That's one of the reasons I appreciate Nagel so much -- he refuses to be doctrinaire about the type of philosophy he was trained in. — J

The thing that draws me to Nagel is that while he's a professed atheist, he's critical of philosophical and scientific materialism on the grounds of reason alone, because he sees that it doesn't make sense. Which is enough for many of his professional peers to excorciate him.

I have to say, looking at the writers who are considered under each head, its clear that one camp is after clarity and the other is not. That seems the most obvious difference.
When Satre can be (colloquially) counted amount your group, you've got problems.

he's critical of philosophical and scientific materialism on the grounds of reason alone, because he sees that it doesn't make sense. — Wayfarer

That's nonsense. Nothing doesn't make sense on the basis of reason alone except that which is self-contradictory. Materialism is self-contradictory only on the most tendentious and/ or simpleminded interpretations of its meaning. Such simplistic thinking is the go-to of polemicists

As to the OP philosophy if it is to be of any use should improve the quality of our lives. Someone mentioned conceptual analysis. Conceptual analysis would be useful if it produces clarity, and it is arguable that clarity should help us to live better than confusion.

Returning to the improvement of the quality of human life—why should we assume that it will be the same ideas which improve the quality of all human lives?

Another point is that so-called 'analytic philosophy' cannot consist entirely of analysis. Analysis without synthesis would be to quote Dostoevsky "pouring from the empty into the void".

Those who concern themselves with such pointless questions as what the correct way is to do philosophy for example regarding the 'analytic/ continental' or the 'materialist/ idealist' divides are mostly moral crusaders. As it is in science, so it should be in philosophy—all avenues which yield fruit should be explored and we should maintain open minds.

Why should we concern ourselves with such tedious moralizing questions as which is the correct way to do philosophy? If there is one way not to do philosophy that would be it.

I don't usually like to quote passages from other writers but here is an interesting take on philosophy from E M Cioran's A Short History of Decay:

Farewell to Philosophy

I turned away from philosophy when it became impossible to discover in Kant any human weakness, any authentic accent of melancholy; in Kant and in all the philosophers. Compared to music, mysticism, and poetry, philosophical activity proceeds from a diminished impulse and a suspect depth, prestigious only for the timid and the tepid. Moreover, philosophy—impersonal anxiety, refuge among anemic ideas—is the recourse of all who would elude the corrupting exuberance of life. Almost all the philosophers came to a good end: that is the supreme argument against philosophy. Even Socrates' death has nothing tragic about it: it is a misunderstanding, the end of a pedagogue—and if Nietzsche foundered, it was as a poet and visionary: he expiated his ecstasies and not his arguments.

We cannot elude existence by explanations, we can only endure it, love or hate it, adore or dread it, in that alternation of happiness and horror which expresses the very rhythm of being, its oscillations, its dissonances, its bright or bitter vehemences.

Exposed by surprise or necessity to an irrefutable defeat, who does not raise his hands in prayer then, only to let them fall emptier still for the answers of philosophy? It would seem that its mission is to protect us as long as fate’s neglect allows us to proceed on the brink of chaos, and to abandon us as soon as we are forced to plunge over the edge. And how could it be otherwise, when we see how little of humanity’s suffering has passed into its philosophy? The philosophic exercise is not fruitful; it is merely honorable. We are always philosophers with impunity: a métier without fate which pours voluminous thoughts into our neutral and vacant hours, the hours refractory to the Old Testament, to Bach, and to Shakespeare. And have these thoughts materialized into a single page that is equivalent to one of Job’s exclamations, of Macbeth’s terrors, or the altitude of one of Bach’s cantatas? We do not argue the universe; we express it. And philosophy does not express it. The real problems begin only after having ranged or exhausted it, after the last chapter of a huge tome which prints the final period as an abdication before the Unknown, in which all our moments are rooted and with which we must struggle because it is naturally more immediate, more important than our daily bread. Here the philosopher leaves us: enemy of disaster, he is sane as reason itself, and as prudent. And we remain in the company of an old plague victim, of a poet learned in every lunacy, and of a musician whose sublimity transcends the sphere of the heart. We begin to Eve authentically only where philosophy ends, at its wreck, when we have understood its terrible nullity, when we have understood that it was futile to resort to it, that it is no help.

