A Nasty Accident With One's Flies
(Or, Life in Philosophy)
| The following was my inaugural
lecture as professor of philosophy at the University of Brighton,
delivered in May, 1996, coinciding with the Brighton Arts Festival.
As is the tradition in the University of Brighton (although not
in all UK universities that have inaugurated professors), the lecture
was supposed both to reflect my professional concerns and to
be accessible to a general audience. A version was distributed in pamphlet form by
the University of Brighton after the event: that version, unrevised,
is presented here. |
Asked about the purpose of philosophy, the Austrian-born philosophical
genius Ludwig Wittgenstein replied that its task was to show
the fly the way out of the fly-bottle (PI §309[1]). Such
a remark is likely to puzzle us, even if we know what a fly-bottle
is (it's a kind of fly-trap). What could Wittgenstein have meant
by such a remark? And that puzzlement becomes important once
someone (like me) urges that Wittgenstein's comment, properly
understood, offers a profound as well as a correct
account of the nature of the philosophical enterprise.
In the rest of this talk, I shall first clarify some aspects
of what Wittgenstein meant by this gnomic remark (taking its
truth and importance for granted), and then I will illustrate
impacts of these ideas with examples from two (or three) specific
areas of philosophy -- the philosophy of language, the philosophy
of art, and the philosophical study of sport. In this way, I
will bring out both the potential of philosophy and the impact
of Wittgenstein.
That should explain the main title of this lecture ... Its
other title ... well, in what follows there are fragments of
a number of lives -- mine, Wittgenstein's -- but also (I hope)
something of the enduring vitality -- the life -- of the
philosophical.
But first, an autobiographical anecdote, to make the philosophical
life at issue clearly my life: as an undergraduate, hitching
to London (say, to a rock concert) and asked by the lorry driver
who was giving me a lift what I was studying, I replied ... well,
whatever I said did not mention the conversation-stopping word
"philosophy". Perhaps there were many reasons why I
could not discuss philosophy in that context; but my point is
that philosophy -- like most disciplines, but perhaps with a
greater urgency -- needs a clear sense of itself and its purposes.
Certainly, there is a general lack of a consensus about the scope
and limits of philosophy:
There is wide-spread disagreement about what activities it
is legitimate for philosophy to pursue.[2]
I want to enter that debate tonight.
Strange as it may seem, recent philosophy in the English-speaking
world is not introspective enough[3] -- once, perhaps, it was
too introspective, a kind of navel-gazing having as much general
relevance as debates about landing angels on the head of a pin.
Return to that sorry situation is not being advocated, but it
has been replaced by a brisk confidence about the nature and
purposes of philosophy; a confidence not, in my view, justified.
§1 A therapeutic conception
of philosophy
Wittgenstein's conception of philosophy -- manifest in the
'fly-bottle' quote -- is appropriately called therapeutic,
in the sense of being directed at the resolution of problems
or perplexities besetting particular individuals[4]; the showing
of particular flies the way out of specific fly-bottles. So it
is work that needs to be done person-by-person: or, as Wittgenstein
put it:
Work in philosophy is -- as work in architecture frequently
is -- actually more of a kind of work on oneself. (BT pp. 406-7;
PO p. 161[5])
Nor should we think these tasks easily accomplished, for they
can involve giving up ideas that one had acquired in a completely
'taken-for-granted' way[6]. Again, Wittgenstein offers an evocative
metaphor:
Teaching philosophy [he says] involves the same immense difficulty
as instruction in geography would have if a pupil brought with
him a mass of false and falsely simplified ideas about the course
of rivers and mountain chains. (BT p. 423: PO p. 185[7])
In these ways, then, work in philosophy centrally involves
the dissolution of problems which beset that person, with
no greater claim to generality.
But philosophical work will typically be more general:
why? The point to see is the generality of the sources
of these problems. Now, the 'flies' in the initial metaphor are
all of us: the problems philosophy addresses are problems that
could, in principle, beset any of us. Gilbert Ryle (then Professor
of Philosophy at Oxford) used to raise an obvious criticism by
asking, what about the fly that never finds its way into
the fly-bottle? Hearing this question, John Wisdom (a pupil and
friend of Wittgenstein's, and at the time Professor of Philosophy
at Cambridge) once offered the stage-whispered reply: "But
you will have lured him in there, Gilbert". Wisdom's point,
which I shall not be contesting tonight, is that misconceptions
identified by, say, Ryle, should not be seen as resulting from
what 'we' commonly say or think but, instead, from the interpretation
of 'our' doings by specialists, and especially by philosophers,
resulting from their tendency or inclination to take what can
(in principle) be misleading as having misled[8]. So reading
philosophy (or other 'expert' opinion) may be the problem, not
the solution!
What are the sources of philosophical perplexities?
As Wittgenstein put it, in a presently unpublished manuscript:
Philosophy is a tool which is useful only against philosophies
and against the philosopher in us. (MS 219, 11[9])
So philosophical perplexities derive from (at least) two related
sources:
- ·From the effect of the views of experts.
- ·From "the philosopher in us".
But[10] we might see the philosopher in us as someone
who is almost bound to arise in the course of a standard education.
So few people will not need philosophy: as Wittgenstein[11]
urges, only those
... who have no need for transparency in their argumentation
are lost to philosophy. (BT 421; PO p. 183)
But are there any such people? One major commentator[12] is
even more forceful: in his view,
... only a clod or a god could resist being drawn into the
fly-bottle of philosophical puzzlement.
The 'fly-bottle' metaphor concerns the impact of philosophy
-- that it responds to puzzlements or perplexities: we are not
here addressing the contented fly, since (in the fly-bottle)
there can be no such thing.
§2 The method of therapy
But how is the 'therapy' to be achieved? What does one do?
