Thinking we know what we don’t know
I read something very interesting in an interview with Timothy Williamson the other day.
Not long ago I had a revealing discussion with a professor of ancient Greek literature, who was convinced that, by contrast with the tradition of Sartre, Foucault and Derrida, contemporary analytic philosophy had nothing useful to offer the study of poetry ― a common view in departments of literature. He claimed that it could not handle phenomena such as meaning more than one says. I discovered that he didn’t know of the analytic philosopher Paul Grice’s analysis of just such phenomena, which has had a huge impact on linguistics as well as philosophy. The point is that he had never even looked at Grice’s book (Studies in the Way of Words); he wasn’t reacting negatively to its content or manner of presentation. That’s not untypical. Outside philosophy departments, many people are taught that analytic philosophy is sterile logic-chopping, so they don’t feel the incentive to do the hard work that is needed to master the ideas and see how they can be applied to literary texts and other material.
The professor of ancient Greek literature thought he knew something that he in fact didn’t know. Outside philosophy departments, many people are taught that analytic philosophy is sterile logic-chopping, so they think they know that, so they never bother to look into it – and the teaching that analytic philosophy is sterile logic-chopping goes right on being the conventional wisdom. So often that is how conventional wisdom becomes conventional wisdom: just by people saying stuff and other people taking it as true and no further inquiry taking place. I’m sure I ‘know’ lots of things in that way. Sometimes I’m fortunate enough to become aware of them and shed or correct them – but I’m not so optimistic that I think I’ve spotted all of them.
It would be a good idea to have an academy for tracking down items of conventional wisdom for further examination and inquiry and investigation. Sir Thomas Browne compiled a Pseudodoxia Epidemica, and Flaubert had Bouvard and Pécuchet compile a Dictionnaire des idées reçues, and there is of course the indispensable Skeptic’s Dictionary now – but I think there’s still need for a conventional wisdom branch.
How horrid to not know about Grice. Very sad for the Professor of Ancient Greek Literature. His life will be much better now that he knows.
When I teach my freshman seminar (“How to Read a Textbook”) I ask my students to go on red alert when they read or hear words or phrases that mark conventional so-called wisdom and to pay attention to the little voice that says “Oh yeah? How does he know? How does anyone know?”
They don’t like to because they think they are supposed to act like they are in on the conventional wisdom already, and that they have to be in on it to be smart.
There’s always Snopes.com too.
Ah yes – I forgot to mention that part. The power of the conventional wisdom is that if you don’t have it you appear to be out of it, clueless, not in the know.
Snopes – right – must update.
Well, analytic philosophers haven’t done much to dispel the image of themselves as sterile logic choppers.
If I hadn’t had a membership card in the British Council Library and if I hadn’t read all of the books that I originally wanted there, I never would have drifted into the philosophy section, which I expected to full of sterile logic-choppers. I confess that the first work, besides some philosophical classics, that I tried and liked was Roger Scruton’s Modern Philosophy.
David Stove had the ambition to write a ‘Nosology of thoughts’…
http://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/wrongthoughts.html
What is Wrong with Our Thoughts? A Neo-Positivist Credo, Chapter 7 of David Stove, The Plato Cult and Other Philosophical Follies (Blackwell, 1991)
I suspect the professor of ancient Greek literature probably won’t be impressed by Grice.
He thinks that Sartre, Foucault, and Derrida have something useful to offer the study of poetry so he likely thinks that poetry shouldn’t be amenable to rigorous study.
People who think things like poetry operate on some sort of higher plane don’t usually like to have their delusions shattered.
But why should analytic philosophers do much to dispel the image of themselves as sterile logic choppers? Any more than, say, French people should do much to dispel the image of themselves as cheese-eating surrender monkeys? The fact that you expected the philosophy section to be full of sterile logic-choppers is not by itself a good reason to think either that it was full of sterile logic-choppers or that you had good reason to think so. This is rather the point – that the putative truism that analytic philosophers are all sterile logic-choppers is a bit of unexamined conventional wisdom; so the mere fact that one has picked up the conventional wisdom oneself doesn’t mean the conventional wisdom got it right.
“He thinks that Sartre, Foucault, and Derrida have something useful to offer the study of poetry”
Yes but how much of that is simply because he hasn’t read enough other kinds of things? It might be not an entrenched opinion but just a default opinion. A lot of Theorists seem to think Time began around 1970.
You don’t really need to read very much of anything else to realise that Sartre, Foucault, and Derrida don’t have anything useful to offer.
The overlap between people who like Sartre and people who appreciate analytic philosophy is almost non-existent. The two seem to require entirely different mindsets.
Yeah, maybe…I just get the impression, often, that people who are hugely impressed by Fouida simply can’t have read much genuinely impressive stuff or they wouldn’t be so impressed. They seem to get bowled over by a veneer, an appearance, a shadow – which surely an acquaintance with the real thing would do something to correct. But, I dunno, maybe that’s just my illusion.
I have never come across anyone who has abandoned their commitment to Sartrrida after reading proper philosophy – or for any other reason come to think of it.
I think it is like religion. Once you sign up, admitting your mistake would be extremely embarrassing. Especially for the aspirant intellectual gurus who are most prone to go in for that kind of thing.
OB, I think if analytic philosophers don’t want to be thought of as sterile logic-choppers, they shouldn’t do so much sterile logic-chopping.
That is to say, I’m not 100% convinced that conventional wisdom is off on this matter. I think Grice may be an exception.
But I think you’re right that the ‘Fouida’ fans often just haven’t read much philosophy. Contra Jakob, I actually have met people who stopped being so impressed with Fouida after reading other people who say smarter things in plainer language.
No, there is absolutely no reason why analytic philosophers should strive to dispel the conventional wisdom about them, unless they care what most people, who know nothing of analytical philosophy, think about them. I suspect that they generally don’t care, which is certainly their right. By the way, Sartre wrote some great books: The Jewish Question, Nausea, The Age of Reason, No Exit, Existentialism is a Humanism, and his ironic autobiography, The Words. Some parts of Being and Nothingness are unreadable, but other parts are the work of genius. In general, Being and Nothingness could use a copy editor: the same message could have been conveyed with a third of the text, but that is true for lots of analytical philosophy too.
“I’m not 100% convinced that conventional wisdom is off on this matter.”
I’m not either, though I’m pretty sure I’ve read at least some analytic philosophy that’s not sterile logic-chopping. But notice I never said the conventional wisdom was wrong – just that it was conventional wisdom. I don’t really know whether it’s wrong or not, but I do know it’s conventional; one sees the convention everywhere. David Brooks for instance, that great fount of conventional wisdom.
I wouldn’t describe Existentialism is a Humanism as a great book. Actually, I thought it was terrible. Maybe it’s just not to my tastes, but I struggle to understand what anyone sees in that kind of thing.
As for “sterile logic-chopping,” if that’s the best way to answer philosophical questions then it doesn’t really matter what non-philosophers think. Nobody expects linguistics papers to be a good read.
It’s true that no one expects linguistics papers or physics papers to be a good read. However, when analytic philosophers fail to communicate with the general reading public, they let charlatans like Eagleton dominate the public debate in many areas. There are of course analytic philosophers who write for the newspapers, our friend Julian B. for example, and there are books like that of Ophelia and Jeremy on the subject of truth. However, it would be good if more analytic philosophers communicated their ideas to the general public. I think that philosophy deals with more basic concepts, truth, ethics, etc., than linguistics does, and those are concepts that almost everyone reflects on, and the more clarity the better.