(The great systems are actually no more than brilliant tautologies. What advantage is it to know that the nature of being consists in the “will to live,” in “idea,” or in the whim of God or of Chemistry? A mere proliferation of words, subtle displacements of meanings. What is loathes the verbal embrace, and our inmost experience reveals us nothing beyond the privileged and inexpressible moment. Moreover, Being itself is only a pretension of Nothingness.

We define only out of despair. We must have a formula, we must even have many, if only to give justification to the mind and a facade to the void.

Neither concept nor ecstasy are functional. When music plunges us into the “inwardness” of being, we rapidly return to the surface: the effects of the illusion scatter and our knowledge admits its nullity.

The things we touch and those we conceive are as improbable as our senses and our reason; we are sure only in our verbal universe, manageable at will—and ineffectual. Being is mute and the mind is garrulous. This is called knowing.

The philosopher’s originality comes down to inventing terms. Since there are only three or four attitudes by which to confront the world— and about as many ways of dying—the nuances which multiply and diversify them derive from no more than the choice of words, bereft of any metaphysical range.

We are engulfed in a pleonastic universe, in which the questions and answers amount to the same thing.)

Philosophy if it is to be of any use should improve the quality of our lives. — Janus

I can't help asking: Isn't the above a definitive answer to the question of how to do "proper" philosophy? So when you discovered the answer, were you engaging with a "tedious moralizing" question? I'm confused.

Isn't the above a definitive answer to the question of how to do "proper" philosophy? — J

Why would it be when we are all individuals and may find very different approaches individually beneficial?

Even if there were only one way of doing philosophy which improved human life advocating that way.would not be a moral prescription but a pragmatic one.

To the first point: you'd said "the quality of our lives" so I took you to be referring to something intersubjectivity or semi-universal. But now I see that you mean: "A useful philosophy for me should improve the quality of my life," and yes, that's different.

To the second point: Indeed, I didn't see where morality came into it in the first place; I was only quoting you that it was a "moralizing" question.

I'm not sure we've completely eliminated the normative, though, by putting it in these terms. Presumably you'd say that someone who disagreed with the "philosophy should improve the quality of my life" position was wrong, wouldn't you? Or is that too only meant in the sense of "For me, philosophy is about improving the quality of my life. You may have a completely different conception of what the use of philosophy is, and there's no right or wrong here"?

Signing off for the night . . .

To the second point: Indeed, I didn't see where morality came into it in the first place; I was only quoting you that it was a "moralizing" question. — J

I see philosophy as essentially ethical. Whereas morality involves others ethics need not. "How should I best live" is an ethical question. The answer could be very different for different people and need not involve others for example in the case of those who find solitude paramount.

Where I made mention of the moralizing side of philosophy it was in reference to those who think such things as for example that materialism is a view that annihilates any hope and hence ought to be reviled.

To my way of thinking such an attitude is inherently moralistic and polemical and suggestive that there is only one true general way to think about human life—a way that does not reduce us to being mere animals or chemical robots. Such thinkers often yearn for a supposed golden age of philosophy. I count such attitudes as lacking in subtlety.

I'm not sure we've completely eliminated the normative, though, by putting it in these terms. Presumably you'd say that someone who disagreed with the "philosophy should improve the quality of my life" position was wrong, wouldn't you? Or is that too only meant in the sense of "For me, philosophy is about improving the quality of my life. You may have a completely different conception of what the use of philosophy is, and there's no right or wrong here"? — J

I think the best philosophies are those which are most in accordance with the facts of human life. I don't think living in illusion is likely to lead to flourishing in any real way. It is often the stuff of diversion and fantasy.

