What is a Philosophical Problem - Hacker

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WHAT IS A PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM?P.M.S. Hacker

To what extent are philosophical questions andproblems like other kinds of questions and problems,such as the those tackled by the physical sciences?Peter Hacker suggests that the problems of philosophyare conceptual, not factual, and that their solution or iresolution is more a contribution to a particular form of 5*understanding than to our knowledge of the world. *"

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The term 'philosophy' dignifies the work of many thinkers.


IIOne might compare the question 'What is a philosophical

problem?' with 'What is a problem in chemistry (or physics,biology, or economics)?'

First, it is striking that the latter questions are not themselvesproblems in their respective disciplines. The question of what isa chemical problem is not itself a chemical problem, and does

oo not call for an answer produced by a chemical experiment.^" But the question of what a philosophical problem is is itself a^ philosophical problem. It has preoccupied philosophers in the West from Plato and Aristotle to Russell and Wittgenstein. The^ answers they have given have been varied and conflicting.Q For the very concept of philosophy is problematic in a way inQ_ which the concepts of, e.g., physics and chemistry are not,

Q and the temptations to misconstrue the nature of philosophical.U enquiry are legion.- Second, the correct answers to problems in other fields ofO intellectual endeavour enlarge human knowledge. CorrectO^ answers to questions in physics or chemistry, in biology or!c psychology, in history or economics are permanent contribu-2" tions to our knowledge of the world we live in, either by way^ oftheoryand explanation, or by way of fact, or both. If we turnO to any of these disciplines and ask for their achievements, we^ can be referred to whole libraries which elaborate them. But

if we turn to philosophy, the response is different. To be sure,we may be referred to a host of books written by the deepestthinkers in our culture over the last twenty-five centuries. But ifwe ask to be referred to philosophical knowledge, knowledgethat can be compared to that achieved by the natural andmoral sciences, we are bound to be disappointed. For thereis nothing comparable that can be given to us there is noestablished and indisputable philosophical theory about any-thing, in the sense in which there are numerous incontestablephysical, chemical and biological theories. There is no corpusof philosophical facts that one might look up in a philosophicalhandbook, as one may consult a handbook in chemistry orhistory to check one's facts.


This state of affairs might be variously explained. One viewis that although philosophy is indeed a sector in the questfor knowledge, it has 'only just recently struggled out of itsearly stage into maturity'. Accordingly, despite a 2,500 yearadolescence, we can at last expect a flood of philosophicaltruths and well-confirmed theories tomorrow. This view isunconvincing. Philosophers have repeated it from century tocentury, as one great genius after the other thought that he had iat last found the key to unlocking the secrets of philosophy, 5*and announced that we were about to enter the Promised *"Land. But each such announcement, no matter whether by -QDescartes (and his new Method of Doubt) or Locke (and his ^ 'new Way of Ideas), by Kant (and his Copemican Revolution)


the proper province of philosophy. Similarly, psychology hasnot produced answers to questions concerning the essentialnature of the mind, personal identity, the essence of thought,affection and volition on the contrary, they remain as stub-bornly philosophical as ever. Moreover, as these subjectsbecame differentiated from philosophy, far from diminishingit, they spawned new philosophical subjects, namely philoso-

O phy of physics and philosophy of psychology. The Jamesian^ conception is inadequate to explain the poverty of philosophy

qua cognitive discipline.E0 inQ A more promising view is that philosophy is not a cognitiveO^ discipline at all. So it cannot be its business to make discov-

Q eries about how things are in reality. It is not a quest for newU knowledge or for explanatory and predictive theories such as- ^ we find in the sciences. This radical suggestion excludes theO idea that, like each science, philosophy has a special sub-_O ject-matter of its own with respect to which it strives to attainZl knowledge. Hence it excludes the thought that philosophy is^" the most general of the sciences concerned with the mostQj general facts in the universe, or that philosophy is concernedO with (Platonic) Ideas that underlie all being or with discovering^ (Husserlian) Essences, or unfolding (Kantian) synthetic a priori

principles. A fortiori it excludes the idea that philosophy com-petes with the sciences in making empirical discoveries.

