The Faith of a Heretic

Philosophy and Revolution

When philosophers speak, as they often do, of a revolution in philosophy, they generally refer to what is variously called analytic, linguistic, or ordinary language philosophy. They mean the kind of philosophy that developed at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge on the eve of the Second World War. Since the war, it has spread to the United States and become far more influential among professional philosophers than any other single philosophic movement, emphatically including pragmatism and existentialism. This new philosophy owes a great deal to Wittgenstein’s later teaching and his posthumously published books. It is also indebted to the work of G. E. Moore (1873–1958), to whose chair at Cambridge Wittgenstein succeeded. But the place where this kind of philosophy flourishes more than anywhere else is Oxford.

Few, if any, philosophers of this type see the history of philosophy in the way proposed in the previous chapter, and an alternative view that is widely shared by competent philosophers deserves our consideration. Moreover, some profound changes really have taken place in twentieth-century philosophy—changes that I have not taken into account so far, although they pose special problems for the enterprise attempted in this book.

Let us begin with the so-called revolution and then go on to consider some of these changes. Throughout, the point will be not to run down what others are doing; but, in Lincoln’s celebrated words, “if we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it.”

This undertaking is hazardous. Our best literary and philosophic criticism tends toward the microscopic, and reflections on entire movements or on “whither we are tending” are often animadversions. Hence, such attempts are suspect and prone to be misunderstood.

There are two unhelpful precedents. First, one can hide behind statistics, à la mode. That way one can have one’s critical analysis and eat one’s popular acclaim, too. If the prophets came back and used this procedure, they would be received gladly and dent no one. Happily, this dodge is not available in philosophy.

Second: there are the examples of two ancient philosophers. Heraclitus singled out for criticism men of the first rank, but made a point of speaking of them disrespectfully, even abusively. Socrates, in the Apology, insisted that he had concentrated on the greatest reputations of his time; and apparently he did his best to ridicule these men in public, catching them in verbal snares, not always fairly, to deflate them and to let the audience that had gathered laugh at them. Far more than Whistler, who coined the delightful phrase, both philosophers were masters of “the gentle art of making enemies.” Such techniques had a point when anti-authoritarianism took its first steps against overwhelming odds. But to illustrate the difficulty of the quest for honesty, it will be best to concentrate throughout this book on men whom I admire and respect.

When names are mentioned, there ought not to be the least presumption that their choice is prompted by resentment or hostility. It is widely believed that strong affection precludes basic disagreements, but this popular conceit is incompatible with high standards of honesty.

As far as the present chapter is concerned, there may not be many basic disagreements with the major figures. I may be at odds more with their influence than with them; and in philosophy one should not blame men too much for their influence, which is usually in large measure unfortunate.

It is a little book of BBC lectures that bears the title, and has popularized the notion, of The Revolution in Philosophy. In his introduction to that volume, Professor Gilbert Ryle of Oxford University makes no claim that there has been a revolution and insists with plausible modesty that it is much too early to judge the achievements of the movement with which he is associated. But many others have been less reticent than Ryle. And nobody could quarrel with one of his younger Oxford colleagues, Geoffrey Warnock, when he begins the last chapter of his account of English Philosophy Since 1900 by saying: “Philosophy in the last fifty years has often been said, both by its friends and its enemies, to have undergone a ‘revolution.’” The question remains whether what has often been said is also true.

At the very least, there has been a revolution in Oxford philosophy since Ryle succeeded R. G. Collingwood as Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy. Collingwood was a highly individualistic idealist, much closer to Croce and Hegel, though not to the popular misconceptions about Hegel, than to Bradley and Bosanquet and other British idealists. Now any form of philosophic idealism, in the technical sense of that word, is practically extinct at Oxford, and most of the dons, and almost all who have influence, work in the tradition of Moore and Wittgenstein, not in that of Hegel and Bradley.

Such labels as “linguistic” or “analytic” philosophy are sometimes resented because, for the reasons given above, good philosophers generally do not care for labels. Still, it is useful sometimes to be able to lump many men together to stress that they have something in common, without denying that they are thoughtful individuals, not members of a party. Some of these philosophers are touchy on this point and disclaim emphatically that they belong to any school of thought; but, for all that, their publications generally leave no doubt, any more than their conversation, as to who belongs and who does not, who “does philosophy” the way “one does philosophy” and who does not. And when there is talk of a revolution in philosophy, the whole point is that now “we do philosophy” quite differently from the way it was done formerly.