I think the best philosophies are those which are most in accordance with the facts of human life. — Janus

Most 'facts' of human life are not obvious enough to fall prey to philosophy, in the way you want. Surely, philosophy's main role (at least now, post-religion) is to investigate the 'facts of life' as found by science, say.

The philosopher’s originality comes down to inventing terms. Since there are only three or four attitudes by which to confront the world— and about as many ways of dying—the nuances which multiply and diversify them derive from no more than the choice of words, bereft of any metaphysical range. — Janus

Interesting quote from E M Cioran. Thanks.

The above never really occurred to me. Kind of like that observation that in literature there are only 7 plots (Chris Booker).

'Inventing terms' resonates. Richard Rorty often talked about philsophy as being an ongoing activity of "finding new vocabularies." In his view, you get philosophical progress from the creation of new ways of speaking and thinking through which we identify and tackle new problems and experiences, rather than through discovering objective truths. The search for a final vocabulary that represents reality "as it is" was a misguided one. Or something like that.

Most 'facts' of human life are not obvious enough to fall prey to philosophy, in the way you want. Surely, philosophy's main role (at least now, post-religion) is to investigate the 'facts of life' as found by science, say — AmadeusD

Are you saying that philosophy is obvious and science is not? And that philosophy’s role is subservient to the facts that science discovers?

I think the best philosophies are those which are most in accordance with the facts of human life. I don't think living in illusion is likely to lead to flourishing in any real way. It is often the stuff of diversion and fantasy. — Janus

One person’s illusion is another’s emancipation. Could be that a bit more diversion and fantasy might actually enhance your life. Perhaps it will even reveal that the ‘facts of human life’ you feel you need to anchor yourself to are more a recipe for conformism than for flourishing.

Most 'facts' of human life are not obvious enough to fall prey to philosophy, in the way you want. Surely, philosophy's main role (at least now, post-religion) is to investigate the 'facts of life' as found by science, say. — AmadeusD

There are many obvious facts of human life that are pre-science. There are also newer scientific facts. How do you purport to know what way I supposedly want these facts to "fall prey" to philosophy whatever that is even supposed to mean?

One person’s illusion is another’s emancipation. Could be that a bit more diversion and fantasy might actually enhance your life. Perhaps it will even reveal that the ‘facts of human life’ you feel you need to anchor yourself to are more a recipe for conformism than for flourishing. — Joshs

I don't know what you are referring to. By "fantasy" I was mostly alluding to ideas about afterlife. Do you support people believing in such fantasies. Note that I don't condemn people holding fantastic beliefs that might be psychologically necessary for them. But I would imagine that such fantasies become impossible for those who are more highly educated and reasonable.

Diversions are okay provided they don't dominate one's life to the point of occluding reality. Everyone perhaps needs some time off for the mind to 'go on holiday'. Would you count the mind being permanently on holiday as being a desirable state of affairs?

I don't usually like to quote passages from other writers but here is an interesting take on philosophy from E M Cioran's A Short History of Decay — Janus

This quote amounts to no more than confusing a personal preference for a profound insight. He falls into a common misapprehension of those with a talent for a specific form of expression. Poets believe there is no truer access to the natural of things than through poetry, while musicians preserve this privilege for music, novelists for novels, artists for art, r for science , philosophers for philosophy.

'Inventing terms' resonates. Richard Rorty often talked about philsophy as being an ongoing activity of "finding new vocabularies." In his view, you get philosophical progress from the creation of new ways of speaking and thinking through which we identify and tackle new problems and experiences, rather than through discovering objective truths. The search for a final vocabulary that represents reality "as it is" was a misguided one. Or something like that. — Tom Storm

I agree with that. Thinking about things in new and fruitful ways can certainly be a positive creative aspect of philosophy. Philosophy as art more than as science. I think the caution needs to be there to avoid imagining those ways as being absolute truths rather as being useful provisional entertainings.

