and questioning the
institution looking to the openness and change of the future. In
addition, dogmatism likes singular objective inclusive truth, also known
as truth with a capital ‘T’, ‘all or none’, ‘black and white’ truth,
while skepticism likes plural subjective inclusive truth, also known as
truth with a lowercase ‘t’, ‘some and some not’, ‘shades of grey’ truth.
This
battle is a symbiotic evolution, a cooperation as much as a competition
requiring both sides. While each individual, tradition and institution
is complex and cannot be put exclusively in one box or the other, this
dynamic is quite dominant in human thought. When we look at the history
of human thought, from its origins in animism and shamanism to its
evolution and specialization in religion, philosophy, art and science,
we can see that both dogmatism and skepticism play necessary roles.
Without a base that is assumed and unquestioned, nothing new can be
produced. However, without reaching for the new and questioning the old
there is no growth to improve and fit new circumstances. The great
thinkers in human thought, across all systems, incorporate the old while
bringing us the new, questioning and challenging the very systems that
then make them celebrated matriarchs and patriarchs. Often they are
called heretics in their time and only canonized after they are safely
dead because they have to question the very systems that they stand for.
The
Greek word "philosophy" means "love of wisdom". What is wisdom? The
German philosophers Kant and Hegel tell us that there are dueling parts
of our individual mind that fight and cooperate on the individual level
just as dogmatism and skepticism fight and cooperate on the social
level. These two parts are understanding and reason, and these
correspond to knowledge and wisdom. Understanding tries to hold things
set and steady (the conservative force) while reason tries to challenge
and rearrange things (the progressive force). Knowledge is a set
understanding, while wisdom is the ability to reason. All systems of
thought use both understanding and reason to produce both knowledge and
wisdom. When the situation is normal, the set understanding is decent
enough, but when there are problems, a re-reasoning of the understanding
and situation is required.
The
Greek philosophers were known for wisdom, for questioning the ways that
individuals and societies can have knowledge, beliefs and answers. Were
the Greeks the first or only ancient people to have philosophers? In
Miguel Leon-Pontilla's book Aztec Thought and Culture, he argues that
the Aztec and Mayan poets questioned their societies and systems of
knowledge, asking open ended questions such as "Do we know the gods
exist?", "Is there an afterlife, like the ancestors said there is?", and
"Can we ever know these things?". The priests were more dogmatic and
conservative, in their rituals proclaiming the existence of the gods and
afterlife. Indeed, when we look at ancient cultures such as Egypt,
Persia, India and China, we find both questioning and answering,
knowledge as well as wisdom. Consider that in the philosophy of
science, the debate between those who believe in objective fact versus
those who believe in subjective theory rages on today. No society would
flourish without pushing in both directions. Systems of thought are
always sites of disagreement as much as they are of agreement.
Many
unfortunately believe that philosophy was born in ancient Greece, when
in fact wisdom is universal to human kind even though it is difficult to
achieve. The wise, though rarer than we would like, have been
celebrated in all cultures, and their wisdom is similar across all
cultures even though their beliefs can differ widely. While the word
‘philosophy’ is an ancient Greek word, great thinkers and questioners
can be called philosophers and sages in any culture.
The Eastern, Middle Eastern and Western Golden Ages
This
class focuses on modern European philosophy, the thought of European
philosophers since 1600 CE up until the present day. Before we given an
overview of this period, paying particular attention to the split in
the late 1800s between the Analytic and Continental traditions, we will
consider the often ignored golden ages of the world that occurred before
the European Enlightenment of the 1600s. Before the European golden
ages of the Renaissance of the 1400s and Enlightenment of the 1600s,
many technological, medical and mathematical advancements were made in
two previous golden ages, those of China and Islam.
The Tang and Song Dynasties of China
During
the Tang and Song Dynasties of China, between 600 and 1200 CE, many of
the basic machines and resources were developed that would continue to
serve as the base of later golden ages in Islamic and Christian lands.
The
Four Great Inventions, as they are known in Chinese and European
scholarship, are paper, printing, the magnetic compass, and gunpowder.
In 1620, the famed European scientist Sir Francis Bacon wrote that
three of these, gunpowder, the magnetic compass and block printing, were
the most significant advancements of humankind in all of history,
separating ancient and modern times. He was unaware that all three were
Chinese, originating in the Tang and Song Dynasties. Much later in the
1800s, Karl Marx wrote that these same three inventions brought about
capitalism and the bourgeoisie, the middle class that is needed to
regulate the poor in the interests of the rich. Scholars in Communist
China agree with Marx’s theory, while noting that these Great Four were
merely the most significant inventions that passed from East to West,
not the most sophisticated innovations of the Tang and Song.