Nor is this change confined to Oxford. There has been a radical shift in the tone and temper of “English philosophy since 1900,” allowing for a few outsiders and survivals from earlier times, and not judging merits for the moment. This change has not greatly affected continental European or South American philosophy, but it is very notable in most of the leading colleges and universities in the United States.

How should one describe the change? One could emphasize the frequent appeal to ordinary language and the popularity of such locutions as “wouldn’t it be very odd to say … ?” and “doesn’t this sound rather queer?” To evaluate this strategy, one would have to consider how it works in the hands of competent practitioners—and we should be led away from our primary concerns. But another aspect of the so-called revolution in twentieth-century philosophy takes us straight back to some of the central themes sounded in the previous chapter, especially in Wittgenstein’s wonderful letter.

Warnock says: “It is at any rate certain that questions of ‘belief’—questions of religious, moral, political, or generally ‘cosmic’” variety—are seldom if at all directly dealt with in contemporary philosophy. Why is this so? The first part of an answer to this question can easily be given: There is a very large number of questions, not of that variety, which philosophers find themselves more interested in discussing.”

One might doubt whether a mere shift of interest deserves to be called a revolution, until one realizes what most of these philosophers are prepared to relinquish: they no longer “try to think really honestly about your life & other people’s lives.” And they do not only abdicate one of the noblest functions of philosophy as a matter of individual choice but they hail this surrender as a major advance and discourage others from carrying the quest for honesty into less academic questions. Since so many highly intelligent and deeply humane people take this view, it will be well to consider their reasons, if only briefly.

“Religious, moral, political, or generally ‘cosmic’” questions are not considered the business of philosophers because philosophers do not seem to possess any special qualifications for dealing with them; and if one holds a post in a university, along with natural and social scientists, one ought to have some specialized professional competence, else one is an impostor.

What, then, is the proper function of philosophy? In an early essay on “Systematically Misleading Expressions,” Ryle argued that the analysis of such expressions “is what philosophical analysis is, and this is the sole and whole function of philosophy.” Oddly, this statement itself is seriously “misleading”: it is a recommendation disguised as a description. And taken at face value, as a description, the statement is plainly false. If you look up what any good dictionary says about philosophy, or if you read any good history of philosophy, you find that the analysis of systematically misleading expressions has plainly not been “the sole and whole function of philosophy”; nor is it today, unless you refuse to call philosophy what those philosophers are doing who do not confine themselves to such analysis.

Such analyses can be of great importance, and I have nothing against them. The analysis of theism, atheism, and agnosticism in Section 9 could be easily assimilated to this genre, and at the end of the next chapter I shall deal with some misleading expressions concerning commitment. But the claim that the analysis of systematically misleading expressions is, or ought to be, “the sole and whole function of philosophy” remains arbitrary and implausible. One can try to remove its sting by pointing out how much traditional philosophy could be presented in this form; and one could even empty the claim of all meaning by arguing that, with some ingenuity, everything that a philosopher might wish to do could be forced into this mold. In his later books, The Concept of Mind and Dilemmas, Ryle showed sufficient scope, without repudiating his early dictum, to have led some admirers to adopt one or the other of these two views. In that case, however, no revolution in philosophy has ever been attempted. But this seems false.

Surely, Ryle’s point—and the point of the attempted revolution—was that philosophers should cease to occupy themselves with empirical data because they lack any special competence to deal with these: such data should be left to scientists or historians, while philosophers should stick to analysis—for example, of systematically misleading expressions. But while they oppose any trespasses into the domains of colleagues in other fields, the linguistic philosophers themselves trespass into linguistics. If they should plead that there is still a dearth of professional linguists, two very damning answers are possible and mutually compatible.

First, there may be a dearth of professionals in other fields. If philosophers are justified in trespassing on vacant lots, or vacant regions of other men’s fields, this description does not fit linguistics only. Second: even as various other sciences have gradually broken away from philosophy and gained autonomy—psychology and sociology quite recently—linguistics is a field in which academic chairs and departments are being created even now. What, then, is to become of philosophy in another few years? Should philosophers close up shop? Or should not philosophers rather resist the growing trend toward specialization and trespass freely?

The best linguistic philosophers have noted things that linguists without thorough philosophic training did not see. The moral is obvious: philosophy of religion and political philosophy need not be abandoned any more than philosophy of science or of language; but the man who ventures into other fields should have some extraphilosophic competence. If he does, he stands a fair chance of making contributions that political scientists and politicians, theologians and preachers, physicists and philologists would be much less likely to make.

