Michael Reidy and the recently returned Thill raise an important point in response to last week’s post, on the assessment of philosophy from analytic and “continental” perspectives. I argued that analytic philosophy judges philosophical on argument and continental philosophy on the depth of interpretation – interpretation “that could explain not merely what Kant [for example] said, but why he said it.”
Michael responded that the two were not likely to be so far apart in practice: “You can hardly develop a credible problematique without knowing some details.” Thill responded that this depth of interpretation necessarily “involves also an explanation of Kant’s argument for his views or claims!!!… What else could ‘why he said it’ mean or refer to?”
Thill’s question appears to be intended as rhetorical (especially given the laughs that precede and follow it in his comment). But it shouldn’t be. There is always much more to the reasons a philosopher says anything than the arguments that she makes for it. Certainly the arguments matter. They always do. But they are not the only thing that matters. Michael is right that depth of interpretation requires a serious attention to detail – but arguments are not the only details.
So what else could we be speaking of here, other than arguments? I don’t think it’s too hard to imagine what that could be. An argument consists of premises leading to a conclusion. But where do those premises come from? Sometimes from other arguments – but not always. We can follow a chain of reasoning back from one argument to another argument to another, but eventually it’s going to stop somewhere. There will be a premise that is simply asserted – or at least as often, and this is particularly important, a premise that is not even stated but merely assumed. And if one merely understands the structure of a thinker’s arguments but not the assumptions that underlie them, one will not have understood that thinker.
I should note that there’s nothing inherently wrong with an assumed premise, or one asserted without argument. Indeed, one has to do it at some point; one cannot say everything, or one would run out of space. It’s just that if one is going to assume or assert a premise successfully, it must be an assumption that is shared by one’s intended audience. That’s the point that is typically missed by overeager campus missionaries: you are not going to get anywhere by telling me that Jesus is God’s only son because the Bible says so, since I don’t accept your assumption that the Bible as an authority on that matter. If I did, your argument would be sound; but I don’t, so it isn’t.
Within analytic philosophy, when these shared assumptions are highlighted it is usually with the term intuition. I find that term highly inappropriate, because it suggests that these “intuitions” are something more than mere shared assumptions. But it’s not wrong to ground one’s arguments in those shared assumptions that get called “intuitions” – simply because, again, one has to start somewhere. On the “continental” side this point was one of Gadamer‘s key insights: new knowledge is always measured against the “prejudices” (Vorurteilen) we already have. (I find Gadamer’s “prejudices”, or Martha Nussbaum’s “prevalent ordinary beliefs” – a term derived with reference to Aristotle’s phainomena – all much more appropriate terms than “intuitions”. For the purposes of this discussion, I think it’s fine to call them “assumptions”.)
Now where all of this gets us into trouble is when we start dealing with thinkers who don’t share our assumptions (and we don’t share theirs). Such thinkers exist even within our own time and place (as with the overeager campus missionaries). But the greater the distance in time and space, the greater the disconnect of assumptions is likely to be – and the more crucial it is to consider not merely the explicit arguments but also the assumptions of the thinkers we hope to learn from.
Figuring all this out was crucial to my own dissertation work. Śāntideva, I noted there, believes that material goods are harmful and still urges one to give them to others for their benefit. If I’d merely considered his explicit arguments and nothing more, I would have had to have stopped there: Śāntideva is a fool who contradicts himself, and there’s an end on’t – and in that case, why bother studying him any further?
But I didn’t do that. Instead, I followed the method of looking for coherent authorship, as stated by Thomas Kuhn: I tried to ask myself how an intelligent person could have written such an apparent absurdity. And that required looking deeper into Śāntideva’s assumptions: the things he believes but doesn’t say. Key among these was the idea that gifts benefit the recipient through the gift encounter and not the gift object. I argue in the dissertation that if you look at the things Śāntideva does say, you can infer that Śāntideva believes this, and it makes sense out of his explicit arguments in a way that you can’t get from looking at the arguments alone. Such an approach, I think, is crucial to making sense of any philosopher outside of one’s own immediate cultural milieu. If all you’re going to consider is the arguments, you might as well not bother. And indeed, most analytic philosophers don’t bother much with thinkers from distant times and places, which, considering their method, is just as well.