The aim, as Wittgenstein describes it, is to provide:
... an order in our knowledge of the use of language:
an order with a particular end in view; one out of many possible
orders; not the order. (PI §132 [B&H 1 p. 484])
This Wittgenstein calls "a perspicuous representation"
of whatever, a representation which makes the matter perspicuous
(clear)[13]. Notice, first, that this is not an order
to our use of language, but to our knowledge, to
what we recognise: second, that it does not offer new
knowledge, really -- rather, it puts in order what we already
know; and third, that the order achieved is acknowledged
as one ordering among many, selected for some "particular
purpose" (PI §127[14]), to answer some puzzlement.
It is not as though there were a representation that could
not mislead. The right idea here, as Wittgenstein urges,
is given by comparing a perspicuous representation with
a lamp which, in illuminating the perplexing 'side' of the issue,
necessarily throws its other 'side' into shadow[15].
What we lack is not a (generalised or once-and-for-all) perspicuous
representation of our grammar/language; but, rather, a certain
representation (for example, the colour-octahedron [PR p. 51ff;
WWK p. 42; PR p. 278]) to make some part of our grammar, a part
which puzzles us, perspicuous (=clear) for us.
We are puzzled because what we know, in knowing how to
go on in language, is not clear to us; misleading analogies (and
such like) suggest themselves -- or someone suggests them to
us!
Lacking such clarity, we will remain puzzled: but, once we
have achieved the clear view, it can seem obvious. As Wittgenstein
remarks:
Philosophical problems can be compared with locks on safes,
which can be opened by dialling a certain word or number, so
that no force can open the door until just this word has
been hit upon, and once it has been hit upon, no effort at all
is necessary to open the door. (BT p. 417; PO p. 175 [see B&H
1 p. 485 note 22][16])
A further moral from the 'fly-bottle' metaphor is that the
task of philosophy cannot turn on matters in principle unavailable
to us -- the perplexities typically arise from looking in
the wrong way at what we know, rather than from not knowing
enough. Here, Wittgenstein's characteristic advice was "Look
and see", and that is only plausible advice if what one
is looking for is in plain sight.
So the task of philosophy cannot be to uncover something unavailable,
but (rather) to get us to re-assess what we already know: the
point about the fly-bottle just is that flies do not typically
find their own way out, even though there is nothing stopping
them!
Now, we have only just begun to explore this way of thinking
about philosophy[17]. Still, we do not need to go much further
to see that such a conception will have an impact on what is
done both in pursuing and in teaching philosophy.
At this point, I will take a brief detour to mention in the
context of commenting on the teaching and learning of philosophy
(where mention occurs naturally) the immense contribution both
to my understanding of issues raised here, and to understanding
more generally, of a collection of other thinkers [some of whom
are here tonight]: first, my predecessor in the ancestor of this
post, David Best, whose ideas about art, dance, and philosophy
are profoundly intermingled with mine; but also a collection
of my 'philosophical forebears' -- in alphabetical order, Gordon
Baker, whose reading of Wittgenstein founds much of what you
have (and will) hear tonight; then, Terry Diffey, whose encouragement
has continued unabated since he was on a panel that first appointed
me (more years ago than I care to recall), and who (among other
assistance) laid out for me the institutional character of the
concept "art"; and also Richard Wollheim, who taught
me a lot about aesthetics -- but also taught me a bit about philosophy
(and its teaching) by permitting me to show-up at PhD supervision
sessions having done no work but with a good question about Freud
for us to discuss -- I do not assume he failed to notice this
strategy; finally, the late John Wisdom -- in the past, inviting
him would have involved ascertaining that he was well enough
for discussion and not scheduled for horse riding!
Others who have helped me with their ideas and/or their example
include a variety of colleagues (and students) from the Chelsea
School -- in particular, Alan Tomlinson and Paul McNaught-Davis;
and colleagues from School of Historical and Critical Studies,
especially Bob Brecher and Tom Hickey.
§3 Why is giving an account
of philosophy problematic?
To continue: I suggested earlier that it was difficult to
give an account of the nature of philosophy. Why is that?
The chief problems, it seems to me, come from two wide-spread
characterisations of philosophy: that it is about words
(sometimes thought-of positively, but chiefly a negative characterisation)
and that it addresses profound, general abstract questions.
John Wisdom[18] recounts confronting both these reactions to
the term "philosophy":
People sometimes ask me what I do. Philosophy I say and I
watch their faces very closely. 'Ah -- they say -- that's a very
deep subject isn't it?' I don't like this at all. I don't like
their tone. I don't like the change in their faces. Either they
are frightfully solemn. Or they have to manage not to smile.
And I don't like either.
Of course, these are the sorts of reaction I feared from the
lorry-driver! But why are these the typical reactions?
To bring out one reason, consider two main ways[19] in which
philosophical puzzlement can arise:
- first, through 'expert' opinion misleading us, through stirring
up (what I shall call) Berkeleyan dust.
- second, through confusions about 'the logic of what we say'[20]
(cf. PI §345; also PI §119): so that, for example,
we might look for substances, faced with substantives (That is,
look for the "sake" involved in doing something for
someone's sake, the "it" of "It is raining");
or, again, we might take as mere symptoms what are really
criteria (mistaking logical/grammatical points for empirical
ones, since there can be fluctuation between criteria and symptoms:
PI §354[21]).
The first category (the Berkeleyan dust) highlights the sort
of perplexity the expert might think profound; the second
(focusing on "what we say") seems to imply a verbal
dimension to philosophy.
§4' Expert' questions.
Let us take them in that order. So first, then, to the views
of 'experts': I spoke of "Berkeleyan dust" since the
Irish philosopher, George Berkeley[22], remarks:
... that the far greater part, if not all, of those difficulties
which have hitherto amused philosophers, and blocked up the way
to knowledge, are entirely owing to ourselves. That we have first
raised a dust, and then complain we cannot see.
While I do not disagree, I would add that philosophers are
not the only ones shuffling their feet to create the dust: in
particular, scientists are doing it too. So two chief ways these
perplexities are likely to arise are through the imperialism
of other philosophers, or through the misleadingness of some
scientific presentations. The illusion here, as Wittgenstein
recognised, is that philosophical investigation is always necessary
to ground other speculation. As he wrote:
Philosophy solves, or rather gets rid of, only philosophical
problems; it does not set our thinking on a more solid basis.