Some philosophers feel that if a philosopher has such a dual competence it may be all right for him to put it to use, though they doubt that any resulting essay could be classified as philosophy. Moreover, they see no special reason why philosophers should master the techniques of other subjects and labor in other fields. Men in physics and psychology, political science and theology, might just as well study philosophy.

So they might; but the primary question is whether the job is important and worth doing. If it is, there is not much point in insisting that somebody else could do it just as well, though admittedly no more easily. Moreover, if such efforts are needed, philosophers have less excuse for not undertaking them than anybody else; for in philosophy attempts of this sort are traditional, and shying away from them involves a deliberate abandonment of this tradition.

Some of the pre-Socratics were no mean scientists. The Sophists were pioneering students of grammar. Aristotle was a polymath. Descartes and Leibniz were topflight mathematicians. Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise made first-rate contributions to the critical study of the Bible. Hobbes kept up with the science of his day and also translated Thucydides and Homer. Hume was a historian. Kant formulated the so-called Kant-Laplace theory of the origin of the solar system and also wrote an essay to demonstrate the need for a “League of Nations.” Hegel was an outstanding historian. Nietzsche, according to Freud, “had a more penetrating knowledge of himself than any other man who ever lived or was ever likely to live,” and his “insights often agree in the most amazing manner with the laborious results of psychoanalysis.”

Perhaps Hobbes’s translation of Thucydides was a mere sideline, almost a hobby? This is admittedly an extreme case, but even here it is likely that not only Hobbes’s superb prose style profited from this effort but also his political philosophy. Such a translation is not on a par with Spinoza’s making a living by grinding lenses; it is much closer to Spinoza’s Biblical studies which were closely related to his political philosophy. Similarly, Kant’s great Idea for a Universal History with Cosmopolitan Intent (1784) contains his philosophy of history and introduces the “League of Nations” in that context. Confining philosophers to linguistic analyses and discouraging them from dealing with the empirical data of other fields would lead to an unfortunate impoverishment of philosophy, also of humanity.

What at first glance may seem to be no more than a shift of interest is in fact a symptom of a much more basic change. Philosophy has become academic because almost all twentieth-century philosophers write in academics, as Descartes and Spinoza, Leibniz and Locke, Bacon and Berkeley, Hobbes and Hume did not. What is new is that philosophy has become a profession—a job rather than a vocation.

If this should seem an impressionistic distinction, the point can be quantified, too: the most fundamental change in philosophy is that formerly there were perhaps a dozen men engaged in it at any one time, give or take a few, while today there are thousands.

Near the end of his book, Warnock rightly calls attention to the philosophic journals. Indeed, until some time after 1950, most Oxford philosophers considered it definitely not “U” to publish books: “one” wrote for the journals and let German and American philosophers write books. In the fifties there was a sudden change and it became quite fashionable to write little books, like Warnock’s. He does not mention this, but he notes with entire justice: “This new professional practice of submitting problems and arguments to the expert criticism of fellow craftsmen led to a growing concern with questions of technique.” More controversially, he charges the public with “a vague feeling that the total amateur ought not to be disqualified from engaging in what was, so recently, an amateurish pursuit.”

Such remarks about amateurs are often heard. Sometimes people in armchairs are introduced as an elegant variation. But such ploys are easily turned round. It is surely one reason for the popularity of the new philosophy that any bright young man can play; he needs no special knowledge, only a command of “U” English. Even a bad paper on this kind of philosophy is likely to elicit an intense discussion: it breaks the ice better than two martinis. It is all good fun once you get the hang of it, and there is room for some to show a special flair and to excel. All this is very well; but it is ironical when the participants look down on traditional philosophy as “an amateurish pursuit.”

There have always been amateurs, and there are more than ever now. But the great philosophers accepted some responsibilities that most analytic philosophers decline. They were interested in “questions of ‘belief’—questions of religious, moral, political, or generally ‘cosmic’ variety”; and they tried to think “honestly about your life and other people’s lives.” If Kant, Hume, and Spinoza had written only for “fellow craftsmen,” there would not have been any need to print their works: circulating the manuscript would have done the trick. It does not follow that their practice of addressing non-philosophers, too, made their work less important—on the contrary.

The main reason for our many philosophic journals is, of course, that suddenly there are thousands of men professionally engaged in the subject—thousands who have to publish now and then to gain some recognition, to win raises and promotions, and to show themselves and fellow members of their “association” that they are both physically and mentally alive. Quotation from a letter of recommendation in 1960: “During the last year he has published three times.”