Gunpowder
was invented by Daoist alchemists, who sometimes blew themselves up in
caves, as they searched for elixirs of immortality. While Islamic and
European alchemists sought to transmute lead into gold, the primary
purpose of Chinese alchemy was transmutation of the body and mind.
While alchemy is now discredited, it was not a useless venture. As
with most discarded models and pursuits, much is discovered as a
byproduct before problems become significant enough to require a
paradigm shift (a term coined by Thomas Kuhn, a philosopher of science
we will cover near the end of the course).
Paper
took many forms, such as wall paper, toilet paper (which was originally
only for the rich), and tea bags. With paper and block printing came
paper currency, which we still use today. Block printing, using movable
and set type of wood or metal, was used also for textiles and playing
cards. Materials such as paper, wood and metal were made fireproof and
waterproof with lacquers.
In
addition to these inventions, there were many other Chinese mechanical
innovations that had a profound significance on life and engineering.
Cast iron, developed in China, made its way to medieval European
blacksmiths. Many of the basic components of mechanics, such as gear
systems, the belt drive, the chain drive, and the spring allowed for the
development of countless devices useful in all aspects of life, as they
still do today. The waterwheel, the windmill and the mechanical clock
all passed from China into Islamic lands, and from there into Europe
forming the basis of mechanical advancements of Leonardo Da Vinci and
other innovators of the Italian Renaissance. Automata, mechanical
people primarily used for entertainment, followed this same route, such
as the figures that dance attached to clocks which first entertained
sultans before delighting the German public and much later Disneyland
tourists in clock towers.
The Islamic Golden Age
During
the Islamic Golden Age, between roughly 700 and 1400 CE, innovations
from China and India were incorporated and further developed. Most
significant of these was the development of Algebra by Islamic
mathematicians out of earlier Indian mathematics, which included the
Indian-Arabic numerals we still use today as well as the concepts of
zero and the resolvable variable. Algebra led to Calculus in Europe,
invented by both Newton and Leibniz, one of the European philosophers we
will cover next week. We still use Leibniz’s notation in Calculus
today because Newton tried to name everything after himself, a plan that
did not prove popular. Several of the great philosophers of the
Islamic Golden Age were also scientists, doctors, logicians and
mathematicians.
Al
Kindi (801-873), a pioneer of Islamic sciences, cryptography and the
experimental method, was also one of the scholars that introduced Indian
numerals to Islam, where it was developed into Algebra. He wrote
numerous medical treatises, including the memorable Treatise on Diseases
caused by Phlegm. Unlike Galileo and Newton, who came much later, but
like Einstein, he argued that time and space are relative, as all things
save God are relative, subjective, and contingent (dependent on other
things). Even though Christians in Europe followed Islamic Alchemy and
Astrology for centuries, he was an early voice against both, saying they
were both pseudo-sciences and the best method of knowledge was strictly
observation and experimentation.
Al
Farabi (872-950) took the Aristotelian tradition of Alexandria, Egypt
and expanded beyond. Farabi paid much attention to imagination, as this
is central to science, philosophy and religious prophecy. He argued
that if you learn and think critically, you can have greater and greater
visions of the cosmos and its workings, the ability of both prophets
critical of society and scientists investigating nature. Imagination
and a psychological understanding of truth would continue to be
influential, even foundational, for later European thought.
Avicenna
or Ibn Sina (980-1037) was the foremost doctor of his time. As a boy
he learned Indian Arithmetic from an Indian grocer in his neighborhood.
His Canon of Medicine
was used as a textbook for Europe in translation until the 1700s. His
medicine was based on experimentation and clinical trials, fusing
Persian, Greek, Indian and other texts together. He is credited with
formulating the nature of infectious disease, hypothesizing that
microscopic organisms are the cause, randomized control trials, major
concepts of psychiatry including hallucinations, insomnia, mania,
dementia, and epilepsy. He was the first to correctly show the workings
of the eye, arguing that light comes into the eye rather than emanates
out of it, otherwise we would be able to see in the dark. He was one of
the key authors for understanding Aristotle and scientific
investigation, even as he argued against Aristotle. He was also a
pioneer of equations and propositional algebra.
Avicenna’s
floating man thought experiment is important for a Modern European
Philosophy class because it is strikingly similar to Descartes’
Deceiving Demon, one of the first major concepts of modern European
philosophy which we will study next week. Avicenna, who worked with
anesthetics in publicly funded hospitals, asks us to imagine that we are
slowly unable to feel our feet, then body, then sight and sensation,
then memory and imagination. What is left, the last and most essential
thing that is ourselves? Avicenna replies that it is consciousness.