What I am attacking [he says] is above all the idea that the
question 'What is knowledge?' -- e.g. -- is a crucial one. (MS
219, 10)
As though, say, we had to establish the possibility of knowledge
of the (external) world in order to make the place safe for science[23].
As Wittgenstein continues:
... it seems as if we didn't yet know anything at all until
we could answer that question [about the nature of knowledge].
In our philosophical investigations it is as if we were in a
terrible hurry to complete a backlog of unfinished business which
has to be finished or everything else seems to hang in the air.
(MS 219, 10[24])
His point: we should not see philosophy as seeking (much less
achieving) some fundamental foundation for this or that form
of knowledge; but rather working to dispel those misunderstandings
that do arise (as opposed to those that might!).
To illustrate, I will offer a sport-based example (thereby acknowledging
one of my professional concerns, in the Chelsea School).
This case is based on a comment genuinely made during a television
programme, in which viewers were told (with a straight face)
that a water-skier was making many thousand calculations as she
kept her balance. My reaction would be that elaborate
mental arithmetic is quite a feat for someone simultaneously
engaged in water-skiing; and my advice would be to keep her attention
on what she is doing! The television programme, of course, meant
something quite different: roughly, that if we chose to
simulate the skier's behaviour using a computer -- or
perhaps a computer-controlled robot -- and if we understood computers
in a fashionable way, then the computer would be doing
such calculations. Now, I am not sure that even this is true;
but, either way, it has no obvious bearing on what that person
was doing. For that person is not a computer, nor do we have
any reason to model her behaviour as computation: if we think
we do, it is because we have been listening to too much 'popular
science'.
It may be (completely hypothetically) that some wealthy research
council might fund a project which studied computer 'activity'
as a way of illuminating human action (it might even acquire
a name -- say, the study of artificial intelligence, or AI):
if so, then penniless scientists (if any) would have a reason
to investigate it. But, notice, the first hurdle for such a project
should be to determine that this is a suitable topic for investigation
-- and that involves demonstrating that there is something revealing
to be learned about humans in this way! Against me, it
might be insisted that an open mind is what is needed
here: I would agree -- but an open mind does not consist
in assuming that one has the right question, and then
remaining 'open' about the answer. Rather, it involves open-ness
about the question too[25]. (But that is a hard idea to include
in research-grant applications.)
The point, then, is that one source of 'conceptual confusion'
is so-called 'expert opinion': the creation of wholly spurious
difficulties, which are then transmitted to others -- for example,
through one's philosophy classes. (I speak only for myself, of
course.)
This case can introduce another, related problem: on the rebound
from the absurdity of thinking that the skier is calculating
furiously, we might say that she just does it -- that
no further explanation is required. As persons, we recognise
one another as embodied agents; that we can (if we are lucky)
achieve things in the world. But how does the skier
do it? Well, by having learned to do it, and by thinking about
what she wants to do. So far, this is harmless.
But it can seem that what is going on is, first, a
bit of thinking or intending (psychological activity) and then
a bit of doing (bodily activity). And, enquiring how these two
are related, we may see a 'little water-skier' (doing the thinking)
inside the real skier: a 'dualist' conception, treating
minds and bodies as inhabiting separate realms. Even this may
not be bad yet. For there is no misunderstanding at work
yet: we have drawn no conclusions -- say, about training
programmes -- from these ideas. Now, I see how dualistic conceptions
of human beings and human action can be detrimental to our understanding
of action, of feeling and of one another -- but I do not find
dualism in all the places some of my colleagues see it. For instance,
my commitment 'body and soul' to a research project does not,
in and of itself, commit me to viewing persons as combinations
of bodies-plus-souls, or bodies-plus-souls-plus something-else!
One might think that it was only when we had been listening
to philosophers -- who distinguish a psychological realm from
a bodily one (what I earlier called "dualists"[26])
or who postulate attitudes to propositions to explain
our beliefs -- that we are likely to be confused. Actually, that
is not quite right -- we are as likely to be confused on this
issue by scientists -- especially (as we have seen) by psychologists
with a fascination with computers.
§5 Literalism and language
If that puts aside, and clarifies, the sorts of (false) profundity
of which philosophy is accused, what about the other accusation:
that it is just about words? It is easy to see where the
ammunition for this charge comes from: from the propensity to
say, "It all depends what you mean by ....". And certainly
part of any full reply I made would include disputing the force
of the word "just", when it is said that philosophy
is just about words.
But the crucial point is to show that, contrary to what is
often asserted or assumed, philosophy is not about language[27].
Indeed, this point can be made sharp by contrasting the view
presented here with another; for the conception of philosophy
proposed here should work against the literalism characteristic
of much philosophical writing. And such literalism, with its
insistence on reading at (what it takes to be) 'the foot
of the letter', is destructive of progress both in the teaching
and the understanding of philosophy.
To illustrate what is at issue, consider the following case.
At one time, in gents' toilets in bars across the land, a particular
sign was regularly found, reading:
Do not throw cigarette ends into the urinals: it makes them
damp and difficult to light
Now, that sign says that the urinals will become difficult
to light; but the joke (or quasi-joke) -- that the landlord might
in this way be collecting cigarettes from the urinal -- works
by our reading the sign differently. My point is that native
English-speakers will recognise this sign as a badly-written
sentence, as bad grammar if you like -- but they are not misled
by it. So in what sense is it misleading? The point is
not whether misleading inferences could be drawn, but
whether they are drawn[28]. The literalist will insist
both that this is misleading, and that facts such
as this are philosophically revealing.
But is the mere possibility of such misunderstanding
a genuine worry? To see that it is not, imagine that I am talking
about sunrise; say, in the context of having seen a beautiful
sunrise, or of sunrise being a good time to view such-and-such
a species of bird. Should one take issue with this kind of talk?