What used to be a rare vocation for uncommon individuals who took a bold stand has become an industry involving legions. Naturally, the whole tone and level of discussion had to change. When there are over a thousand colleges in one country, and most of them have departments of philosophy, many of them with a dozen or more members, it would be ridiculous if every professional tried to emulate Spinoza’s Ethics; or if they urged millions of students in their courses to write something like Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature, Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects. But the reason why it would be absurd is not that these books were written by amateurs, perhaps in armchairs; nor even that the Treatise, like some other philosophic classics, was the work of a young man in his twenties. It would be bizarre only because these books are so great and so bold.

The new, professional philosopher does not vie with the great philosophers of former ages but with other men in his own age group in the other departments of his college. He may well be older than Berkeley and Hume were when they wrote their masterpieces, but he would be likely to make a fool of himself if he stuck out his neck as they did. It is far safer and much more prudent to insist on being a professional. One publishes papers in learned journals, often employs symbols even when they are dispensable, and uses a jargon that stumps everybody but fellow professionals. Perhaps the average paper now is better than the average paper fifty years ago: that would hardly be a great compliment; and, to be sure about it, one would have to compare thousands of papers. Life is too short for that.

No doubt, philosophers, like their colleagues, should have their own journals. What is appalling is not the quality of most papers but the suggestion that we should look down condescendingly on the great “amateurs” of former times and do our best to prevent any recurrence.

In a fine passage in Beyond Good and Evil (§ 212), Nietzsche says that, traditionally, the great philosopher has always stood “in opposition to his today.” Philosophers have been “the bad conscience of their time.” They knew “of a new greatness of man, of a new untrodden way to his enhancement…. Confronted with a world of ‘modern ideas,’ which would banish everybody into a corner and a ‘specialty,’ a philosopher—if there could be any philosophers today—would be forced to define the greatness of man, the concept of ‘greatness,’ in terms precisely of man’s comprehensiveness and multiplicity, his wholeness in manifoldness.” After some illustrations from the sixteenth century and some remarks about Socrates, Nietzsche continues; “Today, conversely, when only the herd animal is honored and dispenses honors in Europe, and when ‘equality of rights’ could all too easily be converted into an equality in violating rights—by that I mean, into a common war on all that is rare, strange, or privileged, on the higher man, the higher soul, the higher duty, the higher responsibility, and on the wealth of creative power and mastery—today the concept of ‘greatness’ entails being noble, wanting to be by oneself, being capable of being different, standing alone, and having to live independently….” Thus, in 1886. Wittgenstein would have fully understood.

In some ways the so-called revolution in philosophy is counterrevolutionary: its influence leads men away from trying to stand alone; it would banish philosophers “into a corner and a specialty.” It teaches young philosophers not to become heretics or revolutionaries because they lack any special qualifications for that. Yet it might be part of a philosopher’s task to acquire the necessary qualifications. Of course, not everybody can do that; but to say that what not all can do, none should even try to do, is a recipe for mediocrity—“a common war on all that is rare, strange, and privileged.”

Instead of speaking of a revolution in philosophy, it might be more accurate to speak of a great crisis in philosophy. In some ways it is comparable to the crisis in modern religion. The great progress in the sciences has made many traditional beliefs, tenets, and assumptions highly problematic, if not untenable. As a result, some theologians have reinterpreted many old beliefs—to the point where some thoughtful people have begun to wonder what, if any, meaning remains. The old beliefs were clear but are now given up as false; the reinterpreted beliefs, which are said to be immune to all scientific advances, are often highly elusive and perhaps in some instances mere formulas devoid of any clear content.

For once, the philosophers excel the theologians in one-upmanship. Instead of conceding that the progress of science has produced a major crisis in philosophy because so many doctrines of traditional philosophy have now come to appear naïve or false, many philosophers speak cheerfully and proudly of a revolution in philosophy. Yet a great heritage has been called into question, in philosophy as well as in religion; the great names of over twenty centuries are suddenly in danger; and it is no longer clear whether the great classics should be taught.

The story goes that a famous contemporary philosopher was offered a position at a leading university, but refused it when told that among other things he should have to teach Plato. Allegedly he replied; “I shall teach only the truth.” The story is probably apocryphal: one would hardly insist that a celebrated man teach a course he would rather not teach. But this legend illustrates the crisis. It also raises the question whether, instead of charging modern philosophers with one-upmanship, one ought not rather to congratulate them on their honesty because they openly break with tradition. But scarcely any contemporary philosophers go so far as the positivist in this story, and the story itself is considered grotesque and something of a joke among philosophers.

