Philosophy 101 #1 – Philosophy is Not Doctrinal

We cannot learn philosophy;  for where is it, who is in possession of it, and how shall we recognize it? We can only learn to philosophize.

– Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (1781), A838/B866

I thought it would be a good idea to run a series of posts entitled ‘Philosophy 101′ – posts which are short and snappy, and will help you curious readers to learn (or be reminded of) the basics in philosophy. Or at least my take on what the basics of philosophy are.

The first basic lesson is that there are no basic lessons. Sheer profundity, I know!

If you were a physics student you would be required to learn certain basics. Force = Mass x Acceleration, E=MC2. If you were a medicine student you would be required to learn certain basics about the human body, surgery and pharmaceuticals. If you were even an English literature or social work student you would learn certain basics about grammar, composition, literary methods and psychological theories. These basic theories than become cemented in these disciplines as doctrines – groups of beliefs which you don’t really question if you want to get by in that discipline.

But here in philosophy 101, there are no basic lessons. Philosophy, more than any other discipline I can think of, is not a doctrinal enterprise. If you were to tell a philosopher: Plato believes such-and-such, or, it is a feature of our world that blah-blah, or, humans beings are essentially rah-rah-rah, than philosophers would unanimously reply: really?

This is a significant first lesson because it is very easy to approach philosophy with this orientation, that is, to find out what ethical theories people subscribe to, or what doctrines great philosophers like Hegel or Wittgenstein held to. Now whilst it is pretty important to get a few of these essentials under your belt, and it is certainly appropriate to deploy labels to get a handle on complex theories, these kinds of questions should never be pursued as if they were the main game in philosophy.

This first lesson also throws light on the tension between theology and philosophy. Theology wants to insist on doctrines in the strongest sense of the word, and so carving out a helpful relationship with another discipline that is always questioning and always being suspicious of doctrine asserting activities is going to be hard work.

p.s. The irony is not lost on me that in making this point I am adopting quite a doctrinaire and parochial tone. Perhaps philosophy is not that free of doctrines after all.

In Praise of Fence-Sitting

There is no place for ‘isms’ in philosophy. The alleged party issues are never the important philosophic questions, and to be affiliated to a recognizable party is to be the slave of a non-philosophic prejudice in favour of a (usually non-philosophic) article of belief. To be a ‘so-and-so ist’ is to be philosophically frail.

– Gilbert Ryle, ‘Taking Sides in Philosophy’ (1937)

Dogmatism, Anathema Theories, and the ‘Handmaiden of Theology’

A friend recently introduced me to an article by the Australian philosopher Bruce Langtry. Langtry is also a Christian, and in a brief piece attempts to sketch ways in which Christianity and philosophy may come together and come apart. Here is a quote I agree with:

The intellectual vice of dogmatism enters in only when one is unwilling to subject one’s beliefs to critical scrutiny, and when one is in principle closed to the possibility of abandoning one’s beliefs in the light of good objections. But there is no reason why a Christian must or should be dogmatic in this sense.

– Bruce Langtry ‘A Christian and a Philosopher’, The Briefing #121, p.7

I totally agree with this statement, and I suspect Saint Paul would too. Paul seemed open to abandoning his faith in the light of good objections. He wrote ,’If Christ has not been raised [from the dead] our preaching is useless and so is your faith…If only for this life we have hoped in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.’ (1 Corinthians 15.14, 19) If someone could convince Paul that Jesus did not in fact rise from the dead, then he says he would not be a Christian.

However, I like this statement less:

Certain philosophical theories are incompatible with Christianity. For example, cultural relativism is the doctrine that moral statements correspond merely to the conventions of a particular society and possess no universal validity. We Christians must reject cultural relativism at many points, for example, in what we say about God’s nature and about sin.

Let me first say what doesn’t bother me about this, so that I’m not misunderstood. It is not that Langtry switches from a tolerant stance to a dogmatic stance; that at one moment is saying that Christians shouldn’t be dogmatic, and then at the next he is saying that there are views Christians can never endorse. I don’t think this second statement interferes with his earlier one about freedom from dogmatism. You can, of course, reject viewpoints thoughtfully and fairly without being a dogmatist – philosophers do this all the time.

What bothers me about this second statement is the way philosophical theories can cloud the message of Christianity, and can sneak their way into the centre. Since when was the message of Christianity: ‘that moral conventions are not merely the conventions of a particular society and possess universal validity’? Since when was Jesus concerned about cultural relativism? I thought he was on about the Kingdom of God being near.

This approach to Christianity and Philosophy carves the intellectual world into good and bad theories – good theories which explain and justify Christian belief; bad theories which are incompatible with Christianity or which call it into question. The picture seems far too simplistic to me, and rejects outright the possibility of the anathema philosophical theories calling into question the theories which the Christians happen to hold onto.

This approach mistakes theories which people formulate as an attempt to articulate their Christian belief with their Christian belief itself – they mistake their theories for gospel truth.

Imagine you are a Nineteenth-Century British Evangelical who is quite sure, though you have never really looked into it, that it is good and proper for women not to vote. Are you ever going to read John Stuart Mill’s The Subjugation of Women and think that it could have anything of value to tell you? Probably not, since it would most likely fall into the anathema philosophical theories camp.

I suspect that the reason something like this view gains any force is because many Christian philosophers and theologians think that the only purpose of philosophy is to help theologians to do their job – to clarify concepts and provide forms of reasoning. That is, it has no particular contribution to make, outside of how it can be helpful for theology. Langtry says something like this when he says:

Insofar as theology has this broad scope, it cannot avoid philosophy…Theologians have little option but to use philosophical premises in developing their theological theories…Theologians must have recourse to philosophical arguments.

In the same magazine another writer, Phil Dowe, writes:

Studying philosophy…can teach you to think logically. It can train you in the art of convincing people with reasons. It can unlock for you…the way people think.

– Phil Dowe, ‘Philosophy? You Mustn’t Be Serious?’, p.8

If your conception of the proper purpose and function of philosophy is limited to ‘helping theology do it’s job’, then it makes sense to divide the intellectual world up into good and bad theories. But what if philosophy is much more than this? Christians try to listen to scientists for reasons other than it will help them do theology, Christians often listen to political commentators and art critics for other reasons than it will help them do theology, Christians often listen to educational and medical theorists for reasons other than it will help them do theology – why is philosophy then mostly only thought of by Christians as being worthwhile and helpful insofar as it will help you do theology?

This, of course, begs far more questions than it answers. But don’t all good blog posts…