I see no reason to do so, even though I don't believe in sunrises
(any more than the rest of you) since I take us to live in the
solar system. So it would be misguided of some 'philosopher',
hearing my remark, to conclude, "McFee operates with a pre-Copernican
cosmology!". To repeat, it is important to reject the kind
of literalism much beloved by some philosophers with analytic
training who, finding a way to 'read' a sentence as misleading,
take it to have misled. (In my sunrise example, no-one was misled,
no-one misunderstood.)
Rather, ascription of misunderstanding must be based on evidence
of misunderstanding -- that is, evidence of genuine misunderstanding,
not the mere possibility of misunderstanding. This would
typically take the form of some inference drawn. In my sunrise
case, someone might, for instance, argue that, since there are
sunrises, it follows that the sun is moving and hence
that God could cause the sun to stand still. Further, this point
might be used as part of a proof about the nature or existence
of a deity, perhaps. Such a person is misunderstanding:
none of that does follow from what I'd said! So it is possible
to be misled by this form of words. But that possibility does
not lead me to demand that talk of sunrises be banned!
As Wittgenstein remarks in another place:
We never dispute the opinions of common sense but we question
the expression of common sense. (PO p. 247)
He is acknowledging that some implications which might
be drawn from certain ways of putting a point must be rejected
-- just as we reject any move from the possibility of sunrise
to the fact of the sun's movement. (This is of a piece with Wittgenstein's
insistence that the search for essence and the programme of analysis[29]
must be abandoned: belief that there must be some underlying
structure is unwarranted.)
I am effectively making two related points, the first about
the nature of philosophy, the second about the teaching (and
learning) of philosophy. For we do philosophy no service if we
present it as requiring a wholly inappropriate 'rigour' (or literalism):
first, it presents pedantry as though it were philosophy
(there may be a point, as a joke, in making certain literalist
remarks -- but to do so is not to practice philosophy); second,
it precludes beginners from expressing points which, they fear,
will not meet the standards of 'rigourous' (that is, pedantic)
presentation. Yet this only hinders the entry of such beginners
into the discussion; and such discussion is central to philosophy
-- is a part of its life! As others have observed[30],
the same word from Greek that founds the centre of philosophy
-- logic -- also grounds "dialogue" and "dialectic":
and the thought that philosophy should open, rather than close,
options for discussion seems crucial. How else can you make the
perplexities under consideration your perplexities? Indeed,
if philosophy has its interest from such cases, how can it develop
a history if -- at every stage -- the effect of philosophical
'discussion' is to shut-down the possibilities of further discussion?
There could be no such history.
The justification often given for literalist practice is that,
in order to think clearly, one must be able to express one's
thought clearly. I take this point: but I would urge, first
(and a debatable non-philosophical point), that a broadly supportive
atmosphere facilitates one's learning to express one's thought
clearly, but second (and in the centre of philosophy)
that a realistic attitude to clarity of expression is needed
-- in particular, one must not give in to the thought that remarks
potentially misleading do actually mislead. For,
in the absence of a clear understanding of appropriate clarity
here, one will certainly be dismissing as misleading what are,
in context, perfectly unambiguous remarks[31]. And, if they mislead
none of their hearers, they can only be 'misleading' in some
bizarre philosopher's sense of the term!
If no-one is being misled, there is no view put forward that
requires disputing: as with the sunrise case, misleading inferences
are blocked (by fiat?). Indeed, we might recognise "our
strong cravings for generality and our inclination to extract
generalisations" (B p. 128) as operative outside philosophy
as within it: just as philosophical arguments should be seen
as "absolutely context-relative and purpose-specific"
(B p. 129), so too should our commonsense utterances.
Associatedly, philosophers of a literalist tendency attack
the clarity of certain verbal expression. But any difficulties
here are not somehow generated by language -- if anything, they
arise because we seek a uniform 'reading' of forms of words[32].
Wittgenstein (PI §402) asks us to consider a case where:
... we disapprove of[33] the expressions of ordinary language
(which are after all performing their office), ... we are tempted
to say that our way of speaking does not describe the facts as
they really are. As if, for example, the proposition "he
has pains" could be false in some other way than by the
man's not having pains. As if the form of expression were saying
something false even when the proposition, in want of better
expression [faute de mieux], asserted something true.
(PI §402)
Suppose the person really is in pain (what is asserted is
true). Still, a 'philosopher' might urge that saying, "He
has a pain" implies that one owns or possesses
pains, as saying, "He has a gun" would imply possession
of a gun: and that pains are not objects, not possessible
in this sense. So the form of expression might seem
to introduce something false. Taking such a line is not, as Wittgenstein
notes, seeing something profound. Rather:
... we have got a picture in our heads which conflicts with
the picture of our ordinary way of speaking. (PI §402)
And it is that new picture that misleads us. We do
not really infer, for example, that the utterance "It is
raining" misrepresents the facts because we cannot answer
the question, "what is the 'it'?"[34].
Almost without exception, literalist sorties are based either
on a failure to understand the remark at issue (typically, a
pretended failure, as in the urinal notice) or on the assumption
that (grammatical) substantives imply substances -- but that
idea is obviously false: we understand actions done "for
your sake" and the claim that "It is raining"
without postulation of an ontology of sakes or of raining
its.
The philosopher's request, "what did you mean by such-and-such?",
seems conclusive proof that the topic is words
(only): yet it proves no such thing, for it is easily translated
into a request for the contrasts drawn, the comparisons invited,
the examples (pro and con) deployed -- that is, it turns into
a request for clarification of what one said, what one asserted,
what one asked, rather than an invitation to discuss word-use.
My suggestion has been that we focus on what is understood:
by contrast, in the fly-bottle, the focus is on a disordered,
philosophical account of the understanding. [But this
shift of focus is not easy: as Gordon Baker[35] points out, "Only
a hair's breadth separates platitude from absurdity."]
In summary, then, I suggest literalism is pernicious
in three or four ways:
- ·First, it gives a mistaken picture of precision;
in particular, of precision in language-use.
- ·Second, it separates (mis)understanding from context
(as in the sunrise example), leading to a philosophical thesis
about what it is for a claim to be misleading: namely that it
should be potentially or possibly misleading.