But that is not to say analytic philosophy is worthless. Not at all! It just doesn’t prepare you very well for studying the history of philosophy (which is why that history tends to be relegated to the sidelines of analytic departments). What it does very well is attempt to get to truth within a given context, namely ours – to take the incoherent mess of “intuitions” or prejudices, with which we must always begin our philosophical reflection, and start to hammer them into something that actually makes sense. For that reason I often refer to analytic philosophy as the scholasticism of the liberal tradition. Like medieval Christian scholasticism, analytic thought provides an extraordinary level of detailed reflection within one given context, which is necessary if those within that context are going to seriously strive to reach a truth about their lives. But it also makes that thought look parochial from a foreign context; I strongly suspect that the majority of analytical reflection will look as bizarre to people 500 years from now as Christian scholasticism looks to us today. Those people of the future may well be able to benefit from the argumentative details of 20th-century analytic philosophy; but it will require someone with the interpretive approach of a continental philosopher to figure out just what it was the analytic philosophers were going on about.
“There is always much more to the reasons a philosopher says anything than the arguments that she makes for it.”
After I posted the comment in which I asked rhetorically whether “why Kant said it” could refer to anything other than his argument, I realized that one could offer the alternative of causes which (allegedly!) led Kant to say what he did say, e.g., psychological, or socio-economic, or cultural factors.
But an interpretation cannot count as a “deep” interpretation of a thinker’s views if it ignored his or her arguments for those views.
And if it is acknowledged that a “deep interpretation”, whatever additional (alleged) factors it deals with, must address the thinker’s arguments, the charge of incoherence against the view that “deep interpretation” is a superior and exclusive alternative to argument analysis still stands.
“And if one merely understands the structure of a thinker’s arguments but not the assumptions that underlie them, one will not have understood that thinker.”
I am not clear why it is being assumed in this thought-provoking remark that “assumptions” are not part of the structure of an argument.
The word “assumption” is ambiguous.
In ordinary usage, it refers to a belief whose veracity is taken for granted and not demonstrated to be true. “You are assuming X.”, in ordinary parlance, means “You merely believe that X is true.”
In the language of critical thinking or informal logic, however, an assumption is an implicit premise and one which may well be obviously or demonstrably true.
The status of an assumption as an implicit premise in an argument does not imply anything about its truth-value, or plausibility, or probability.
Since assumptions are the implicit reasons or premises of an argument, I am unclear why this post suggests that they are separate from the structure of an argument.
The standard process of the examination of an argument includes not only an examination of its stated premises, but also its unstated premises or “assumption”.
I would also add that an examination of the implications of all the premises and the conclusion of an argument is also an integral part of argument analysis.
“I would also add that an examination of the implications of all the premises and the conclusion of an argument is also an integral part of argument analysis.”
Well, given our mortality and other conspicuous limitations, let me revise this claim and say that an examination of the implications of the central premises, implicit or explicit, and the conclusion is an integral part of argument analysis.
Btw, Isaiah Berlin refers in one of his essays to Bertrand Russell’s perceptive remark that the arguments of a philosopher are akin to the forces deployed to defend the citadel and this “citadel”, in the case of a philosopher or thinker, is invariably his or her “central vision” of reality, human nature, or what have you.
I agree with this insight of Russell, but I don’t think that there is anything esoteric about this “vision” (Of course, some philosophers do have an “esoteric” vision!)for the reason that it can be discerned in the central conclusions of the philosopher or thinker.
And this obviously implies that access to the arguments of a philosopher also gives us access to the nature of his or her “central vision” of reality, etc.
I appreciate what Gadamer says about prejudices, and his idea of a “fusion of horizons” is extremely useful. We start out sharing some assumptions even with people in far off historical contexts. Classical Indian philosophers, for instance, share a commitment to logic and argumentation with contemporary analytic philosophers, although there’s plenty of more work to be done in understanding the considerable differences. But this is also the case in understanding the history of Western philosophy (you can’t assume ancient Greeks thought of philosophy the same way 21st century philosophers do).
I think you’re absolutely right that today’s analytic philosophy will look very strange in 500 years. Even analytic philosophy from 50 or 60 years ago already looks pretty strange after the downfall of logical positivism. At the risk of sounding too Rortian, it seems to me that analytic philosophers are far less aware of the contingent aspects of their tradition than continental philosophers, although perhaps many continentals are TOO aware of their contingency!