With that, we still can be said to exist as self-aware. Descartes, who
we will study next week, has us imagine that there is a demon who is
deceiving us and creating the world as an illusion, but the one thing
the demon can not trick us about is that we are as we are aware of
ourselves. Descartes concludes with his famous, “I think, therefore I
am”, just as Avicenna concluded that we are because we are conscious.
Modern European Philosophy and the Analytic/Continental Divide
Clearly
in China and the Middle East life had become more complex, with
increasingly sophisticated technology and with this a relatively greater
understanding of the human body and mind. Between 1400 and 1700 CE, as
the golden ages of China and Islam drew to a close, Europe surpassed
previous cultures in wealth through trade and power through technology.
By 1700, more gold and silver were passing West rather than East along
the Silk Road for the first time in history.
Unfortunately,
as also happened in China, Islam and many other societies as they rise
to become dominant, Europeans transitioned from saying that they could
be just as civilized as other powerful civilizations during the
Renaissance of the 1400s, to saying that no one was civilized like they
were during the Enlightenment of the 1600s. The central message became
that, like the ancient Greeks, modern Europeans were uniquely free, and
thus free to reason. Unfortunately, this arrogant distinction was not
itself reasonable, and certainly not wise. The balancing of freedom and
authority is a complex problem that is not distinctly European, nor is
wisdom a distinctly European value.
Modern
European Philosophy started as a single tradition but then split into
two separate branches in the 1800s, the Continental tradition of Germany
and France (also Italy, Spain and Russia) and the Analytic tradition of
Britain and America (also Canada, Australia and South Africa, the
English speaking countries of the former British Empire). The first
several European philosophers we will study, those between and including
Descartes and Kant, are shared by both traditions. Modern European
Philosophy taught at American universities typically covers Descartes,
Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley and Kant with few additions. While
courses in Hegel, Nietzsche and Heidegger are offered as electives, the
core classes focusing on mind, language, logic and ethics are taught
from an Analytic perspective primarily using works by American Analytic
philosophers.
The
Analytic tradition continues after Kant to study the first Analytic
philosophers: Frege from Germany, Russell from Britain, and Wittgenstein
from Austria. After the initial German and Austrian, most Analytic
philosophy comes from the English speaking countries of Britain and
America. The Continental tradition largely consists of German and
French thought, and continues after Kant to study the German
philosophers Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and then several French
philosophers influenced by these earlier Germans. Why the split between
the two camps? Two strands of thought went in opposite directions from
Germany, the Continental tradition embracing Hegel, the Analytic
tradition rejecting him and Continental thinkers influenced by him.
There are both political and philosophical reasons for this.
While
Hegel became a conservative in later life, his thinking spelled out the
path of radical change and revolution. As mentioned, Hegel saw
history, as well as the history of each branch of human thought, as a
battle between right and left, between understanding and reason, between
dogmatism and skepticism. Hegel had a student named Karl Marx, one of
the coauthors of the Communist Manifesto and the founding philosopher of
Communism. Nietzsche, who epitomized German pessimism and the turn
against a belief in objective reason toward perspectivism, like Marx in
the same period saw society as in need of radical change, as did
Heidegger, who unfortunately became drawn towards fascism as a result.
In
the early 1900s, WWI and Russian Revolution split England and English
speaking countries such as America from German thought beyond the work
of Frege. German-Americans, like my father’s family, learned to lose
German culture and assimilate as white Americans. Britain and America
turned anti-communist, while much of German and French thought continued
to embrace Marx via socialism, Marxism and Post-Marxism. In Analytic
thought, dominant in the wealthiest countries so far in history,
democracy and science are in no need of a revolution. In Continental
thought, all human forms of culture and ideology are to be critically,
even suspiciously, examined in the hopes of change. Notice that this
makes Analytic thought lean towards the dogmatic, and Continental
thought lean towards the skeptical, regarding the present state of
society.
Someone
once said that in the Continental tradition, philosophy wants to be an
art, whereas in the Analytical tradition, philosophy wants to be a
science. German and French thought likes the profound and dramatic,
British and American thought likes the dry and tidy. Too often, this
means that Continental thought is confusing and difficult, but deep and
meaningful, whereas Analytic thought is clear and precise, but shallow
and uninspiring. Let us first look at the Analytic and then the
Continental tradition to further understand this difference.