- ·Third, it destroys the 'conversation' of philosophy
by suppressing views for trivial reasons[36].
- [·Finally, if taken for the doing of philosophy, it
makes philosophy appear a footling game for the witty, a species
of debating.]
The abandonment of literalism should mean that the philosophical
concern becomes clearly with understanding and misunderstanding,
rather than with words, even if we sometimes locate the
(mis)understanding in linguistic terms.
§6 The question of the
practicality of philosophy
If the account of philosophy offered here is correct, is it
a worthwhile activity? Why should people study it; and why should
its study be supported?
To reply, I will consider two key questions, about (respectively)
the potential benefit of philosophy and the idea of progress
in philosophy. So, the first question is: is philosophy practical?
One could easily see a practicality to philosophy by pointing
to philosophers pronouncing on:
... such subjects of immediate concern as abortion, euthanasia,
the right to die, the apportionment of scarce medical resources,
nuclear war, suicide, the environment ... (p. x)
or to philosophers teaching "... medical ethics,
business ethics, environmental ethics ..." (p. ix) -- the
list is Peter Kivy's[37]. But these have philosophers acting
as sages, handing down 'wisdom'. And that is not
the view of philosophy urged here.
In contrast, Wittgenstein offered both a therapeutic conception
of philosophy and a "yes" answer to the question
of practicality: as he[38] wrote to a friend,
... what is the use of studying philosophy if all it does
for you is to enable you to talk with some plausibility about
some abstruse questions of logic, etc., & if it does not
improve your thinking about the important questions of everyday
life, if it does not make you more conscientious than any ...
journalist in the use of the dangerous phrases such people
use for their own ends ...?
For Wittgenstein clearly thought philosophy could,
and should, do these things. An example may make his point
sharply for us.
If we consider two instances of graceful, elegant human action
-- say, one from dance and one from gymnastics --it may seem
that what is true of the one is true of the other: in particular,
that the benefits to the participant in each are the same. Similarly,
we might think that the benefits (say, of enjoyment of graceful
human movement) are also the same from the spectators' viewpoint.
In that sense, the two actions are inter-changeable. And we might
characterise the enjoyment and so on here as aesthetic enjoyment:
the aesthetic enjoyment of the participant, and the aesthetic
appreciation of the spectator, say.
This picture may seem quite attractive; but not (I hope) to
those -- like myself -- committed to an educational role for
dance. For, if things were as I have characterised them (if the
explanation of the place of dance rested on its being graceful
and elegant, say), there could be no reason to include dance
in the curriculum (no educational justification for dance) that
was not also a reason to include gymnastics -- and with
pressure on curriculum time, and gymnastics already in the curriculum,
no reason to include dance at all.
To avoid that unpalatable conclusion (unpalatable to me at
least) we must find a way of distinguishing dance from gymnastics
-- and, moreover, it must be an educationally-relevant distinction.
Resolving questions of this sort is just one place to do philosophy
with a practical 'edge'.
As I have written a whole book[39] on just this question,
I cannot deal with it fully here. But, to sketch the outlines
of my answer, notice two points. First, we consider (some)
dance art in the 'fine art' sense of the expression; second,
we value art in ways different from the ways we value
other beautiful objects, such as natural beauty or the decorative;
or even designed objects [the Ferrari] -- indeed, it would be
hard to see the distinctiveness of art if we did not draw contrasts
such as these.
So the move is to contrast the (varied) interest we take in
art with the (equally diffuse) interest we take in other
things in which we take an aesthetic interest. Now, we do draw
the distinction in 'real life'; but we don't have a good way
to mark the distinction in words -- we often use the term
"aesthetic" to capture our interest both in the art
and in the Ferrari, and we use the word "art"
in other than the 'fine art' sense: for instance (one of David
Best's favourite examples), there is a book entitled The Womanly
Art of Breast-feeding.
Faced with this situation, all we need to do is to be clear
in our minds whether, when we use terms like "aesthetic",
"art", and many others, we are referring to an interest
distinctive of our concern with artworks or whether we
are not: seen one way, we have a perspicuous representation of
the issue once we notice the contrast and respect it.
Yet respecting it is quite difficult -- after all, we do typically
use exactly the same forms of words on both sides of the distinction.
But suppose we adopt a technical distinction (suggested by David
Best), reserving the words "art", "artistic"
and the like for our concern with 'fine art', and using the term
"aesthetic" and its relatives only for the other concerns
-- for the fountain, the firework display, and the Ferrari. Now,
this is an artificial distinction: we do and we must draw this
distinction -- but we do not typically mark it using these words.
So this discussion does not turn on what, say, the word "art"
means -- rather, it turns on what contrasts we draw in using
this word; as it were, in selecting this term rather than another.
But is there any point to this distinction? Has it any practical
importance? As noted earlier, one place to see the relevance
of this distinction (an appropriate place for this context) concerns
the explanation or justification of dance in the school curriculum
-- for it cannot be doubted that other physical activities (for
example, gymnastics) are graceful, elegant etc. [and sometimes
the opposite]. But recognising that our interest in the grace
etc. of gymnastics is different in kind from our interest
in dance (in terms of the technical distinction, as aesthetic
rather than artistic) gives us a basis for treating (and valuing)
them differently. So, if the distinction were any good, we would
have a reason to view dance as importantly different from, say,
gymnastics: and if we can further show some educational weight
to the concern with art then we have at least the beginnings
of an argument for the place of dance.
This is only one 'small' topic, of course, by way of exemplification.
But it illustrates how one might benefit from philosophy -- the
benefit being personal even if the perspicuous representation
were offered to us by someone else: for we must internalise it,
making it our own.
Notice that philosophy here guards us from being misled, from
the mistakes others might make us make: it does not solve 'perennial'
problems. And this idea introduces the second topic promised
a moment ago: the sense in which philosophy does (and the sense
in which it does not) make enduring progress.
§7 'Perennial' problems
and their solutions?