Ethan, I agree that every philosophical tradition will have contingent aspects.
Isn’t that necessarily the case with every human practice?
However, we should not overlook the fact that there are also universal elements.
For instance, the attempt to “interpret”, or, in plain words, understand, a view or claim is a universal element of any practice of philosophical reflection.
Another universal element of any practice of philosophical reflection is the attempt to discern the truth of a view or claim.
Can we really deem anything a form of philosophical reflection if it is not concerned with the meaning and truth of a claim?
In my view, “analytical philosophy” is only an ensemble of styles of analysis of these perennial elements of philosophical reflection.
I do think there are universal aspects of philosophy. That’s what I meant when I said many continental philosophers (and Rortians) are TOO aware of their contingency. If you’re TOO concerned with contingency, you’ll lose track of what might actually be universal. But if you’re TOO concerned with universality, you might end up mistaking your beliefs for universal ones just because they make sense to you (the result of over-reliance on intuitions).
Maybe I just like to criticize everybody, but I’m personally not interested in picking a side in the analytic-continental divide. I’m content to admit that I’m more analytically-inclined, but I think the debate, at least as many philosophers in North America engage in it, contains more pointless bickering and academic turf wars than anything resembling the substantive metaphilosophical debate Amod brought up. I’ve never understood why philosophers can’t just let a hundred flowers bloom and see what happens. If we really care about truth, I don’t see why we’d assume there’s only one way to think about it and to find it.
When the waterhole gets smaller, the animals get meaner. Livelihoods are on the line, and most departments can usually only afford to let one flower bloom at a time. You’re not going to let that scarce resource go to people whose philosophy isn’t good by your standards.
Don’t we already have a huge and growing philosophical Tower of Babel?
And in the absence of a disciplined and committed pursuit of clarity and truth, hasn’t it already generated enough philosophical and moral confusion and chaos?
A beautiful garden requires both diversity and rigorous selection.
Thank you, Amod. It is rarely the case that I completely share your view as expressed in a post (although I often share some of its presupposals or basic assumptions;-)) but this post is one among the few I could hardly add anything to (hence, the following lines are just re-asserting the points you make).
I agree that assumptions are unavoidable and that they are *hence* not intrinsically bad. I would add that the more one is aware of them, the better (had Śāntideva made his point explicitly, it would have been easier for him to communicate with a distant reader; had I been clearer about my goals while writing my last article, I would not have had to face objections which were beside the point, etc.). Especially insofar as being aware of one’s own assumptions is likely to make one aware of the fact that they can influence one more than one wishes. If one *knows* oneself as a fervent Hindū, one will be aware of the risk of, say, being biased against Buddhism and can hence adjust one’s instinctive criticisms accordingly.
Last, I agree about analytic philosophy fitting today’s world (especially the English-speaking world, since Analytic philosophers often use English usage of verbs as evidence of what these verbs describe, e.g., perception). In this sense, I also very much agree with Ethan.
Thank you, Amod. I very much appreciate the distinction that you make here.
One trouble with logic is that, like Archimedes’ lever, you need a place to stand in order to move the world. This is why I so much appreciate your views on doubt — which I interpret as a willingness to always question where you stand, one’s own assumptions. Without that, logical analysis is always directed outward — establishing and defending territory, allowing no concept of growth or path except defensive modifications to address logical flaws. It makes for a very partisan, pinched and non-collaborative view of philosophy.
A mere 64 cents question:
Should we not first ensure that we have a “deep interpretation” of “analytic philosophy”?
“But I didn’t do that. Instead, I followed the method of looking for coherent authorship, as stated by Thomas Kuhn: I tried to ask myself how an intelligent person could have written such an apparent absurdity. And that required looking deeper into Śāntideva’s assumptions: the things he believes but doesn’t say.”
Why assume that intelligent persons can never make absurd claims or do stupid things? This contradicts everyday experience (inclusive, of course, of everyday experience in Academe!) and the history of philosophy.
How do you glean Śāntideva’s “assumptions” without recourse to his arguments?