This quote amounts to no more than confusing a personal preference for a profound insight. He falls into a common misapprehension of those with a talent for a specific form
of expression. — Joshs

I see no reasoned critique in or adequate explanation of this seemingly flippant and facile attempted dismissal

Do you support people believing in such fantasies. Note that I don't condemn people holding fantastic beliefs that might be psychologically necessary for them. But I would imagine that such fantasies become impossible for those who are more highly educated and reasonable.

Diversions are okay provided they don't dominate one's life to the point of occluding reality. Everyone perhaps needs some time off for the mind to 'go on holiday'. Would you count the mind being permanently on holiday as being a desirable state of affairs — Janus

Christ, you sound like a joyless unimaginative old man. Reasonableness is entirely overrated. Here’s a little secret. Whatever works in person’s life to open up and keep open possibilities of creative transcendence is real. Today’s tried and true verities become tomorrow’s superstitions.

I agree with that. Thinking about things in new and fruitful ways can certainly be a positive creative aspect of philosophy. Philosophy as art more than as science. I think the caution needs to be there to avoid imagining those ways as being absolute truths rather as being useful provisional entertainings. — Janus

You’re missing Rorty’s point. He believes that the goal of science isnt to arrive at the way things truly are, but to enhance social solidarity. For Rorty it is not just philosophy that resembles art but science as well.

Christ, you sound like a joyless unimaginative old man. — Joshs

That's it. When argument fails you resort to ad hominem. You failed to answer the question as to whether you think it is a good thing to put faith in superstitious beliefs which have no evidence to support them. As I noted I would never seek to deny anyone the right to believe whatever they want provided those beliefs do not serve as a detriment to others. It doesn't follow that I have to respect their intellectual integrity even if their beliefs are socially benign.

Today’s tried and true verities become tomorrow’s superstitions. — Joshs

That's not necessarily true. That past superstitions founded on human imagination and storytelling have been supplanted by scientific knowledge founded on observation does not entail that current science will later be seen as superstition. The fallacy you are falling into lies in thinking that the past gives an inerrant or even more or less reliable guide to the future.

You’re missing Rorty’s point. He believes that the goal of science isnt to arrive at the way things truly are, but to enhance social solidarity. For Rorty it is not just philosophy that resembles art but science as well. — Joshs

I was only addressing what Tom Storm said about Rorty valuing philosophys role in discovering new ways of thinking about things. I haven't anywhere denied that science also may do this.

Are you saying that philosophy is obvious and science is not? And that philosophy’s role is subservient to the facts that science discovers? — Joshs

No, not quite. But clearly philosophy about “things” that doesn’t adhere to the facts as science finds them (perhaps I mean “which does not obey the laws of nature” can’t be of much use. Philosophy needs to deal with the same facts science provides, I guess, to be helpful to humans who cannot but obey them. Pretty new thought so it might simply be crap

There are many obvious facts of human life that are pre-science. There are also newer scientific facts. How do you purport to know what way I supposedly want these facts to "fall prey" to philosophy whatever that is even supposed to mean? — Janus

Can’t see how. Science is a method not an institution, in my sentence. “Upon investigation” might be a better term there and I misspoke. But in any case, ignoring that problem, I can’t make sense of what I said now anyway in relation to your post that I replied to. Sorry about that

No worries.

Is that so? Got a manual? — Wayfarer

I'm referring to just the common psychology of how people reason. We don't start with factual cold logic, we tend to think creatively first and apply logic second. Kind of like letting go of all the animals and then building a fence around where these animals want to be, not where you want them to be. As a half-baked analogy.

