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2/02/2018 4:57 pm  #1


Three Distinctions Among Kinds of Philosopher

I'd recently been remembering three different distinctions that I have seen drawn to divide up philosophers, or types of philosophy, or thinkers more generally.

Isaiah Berlin wrote a famous essay The Hedgehog and the Fox, taking as his point of departure the aphorism "a fox knows many things, but the hedgehog one important thing." The thought is that thinkers tend to be divided into those who are absorbed by the multiplicity of things and others who focus more on a unifying idea. In the "hedgehog" category he places Plato, Pascal, Dostoevsky, and Nietzsche, among others; in the "fox" category, Aristotle, Shakespeare, James Joyce, etc. Presumably this is a matter of style or form rather than content; that is, there is "one important thing" which Aquinas could tell you about unhesitatingly if you asked him, but Aquinas is a presumably a fox if anyone is. (Berlin's question in this essay was of how to categorize Tolstoy, whom he judged to be a fox who wanted to be a hedgehog.)

The next distinction I have in mind is supplied by P.F. Strawson, in the introduction to his book Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics, and it is the distinction between descriptive and revisionary metaphysics: "Descriptive metaphysics is content to describe the actual structure of our thought about the world, revisionary metaphysics is concerned to produce a better structure." The distinction is one which could perhaps be extended beyond metaphysics: it is natural enough to distinguish descriptive and revisionary ethicists (where the former don't have to be entirely unprescriptive--but their prescriptions do not deviate so much from what is usually accepted, for some reasons relating to methodology--contrast, for instance, Mill with Bentham). (Strawson was writing an essay in descriptive metaphysics. His son Galen Strawson went on to be a revisionary metaphysician, defending, among other theses, panpsychism and hard determinism.) (Again, I think it more appropriate to take this as a question of style rather than content. The logical atomists may have described themselves as simply analyzing the typical forms of thought and expression, and would have said that to the extent that our thought is contentful, it is as they describe it. But in spirit, they are quite revisionary in holding, for instance, as Russell did, that only simples are truly named, and that the only true names are demonstratives.)

Finally, we are given the distinction between ordinary men's philosophers and philosophers' philosophers, in Elizabeth Anscombe's paper "Wittgenstein: Whose Philosopher?" The principal question is not of accessibility or of simplicity of expression; it is rather whether the questions which occupy the philosopher are those which have any pull with non-philosophers, or which would only interest philosophers. Her suggestion is that Plato is a philosophers' philosopher (reproducing, as he does, "arguments of the Sophists to prove that there cannot be such a thing as false belief, because what is false is not, and so he who thinks what is false thinks nothing, i.e. does not think anything) whereas Aristotle is an ordinary man's philosopher (tending to be absorbed by rather down-to-earth questions, taking off the table immediately such views as that weakness of will  is impossible).

It isn't easy in every case to place a given philosopher on one side of these distinctions or the other; and of course, there need not always be a clean way to do so, for it's possible to be both descriptive and revisionary on different topics or in different respects. But there are also other cases of indeterminacy which aren't just a case of a philosopher falling on both sides of a distinction.

One question is: Where does one place oneself among these distinctions? It's tough to say. I think it's easiest to say that I tend toward or aspire to being descriptive rather than revisionary, and probably toward being an ordinary man's philosopher. I am not sure I'm a sufficiently original thinker to be judged either a hedgehog or a fox, though I suppose I am less of a fox than I was years ago.

Another question is: Are these categories correlated? There's perhaps a tendency for ordinary men's philosophers to be descriptive, though the opposite doesn't have to hold if we are to accept Anscombe's assessment of the late Wittgenstein, who was certainly of a descriptive bent. (The early Wittgenstein of course was revisionary, but also a  philosophers' philosopher).

Another question is: Are there other distinctions, worth juxtaposing with these?

Last edited by Greg (2/02/2018 5:01 pm)

 

2/02/2018 6:00 pm  #2


Re: Three Distinctions Among Kinds of Philosopher

Well, I am a revisionist hedgehog, which I think also implies being a philosopher's philosopher, though I'm not sure about that. Does classical theism have any pull with non-philosophers?

My reason for being revisionist, by the way, is that I would argue that we should not trust common sense on the grounds of Original Sin, though I prefer to take the Vedanta view of it, and call it Maya. We must be deluded, since, if God is ubiquitous, then the reality of God should be obvious, but it isn't.

I'm not sure why I am a hedgehog. Maybe it is just easier for an amateur philosopher like myself.

Another distinction: tough vs tender-minded. From www.oxfordreference.com:

Distinction drawn by James, who found it illuminating to classify philosophers into one of these two camps (Pragmatism, Ch. 1). The tender-minded are: rationalistic (going by ‘principles’), intellectualistic, idealistic, optimistic, religious, free-willist, monistic, and dogmatical. The tough-minded are: empiricist (going by ‘facts’), sensationalistic, materialistic, pessimistic, irreligious, fatalistic, pluralistic, and sceptical. Like Nietzsche, James believed that even intellectual and rational constructions, such as philosophical systems purport to be, are expressions of individual temperament.

 

2/04/2018 2:52 pm  #3


Re: Three Distinctions Among Kinds of Philosopher

SR wrote:

Well, I am a revisionist hedgehog, which I think also implies being a philosopher's philosopher, though I'm not sure about that. Does classical theism have any pull with non-philosophers?

It's hard to say. Again, the distinction has to do with the sorts of questions which interest a philosopher. Anscombe thinks Wittgenstein is a philosophers' philosopher on account of the space he devotes in the Philosophical Investigations to the topic of reading, which she thinks would not strike a non-philosopher as a problematical or specially philosophical topic at all. Non-philosophers are interested in questions about God, but are they interested in the questions and doctrines which interest the classical theist? In fact, I think they might be.

For example, Feser did definitely a non-philosophers' philosopher. He treats classical theism in a way that arouses interest in people who otherwise are not interested in philosophy. And you would not find him publishing a paper on, say, what just comes to an interesting paradox about classical theism. His work tends to serve an apologetic end or, at least, aims at defending a traditional battery of topics (does God exist? does he have the traditional attributes?).

SR wrote:

Another distinction: tough vs tender-minded. From www.oxfordreference.com:

Distinction drawn by James, who found it illuminating to classify philosophers into one of these two camps (Pragmatism, Ch. 1). The tender-minded are: rationalistic (going by ‘principles’), intellectualistic, idealistic, optimistic, religious, free-willist, monistic, and dogmatical. The tough-minded are: empiricist (going by ‘facts’), sensationalistic, materialistic, pessimistic, irreligious, fatalistic, pluralistic, and sceptical. Like Nietzsche, James believed that even intellectual and rational constructions, such as philosophical systems purport to be, are expressions of individual temperament.

Ah yes. James would probably call me tender-minded. I tend not to like this distinction much as it is, unlike the others, somewhat moralized. We are supposed that the tender-minded are naive and that the tough-minded are mean-spirited and unduly pessimistic. (James thought pragmatism was a doctrine which managed to avoid the extremes, whether he said it was both or neither.)

I also think that it is rather difficult to classify many 20th century philosophers using the distinction (Wittgenstein? van Inwagen?), though that's not a problem in itself: James himself did not think the distinction exhaustive.

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