Since an “assumption” is an implicit belief and premise of an argument, it can only be gleaned by examining one or more of his arguments.
“if you look at the things Śāntideva does say, you can infer that Śāntideva believes this, and it makes sense out of his explicit arguments in a way that you can’t get from looking at the arguments alone. Such an approach, I think, is crucial to making sense of any philosopher outside of one’s own immediate cultural milieu. If all you’re going to consider is the arguments, you might as well not bother.”
I think that there is a false opposition here between gleaning the assumptions of a thinker and seeking to understand and evaluate his or her arguments in just the way there is a false opposition between “deep interpretation” and understanding the arguments of a thinker.
Among these “assumptions” of a thinker, particularly in the context of his or her judgments and arguments on human affairs, are what Marx called “forms of social consciousness”.
I discussed this concept in my M.A. thesis on “Marx’s Theory of Ideology” under the supervision of my former teacher and prominent Canadian Marxist thinker, John McMurtry.
McMurty devotes a chapter (Chap. 6)to this concept in his The Structure of Marx’s Worldview, an admirably clear and stimulating work of analytical Marxism.
In McMurtry’s “deep interpretation” of the fundamental concepts or categories of Marx’s worldview, the forms of consciousness are “presupposed principles” or assumptions of ideological claims.
The following passage from McMurty’s book speaks for itself:
“Consider, for example, the standard public formulation, “Columbus discovered America.” and the presupposed general principle “All human discernment is European.” underlying and governing this statement.” (TSMWV, p. 146)
McMurtry elaborates in a footnote on the same page:
“Consider also such statements as “Orientals have no respect for life,” “Africans can’t govern themselves,”The only good Indian is a dead Indian,” and so forth. In all such cases, the underlying general principle, All human discernment is European, governs these statements as a syntactical rule governs a myriad of speech acts. It constitutes, so to speak, a rudiment in the grammar of White racism.”
These “forms of social consciousness” are a type of assumptions, and, should also be uncovered and identified as such in any adequate mode of analysis of a thinker’s views and arguments.
Assumptions are often embedded in Thought Experiments,Conundrums and Paradoxes. The creatures that philosophers like to keep as pets such as Zombies, Brains in Vats, Uncommunicative Bats, unfortunates whose brains are split and other lusae naturae are used to demonstrate the conceivability of a position that is argued for. We are generally nudged from the conceivable to the possible to the actual or probable. It’s all good fun.
We don’t have to scale the “Himalayan” heights of these Gedanken experiments to understand what assumptions are. Assumptions are “embedded” in every claim including the one you just made.
Thill:
Yes, true but as T.E.s have persuasion as their intent they should have the big gun of critical thinking turned on them. Training in critical thinking is one of stated objectives of many a prospectus and it’s a good thing.
The analytic folk and the system builders should be friends but at their extremes there is antipathy; almost the anal retentive versus the anal expulsive.
M.R.:
I’ve never really cared for the shibboleth of analytic vs. continental.
My research work as a graduate student at the M.A. and Ph.D levels engaged with the writings of Wittgenstein, Davidson, Popper, Kuhn, Hegel (My M.A. thesis on Marx devoted a chapter to Marx’s critique of Hegel), Marx, Foucault, Habermas, and Aurobindo, to mention a few important ones.
If a philosopher has the virtues of clarity and commitment to finding out the truth or plausibility of views (regardless of the venerability of persons who have proffered those views or the traditions in which those views are embedded)it will show in his or her writings.
In any case, we need to have a “deep interpretation” or understanding of “analytic philosophy” and “continental philosophy” before we can launch generalizations.
And we also need to be mindful of the occasions in which the invocation of shibboleths on analytic vs. continental can be pure and plain red herring or diversion from the issues and arguments at hand!
“The analytic folk and the system builders should be friends but at their extremes there is antipathy; almost the anal retentive versus the anal expulsive.”
Are you saying that the system builders are the “AE’s”?
Well, I presume you are aware of what “AE” implies concerning the nature of the content which is typically expelled? LOL
Two basic questions each worth only a cent:
1. What is the criterion (or criteria) of distinction between analytic and continental philosophy?
2. In the wake of the answer to the answer to(1), who are some of the representative philosophers of analytic or continental philosophy?