British and American Analytic Philosophy
The
term ‘Analytic’ was first used by American philosophy professors in the
1930s, and then increasingly by Americans and British professors after
WWII. Analytic philosophy focuses on logic and language, prioritizing
the objective and impersonal. Frege revolutionized logic, using
mathematical structures to describe reasoning. Russell, who saw in
Frege’s logic a method for clarifying and solving philosophical
problems, argued that the unclear and unnecessary can be stripped away,
revealing the clear and objective truth, much as math strips away the
qualities of things to analyze them in terms of pure quantity.
Russell
was reacting against Hegel, who followed Kant, the last link between
the two traditions. Kant wanted to legitimize philosophy and logic as a
distinct natural science and genuine objective knowledge.
Unfortunately, this meant that Kant had to maintain the exclusive
distinction between objectivity and subjectivity. Hegel believed that,
though dogmatism and skepticism had battled throughout the history of
thought, the two had to be reconciled and joined together as two sides
of the same coin for us to grasp the truth in its fullness. Hegel
argued that one of the greatest insights that humanity can achieve is
that objectivity is intersubjectivity, that objective truth is shared
through agreement and disagreement subjectively. Reality is a matter of
perspective, but perspectives form a conjunction that shows us each
genuine aspect.
For
Russell and Analytic thought which followed, mixing subjectivity and
objectivity confuses things that should be kept distinct. Writing
against Hegelians by name, he identified two schools of philosophy,
‘Continental’ and ‘British’. While Hegel argued that reality is an
evolving historical situation of oppositional perspectives and
contradictions, Russell argued that mathematics and science work through
eliminating contradictions to discard the subjective and historical
leaving only the objective and universal, and that philosophy should do
the same. While Continental thinkers enjoy contradictions and speaking
in paradoxes (such as Heidegger writing “Every revealing is a
concealing”, or the Italian existentialist and Catholic philosopher
Vattimo who said, “It is only thanks to God that I am an atheist”)
Analytic thinkers hate this, believing Continental thought to appear
deep but in fact mean nothing.
Wittgenstein
followed Russell in his early period, inventing the truth table method
we use today in logic, though in his later work Wittenstein distanced
himself from Russell and believed that objective truth “in the world”
and subjective truth “in the head” could not be exclusively divided and
that paradoxes are not necessarily false. Logical positivists such as
the Vienna Circle picked up and developed Wittgenstein’s earlier work.
They thought philosophical problems would disappear if logically
analyzed. This continues to largely be the position of British and
American Analytic thought today.
However,
British Utilitarianism and American Pragmatism survive in the wings as
rebellious counter traditions, as an offshoots that still value science
and its methods but are skeptical of claims to absolute distinctions and
objective truth. Both argue that concepts and descriptions are true
insofar as they are useful and practical, and that there is no objective
or exclusive truth beyond this. We will study both the positivists and
the pragmatists in the second half of the course.
German and French Continental Philosophy
Just
like ‘Capitalism’ and ‘Utilitarianism’, ‘Continental’ was a label
Analytic philosophy professors from Britain and America used against
which they distinguished themselves as ‘Analytic’ in the 1930s, then
increasingly 50s and 60s. Continental thinkers have only recently taken
up the term to distinguish themselves from the Analytic camp, which
they don’t often admire. In America, there was a surge of interest in
Continental thought in the political upheaval of the 1960s, and courses
on phenomenology, existentialism, structuralism, poststructuralism, and
later postmodernism became popular amongst some professors and students.
We will be studying each of these along with positivism and pragmatism
in the second half of the course.
While
Analytic thought, like Russell, sought to strip away the subjective and
historical, revealing the objective and universal, Continental thought
focused on the union of the perspective and personal together with the
social and historical. Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, the two forerunners of
existentialism, argued that philosophy was always a personal
confession, an experience of personal struggle, and self awareness.
They agreed with Hegel that reality is composed of perspectives that
are in agreement and disagreement, but they rejected Hegel’s claim to
have revealed the objective and total unity of the full set of
perspectives, arguing that it is valuable to pursue truth but that
claims to total objectivity are naive and foolish. Rather than strip
away the subjective as Russell advocated, or claim to have built
objectivity out of the sum of subjectivities as Hegel had,
existentialism held that the problem of subjectivity and objectivity was
always open ended, never resolved, and that it was therefore the
responsibility of individuals to discover truth for themselves.