Philosophy aims at a distinctive form of understanding. Ofcourse, it would be absurd to deny that the sciences are aimedat understanding the empirical phenomena they investigate.They seek for an understanding of why certain facts are asthey are. They explain their data by deduction from theoryor by means of aetiology, or both. This is not the form ofunderstanding which philosophy strives to attain. It strives toapprehend not connections between facts (or derivation offacts from explanatory theory), but connections between con-cepts; and, since the role of concepts lies in their contributionto thoughts or propositions, logico-grammatical connectionsbetween propositions. That apprehension is derived not from


(empirically confirmed) theory, but from description of concep-tual articulations. These conceptual articulations are manifestin the rules for the use of words, which are exhibited in thepractices of the competent speaker.

The rules with which philosophy is concerned are rulesfor the use of expressions no less than are those which thedescriptive grammarian tabulates. But they are by and largenot the kinds of syntactical rules which interest grammarians. iThey are, to be sure, typically concerned with the meanings of g*expressions but not after the manner of the lexicographer. *"The lexicographer is concerned with tabulating the rules for the -TQuse of a word (explanations of its meaning) which will assist ^the ignorant in understanding sentences in which it occurs and


over whether it is consciousness that characterizes the mindand whether there is something which it is like to be conscious and these are not answerable by experiment. Some ques-tions are patently not scientific, e.g. 'Do universal exist or onlyparticulars?', 'Can one prove that God exists?', 'Do numbers(classes, ethical values) exist?' or 'How is knowledge of theexternal world (of other minds, the past, the future) possible?',

CN 'Why can nothing be both red and green all over?', 'What is^ the nature of logical necessity?'^ These questions, which are philosophical, are evidently not amenable to resolution by scientific experiment or theory.Q But they appear to be about the objective nature of things.Q Hence it is evident why philosophy is commonly thought toO^ be a cognitive discipline a form of super-physics. It seems

-Q that physics investigates the empirical contingencies of theU world, while philosophy investigates the a priori necessary- structure of the world.O It is true that philosophical questions are a priori, i.e. they^ are to be solved or dissolved independently of experience, by1c a priori reflection and argument. It is, however, mistaken to2" suppose that philosophy investigates the necessary (or 'meta-G> physical') structure of reality for there is no such thing. WhatO appears a super-physically necessary feature of the world is^ actually an illusion generated by the norms of representa-

tion that determine our forms of description of reality. Whenphilosophical questions take on such deceptive appearances,the task of philosophy is to dispel the illusion. It must showhow this illusion is generated by misunderstandings of theconceptual structures we deploy in describing how things are.So, for example, 'space and time form a unity', 'every eventhas a cause', 'substances persist through change' are notdescriptions of reality, but norms of description.

Other philosophical questions take the form of questionsabout the nature and essence of things, e.g. of mind or mat-ter, of perception and perceptual qualities, of goodness andbeauty. These too appear to be about the language-independ-ent nature of things. But no empirical investigation can answerthese questions, even though, as noted, there may be parallel


scientific ones. Rather they are to be answered by conceptualclarification, by describing the network of logical relationshipswhich are constitutive of the concept in question. Philosophi-cal questions about the nature of knowledge, for example,are requests for clarification of the conceptual connections,compatibilities and incompatibilities between knowledge andtruth, belief, grounds and evidence, memory, imagination, per-ception and so on connections which ramify throughout our - iwhole conceptual scheme. =

Not all conceptual questions call for the systematic descrip- * "tion of conceptual reticulations over a given domain. In some -Qcases, the questions rest upon misconceived presuppositions. ^They do not need to be answered, but to be dissolved by (Qbringing their presuppositions to light and showing them to Qbe misconceived. So, for example, the questions 'How do we ^know of the existence of the external world?' or 'What do the propositions of logic (or mathematics) describe?' or 'How can K>we understand sentences we have never heard before?' areconfused. They do not need answers, but rather deep analyticprobing that will disclose their presuppositions.

In other cases, the answers to the questions are platitu-dinous. For example, we know what other people think andfeel because they give expression to their thoughts and feel-ings in speech and action. But this platitudinous answer isinconsistent with apparent conceptual commitments, e.g. thatwe cannot really know how others think and feel, becauseany inference from their behaviour is always shaky, merelyinductive, or analogical, or a hypothetical inference to thebest explanation of the overt movements. Here philosophicalachievement consists in disentangling the knots in our under-standing of our conceptual commitments which stand in theway of seeing such platitudes as perfectly correct.