On the issue of truth, my former teacher at the University of Guelph, John McMurtry has this thought-provoking passage with a novel insight into criteria of truth in his article “Reclaiming Rationality and Scientific Method – The Life-Coherence Principle as Global System Imperative” available at
http://integral-options.blogspot.com/2010/10/john-mcmurtry-reclaiming-rationality.html
“What has been excluded must be included – the universal life support systems whose preconditions must be taken into account for full coherence of any claim to truth.
There are three general criteria of truth versus falsehood and ignorance. The first two are known, but the third has been missing.
There is (1) consistency of assertions with established evidence, what scientific method has mastered. There is (2) consistency of inferences with premises, what philosophical logic and analytic philosophy have mastered. And there is (3) consistency of objectives and conclusions with life support systems which have been recognized by neither.
There is no full coherence without consistency of all three. One cannot deny any of these three requirements of reason without absurdity.
It cannot be rational or scientific to ignore or flout empirical evidence, to be inconsistent in claim, or to violate the requirements of universal life support systems.
The most primary consistency – that without which life capacity is always reduced or destroyed – is now due.”
McMurtry’s proposal that there is a third “criterion of truth” (or is it, rather, a criterion of rationality?) – consistency of objectives and conclusions with life support systems – certainly deserves critical discussion.
“consistency of objectives and conclusions with life support systems”
I think McMurtry is proposing the following criterion of rationality:
X (any objective, goal, purpose, claim, or view) is rational if and only if it is consistent with the necessary conditions of the preservation and flourishing of life goods, e.g., clean air, water, sufficient living space, foods, non-oppressive or non-repressive social relations, etc.
In terms of this life-enhancement criterion of rationality, Santideva’s ascetic denunciation of “material goods” strikes me as positively hostile to life, and therefore, deeply irrational.
Indeed, Santideva’s disparaging remarks on the human body is proof positive of this hostility to life.
Since air, water, food, clothing, shelter, etc., are all material goods essential for the preservation of life, Santideva’s sweeping denunciation of material goods is plainly at odds with McMurtry’s proposed (additional) life-enhancement criterion of rationality.
Buddhist thought views attachment to material goods as the problem — material goods are not themselves problematic. Sometimes when attachment creates a problem it may be useful to develop a different relationship to the object of attachment. For example, an alcoholic may find it useful to abstain from using alcohol. However, this is a skillful means used in addressing attachment and not an exclusive approach.
Similarly, there are approaches — particularly in the Theravadin traditions — that involve visualizing a female body as internal organs and digestive tract full of excrement, etc. This is a used as a counterbalance to habits of attachment.
In all cases it is attachment that is the problem — and that could be attachment to an intellectual approach based on austerity or piety as well as attachment to material goods.
If you want to discuss specific statements by Shantideva, that might be helpful. But as a general matter, your premise that Buddhism is “hostile to life” is provocative, as usual, but way off base.
“Buddhist thought views attachment to material goods as the problem”
What do you mean by “attachment and why is it a “problem”? Don’t simply assume that what is assumed to be a “problem” in Buddhism is necessarily so!
As I pointed out in one of our early exchanges, attachment is a protective biological response in many organisms.
Does “Buddhist thought” acknowledge that there are basic needs living beings must fulfill in order to survive and flourish?
If so, how could there be anything wrong with “attachment” to the objects of such basic needs, e.g., food, water, mate, etc?
“Similarly, there are approaches — particularly in the Theravadin traditions — that involve visualizing a female body as internal organs and digestive tract full of excrement, etc. This is a used as a counterbalance to habits of attachment.”
This is form of pathological dehumanization and “de-aestheticism” (Isn’t Buddhism also hostile to beauty?) dressed up as a “spiritual technique”.
First, what is wrong in admiring and enjoying the beauty of a female body?
Second, why focus only on women?
Why not also “visualize” the Buddha’s body as full of excrement, etc? What gives the Buddha’s body a privileged status?
In fact, if any “attachment” is a real problem, it is assuredly the attachment Buddhists show to the Buddha and representations of his physical body!
So, Buddhists ought to do their “excremental meditation” first on the body of the Buddha!
Further, why stop with the body of the woman or man one is attracted to?
Why not also do this Buddhist “excremental meditation” on one’s parents, children, friends, etc? Surely, one is also attached to these beings?
