Prescience1U: Defining Competence in the Philosophical Discipline

2020

Research in Phenomenology, 2019

Disputatio, 2008

History of European Ideas, 1995

2012

In this article I reply to comments made by Agustin Vicente and Giridhari Lal Pandit on Science and the Pursuit of Wisdom (McHenry, 2009). I criticize analytic philosophy, go on to expound the argument for the need for a revolution in academic inquiry so that the basic aim becomes wisdom and not just knowledge, defend aim-oriented empiricism, outline my solution to the human world/physical universe problem, and defend the thesis that free will is compatible with physicalism. I am very grateful to Agustin Vicente and Giridhari Lal Pandit for their comments on Science and the Pursuit of Wisdom (McHenry, 2009), for the appreciative things they say about my work, and for taking the trouble to subject it to critical scrutiny. 1 In my reply, I take the two essays in turn. Philosophy Agustin Vicente begins by remarking that my work is very different from much contemporary philosophy in that, whereas most philosophers engage in puzzle solving, I tackle "deep, vibrant problems concerning ourselves and the world we live in" (pp. 631-2). I cannot help but endorse what Vicente says here, even though I might not express myself in quite his words. I begin with a few, all-too-brief remarks about the two very different conceptions of philosophy, to which Vicente alludes. Analytic philosophy, in my view, has never recovered from the disastrous idea that the proper basic task of philosophy is to analyse concepts. This is a recipe for intellectual sterility at best, intellectual dishonesty at worst. Built into the meaning of the kind of words philosophers are interested in-mind, knowledge, consciousness, justice, freedom, explanation, reason, and so on-there are various kinds of often highly problematic assumptions, factual, theoretical, metaphysical, evaluative. Instead of imaginatively articulating and critically assessing such assumptions directly, philosophical analysis seeks to arrive at definitive meanings for these concepts as if this can be done in a way which is free of problematic factual and evaluative doctrines. This is a recipe for sterility and dishonesty for, in arriving at such definitive meanings, problematic factual and evaluative doctrines are implicitly decided, but without explicit discussion of these doctrines, and without consideration and critical assessment of alternatives. The whole process is, in other words, profoundly irrational. The classic example of all this is Gilbert Ryle's Concept of Mind, which claims merely to analyse the meaning of mental concepts but which thereby, implicitly, espouses behaviourism even though this is explicitly denied. It may be objected that analytic philosophy has long moved on from this Rylean conception of its task, and no longer confines itself to conceptual analysis. Maybe so, but my point is that contemporary philosophy has not repudiated fully its analytic past, and is still crippled by it. As a result, it still engages in "puzzle solving", as Vicente attests, and fails lamentably to take up its proper task. The proper basic task of philosophy is to articulate our most fundamental, general and urgent problems, make clear that there are answers to these problems implicit in much of what we do and think-implicit in science, politics, art, the law, education and so on

Philosophical Studies, 2009

2013

Some philosophers say that it is not appropriate to engage in philosophy per se with children because philosophy is a discipline, requiring first a course of preparation, involving perhaps the study of grammar, logic, the proper use of language, the establishment of claims, evidences, warrants and ultimately arguments that can stand up to scrutiny. In an era of accountability, this has come to be cashed out in some kind of procedure where competencies ae identified, tagged and checked. Philosophy on this reading is no exception to this general requirement for all disciplines. John White, has pointed to the difference between conversations per se and philosophical conversations, arguing quite rightly that the mere organisation of children in a circle and setting them a topic for discussion cannot be called philosophy, nor does it lead them in any significant way into philosophy, but rather fosters a confusion between just general talk and the formation of a philosophical attitude (White, 2011). Indeed White if articulating the classical view extending as far back as Plato's academy that some kind of preparation for philosophy is required. A classical philosopher like Kant, for instance, pointed at the beginning of his first Critique to a set vocabulary of terms like 'sensibility', 'transcendental' and 'pure reason' 'practical reason', all of which would need to be competently controlled, if not entirely mastered, before engaging in his new transcendental philosophy of reason. Philosophers like Aristotle and Aquinas well understood the need for preparation also and while they each in different ways collected arguments like experimental samples and paraded them before listeners/ readers before arguing for one preferred solution, they assumed a certain literacy to begin with. And Matthew Lipman, in his own structured way, presented, in the philosophical materials he designed for children, a

Choice Reviews Online, 2013

Cultural Critique , 2020