One might liken the situation in philosophy to that in the sciences rather than to that in religion, if most philosophers did break with tradition as much as the man in our story; if recent philosophers towered above Plato and Aristotle, Kant and Spinoza; and if contemporary philosophy were as manifestly superior to previous philosophy as modern science is to previous science. But while in the sciences there are giants who need not fear comparison with the greatest innovators of the past, and there are literally scores of topflight scientists who have made revolutionary discoveries and propounded far-reaching theories, the whole atmosphere in English-speaking philosophy is marked by a pervasive mistrust of giants and of far-reaching theories. Not only is scope sacrificed for frequently unsuccessful attempts at rigor but theory, once almost synonymous with philosophy, is widely abandoned in order to obtain agreement about facts. If one stopped teaching Plato and the other traditional philosophers, so little would be left that the contrast with the sciences would stare us in the face. Hence, one has recourse to a double standard.

One continues to teach Plato and, occasional jibes at amateurs notwithstanding, generally looks up to the giants of the past. Indeed, in the English-speaking world a reputation in philosophy can still be built by writing about Plato or the pre-Socratics, Hegel or Nietzsche, but it cannot be built by writing as they did. The situation parallels that in religion, not that in the sciences. In our seminaries and in college Departments of Religion, it is respectable to write and dote on Kierkegaard or other, greater figures of the more remote past; but woe unto the man who emulates them!

In philosophy it is respectable to give elaborate accounts of bygone theories on matters on which it would not be respectable to theorize oneself. Similarly, an exposition of Kant’s, Hegel’s, or Nietzsche’s criticisms of Christianity is considered a worthwhile and useful contribution which deserves an honored place in philosophic journals, even if the criticisms summarized should be unsound. But the very same people who are grateful for a documented exposition of past criticisms are far from grateful for contemporary criticisms of Christianity, even if some of the strictures should be more judicious. To report other men’s unsound criticisms is considered worthy of a philosopher; to offer sound criticisms of Christianity on one’s own is not considered part of a philosopher’s job.

Fleetingly, one might wonder whether the situation in philosophy might not resemble that in history: a historian is expected to write about Napoleon, not to emulate him. But this analogy is utterly misleading. Napoleon himself was not a historian, and the historian who writes about him does not suppose he was. Philosophers, on the other hand, write about past philosophers who are considered sufficiently great and important as philosophers to render competent discussions of their work deserving of a place in philosophic journals, while essays in the vein in which these past philosophers themselves wrote are conspicuously absent from the journals.

No doubt, many factors are at work here, but the most important is the vast prestige of science. The advice which members of the American Philosophical Association received in the mail in 1960 is profoundly symptomatic: “… many research applications from philosophers compare unfavorably with applications from scholars in other fields. We believe this impression is due, in part, to the fact that Foundation and University Research Committees have become accustomed to the appearance of precision and definiteness in scientific projects. Philosophical investigations, in many instances, do not have precise and narrow limits. In order to overcome this handicap, our Committee makes a few suggestions: Design: Specify a proposition to be verified or a well-defined area to be explored, Or give as much definiteness to your proposal as possible by: A. Stating the problem or group of problems on which you propose to work; B. Outlining a plan of work; C. If you wish to collaborate with other scholars, indicate the nature and extent of the collaboration….”

Philosophers have no preference for the history of philosophy as such. On the contrary, owing in part to the insufficient emphasis on languages in the American secondary school system, most American philosophers are handicapped in this field. What they want is agreement about facts, progress in the accumulation of knowledge, a clear-cut contribution. The history of philosophy is merely one area in which such agreement may be obtainable. Reading the advice on research applications, one sees at a glance that research on Spinoza’s Ethics or Plato’s Republic is respectable, particularly if the applicant should stress the “precise and narrow limits” of his project and confine himself to certain aspects of the masterpiece on which he wants to write. But suppose that Plato or Spinoza had applied!

“I should like to write a book of medium length, dealing with God, man, and the world. I envisage five short parts, the first dealing with God, the second with the nature and the origin of mind, the third with the nature and the origin of the emotions. I contemplate no laboratory work and no collaboration—in fact, strictly speaking, no research. I propose to sit in my armchair and think. At home. No travel contemplated. No need to go to libraries or seek out fellow scholars. If time permits, I shall deal in the last two parts with human bondage and the power of the emotions, and with the power of the intellect and human liberty. I find it difficult to state the problem or the group of problems on which I propose to work because, frankly, there are few problems with which I don’t propose to deal. Expected result: one short book. Sincerely, B. Spinoza.”