And all this leads us to a truly enlightened state: frequent thoughts of the shit in the entrails of people! LOL
I presume you are familiar with the contemptuous expression “He’s full of shit!”
Why wouldn’t Buddhist EM (excremental meditation)foster a pathological contempt for people since it is focused on them qua bearers of excrement?
The goal of Buddhism is to liberate all beings from sentient existence or life!
Why? Because sentient existence or life is something to be overcome and transcended, not loved or embraced.
Why? Because sentient existence or life intrinsically “full of suffering”.
And this is not evidence of a devaluation of and hostility to life?
Btw, Nietzsche already pointed out in his Zarathustra that Buddhism is hostile to life, that no sooner than it sees an old man or a corpse, it screams in revulsion “Life is refuted!” LOL
Thill, you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
Jim, any embarassment should be on the Buddhist side (and yours for legitimizing it) for concocting the misogynist “visualization” of a woman’s body as full of excrement, etc. It’s amazing how you shift the burden of embarassment to a critic of that misogynist pathology!
In any case, do I really have to tell you that if you think my criticisms are not plausible, you need recourse to reasons not mere assertions?
“Similarly, there are approaches — particularly in the Theravadin traditions — that involve visualizing a female body as internal organs and digestive tract full of excrement, etc. This is a used as a counterbalance to habits of attachment.”
Jim, you ought to try taking logic seriously. You might see the implications of your comment in quotes above in which you refer approvingly to Buddhist excremental meditation.
Perhaps, I need to spell it out.
If “excremental meditation” is used as a “counterbalance to habits of attachment”, it would follow that it should be used to “counterbalance” “habits of attachment” to parents, children , siblings, friends, etc. And this means doing the same pathological “visualization” on their bodies.
Given the natural attachments one frequently feels for parents, siblings, children, friends, etc., it would follow that anyone who takes the Buddhist practice of “excremental meditation” seriously to “counterbalance” attachments would have to practice it frequently to counterbalance the occurrence of these feelings of attachment.
And what in the name of the Pure Land does that imply?
Obviously, it implies that the practitioner would have to frequently contemplate that the bodies of one’s parents, children, siblings, friends, etc., are full of excrement, etc.
Now do you understand why I wrote that “And all this leads us to a truly enlightened state: frequent thoughts of the shit in the entrails of people! LOL”???
And, BTW, if you are puzzled by my rhetorical question “Isn’t Buddhism also hostile to beauty?”, think “logic” again.
Consider the intimate relationship between beauty and desire. And then consider the Buddhist stand on desire. You may be able to figure out the implied Buddhist stand on beauty.
Good luck!
Well, Jim, I can at least take comfort in the fact that I was talking about something. I only feel Dukkha that this comfort is denied to you as a purveyor of Śūnyatā!
You know, embarrassment can be an edifying emotion. It can be the beginning of wisdom. You ought to try it sometime.
Jim, these are entering the territory of personal attacks. Please don’t do that.
“You know, embarrassment can be an edifying emotion. It can be the beginning of wisdom.”
I strongly agree and would encourage the practitioners of Buddhist “excremental meditation” or “excremental visualization” on women’s bodies to take your advice seriously.
“my former teacher and prominent Canadian Marxist thinker, John McMurtry.”
Correction: He is a prominent, radical, and insightful contemporary Canadian thinker, but his approach has developed well beyond the confines of Marx’s framework of thought, and indeed, any of the extant Marxist frameworks of thought.
I think that his contributions to the development of a “Life-value onto-axiology”, which he defines as a “General term for a value-system which regards life and means of life to more coherently comprehensive ranges of life as the sole real good, including the life support systems required to enable this process”, are profound and liberating.
“The most bizarre delusion in the history of human thought”
What is it?
John McMurtry identifies it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44lN0x91jMY&feature=related
“Idam kho pana, bhikkhave, dukkham ariyasaccam: jātipi dukkhā…” (The Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta)
jātipi dukkhā!
Birth is dukkha!
Now, how can we possibly consider Buddhism to be life-affirming when one of its cornerstones, the First “Noble Truth”, categorically asserts that the event which marks one’s entry into the realm of sentient existence or life, birth, is Dukkha?