Two main sets of cases fuel the generality and abiding interest
of philosophy: first, if some one person or group has been stirring
up dust, a remark rendering the matter perspicuous may
help generally. For example, and entirely hypothetically, suppose
a bunch of scientists call themselves "Chaos Theorists",
and describe certain natural phenomena as "chaotic".
(The forecasting of weather is a preferred example.) Now progress
against (potential) confusion might be made by bringing an audience
to recognise that there is nothing genuinely chaotic about
the phenomena -- that, indeed, one fundamental principle of 'Chaos
Theory', the Butterfly Effect (or the Principle of Sensitive
Dependence on Initial Conditions) is fully deterministic, since
(if we did know both the initial conditions and the relevant
laws) we could predict the events in question. On this
view, the problem with weather forecasting is that we cannot
know either the detail of the starting point (the initial
conditions) or the (non-linear) equations involved sufficiently
precisely. But if we did, weather forecasts could be absolutely
accurate -- as the Chaos Theorists' computer-modelling of them
demonstrates! And the audience for such a point about determinacy
within Chaos Theory would stretch just as far as the influence
of the misconception, and also would be just as 'perennial' as
that misconception.
In this way, the need for philosophy should not be expected
to diminish:
... fresh puzzles and bafflement may arise as new 'pictures'
are invoked by philosophers, frequently from other departments
of intellectual endeavour. (B&H 1 p. 477)
Fresh opportunities for misleading ourselves arise, for instance,
when we forget that our Chaos Theorists preferred research tool
is the computer -- and that computers genuinely chaotic
would be unworkable, for we could not depend on them!
Second, there may be some tendencies which, while specific
to individual situations, may none-the-less be recurrent: for
instance, the tendency to conceptualise persons as (separable)
minds and bodies -- what I earlier called "dualism".
There may, therefore, be lines of discussion that are typically
useful when confronting these misconceptions. But one should
recognise that cases may be more different than they at first
appear, and also (as noted earlier) be wary of seeing 'dualism'
when in fact there is no such confusion[40].
So there can be both continuity and generality to philosophy
even on a therapeutic conception, which sees philosophy in terms
of the resolution of specific perplexities. Such resolution may
well involve producing a "travel brochure" of "the
paradise of a scientific conception of philosophy" with
a view to remedying (or, anyway, identifying) "a failure
of imagination"[41] implicit in taking philosophy to consist
of a set of more or less permanent problems, some of them solved,
whose solutions must then be transmitted to hapless -- and un-perplexed
-- students. (No doubt some of this is to be found --
but it is not the majority, nor the centre, of philosophy.)
Conclusion
It may make matters clearer if, in conclusion, I return to
Wittgenstein's characterisation of the (possible) achievements
of philosophy. Faced with the remark that certain negative comments
(on the situation in the philosophy of mathematics) constituted
his attempt to 'turn out of paradise' the contemporary theorists,
Wittgenstein (at least as reported in lectures[42]) was unusually
restrained. He said:
I wouldn't dream of trying to drive anyone out of this paradise.
Instead, his tack would be to
... try to do something quite different ... [to say], "You're
welcome to this; just look about you." ... I would try to
show you that it is not paradise -- so that you'll leave of your
own accord.
Yet this must be the right sort of reply for the therapeutic
conception of philosophy: to make the matter perspicuous, so
that one is no longer misled by the inappropriate analogies or
the scientific persiflage.
But does it always succeed: is there always clarity? Of course,
and sadly, the answer is "no" -- some flies stubbornly
refuse to see their way out of the fly-bottle, even though some
way out has been offered to them: perhaps it doesn't quite address
their particular problems. For whatever reason, that leaves them
in the fly-trap. Hence my characterisation of failure
in philosophy: "a nasty accident with one's flies".
Notes
[1]
Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations (trans
G E M Anscombe) Oxford: Blackwell, 1953; cited as "PI".
[Throughout, standard abbreviations to Wittgenstein's published
texts are used.] The text, in translation, is:
What is your aim in philosophy? -- To shew the fly the way
out of the fly-bottle.
Note that this is his aim; but we should regard this as
a normative characterisation of philosophy generally.
[2]
Gordon Baker and Peter Hacker Wittgenstein: Understanding
and Meaning: Volume 1 of an Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical
Investigations Oxford: Blackwell, 1980 p. 457, cited as "B&H
1", followed by page number.
[3]
It was Gordon Baker who remarked in conversation that philosophy
today is not especially introspective -- he and I agreed that
this was not a virtue; that thinking about the project
of philosophy was an integral part of maintaining a 'live' discipline
of philosophy. The alternative was one of 'briskness', where
the problems are known by the philosopher and philosophy consists
simply in straightening out the mistakes of others. [cf. David
Best's remark that, if a bible was inevitably to be adopted,
he preferred that it be his book -- I have mixed feelings about
this, as I know David does too!] The problem as defined from
Descartes: how are the problems Descartes raises "for as
all" (see note 10 below), to be handled individually? [NB
Baker's suggestion that Bernard Williams influential book on
Descartes goes wrong "on the title page": it (mistakenly)
presents the requirement for an "Pure Enquiry" -- which
is neither possible nor desirable!!! But I should not be repeating
the 'slander' ...]
[4]
As Gordon Baker ["Some remarks on 'Language' and 'Grammar'"
Grazer Philosophische Studien Vol. 42 1992 pp. 107-131
(cited as "B")] urges, Wittgenstein:
... always sought to address specific philosophical problems
of definite individuals and to bring to light conceptual confusions
which these individuals would acknowledge as a form of entanglement
in their own rules. He did not make direct assaults on various
standard 'isms' ... (B p.129)
[5]
Another version (Anthony Kenny The Legacy of Wittgenstein
Oxford: Blackwell, 1984, p. 50: cited as "Kenny"):
The job to be done is .... really a job on oneself.
Yet another (CV p. 16):
Working in philosophy -- like work in architecture in many
respects -- is really more a working on oneself...