'Inventing terms' resonates. Richard Rorty often talked about philsophy as being an ongoing activity of "finding new vocabularies." In his view, you get philosophical progress from the creation of new ways of speaking and thinking through which we identify and tackle new problems and experiences, rather than through discovering objective truths. The search for a final vocabulary that represents reality "as it is" was a misguided one. Or something like that. — Tom Storm

Interesting. I haven't done a detailed study of Frege, the father of logicism, but with what you said in mind he makes a lot more sense. If the purpose of philosophy or science is to discover how new vocabularies make sense within the current vein of philosophy or sciences' framework, then sure, philosophy makes sense in that aspect.

I just reinterpreted everything after learning more about Frege, and some other thoughts of mine about logical monism or unificationism in logic.

Conceptual analysis would be useful if it produces clarity, and it is arguable that clarity should help us to live better than confusion. — Janus

See my comment a couple above yours (assume you have, just using a figure of speech).

Clarity seems to be the biggest difference between the two 'camps'.

:up: Ambiguity may be evocative and thus inspiring as with some poetry. However ambiguity is not necessarily confusion and need not produce confusion.

Clarity seems to be the biggest difference between the two 'camps'. — AmadeusD

OK, I'll stand up for the Continentals here! Is it possible that what you're calling "unclarity" could better be called "difficulty"? Case in point, perhaps, is Husserl, arguably the father of Continental thought. At first reading, he's as clear as mud. But you have to persist. In part this is because he's not a gifted writer, at least not in translation. (And if that's what you mean by unclarity, then you're correct.) But something can become clear, given time. His ideas are unusual and difficult, and require slow, patient reflection and discussion. The thing is, it pays off richly in philosophical insight.

This is not to take sides in any alleged Analytic/Continental debate. The same could be said for many Anglophone philosophers too.

Case in point, perhaps, is Husserl, arguably the father of Continental thought. — J

That might come as news to Hegel, Schelling, Schopenhauer, Dilthey, Nietzsche and Bergson. On the other hand, it would be accurate to call Husserl the father of Phenomenology.

Well, I did say "arguably". :smile: Perhaps it would have better to say something like "In the early 20th century a split in methods and interests occurred within philosophy, and Husserl was a bellwether." I was trying to pinpoint the "two-camps" division, before which Hegel et al. were simply philosophy, common property of all philosophers. Only in retrospect were they seen as prefiguring Continental phil. Or that's my version of the history, anyway.

Perhaps it would have better to say something like "In the early 20th century a split in methods and interests occurred within philosophy, and Husserl was a bellwether." I was trying to pinpoint the "two-camps" division, before which Hegel et al. were simply philosophy, common property of all philosophers. Only in retrospect were they seen as prefiguring Continental phil. Or that's my version of the history, anyway. — J

My take aligns somewhat with that of Rorty, who argues that analytic philosophy doesn’t go any further than Kantian modes of metaphysics, which is why he refers to the community of post-analytic philosophers he identifies with (James, Dewey, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida, Foucault, Sellars, Davidson, Putnam, etc) as ‘we Hegelians’.

…both analytic philosophy and phenomenology were throwbacks to a pre-Hegelian, more or less Kantian, way of thinking - attempts to preserve what I am calling "metaphysics" by making it the study of the "conditions of possibility" of a medium (consciousness, language).

I think that analytic philosophy culminates in Quine, the later Wittgenstein, Sellars, and Davidson-which is to say that it transcends and cancels itself. These thinkers successfully, and rightly, blur the positivist distinctions between the semantic and the pragmatic, the analytic and the synthetic, the linguistic and the empirical, theory and observation. Davidson's attack on the scheme/content distinction, in particular, summarizes and synthesizes Wittgenstein's mockery of his own Tractatus, Quine's criticisms of Carnap, and Sellars's attack on the empiricist “Myth of the Given." Davidson's holism and coherentism shows how language looks once we get rid of the central presupposition of Philosophy: that true sentences divide into an upper and a lower division-the sentences which correspond to something and those which are "true" only by courtesy or convention.