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Further reading:
Socrates Café`, by Christopher Phillips, a look at what happens when you bring philosophical power to the people. |
Pizza and philosophy make for a good
combination. You might want to try it sometimes. I occasionally have these evenings of
food for the brain and the stomach with a few friends, some of them actual philosophers,
some simply willing to explore and question whatever topic was chosen for the gathering.
These discussions occasionally offer me the launching point for one of these columns, as
in the case of the “Red or Blue?” one on the rationality of preferring harsh
truths to pleasant lies (Rationally Speaking n. 9, April
2001). Recently our group met again to discuss what one could refer to as “the
dark side of philosophy.” The starting question is simple: if philosophy is, as the
ancient Greeks called it, the “love of wisdom,” should we expect practicing
philosophers to be — on average — more wise than the layperson? While the
question smacks of intellectualism of the worst sort, it does make sense. After all, we do
expect medical doctors to know more about medicine and scientists to know more about the
natural world than the average Jane, so why not philosophers? Ah, but of course this is
the crux of the problem: does philosophy yield knowledge in a sense comparable to
the one that we associate with medicine or science? While most
people would be skeptical of the claim that there is such thing as philosophical
knowledge, many philosophers (and some well-informed outsiders) seem convinced that the
notion is not entirely ludicrous. For example, it is common to encounter ethicists who
believe that not only philosophy as a discipline, but humanity at large have actually made
progress in their view of morality, with the current “advanced” notions being
virtue ethics (derived from Aristotle), utilitarianism and some neo-Kantian version of
deontology (“duty ethics”). Since this
is not the focus, but the premise, of this column, let us assume for the time being that
in fact philosophy provides at least in some sense knowledge of a variety of subject
matters, and let us spotlight ethics in particular. Then we can proceed to ask if
philosophers—on average—are more ethical than the rest of us. When I asked the
question to my philosopher friends they couldn’t avoid a sarcastic smile, as if the
answer were clearly negative. Was it just modesty, or can we find factual evidence for
this startling result? If we look
at modern biographies of some major philosophers, we do not find much to rejoice. Bertrand
Russell was known to write love letters to one mistress immediately after getting out of
the bed of another one. Then again, Russell did defend a very liberal conception of love
and human relationships, so at least he was not being incoherent. Wittgenstein had a bad
temper and once hit a young girl until her nose bled because she didn’t understand
logic. Such teaching methods would not be condoned today, but Wittgenstein was a logician,
not a moral philosopher. Even if one is willing to condemn this sort of actions, this
hardly amounts to an indictment of the teachings of philosophy, not any more than
discovering that your doctor smokes or eats triple cheeseburgers can be used as an excuse
for dismissing his counsel on diet. And yet
there is worse. Examples of philosophers who have broken friendships over ideological
differences (like Camus and Sartre), or actively supported evil political systems (like
Heidegger and Nazism) are not that difficult to find. On the other hand, it is also true
that these cases certainly do not characterize the profession as a whole, and that surely
equally misguided choices can be abundantly found among non philosophers. Furthermore,
counter-examples of virtuous (or at least coherent) philosophers are also not rare. In
modern times, the behavior of ethicist Peter Singer comes to mind. Singer is one of the
founding fathers of the animal liberation movement and, accordingly, is a vegetarian. He
also maintains that we are ethically bound to share our wealth with the less fortunate,
and puts his money were his mouth is by giving away to charities 30% of his academic
salary. I am not suggesting that Singer’s ideas are to be embraced wholesale, but
surely he cannot be accused of not trying to live by his own philosophy. Indeed, the
philosopher par excellence, Socrates, died at the hand of the Athenian state in order to
remain coherent with his view of justice. It would certainly be interesting to conduct a
sociological study among philosophers to see how many actually try to put into practice
their own teachings or those ideas that they consider as the best that philosophical
inquiry has afforded humanity. The real
dark side of philosophy, as is the case for science, is largely outside the control of
philosophers (or scientists). I am referring to the inappropriate use that ideologues and
demagogues make of philosophical doctrines (or scientific discoveries) largely, though not
necessarily entirely, without the help of the philosophers themselves. Perhaps the best
example is the association between the Nazi political movement and the German philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche. While the latter’s ideas about individualism and the power of
the “super man” may hint at a superficial relationship with Hitler’s
madness, it turns out that even a cursory reading of the philosopher shows that he was
adamantly opposed to militarism, nationalism and dictatorships—nothing could be
further from the structure of the Third Reich. Along similar lines, of course, it is common knowledge that most prominent communists have been more Marxists than Marx (just as some evolutionary biologists are more Darwinists than Darwin). Very few philosophers have ever attempted to translate their theories into political realities, Aristotle’s nurturing of the young Alexander the Great and Plato’s plans of influencing the tyrant of Syracuse being among the scarce examples, and little or no harm has ever derived from such utopian attempts. If there is
a dark side to philosophy, therefore, it is the same dark side of science and possibly of
other human endeavors: it consists in the misappropriation by shrewd politicians of
whatever can help their own aims, and in the fact that the rest of us let them get away
with it for some time out of ignorance and apathy. That is why it is so important for
everybody to learn about philosophy and science: their consequences are too grave for
being left in the hands of the experts or in those of the dishonest. Next Month: "Heart disease and the myth of individual responsibility"Previous Columns Archive© by Massimo Pigliucci, 2001 |
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Further reading:
How Are We to Live?, by Peter Singer. A philosopher who puts his money where his mouth is. |
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Web links:The
“Love of Wisdom” page, where you can
find my own philosophical speculations… The
Philosopher’s Magazine, which recently
published a special feature on the dark side of philosophy. The Society for Philosophical Inquiry, established by Christopher Phillips to bring philosophy to the masses. |
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 Visit Massimo's Skeptic & Humanist Web |
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Rationally Speaking
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