In yet others, achievement consists in shaking oneself freeof a misleading paradigm of explanation, derived perhaps fromscience (as in postulating entities of a certain kind in order toexplain phenomena, e.g. monads, simple natures, Tractatussimple objects). Or it may consist in liberating oneself fromthe mesmerizing influence of a misguided analogy, derived


perhaps from a superficially similar linguistic form (e.g. as inholding 'exists' is a predicate like 'thinks'; or that having a painis a form of logically non-transferable ownership, as having apenny is a form of transferable ownership; or that feeling a painand feeling a pin are both forms of perception; or that mentalimages are 'just like' physical images, only mental).

Illumination comes from clarification of the conceptual struc-"vj- tures we employ, from a perspicuous representation of the0X1

relevant rules for the use of the problematic expression, and^ from a description of the position the relevant concept holds within the conceptual network.

Q^ Philosophy, then, has a concern with elucidating the uses-p of words. But its concerns differ from those of the grammar-U ian. It is guided not by pedagogy or by the requirement for- a systematized overview of the syntax of a language, but byO the kinds of problems it confronts. For those problems are_O solved, resolved or dissolved by conceptual clarification and!c by a priori argument.2" Nor are the words which capture the attention of philoso-fl* phers of any special interest to grammarians or lexicographers.O They do not dwell long on 'sensation' and 'perception', on^ 'know' and 'believe', or on 'act' and 'omit'. Nor do they have

any special concern with the categorial concepts which sopreoccupy philosophers, such as material object, materialstuff, space, time, event, state, process and cause or evenwith such general concepts as lie at the heart of much phi-losophy, e.g. person, mind, perceptual quality, good and evil,truth and falsehood.

Philosophy's interest is typically with categorial, general orpivotal concepts that play a structural, or at any rate a centralrole in our thought. Accordingly, their forms shed light on con-ceptual difficulties that may arise anywhere over wide rangesof discourse. They include, to be sure, concepts and concept-types presupposed by the sciences hence the venerableidea that philosophy is more general and fundamental thanthe sciences. More specific concepts may also call for care-


ful description, e.g. of pretending, or of colour exclusion. Butthese are typically of interest either to resolve a specific con-ceptual difficulty, e.g. 'Why can't a new born child pretend?',or because of the light they shed on more general problems,e.g. of the nature of (one form of) necessity.

Philosophical problems arise out of conceptual unclarity andconfusion. The unclarity is a corollary of lack of an overview ofa concept or field of interlocking concepts. It would be wrong to - iclaim that these problems arise only 'when language is idling'. g#The conceptual difficulties produced by physics, psychology, or *"brain-neuroscience do not arise when language is idling, but -Qwhen it is working, in particular when it is working, e.g., across =5"categorially distinct domains (energy and matter, the mental ^and the behavioural, the neural and the psychological) the Qlogical relations between which is fiercely difficult to survey. ^

The confusion stems from many sources. One primary source is the misleading features of a language, e.g. analogies 10in language between forms of expressions which actually havevery different uses (geometrical theorems look like descrip-tions of spatial relations, but are norms of description; ascrip-tions of understanding resemble ascriptions of mental statesbut are of abilities; 'the mind' looks as if it fulfils an analogousrole to 'the brain', but does not). There are many other sources,e.g. analogies from the sciences or from mathematics, whichlead us to ask misconceived questions, or to answer concep-tual questions on the wrong model; the temptation to explainwhen only description of conceptual connections is legitimate;a natural craving for generality when it is inappropriate; aninability to detect our most basic presuppositions on whichsome of our philosophical questions rest.

