Monday, July 02, 2007
Are There "Philosophy" Professors Nowadays?
Michael Cholbi has a new blog up, In Socrates' Wake, who's goal is to "stimulate dialogue and disseminate ideas about the teaching of philosophy as an academic discipline". Looks like it should be an interesting blog for all those students like me who are thinking about pursuing an academic career.
His second post, Was Socrates so great anyway?, caught my attention, especially in light of Richard Rorty's recent death. Rorty worked hard to argue, as Derrida did, that philosophy was basically just another literary genre. The relevant upshot is that philosophy shouldn't necessarily be seen as a perennial human activity. Like Victorian literature, Homeric epic poetry, and Punk music, philosophy is mostly just something Socrates did. The fact that it has a historical legacy, and numerous transformations through the ages, shouldn't make those who practice "philosophy" nowadays think they are doing "philosophy" in any way similar to Socrates (not that dissimilarity is bad).
Here's the comment I wanted to leave on Professor Cholbi's site (I decided not to since I didn't want to be obnoxious, and thought it didn't quite answer the questions he posed, which only grad students and philosophy professors are capable of answering):
His second post, Was Socrates so great anyway?, caught my attention, especially in light of Richard Rorty's recent death. Rorty worked hard to argue, as Derrida did, that philosophy was basically just another literary genre. The relevant upshot is that philosophy shouldn't necessarily be seen as a perennial human activity. Like Victorian literature, Homeric epic poetry, and Punk music, philosophy is mostly just something Socrates did. The fact that it has a historical legacy, and numerous transformations through the ages, shouldn't make those who practice "philosophy" nowadays think they are doing "philosophy" in any way similar to Socrates (not that dissimilarity is bad).
Here's the comment I wanted to leave on Professor Cholbi's site (I decided not to since I didn't want to be obnoxious, and thought it didn't quite answer the questions he posed, which only grad students and philosophy professors are capable of answering):
I think this all depends on how one understands the history of philosophy, and whether the word 'philosophy' means the same thing to us as it did to Plato.
Some people in the 'philosophy' profession treat it as a narrow academic niche concerned with specific problems inaugurated by presently practicing professors (i.e., Kuhnian standard practioners).
Other see it as dealing with perennial problems (or combine the above attitude with their work, claiming that recently inaugurated problems are perennial).
Then there are those who attempt to practice philosophy the same way Socrates practiced philosophy. Or there are those who see philosophy as just another genre of literature.
I suspect the third and fourth groups I mentioned would respect Socrates, while the second group might treat him the same way medical science treats Galen. I doubt the first group has much use for him.
Labels: philosophy
