The fifth footnote to the Wikipedia article on “Philosophy” cites an introductory textbook as follows:
Philosophy is a study of problems which are ultimate, abstract and very general. These problems are concerned with the nature of existence, knowledge, morality, reason and human purpose.[1]
What is the relationship between the study of problems and the love of wisdom? Has the former been finally detached from the latter, assuming the one arose out of the practice of the other?
If the progressive, historical untethering of the study from the love is a fact, is it worthwhile to evaluate it, or need we only adjust to it? May we ask about it critically or would it be unfruitful, even unwise (in the sense of imprudent, impractical, or pointless) to do so? Did not Pythagoras, who coined the term, intend for the love to guide the study? Did he not assume that the study flowed out of and expressed the love?
Since the very beginning of the discourse called “philosophical,” its practitioners have held one conceit, namely, that reason is autonomous and therefore can identify, study, and perhaps solve general and fundamental problems.
Even if self-identifying “philosophers” disagree about proffered solutions, they would all agree (if asked) that such diversity, what Nicholas Rescher called the “strife of systems,” can in no way discredit the conceit. I say “would,” for taking that conceit for granted is so ingrained that it takes considerable research to find its self-conscious articulation and defense.
Consequently there’s rarely been an occasion for philosophical rivals to express such solidarity. They hold that conceit implicitly, but absolutely. For them it is non-negotiable—ethically, metaphysically, and epistemologically—and, as such, invulnerable to discrediting.
When, however rarely, they are challenged on this point they quickly retort that it is inescapable, that is, would-be critics of the presumption of reason’s autonomy inevitably honor it as soon as they open their mouths to speak, put pen to paper, or tap their keyboards. To reflect just is to affirm that autonomy. Ironically, our response to this will take a similar form: at the very inception of intelligible predication one is at once presupposing Christian theism, whether that is the worldview one affirms or denies, and that autonomous reason cannot bear the weight of worldview-building.
What are the transcendental conditions of intelligible predication? I discern four closely related dimensions to this question.
There is a defensive or apologetic dimension, which foregrounds the effort to defend Christian theism against intellectual attack. Apologetics, however, presupposes the evangelical imperative, for it is the evangelist’s audience that responds favorably or unfavorably to the presentation of the Gospel. That is, apologetics is not a hobby but rather a discipline that carries out an ethical imperative. In both apologetics and evangelism there is doctrinal or theological content that one determines before one proclaims and someone else hears and away from the fray of attack and defense.
But there is also a philosophical pattern of experience and thinking distinct from the other three dimensions which move to the background when it is in the foreground. There are such things as philosophical questions, irreducible to other kinds, and the discourse that essays answers to them. They are, indeed, “ultimate, abstract and very general” and “are concerned with the nature of existence, knowledge, morality, reason and human purpose.” Those who ask them are asking philosophical questions, and we may rightly say, with qualification, that they are philosophers.
The precondition of asking a philosophical question, however—and this is where things get tricky—is itself a prime candidate for a philosophical object. Indeed, it is an object that every other intellectual discipline may get away with avoiding or evading.
There are, for example, transcendental conditions of the possibility of historical inquiry, but historians qua historians are not duty-bound to ask about them. They are not obliged, that is, to be philosophers of history. There are also transcendental conditions of the possibility of the production of art that artists take for granted.They, too, are under no obligation, as artists, to ask about those conditions. Should they do so, however, they are no longer functioning as artists but rather as philosophers of art.
If one professes to have no interest in whether the possibility of predication has conditions and in learning what they are, then qua philosopher, he must justify that indifference or risk having the very unphilosophical character trait of arbitrariness imputed to him. If anything counts as an “ultimate, abstract, and very general” question, it is the one that asks about the precondition of intelligible predication.
If it turns out that the truth of Christian theism is that precondition, then that truth also grounds one’s very inquiry into it: that precondition also governs inquiry into itself. It is not the case, that is, that Christian theism is the condition of every intelligible predication except those that inquire into intelligible predication. If Christian theism is true, then one must expel the conceit of rational autonomy not only from philosophy, but also from metaphilosophy. Christian theism, if we are right, lies in the background of every intelligible affirmation and denial (including the denial of Christian theism).
A. C. Grayling wrote:
The aim of philosophical inquiry is to gain insight into questions about knowledge, truth, reason, reality, meaning, mind, and value. Other human endeavors explore aspects of these same questions, not least art and literature, but it is philosophy that mounts a direct assault upon them . . . .[2]
He presupposes that we can gain insight into those questions. But does that ability have conditions and, if so, what are they?
Anthony Quinton:
Philosophy is rationally critical thinking, of a more or less systematic kind about the general nature of the world (metaphysics or theory of existence), the justification of belief (epistemology or theory of knowledge), and the conduct of life (ethics or theory of value). Each of the three elements in this list has a non-philosophical counterpart, from which it is distinguished by its explicitly rational and critical way of proceeding and by its systematic nature. Everyone has some general conception of the nature of the world in which they live and of their place in it. Metaphysics replaces the unargued assumptions embodied in such a conception with a rational and organized body of beliefs about the world as a whole. Everyone has occasion to doubt and question beliefs, their own or those of others, with more or less success and without any theory of what they are doing. Epistemology seeks by argument to make explicit the rules of correct belief formation. Everyone governs their conduct by directing it to desired or valued ends. Ethics, or moral philosophy, in its most inclusive sense, seeks to articulate, in rationally systematic form, the rules or principles involved.[3]
Quinton refers to replacing “unargued assumptions” about metaphysics with “a rational and organized body of beliefs about the world as a whole” but does not ask whether “rationally critical thinking” can do that, or “make explicit the rules of correct belief formation,” or “articulate . . . the rules or principles involved” in ethics.
Furthermore, whence his confidence that the results of all three enterprises will cohere? Must there not be conditions of the possibility of such a remarkable undertaking? If there are, Quinton leaves them at the level of assumptions that are as “unargued” as those of common sense, hardly a “rationally critical” practice.
To be continued.
[1] Jenny Teichmann and Katherine C. Evans, Philosophy: A Beginner’s Guide, Blackwell Publishing, 1999, 1.
[2] “Editor’s Introduction.” In A.C. Grayling, ed. Philosophy: A Guide through the Subject, vol. 1. Oxford University Press, 1.
[3] “The ethics of philosophical practice.” In T. Honderich, ed. The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford University Press. 1995, p. 666.