Philosophy’s Orphans

The divide–and, at times, the fight–between “Continental” and “Analytic” philosophical traditions has been going on for quite some time. Even the very fact that we have categorically designated and defined academic philosophy based on this division reveals a great deal about what really matters in philosophy.

At this point, we can certainly engage in theorizing whether the division was inevitable because philosophers will always have something to argue about. Put two philosophers in a room and they are bound to disagree on at least one thing! Constructive and healthy conversations are certainly important for the well-being of any philosopher. But what happens when this division breeds bad behavior, creates enemies, and engages in cruel dismissals of thought that, unfortunately, have nothing to do with rigorus logic, careful thinking and calm deliberation? This, in fact, becomes the most un-philosophical way of living our lives as philosophers.

On one level, this problem is very real indeed: it’s happening in the halls of academia. As a graduate student in philosophy and someone who has chosen to engage mostly in Greek and Continental traditions, I have personally been ostracized from the Analytic community. I have never had an issue reading or understanding Analytic philosophy, and I especially engaged with the works of Wittgenstein, Anscombe, and even some more contemporary philosophers, like Plantinga, Parfit, and Marquis, especially in the realm of metaphysics. However, the department I was in indirectly rejected Greek as well as Continental philosophy. The departmental environment made many of us feel quite unwelcome–as well as literally rejected. I had no choice but to abandon the academic aspect of philosophy, and have found a more welcoming environment in a department of Comparative Literature. I know I am not the only philosopher to take this route. When philosophers decide to continue their philosophical work outside academic departments, then it’s safe to say that we have a problem in academia. Those of us who wish to simply do philosophy without worry or obsession which ‘camp’ their work can be categorized in are ultimately orphaned.

As much as this is an issue that needs addressing through practical changes in the social makeup of institutions, I believe the most effective way to tackle this problem is to focus on the actions of departmental administrators. These changes, however, must be discussed by the philosophical community at large, and I do not lay claim to any helpful suggestions. It is a conversation worth having, however.

What interests me–and what is more at stake–is the very future and nature of philosophy. By nature, philosophers love to define things in the world. But what happens when the defining takes a route of infinite regress or a vicious cycle? It can border on philosophical madness: we certainly have Nietzsche to prove that point!

Categories, whether based on reasoned grounds or a matter of pragmatic utility, are necessary. But once categories begin to sow seeds of irreconcilable division (such as in the “Analytic” and “Continental” traditions), they have failed to grasp the meaning of doing philosophy. If we focus on endless categorization and create our philosophical fights based only on that, then we have chosen to become enmeshed in the details of details that distract us from perennial human questions. We have, essentially, chosen to talk about the forms of expression rather than the expression itself.

We have forgotten that one of the aspects of philosophy is an encounter–a dialogue between individuals that disagree on fundamental issues. We engage with our interlocutors in hopes perhaps to convince them that we are right (or they are wrong). But a philosopher ought to be comfortable in their own intellectual skin and allow themselves to be convinced by others. In other words, there is no room for defensiveness or retraction in philosophy, because by its very nature, philosophy is about a constant opening of the mind to disagreements. This opening is constitutive of human flourishment.

Harsh and objective analysis of our interlocutor’s claims is necessary, but it doesn’t have to involve dehumanization of the person we are supposedly engaging with in dialogue. Dialogue itself implies that there is a disagreement, which may end favorably–or it may not. But one thing we ought to keep in mind when we are engaged in a dialogue is that it is up to each individual person to listen and comprehend the other’s position to the best of his ability. After all, most of philosophizing is (at least in my experience) about the experience of silence before a new and an illuminating thought arises.

It would not be in error to take stock of philosophy, at least in the academic context, and conclude that it has been decimated. It has been treated like meat that has been put through the grinder too many times: it’s rotten to the core. Endless philosophical puzzles, sub-puzzles, sub-sub-puzzles, and sub-sub-sub-puzzles that have nothing to do with reality or questioning itself that relates to the lived-in world. What are we to do? Is this a problem that has been created entirely by the sterile and joyless environment of academia? Have we become so consumed with jobs in philosophy, requisite conferences, tenure-track positions, departmental politicking, publishing or perishing–not to mention overspecialization!–that we have become not only socially but also philosophically awkward? Is it academia and the relatively recent Kafkaesque bureaucracy that has enveloped the modern university that have derailed every true philosopher from seeking the consolation of philosophy? Can philosophy still exist in the environment, whose administrators (and many professors) are intent on annihilating the thirst for knowledge, wisdom, beauty, and ethics? If there is a battle to be fought, then the call should be against the absurdities of academia, not against fellow philosophers.

We should accept the fact that for the most part, a philosopher is not a happy person, but one thing that will remain true is that a philosopher ought to be perpetually curious at the world he is part of. They ought to always be aware of an idea which may slip away or elude them at the moment. If they have lost a sense of wonderment, then they have ceased to be mindful or present to the reality of human embodiment. If they have lost their capacity to see, then they have forgotten how to be. Academia certainly has a way of sucking the life out of the beautiful and the sublime, but it is then up to us to carry the torch of that which is true, good, and beautiful in whatever philosophical form we wish to express it in. Let us not engage in petty philosophical wars. Instead, let us reason together.