“I want to write a dialogue, somewhat under 300 printed pages in length. It will begin with a discussion of justice, but later on I hope to deal with all the virtues and with other problems of importance for moral philosophy. Actually, the major topic will be political philosophy, and I am planning to develop at some length my own conception of an ideal state. More briefly, near the end, I shall criticize all the major forms of government now in existence. I have done some traveling in the past and have had some contact with philosophers and statesmen; there is no need for further travel or consultations now. Nor do I need the resources of any library. All I require is an armchair and some peace and quiet. In any case, the criticism of the various forms of government will be quite brief. I hope to devote far more space to metaphysics, theory of knowledge, my ideas about education, literary criticism, and theology. I do not mean to preclude the possibility that, as I write, some other subjects may swim into view and cry out to be brought in, too. What I want to write is a well organized book—indeed, a beautifully organized book—but at this stage I am not quite ready to tell you in what way some of these topics will be introduced: that will become clear to me only as I write—perhaps only as I rewrite, and continue to rewrite, my book. If it should turn out in the end that I have omitted any important problems or group of problems, I propose to make up for that by shortly dealing with such problems in other dialogues. Collaboration is out of the question. As for the title, I have not decided yet; but I think I shall choose a single word, probably some comprehensive label. Perhaps I should add that I am not at all sure whether my philosophy admits of verbal formulation. I rather think that it does not. What really matters is not to arrive at assured results that can be assimilated by reading my book but rather to strike some sparks, and probably the book will not be fully understood by anyone except those who have spent a few years working closely with me. Even they might not get what matters most to me. But such is philosophy. The greatest philosopher that ever lived—my master, Socrates—never even tried to teach results. Some people say he taught a method; but there is no agreement among those who knew him best just what this method was. Anyway, my master was put to death for his teachings. Hoping for your support, Yours, Plato.”

Such applications would “compare unfavorably with applications from scholars in other fields,” and “Research Committees have become accustomed to the appearance of precision and definiteness in scientific projects,” They would not be likely to act favorably on such projects, while a secondary, historical study, with “precise and narrow limits,” might well be supported. The irony of the contemporary situation in philosophy is best brought out by adding that the advice to America’s philosophers that has been quoted came from the “Committee to Advance Original [!] Work in Philosophy.”

The situation being what it is, the Research Committees are not to be blamed. As chairman of a major one, I can vouch that no promising young man would submit a project like the two proposed here; and if a project did look like this, there would be every presumption that the applicant was muddleheaded, and that any number of others were more deserving. The point of this chapter is not to accuse committees, dons, or any alleged conspiracy of sinister powers; it is rather to see how philosophy has changed, and how the present situation differs from that in former ages.

Some of the most brilliant and original minds now go into physics and other sciences where boldness and disciplined imagination may achieve great triumphs. A remark attributed to David Hilbert, the great mathematician, sounds less paradoxical now than a few decades ago. When a student abandoned mathematics to write novels, Hilbert commented: “It was just as well; he did not have enough imagination to become a first-rate mathematician.”

Of those who do become philosophers, many of the brightest go into symbolic logic—the one branch of philosophy that resembles mathematics. Here precision is at home; one can compel the agreement of fellow scholars, make genuine contributions, and score advances. A large number of the best minds also go into analytic philosophy. If one follows the lead of the young Ryle and analyzes misleading expressions, there is hope that one can reach agreement and make clear-cut contributions. Others take their cue from Professor J. L. Austin (1911–60), also of Oxford, whose skill at linguistic analysis was blended with a rare sense of humor and a still more exceptional moral authority that issued from the force of his personality and his high standards of honesty. In his classical account of his method, in “A Plea for Excuses,” he declared: “Our common stock of words embodies all the distinctions men have found worth drawing, and the connexions they have found worth marking, in the lifetimes of many generations: these surely are likely to be more … sound, since they have stood up to the long test of the survival of the fittest, … than any you or I are likely to think up in our armchairs of an afternoon—the most favoured alternative method” (8). Fine distinctions in ordinary language may help to call our attention to important differences, and Austin excelled at noting small discrepancies between apparent synonyms. In fact, he so immersed himself in work of this kind that he rarely deigned to point out philosophic implications; and occasionally he said pointedly, perhaps with just a touch of irony, that we are not ready for “philosophical” questions.