VIAn overview of a conceptual field or some part thereof is es-

sential to the solution or dissolution of any philosophical prob-lem. Once the illuminating power of an overview is understood,the investigation may assume an autonomous interest of itsown. For there is no doubt that appropriately general enquiryinto the ways our concepts and conceptual categories hang


together possesses its own fascination. We crave not only tounderstand the world we live in, but also to grasp the overallstructure of the way in which we conceive and understand it.Philosophy, we may then say, has a Janus-faced character.On the one hand, it is concerned with disentangling knots wetie in our understanding, with dissolving conceptual confusionsin ordinary human life, in philosophy and in the sciences. On

so the other, it is concerned with elucidating the fundamental,structural components in our conceptual scheme.

Are we not reverting to a conception of philosophy as a cognitive discipline, viz. one concerned with attaining knowl-i!2 edge of concepts and conceptual connections? That would0 be misleading. The concepts under scrutiny are conceptsQ_ speakers of the language already possess. If the description-Q of the features of the concept or concept-type deviates fromU a competent speaker's use, then the description is mistaken. For the characterization of a concept is, implicitly or explicitly, aO specification of the rules for the use of the term that expresses_O the concept. The connections which philosophy articulates are!c connections which any speaker of the language must have2" grasped in order to satisfy the criteria of understanding for anyQ> instance of the concept-type in question. So the descriptionO of the conceptual articulations for which philosophy strives^ cannot be new information in the sense in which science

produces new information. These descriptions, like thoseof the descriptive grammarian, are not news to be greetedwith amazement, but general characterizations to be met byreflective recognition and realization. The fact of recognitionwarrants denying that philosophy attains new knowledge. Thefact of realization may give limited support to the idea that itdoes, in a rather special sense, add to knowledge. However,it would be more misleading than illuminating to count phi-losophy among the cognitive disciplines.

VIIThe picture of philosophy and its problems which I have

sketched out is one conception of the subject. It is, I believe,appropriate for theoretical philosophy. So it can be extended to


the philosophies of the special sciences. Although many of thequestions they pose are different from those above discussed,they are concerned with conceptual questions and relation-ships, with types and structures of explanation and relationsbetween types of explanation. But with regard to practicalphilosophy, i.e. to ethics, political and legal philosophy, it isonly part of the tale. These departments of philosophy areconcerned with more than conceptual elucidation. Why that imust be so is itself a deep philosophical problem. g*

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IX -QCan there then be progress in philosophy? There cannot ^ "

be progress in the sense in which there is in the sciences, i.e. conceptual differences are definitively identified, conceptualconnections are rendered explicit, and confusions dissolved.The progress often appears less than it is. Often the distinc-tions drawn become so engrained that we no longer recollectthat they were not always available, forget that the articulatedifferentiation of certain concept-types, proposition-types, orinference patterns has often been a hard-won insight obtainedfrom philosophical reflection. So the progress that has beenmade is not recognised for what it is. Similarly, profoundlytempting philosophical confusions and fallacies are revealedfor what they are and some of these sink permanently fromsight and are forgotten.

However, the progress may sometimes appear greater thanit is. A conceptual field may be partially illuminated for onegeneration, only to be cast into shadow again. For cultural in-novations occur (e.g. the invention of the computer, of function-theoretic logic) and novel scientific theories are introduced,(e.g. quantum mechanics, the Indeterminacy Principle, rela-tivity theory). These may cast long shadows over conceptualarticulations previously clarified, requiring old ground to betraversed afresh from a new angle (e.g., the need to clarify


again the concept of mind in response to the temptation toconceive of the human mind on a computational model).

There may also be regress. Unlike the sciences, which arehierarchical, and which build upon antecedently acquiredknowledge and confirmed theory, philosophy is 'flat'. Hencedistinctions can be lost from sight, methods of clarification mayfall into disuse and the skills they require may vanish. Con-

co ceptual confusions are comparable to diseases diseasesof the intellect. They may be cured for one generation, butthe virus may undergo mutation and reappear in even more

j virulent form. So, for example, 'internal representations' are. merely mutant sense-impressions; 'qualia' are WittgensteinianQ private objects in new guise. So a new cure must be found,O^ appropriately adjusted to the mutation and its host.

Q The work of philosophy can have no end, for the forms ofU misunderstanding of conceptual connections are endless and unpredictable. The ground has to be ploughed over again andO again. Knowledge can be transmitted from one generation_O to another. But understanding has to be achieved afresh byx : each generation.Q.k.

* Peter Hacker is a Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford.UD

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