After
existentialism, continuing through structuralism, poststructuralism and
postmodernism, Continental thought refused to take a detached
“objective” third person view, seeing truth as something shared socially
and historically but lived individually. If we want to use our reason
to understand problems that are meaningful to ourselves, we must
understand them as complex rather than attempt to solve or dissolve them
as Analytic thought proposed to do. If social and historical context
is stripped away in the interests of simplicity and mathematical
precision, the complex meaning of the problem likewise disappears, which
does little to solve the problem as we live it. Philosophy should thus
be meaningful like art, which has no simple answer, rather than attempt
to legitimate itself as a science by focusing on accuracy and
exclusion.
Consider
the often mentioned experience of psychologists who attempted to teach
Russian peasants in remote undeveloped areas arithmetic. As we will
consider next week, Descartes, the first modern European philosopher,
used the example of “two plus three equals five” as a truth that appears
to be so regular that we can assume it is universally and objectively
true. Russian peasants, when asked what two plus three equals, would
often ask, “Two plus three of WHAT?”. The psychologists replied that it
didn’t matter, to which the Russian peasants would object, “Yes, it
does matter, because if it is potatoes I can hold five easy, but if it
is cats or donkeys I may not be able to keep them all together”.
Consider
that if I have three coconuts, and you have two, and we decide to bring
them together, we may not end up with five, because coconuts, unlike
the abstract concepts of ‘two’ and ‘three’, can get lost, crushed, or
stolen. While it is easy, as Russell advocated, to strip away the
possibilities of coconuts rotting, or coconut thieves, and focus on pure
quantity, the contingencies of the situation are as important to us
practically as two coconuts added to three equalling five is abstractly.
Nietzsche was critical of thinkers who treated abstract conceptions
such as quantities, values, and traditions as more real than the
physical objects they represent and arrange. In his later thinking,
Wittgenstein argued that when we give explanations and descriptions of
things in mathematics, language and logic, we are adding additional
elements, complicating the situation, not stripping the meaningless
away, simplifying things.
Which
is stronger or more accurate, describing things simply, or complexly?
Should we try for the clarity of black and white, or the complexity of
shades of grey? If you want certainty and exclusivity, such as in a
situation where there will be terrible consequences unless barriers are
held in place, simple, absolute black and white is best. If you want
complexity and inclusivity, such as in a situation where experimentation
and alternatives are safe and permissible, complex, relative shades of
grey is best.
Should
philosophy close more than it opens, or open more than it closes? On
the Analytic side, reason should bring us to secure understandings, such
that we have a foundational basis for making important decisions. On
the Continental side, much of what is most important to us, such as
social struggle or our attitude towards death, are murky and not
exclusively black and white, which is what makes them so dynamic,
dramatic, emotional, and meaningful. Clarity can be relative.
Ambiguity and plurality are as much our reality as clarity and
singularity.
Analytic
philosophy has been accused of being socially impotent. Removing the
situation and saying meaning is static and universal does not allow for
social difference and change. Hence, feminists and critics of racism
often turn to Continental thought. Questions of social identity,
repression, ideology all are ‘meaningless’ to Analytics, even though
many people, particularly intellectuals, find these quite meaningful.
Thus, at UC Berkeley, Continental thought thrives in the English and
Rhetoric departments, particularly the latest French thought of Barthes,
Foucault, Deleuze and Derrida, while these are almost invisible in the
Philosophy department. Lately, Analytic thought has opened up to
consider more complex social issues, attempting to speak precisely about
matters that were considered too murky to render precision by earlier
logical positivists.
Some
Continental thinkers have admired Analytic thought for its clarity, as
much of Continental thought is overly complex and verbose, impossible
for the average person to read. While Nietzsche is clear in his writing
while asking deep questions, Hegel, Heidegger and later French thinkers
can confound even experts. Monique Schneider, a French philosopher and
psychoanalyst who admires the clarity of Analytic thinkers, said that
she has attended Lacanian psychoanalysis lectures which overjoyed
students would leave saying, “It was wonderful...I couldn’t understand a
thing”, assuming that the incomprehensible must be profound. On an
episode of the Simpsons, Homer watches a David Lynch movie, and says,
“It’s brilliant...I have no idea what it means”. While surrealists such
as Lynch enjoy intentional obfuscation, shunning simple narratives and
morals, there is a balance to be struck between clarity and depth.
Given
the divide between the two traditions, what should we do as we study
the history of thought? My answer, as always, is rather than swear
cultural allegiance to any particular side, we should each examine every
side that we can and freely develop our own thinking as we like.
Philosophy is an exercise, a training of the mind. Whether or not we
close out answers or open up questions, we are training ourselves to
think. This is why we study a great range of thought, with all of its
disagreements and oppositions, as we learn just as much from a
philosophy to which we are opposed as we do to a philosophy with which
we agree.