The trouble with “religious, moral, political, or generally ‘cosmic’” questions is that one despairs of reaching agreement and is therefore unsure what might constitute a worthwhile contribution. If one does deal with ethics, one goes into “meta-ethics.” Urmson’s Concise Encyclopedia of Western Philosophy and Philosophers distinguishes “(1) Moral questions: for example, ‘Ought I to do that?’; ‘Is polygamy wrong?’ … (2) Questions of fact about people’s moral opinions: for example, ‘What did Mohammed (or … what do I myself) in fact think (or say) about the rightness or wrongness of polygamy?’ (3) Questions about the meaning of moral words (for example, ‘ought,’ ‘right,’ ‘good,’ ‘duty’); or about the nature of the concepts or the ‘things’ to which these words ‘refer’: for example, ‘When Mohammed said that polygamy is not wrong, what was he saying?’ These three sorts of questions being quite distinct, the use of the word ‘ethics’ to embrace attempts to answer all three is confusing, and is avoided by the more careful modern writers…. We shall distinguish between (1) morals, (2) descriptive ethics, and (3) ethics, corresponding to the three sorts of questions listed above.” Most analytic philosophers favor “confining the word ‘ethics’ (used without qualification) to the third sort of question,” though some students prefer “the more guarded terms ‘the logic of ethics,’ ‘metaethics,’” or various other locutions.

The same distinctions apply to the philosophy of religion, political philosophy, and other fields. The few analytic philosophers who have gone into these fields have dealt with The Vocabulary of Politics, to cite the title of a book, or with “religious language.” Here again there is some hope of reaching agreement and making a definite contribution.

The threefold distinction is certainly helpful, and the clarification of the meaning of moral or religious words is important. The wish to make a clear-cut contribution is legitimate and reasonable, and there is nothing wrong with turning to these fields.

Still, it is notable that traditional philosophy did not stop with “meta” questions. It somehow stood between the sciences and literature. Plato required the study of mathematics as a prerequisite for the study of philosophy, and he was immensely interested in significant terms; but, for all that, it is doubtful that he aimed at making a “contribution” any more than Sophocles, Shakespeare, or Goethe did. And we still look upon the books of great philosophers of former ages more the way we look at Sophocles’, Shakespeare’s, or Goethe’s works than the way a scientist looks at the classics in his field. The writings of Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, and Kant are philosophy in a sense in which we should not think of saying that the works of Archimedes or Copernicus are science. The great philosophers did make contributions, as was acknowledged in Chapter II; but the primary reason for reading Plato or Kant is not to absorb these contributions or to gain historical knowledge, though these are, of course, perfectly legitimate secondary reasons. In philosophy, as in literature but not in science, objectionable views and arguments are no sufficient reason for not studying the works of a great writer.

The best British analytic philosophers have retained literary quality far more than their American cousins. It is not just that Ryle writes superb English, or that Austin had a highly individual style—perhaps his essay on “Pretending” is the most hilarious piece of philosophy ever written—or that Professor John Wisdom of Cambridge also has a manner all his own. The point is rather that one learns easily as much from their highly personal way of looking and going at things as from any results they contribute.

One of the most important parts of any education is to learn to understand views different from one’s own and to outgrow the narrow-mindedness and lack of intellectual imagination that cling to us from our childhood. Dostoevsky does not condone murder, but Crime and Punishment and his other major novels change most readers’ attitudes toward criminals, toward other human beings, and, not least, toward themselves. Reading Plato and Spinoza also affects our attitudes toward men whose values and beliefs are different from our own and makes us see ourselves in a new light.

The great philosophers were for the most part heirs of Socrates, who claimed in the Apology that he was his city’s greatest benefactor. He prided himself on having fulfilled “the philosopher’s mission of searching into myself and other men”; on having shown that men who were considered wise both by themselves and by their fellow men were really not wise; and on having made his fellow citizens “ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth.” He likened himself to a gadfly that did not permit the conscience of his fellow citizens to fall asleep.

Toward the end of Plato’s Symposium, Alcibiades says of Socrates: “I have heard Pericles and other great orators, and I thought that they spoke well, but I never had any similar feeling; my soul was not stirred by them, nor was I angry at the thought of my own slavish state. But this Marsyas has often brought me to such a path, that I have felt as if I could hardly endure the life which I was leading…. He makes me confess that I ought not to live as I do.”

