Without conversation, philosophy is dogma

8/13/2019 Without conversation, philosophy is dogma

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9/25/13 11:Without conversation, philosophy is dogma Nigel Warburton Aeon

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point where I was before you interrupted me, he is supposed to have shouted at one local who made

the mistake of greeting him as he stood pondering what could not be said. From Wittgensteins

perspective, the year he spent in Norway was the source of much of his philosophical creativity, some

of the most intense thinking this markedly intense philosopher achieved in his lifetime. While there, he

did little more than think, walk, whistle, and suffer from depression.

Wittgenstein ensconced in his Norwegian hut (really, a two-storey wooden house with a balcony) is

for many the model of a philosopher at work. Here the solitary genius sought out isolation that

mirrored the rigours of his own austere philosophy. No distractions. No human company. Just a laser-like mind thinking about first principles, as he stood surveying the fjord or strode through the snow.

Wittgenstein had precedents. The sixth-century Boethius wrote his Consolation of Philosophyin a

Roman prison cell, his mind focused by his imminent execution; Niccol Machiavelli produced The

Prince(1532) in exile on a quiet farm outside Florence; Ren Descartes wrote hisMeditations on First

Philosophy(1641) curled up next to a fire. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was happiest living in the middle of

a forest, away from civilisation, and so on. Philosophy in its highest forms seems intently solitary and

often damaged by the presence of others.

Yet this stereotype of the genius at work in complete isolation is misleading, even for Wittgenstein,

Boethius, Machiavelli, Descartes, and Rousseau. Philosophy is an inherently social activity that thrives

on the collision of viewpoints and rarely emerges from unchallenged interior monologue. A closer

examination of Wittgensteins year in a Norwegian wood reveals his correspondence with the

Cambridge philosophers Bertrand Russell and G E Moore. He even persuaded Moore to travel to

Norway an arduous train and boat trip in those days and stay for a fortnight. The point of

Moores visit was to discuss Wittgensteins new ideas about logic. In fact, discussion turned out to

mean that Wittgenstein (who was still technically an undergraduate) spoke, and Moore (who was far

more eminent at the time) listened and took notes.

Yet Moores presence was somehow necessary for the birth of these ideas: Wittgenstein needed an

audience, and an intelligent listener who could criticise and help him focus his thought, even if those

criticisms werent uttered. And he wasnt the only one who needed an audience. Boethius in his cell

imagined his visitor: Philosophy personified as a tall woman wearing a dress with the letters Pi to

Theta on it. She berates him for deserting her and the stoicism she preached. Boethiuss own book wasa response to her challenge.

The smile in someones voice, a moment of impatience, a pause (of

doubt perhaps?), or insight these factors humanise philosophy

Machiavelli, meanwhile, was indeed exiled, cut off from the intrigues of court life, a city dweller

forced into a bucolic existence against his will. But in a letter to his friend Francesco Vettori of 10

December 1513, he described how he spent his evenings: he would retire to his study and conjure up

the great ancient thinkers and hold imaginary conversations with them about how best to govern. These

imaginary conversations were the raw material for The Prince. Descartes might have locked himself

away to write, and avoided distractions by doing most of his work lying in bed, but when he came topublish hisMeditations it was with a number of critical comments from other philosophers, including

Thomas Hobbes, together with his responses to their criticisms. Likewise, Rousseau loved solitude, but

he included dialogues within his writing, and even wrote the bizarre bookRousseau Judge of Jean-

Jacques (1776) in which he presented two versions of himself debating with each other.

Western philosophy has its origins in conversation, in face-to-face discussions about reality, our place

in the cosmos, and how we should live. It began with a sense of mystery, wonder, and confusion, and

the powerful desire to get beyond mere appearances to find truth or, if not that, at least some kind of


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wisdom or balance.

Socrates started the conversation about philosophical conversation. This shabby eccentric who

wandered the marketplace in fifth-century Athens accosting passersby and cross-questioning them in

his celebrated style set the pattern for philosophical discussion and teaching. His pupil Plato crafted

eloquent Socratic dialogues that, we assume, capture something of what it was like to be harangued

and goaded by his mentor, though perhaps theyre more of a ventriloquist act. Socrates himself, if we

believe Platos dialogue Phaedrus, had no great respect for the written word. He argued that it was

inferior to the spoken. A page of writing might seem intelligent, but whatever question you ask of it, itresponds in precisely the same way each time you read it as this sentence will, no matter how many

times you return to it.

