The Art of Philosophy
You know what, I have wasted a lot of time in my life. Why have I spent so much time worried about deciding what Philosophy is to ensure I was actually doing it the right way? I always seemed to worry that my writings and essays in Philosophy must be built from previous thinkers, or must relate to the Philosophical canon in some way. I got this idea from Karl Jaspers who considered Philosophy as coming to an understanding through the utilization of companions in thought. I still think this is quite important, I do, but I took it to mean that Philosophical writings and essays mimicked that of Scientific research. I have a class next semester, history of modern Philosophy. I received the book for the class and me being the Philosophy geek that I am have begun reading it a month or so before the class begins. It is a book called “A Short History of Modern Philosophy,” by Roger Scruton. While most of his views I disagree with (particularly his political views), his introduction to the book had an incredible impact on me.
In it, he describes how he sees Philosophy, as an art of literature to some degree. He, like me, considers Philosophy to sit between Theology and Science, logic and reason acting as the glue that holds these positions’ views together, which come from Philosophy. He stressed the aspect on literature. Surely, I understood this as at least partially the case, with the likes of Nietzsche, or Flaubert just to name a couple. However, he was not limiting himself to the types of Literature that was of a technically fictitious story with a lesson of sorts, he encompassed all of Philosophical writings. What I found interesting about this is that his point was metaphilosophical. Which I have become more and more intrigued in, primarily to come to a conclusion of just what I am actually doing and why I am doing it anymore with so much frustration involved. Metaphilosophy, roughly speaking is the “Philosophy of Philosophy.” (That's meta bro) it looks at what philosophy is, how its done and et cetera. It was through this that I couldn’t help but to be allured by his idea of what the purpose of philosophy seemed to be as I read. Surely, I agreed that Philosophy was about ascertaining truth, but it also wasn’t in a quasi way to Scruton. I saw Philosophy as an attempt at ascertaining truth alone. Scruton brings up a good point in that if that were the case, we would have disposed of many philosophical thoughts by now and settled on something, but we don’t. Plato and Aristotle are as talked about today as much as any contemporary. Sure, one might cite that Philosophy keeps a truly skeptical view of other views. In its modern form, it was born out of the enlightenment after all, which was all about questioning the axioms and assumptions of the “knowledge givers” of the day. However one would think that with the arguments we have found, we would agree that some views just really don’t deserve to be in the canon anymore. Yet we generally agree on one thing: that all things encompass Philosophy at least to some (even small or tiny) degree, and don’t dismiss these things as non Philosophical. One can even have a “Philosophy of golf” if they so wished.
This is when it hit me the most. What Scruton was talking about was not against the way I had seen Philosophy at all, at least as far as my views of companions in thought that I received graciously from Jaspers. No, his point was that Philosophy has a lot in common with literature in that it doesn’t need to be a story, it can be an interesting inspection into how a thinker, well… thinks. It can be an interesting look into a thought process. Philosophy doesn’t have to be all about finding errors or defending a particular view you agree with and coming up with arguments in their syllogistic form in order to find the “fool proof case” for a point. This was something that intrigued me, as even now, I am not sure how to really put it all that well into words. Before, I had seen Philosophy academic papers as some sort of quasi scientific research in which I was to only stick with the views that exist from which to build. Citing sources for every little detail I could. This can still be helpful, but it doesn’t give as much insight into how I am thinking beyond the initial syllogism or argument. It does certainly give insight into where I got those ideas from, if I in fact got those ideas from somewhere else. But it doesn’t convey my particular thoughts.
This revelation gave me a sort of appreciation for more modern meditations. I used to look at social media arguments with a bit of disdain, or critical inspection. That is to say, I was looking for things to question them about. Not necessarily in a negative light, just in a “pursuit of truth” kind of light. I saw it as sort of some kind of beauty that two interlocutors engaged in in the discovery of the noumena (world as it is outside of our perception of it) and I still do see this as a goal. This was a bit of an idealistic view, though. That discourse was never productive, but destructive that turned into aggravated verbal fights, which was not my goal at all. Through Scruton, I have to agree that that is not how we go about it, if we see it as an art anyways. If we can see Philosophy as an art instead of a critical view at everything, we can see how people think, and it may make it much more interesting to us, rather than an attempt at achieving what may not even be achievable (ascertaining the noumena) much in the same way one might look at a painting and be interested in why some choices were made in the style, color pallet, or why there is a dog in the corner that seems to have no correlation to the overall painting. For clarification, I am not saying the noumena is unachievable, just that from some perspectives, it may not be, and they generally have some interesting justification for it. Interesting in the same way I would want to know about the “dog they painted in the corner.”
Ultimately, what I learned from Scrutons’ introduction is that I don’t have to worry so much about what Philosophy is or if I am doing it right. I don’t need to stick to such rigidity in order to prop up an argument. Yes, keep to well reasoned arguments, logic is our paintbrush, canvas, and palate, all the tools of the trade. All I really need to do, is have an inquisitive attitude towards the way people think, and enjoy literature while also seeking out truth and having a good critical question that could be drawn from what someone else has said, or something I have thought about or anything, that’s art after all… isn’t it? In the end, I will still critique, but regardless of if I disagree with an argument or think it has errors, I would try to be supportive of someone's artistic painting, so I am not going to shut the door on an artistic investigation of thought.
Want more?
On top of following me here on medium, it might be a cool thing to see you over on my Facebook page Five Minute Philosophy I also post essays to Academia that you might be interested in.