[6]
To use a favourite analogy of Wittgenstein's (from Norman Malcolm
Ludwig Wittgenstein: A memoir, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1958 p. 55):
... just as one's body has a natural tendency towards the
surface and one has to make an exertion to get to the
bottom -- so it is with thinking.
[7]
Another version (Kenny p. 50):
Learning philosophy has the kind of extraordinary difficulty
that geography lessons would have if pupils began with a lot
of false and oversimplified ideas about the way rivers and mountain
ranges go.
[8]
A tendency with a Cartesian heritage, based on the idea of needing
to consider all the things that, had they gone wrong, would have
prevented my knowledge-claims amounting to genuine knowledge,
whatever their likelihood of being realised [what Barry Stroud
{The Significance of Philosophical Scepticism Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1984 pp. 24-29; see also Stroud's Review
of Unger Journal of Philosophy Vol. LXXIV 1977 pp. 246-257
esp. p. 253, and his "Skepticism and the Possibility of
Knowledge" Journal of Philosophy Vol. LXXXI 1984
pp. 545-551} calls "all counter-possibilities"].
[9]
Quoted Peter Hacker Wittgenstein: Meaning and Mind: Volume
3 of an Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations
Oxford: Blackwell, 1990 p. 264; and in Kenny p. 48
[10]
With Descartes [J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, and D. Murdoch (eds)
The Philosophical Writings of Descartes (Volume 1), Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1985, cited as "CSM", followed
by volume and page number], although this is widely neglected:
(see note 3 above). For instance, in order to make a sustained
effort to break bad intellectual habits:
[t]he seeker after truth must, once in the course of his life,
doubt everything, as far as is possible. (Principles CSM
vol. 1 p. 193 [section title])
The key thing here is the expression "once in the course
of his life", for only on the therapeutic conception do
we all need this. (A similar point is made in Meditations
[CSM vol. II p. 12] but in the first person.) Compare Gordon
Baker and Katherine Morris Descartes' Dualism, London:
Routledge, 1996, p. 87.
[11]
B&H 1 p. 475 offer another translation
[12]
Hacker Wittgenstein: Meaning and Mind p. 243
[13]
Compare Gordon Baker "Philosophical Investigations
§122: Neglected Aspects", in R. L. Arrington and H-J.
Glock (eds )Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations:
Text and Context, London: Routledge, 1991 pp. 35-68,
esp. pp. 53-63.
[14]
Compare BT p. 420; PO p. 181 [B&H 1 p. 557]
[15]
Compare Descartes:
... a painter cannot represent all the different sides of
a solid body equally well on his flat canvas, and so he chooses
one of the principal ones, sets it facing the light, and shades
the others so as to make them stand out only when viewed from
the perspective of the chosen side. (CSM vol. 1 p. 132)
[16]
In BT this is followed by what is now part of PI §122:
The concept of a perspicuous representation is of fundamental
significance for us ....
[17]
This presentation deviates from a key principle of mine; namely,
that Wittgenstein's utterances should not be wrenched from their
argumentative context: that we must pay attention to Wittgenstein's
argumentative strategy, rather than treating his work as a collection
of aperçus. This might be disputed: but, on the
face of it, treating a body of writing as a work in philosophy
seems to presume that as a starting point. And mentioning that
principle allows me to recognise the contribution to my writing
and thinking on these matters of Gordon Baker.
Now, this may not be an easy course to follow in practice. As
Gordon Baker urges:
... we should proceed on the basis that the texts which Wittgenstein
constructed himself consist of carefully thought out arrangements
of remarks whose precise wording was of paramount importance.
(B p. 127)
But, as he goes on to lament:
... this principle does not apply .. to the texts compiled
by editors in various more or less systematic ways from his manuscripts.
(B p. 127)
If Wittgenstein's remarks are not a string of oracular utterances
for interpretation, neither are they transparent to casual scrutiny.
Rather, they must be understood as part of an on-going argument,
although sometimes with opponents whose views must be reconstructed.
Further, it is sometimes difficult to take Wittgenstein at his
word: to see him addressing only the specific issues he says
he is addressing. As Baker puts it:
... we might consider respecting his reticence as an essential
aspect of his thinking. (B p. 128)
Moreover, and relatedly, taking Wittgenstein at his word may
mean respecting (at least initially) his conception of the philosophical
enterprise.
[18]
John Wisdom Paradox and Discovery Oxford: Blackwell, 1965
p. 1
[19]
A more comprehensive list is provided by B&H 1 p. 481 (and
examples of each are given pp. 487-488):
(i)
Analogies in surface grammar
(ii) The
phenomenology of the use of language
(iii) Pictures embedded
in language (BT p. 423: PO p. 185)
(iv) The model
of science
(v) Projecting
grammar onto reality
(vi) Natural
intellectual prejudice
(vii) Philosophical mythologies.
[20]
Two points: first, Baker (B. p.118) takes this expression to
be ambiguous, and hopes that recognition of its ambiguity will
force consideration of how it is to be taken in any particular
context (rather than the present reading); second, this emphasis
on an utterance-type of idea may conflict with Shankar's insistence
on the logical/grammatical (see Stuart Shankar Wittgenstein
and the Turning-Point in the Philosophy of Mathematics Albany,
NY: State University of New York Press, 1987, pp. 52-54).
[21]
cf example re standard metre? B&H 1 pp. 284-294.
[22]
George Berkeley Principles of Human Knowledge §3,
reprinted in A New Theory of Vision and other essays (ed.
A D Lindsay) London: Dent/Everyman's, 1910 p. 94
[23]
Consider one understanding of Descartes' project, based on the
title of The Discourse ... : "of rightly conducting
one's reason and seeking the truth in the sciences" -- see
CSM (vol. I) p. 111.
[24]
Translation from Shankar Wittgenstein and the Turning-Point
in the Philosophy of Mathematics p. 35
[25]
Wittgenstein uses a vivid (if somewhat puzzling) image to make
this point:
If I am inclined to suppose that a mouse has come into being
by spontaneous generation out of grey rags and dust, I shall
do well to examine those rags very closely to see how a mouse
may have hidden in them, how it may have got there. But if I
am convinced that a mouse cannot come into being from those things,
then this investigation will perhaps be superfluous. (PI §52,
discussed Cora Diamond The Realistic Spirit: Wittgenstein
Philosophy and the Mind Cambridge, Mass: Bradford Books/MIT,
1991 pp. 46-7; B&H 1 pp. 301-2.)