Besides, why would a thinker cast seeds on barren soil? Surely it is better to sow then where theyre

likely to grow, to share your ideas in the way most suited to the audience, to adapt what you say to

whoever is in front of you. Wittgenstein made a similar point in his notebooks when he wrote: Telling

someone something he will not understand is pointless, even if you add he will not understand it. The

inflections of speech allowed Socrates to exercise his famous irony, to lay emphasis, to tease, cajole,

and play, all of which is liable to be misunderstood on the page. A philosopher might jot down a few

notes as a reminder of passing thoughts, Socrates suggested, but, for philosophical communication,

conversation was king.

Platos use of dialogues reflected the centrality of discussion in philosophy. Sadly, with the exceptions

of David Hume in hisDialogues Concerning Natural Religion(1779) and Sren Kierkegaard in

Either/Or (1843), in which he uses personae presenting alternative viewpoints from within, few

philosophers have handled multiple voices well. Many purport to play devils advocate against their

own ideas but, as John Stuart Mill recognised, imagined critics can be much less forceful and use

weaker arguments than the real thing.

Even now, philosophy is best taught using the Socratic method of question and answer. True, the

demands of large lectures make interaction difficult but, as the Harvard professor Michael Sandel has

shown with his Justice lectures and in his discussions about the public good, even here conversation

and dialogue are possible. This is in many ways an improvement on Wittgensteins teaching style,which, according to contemporary accounts, involved students watching this tormented genius as he

wrestled with his own developing ideas in front of them, occasionally pausing for minutes to stare at

his upturned hand, at other times cursing his own stupidity: What a damn fool I am! Arresting as that

must have been, and superior in many ways to a rehearsed monologue that has been inflicted ad

nauseam on undergraduates, it lacks the cut and thrust of Socratic questioning.

New technology is changing the landscape in which philosophical conversations and arguably all

conversations take place. It has allowed contemporary philosophers to reach global audiences with

their ideas, and to take philosophy beyond the lecture halls. But there is more to this spoken

philosophy than simply the words uttered, and the ideas discussed. Audible non-verbal aspects of the

interaction, such as hearing the smile in someones voice, a moment of impatience, a pause (of doubt

perhaps?), or insight these factors humanise philosophy. They make it impossible to think of it asjust a mechanical application of rigorous logic, and reveal something about the thinker as well as the

position taken. Enthusiasm expressed through the voice can be contagious and inspirational.

Hobbes responded to DescartesMeditationsin writing, but imagine how much more fascinating it

would have been to hear and experience the two thinkers in a recorded public dialogue. Equally, if we

could listen to a recording of Wittgenstein discussing his Tractatuswith Frank Ramsey, one of his

most perceptive early readers, it might well transform our views of both thinkers. The equivalent of

these imagined conversations are being recorded now, both within and outside universities. They are


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freely available on the internet: on YouTube, iTunes and elsewhere, if you know where to look.

The point of philosophy is not to become a walking Wikipedia or

ambulant data bank

Without conversation and challenge, philosophy very quickly lapses in to the dead dogma that Mill

feared. But that does not mean that every viewpoint is equally valuable, or that we should accept that

each person finds their own truth. Every great philosopher has been driven by an attempt to get beyondappearances and to say something important about how things really are. Philosophy is a subject that

weighs positions, not just airs them. Conversation without critical judgment becomes mere chatter and

airing of different opinions as William Empson wrote in his poem Let It Go (1949):

The contradictions cover such a range.

The talk would talk and go so far aslant.

You don't want madhouse and the whole thing there.

However, it was John Stuart Mill who crystallised the importance of having your ideas challenged

through engagement with others who disagree with you. In the second chapter of On Liberty(1859), he

argued for the immense value of dissenting voices. It is the dissenters who force us to think, whochallenge received opinion, who nudge us away from dead dogma to beliefs that have survived critical

challenge, the best that we can hope for. Dissenters are of great value even when they are largely or

even totally mistaken in their beliefs. As he put it: Both teachers and learners go to sleep at their post,

as soon as there is no enemy in the field.

Whenever philosophical education lapses into learning facts about history and texts, regurgitating an

instructors views, or learning from a textbook, it moves away from its Socratic roots in conversation.

Then it becomes so much the worse for philosophy and for the students on the receiving end of what

the radical educationalist Paolo Freire referred to pejoratively in Pedagogy of the Oppressed(1970) as

the banking of knowledge. The point of philosophy is not to have a range of facts at your disposal,

though that might be useful, nor to become a walking Wikipedia or ambulant data bank: rather, it is to

develop the skills and sensitivity to be able to argue about some of the most significant questions wecan ask ourselves, questions about reality and appearance, life and death, god and society. As Platos

Socrates tells us, These are not trivial questions we are discussing here, we are discussing how to

live.

Published on 23 September 2013

Without conversation, philosophy is dogma

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