philosophy as love

Derek Allen, of the Australian National University writes:

Interesting idea about philosophy and love. Personally, I don’t know enough about the subject matter, but others might like to start a thread.

While here, I’ll quote another bit from the book I mentioned:

“… having seemingly exhausted their own mandate … analytic philosophy has begun to turn toward Continental philosophy. Not, alas, as a rapprochement, not by inviting practitioners of Continental philosophy to join the discussion, but only, and as if bored to tears by their own analytic themes, taking up themes (and names like Nietzsche, Heidegger and Deleuze) of Continental philosophy. For the analytic tradition is intentionally bankrupt (this is the internal logic of the analytic method), but although rendered moribund by its own hand, within the profession (aka academic and editorial control) it enjoys the power of the majority or dominant tradition. To keep itself going it means to seize (but not to "think") the spiritual capital of a tradition whose authority is denounced as that of non- or "bad" philosophy."

Bracing stuff.

My thoughts:

You say that you do not know enough about love to discuss the subject, but I think philosophers should not shy away from this subject, since Socrates claimed that his knowledge of love was the sole exception to his general policy of ignorance. 

Then you quote A House Divided: Comparing Analytic and Continental Philosophy, (Humanity Books, 2003).

“… having seemingly exhausted their own mandate … analytic philosophy has begun to turn toward Continental philosophy. Not, alas, as a rapprochement, not by inviting practitioners of Continental philosophy to join the discussion, but only, and as if bored to tears by their own analytic themes, taking up themes (and names like Nietzsche, Heidegger and Deleuze) of Continental philosophy. For the analytic tradition is intentionally bankrupt (this is the internal logic of the analytic method), but although rendered moribund by its own hand, within the profession (aka academic and editorial control) it enjoys the power of the majority or dominant tradition. To keep itself going it means to seize (but not to "think") the spiritual capital of a tradition whose authority is denounced as that of non- or "bad" philosophy."

Philosophy, by this account, has lost the thread from its ancient founding, having become an institution and a dark priesthood obsessed with power.  The religion of emptiness -- intentionally bankrupt -- rendered moribund by its own hand -- enjoying power -- selling its goods by hijacking trends in contemporary culture -- relegating its influences to a lower status -- used goods -- having completed its crossword puzzle -- now free to relax. 

But Nietzsche, Heidegger and Deleuze do not want us to relax.  Like Kierkegaard they say "All existence makes me anxious … the whole thing is inexplicable, I most of all … anxiety may be compared to dizziness … anxiety is the dizziness of freedom … whoever has learned to be anxious in the right way has learned the ultimate."   This is philosophy that is still connected to its origin -- not a puzzle but all-in engagement in being. 

The fundamental experience in intellectual search is exactly the enigmatic situation we are facing in every moment of our lives.  To me this argues that philosophy is metaphysics, first philosophy, cosmology and ontology, before it is logic and epistemology and analysis.  Heidegger explains:

The important distinction between ‘worldview’ and ‘philosophy’ is the distinction between pre-theoretical understanding and explicitly theorized understanding.  Heidegger says that “when someone strives for a higher autonomous worldview, cultivating a thinking free of religious and other dogmas, then one is doing philosophy” (“The Idea of Philosophy and the Problem of Worldview,” War Emergency Semester 1919, Freiburg, section 1).  At the same time, when someone tries to get some distance from all the ‘natural’ attitudes with which he has been raised, and which he has taken on by belonging to different groups – i.e., when this person starts trying to do philosophy – the goal is to develop a comprehensive point of view, a generic frame of reference for interpreting all experience – i.e. philosophy tries to articulate a comprehensive ‘worldview.’  Heidegger expresses this idea in his 1919 lecture course by saying things like “philosophy is metaphysics” and “philosophy’s struggle with the puzzles of life and the world comes to rest by establishing the ultimate nature of the universe realized as a worldview” and “the task of philosophy is worldview.”

The first issue is existence itself and what if anything we can discern about it.  We are trying to think through the experience of being.  But perhaps we get lost in thinking and lose touch with being -- because we are bringing the examining focus to a game, and not to our own lives. 

As it were: we see our love from afar and want to learn more about her, but this desire may become an obsession; then we have forgotten about our love and the happiness we see in her.  -- What is philosophy if not love?

with or against Descartes

Charles Taylor (pictured at left) is a Catholic philosopher.  Taylor, Alasdair McIntyre, Michael Sandel, Gadamer, Heidegger and Wittgenstein are all on one side of an important question in philosophy.  The question is, Does the Cartesian project of radical doubt make any sense?  They all answer negatively.  In brief, they argue that human beings are cultural, social, group-raised-and-defined beings, and that the whole project of epistemology becomes questionable when you see human being in its social roots.  Foundationalism won't work, they argue; and representational theories of knowledge won't work either.  The ground on which these thinkers make their case is an examination of human being, including the conditions of human knowledge.  They all argue that human being is a kind of cultural co-embeddedness, and that knowledge, rather than being a grounded structure, or pure receptivity, is a kind of agency that only makes sense in the context of things that we do with other people.  So the image of the passive recipient of objective knowledge won't work.  Knowledge in its root forms is social through and through and is agency through and through.  So: the knower cannot detach from society, as Descartes wishes.  And: the knower cannot detach from desire, planning, intentionality, as Descartes also proposes.  So the Cartesian project fails.

An interesting side-note here is that by arguing against the Cartesian project, all these thinkers end up with right-of-center political views, in which social traditions, habits, cultural life-ways and social prejudices play a big role, perhaps even larger even than objective reason.  Thus the church and traditional religion become important again, after the blows they suffered in the Enlightenment.  This whole trend in philosophy is part of the Romantic reaction to the enlightenment.  

The left wing that stands on the opposite shore here includes all thinkers who think that people have the power to detach from tradition and think dispassionately about reality without the intervening filter of cultural and social mores, traditions and prejudices.  Descartes (pictured at right) is a founding figure here.  Rawls is in this group, arguing for the possibility of thinking via the original position.  Philosophers who focus on the individual, apart from society, are in this group, who see dangers in being absorbed into social groups and losing touch with objectivity because one has unconsciously taken on the attitudes of one's class, gender, caste, culture, religion, ethnicity or other contingent, situational belonging.  Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Freud, Emerson, Thoreau, Dworkin, Kant, William James and Hannah Arendt are all on this side, arguing for the individual's confrontation with the questions of existence, unmediated by social trends.  

Can I understand myself and my world via my own thinking and work?  --- or --- Do I necessarily rely upon, and expressly or covertly incorporate, the big reigning ideas from my society, cult, language, upbringing and zeitgeist?  Are my views merely the consequences of where and when I was born, and who my parents were?

Tu weiming adds something interesting to this problem.  He is saying, as a Chinese person, raised in a Confucian culture, I cannot get away from my background.  But my attachment to my cultural tradition has freed me.  My love for it has opened up the world for me.  I can find my heritage and test the ideas that I care about in my encounter with other peoples' traditions.  I can learn other traditions and languages and expand my world and my self-consciousness via my project in learning.  He asks, but does not answer, the question: When I get into these gains from intercultural contacts, am I working towards finding the core of my existing beliefs, or am I beginning to take a step outside my sphere of cultural reference?  Am I sentenced to a Confucian outlook because I was born into it, or can I change my outlook into something completely new?  He seems to suggest that a new kind of human flourishing is possible via transcending narrow boundaries of self, cult, nation and geography.  This is what he calls "spiritual humanism."  He wants to rethink the humanist project: not as self or other, but as self and other.