[26]
My hesitation here is because these theorists would be subscribing
to what Gordon Baker and Katherine Morris call "the Legend"
of Cartesian Dualism: there are other ways to be a dualist. See
Baker and Morris Descartes' Dualism, pp. 1-3; 28-53.
[27]
Here, contrast Wittgenstein with J. L. Austin on (a) the "very
complexity" of Austin's views [B&H 1 p. 543]; (b) the
focus on "resolution of philosophical problems" (PI
§109) [B&H 1 p. 479]; and (c) something attributed (without
justification?) to Austin [B&H 1 p. 557.]
[28]
See Wittgenstein on 'hidden contradiction' in mathematics: LFM
209ff, 217ff; RFM 213ff, 375ff (cf Gordon Baker Wittgenstein,
Frege and the Vienna Circle, Oxford: Blackwell, 1988, p.
114).
[29]
Peter Strawson ["Construction and Analysis", in G.
Ryle (ed) The Revolution in Philosophy, London: Macmillan,
1956 pp. 97-110] speaks of one important species of philosophy
as "... therapeutic analysis" (p. 108): the "analysis"
part of this title is what might be queried here.
[30]
For instance, Renford Bambrough "Literature and Philosophy"
in Bambrough (ed) Wisdom: Twelve Essays, Oxford: Blackwell,
1974 pp. 274-292: remarks p. 274.
[31]
See esp. Charles Travis The Uses of Sense, Blackwell.
1989 pp. 18-9: consider the following example. Hugo sits reading
the paper. At his elbow is a cup of black coffee. Across the
room is a refrigerator, empty except for a puddle of milk at
the bottom. Hugo's partner, Pia, says, "There is milk in
the fridge". To see that this utterance is speaking-sensitive,
consider two cases. First, immediately before the moment described
above, Hugo -- whose fondness for white coffee is legendary --
had looked sadly at the coffee cup. Seeing his look, Pia makes
her statement: in doing so, she says (falsely) that the fridge
contains milk which might be used to whiten Hugo's coffee. In
the second case, Pia had previously asked Hugo to clean the fridge
-- now she finds him reading the paper, drinking coffee and still
the fridge is not clean! So Pia utters the sentence, saying (truly)
that the fridge contains the puddle of milk. Notice, first, that
the sentence amounts to something different on the two
speakings just presented -- we see this clearly once we recognise
that, in the first, what Pia says is false while, in the second,
it is true. And nothing else has changed. But, second, the word
"milk" still means milk, the word "in"
still refers to the inside of the fridge, and so on. Moreover,
the indexicals, and such like, are not the issue. Pia is talking
about that very fridge, and at that very time.
(Not, for instance, looking at the television and commenting
on a fridge in California.) In these cases we see the word "milk"
making:
... any of an indefinite variety of distinct contributions
to what is said in speaking it, and, specifically, to the truth
condition for that. (Travis "Annals of Analysis" Mind,
Vol.100, April, 1991 p.242)
[32]
As Gordon Baker ("Philosophy: Simulacrum and Form"
[title in Greek] in Stuart Shanker (ed) Philosophy in Britain
Today, London: Croom Helm, 1986 pp. 1-57: quote p. 48.) articulates
a central Wittgensteinian thesis, the important thing "...
is to direct attention away from the form of expressions to their
uses". For Wittgenstein (as we have seen) forms of
words might mislead -- this partly explains his preference for
discussions of use. But this idea too has proved to be misleading:
people have misunderstood the use of the word "use"
here, having taken it as some sort of definition of "definition".
Nothing could be further from the truth: indeed, the whole demand
for definiteness this implies is misplaced. The use of
the term "use" here is straightforward, if negative:
it is just to record that our interest in forms of words is essentially
contextual -- that forms of words do not have a specific meaning
(perhaps, are not the bearers of meaning).
[33]
See Cora Diamond The Realistic Spirit p. 14-15, where
it is translated: "... we are out of agreement with ...".
[34]
Peter Hacker Appearance and Reality Oxford: Blackwell,
1987 p. 500
[35]
Gordon Baker "Following Wittgenstein: Some Signposts for
Philosophical Investigations §§143-242",
in S. Holtzman and C. Leich (eds) Wittgenstein: To Follow
a Rule, London: Routledge, 1981, pp. 31-71: quotation p.
43.
[36]
See John Wisdom (Philosophy and PsychoAnalysis Oxford:
Blackwell, 1953 p. 41: also Paradox and Discovery pp.
83-6) on, for instance, Moore's rejection of McTaggart's claims
of the unreality of time:
... he is right, they are false -- only there is good
in them, poor things.
[37]
Peter Kivy Authenticities: Philosophical Reflections on Musical
Performance Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995.
[38]
Letter to Norman Malcolm, November 1944; quoted in Norman Malcolm
Ludwig Wittgenstein: a Memoir Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1958 p. 39
[39]
Graham McFee The Concept of Dance Education London: Routledge,
1994
[40]
Someone might, for instance, invoke Wittgenstein (PI §286)
at this point:
... isn't it absurd to say of a body that it has a
pain?
But this is only a question (and not a rhetorical question) asking
when, for example, it would seem OK to say this, when not. Certainly,
Wittgenstein is not here identifying some general absurdity:
as he continues, we need to enquire what sort of issue this is.
(Is a similar point made in Gordon Baker and Katherine Morris
Descartes' Dualism p. 207 note?)
[41]
Gordon Baker "Philosophy: Simulacrum and Form" p. 55.
[42]
Cora Diamond (ed.)Wittgenstein's Lectures On the Foundations
of Mathematics, Cambridge, 1939 Hassocks: Harvester
Press, 1976 p. 103.
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