Spinoza and Nietzsche have a comparable impact; and while few other great philosophers approximate the eloquence of Socrates’ Apology, almost all of them issue a similar challenge. This challenge is not quite the same as that we encounter in great plays and novels: the philosophers make us ashamed of our lack of thoughtfulness, our slovenly habits of mind, our slothful intellects. This is also true of Wittgenstein and Wisdom, Ryle and Austin, even if they seem at times to lean over backward to hide that unprofessional challenge—and it therefore escapes some of their students and followers.

Almost all outstanding philosophers echo Socrates’ great dictum that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Of course, the philosophers are often wrong themselves; but some of their errors only serve to reinforce their challenge. The program of a Descartes or a Kant may set a student’s mind afire, while their shortcomings may reassure him that not everything worth doing has been done.

To deal well with problems that are crucial for “your life and other people’s lives” is extremely difficult; and in the light of the best work of the analytic philosophers, much traditional philosophy appears sadly inadequate. If most philosophers want to confine themselves to less dramatic and more manageable problems, that is surely sensible.

Spinoza concluded his Ethics by saying: “Everything excellent is as difficult as it is rare.” That is no reason why everybody should renounce the quest for excellence. And even those who discount Socrates’ proud claim that “no greater good has ever happened in the state than my service” might well admit that the Socratic gadfly makes a contribution, too; and if that is not philosophy, what is it?

In a sense, every truly great philosopher has revolutionized philosophy: that is one of the criteria of greatness in philosophy. In our histories of philosophy we concentrate on those who left some lasting mark, who somehow changed the course of subsequent philosophy, as Plato did, or Aristotle, or Descartes, or Kant. After Hegel, during the nineteenth century, the European philosophic community ceased to exist. Toward the end of that century, Nietzsche still exerted an enormous influence on French and German thought, but not on the English-speaking world. There is then a sense in which there has not been a revolution in philosophy in general since Kant or Hegel. At most, there have been local revolutions: possibly pragmatism in the United States, though it is very doubtful whether Peirce, James, or Dewey really effected any basic and enduring change; perhaps existentialism on the European continent; and analytic philosophy in England and in the United States. But even insofar as analytic philosophy involves a local revolution, it has had a counterrevolutionary aspect. It would be tempting to conclude: what matters is not to revolutionize philosophy, but to make philosophy once again revolutionary.

Yet it would be folly to suggest that all philosophers ought to be doing the same thing. It is no cause for regret that not every philosopher is a self-appointed critic of the age. But it would be a shame if everybody waited to criticize until appointed, as if one became a gadfly by appointment.

There is no single central tradition in philosophy, and men with different interests and inclinations have no difficulty in appealing to divergent precedents. A critic who protests his fellow philosophers’ growing preoccupation with agreement need not conclude that all philosophers ought to agree. On the contrary, he should protest against the many pressures brought to bear on young philosophers to ensure that almost all of them are in agreement that “doing philosophy” precludes being a gadfly.

That philosophers disagree is no cause for shame and no objection to philosophy. To the most important questions, several answers are defensible; and most answers are reprehensible. Most answers are thoughtless, conflict with relevant evidence, or involve confusions, inconsistencies, and fallacies.

Scylla, the rock, thinks her own position the only one that is respectable. Charybdis, the whirlpool, considers all outlooks equally tenable. A virtuoso can triumphantly defend alternative positions. Charybdis, her mind reeling, concludes giddily that all religions and philosophies, all moral codes and works of art are on a par. Scylla, with a mind of stone, resists all reasoning and insists that she alone is right.

Petrified dogmatism and the eddies of relativism are equally unworthy of philosophers. They should sift the tenable from the untenable, criticize what is false, especially when it is popular, and develop with care plausible alternatives to what is long familiar. Let one man champion one alternative, and his fellow another: fear of disagreement is for a philosopher what fear of getting hurt is for a soldier—cowardice. And delight in a revolution that has brought an end to widespread disagreement on important questions would be uncomfortably close to rejoicing that philosophy “is in his grave; after life’s fitful fever he sleeps well.”

Let some philosophers analyze misleading expressions while others note discrepancies between synonyms; let some study the meaning of moral terms while others become logicians and still others write on Plato; and let a few continue to reflect on “moral questions,” in the hope that those who have given some thought to metaethics and to the literature on both “morals” and meta-ethics might be able to say something worthwhile about “morals.” And let some philosophers deal with religious questions, in the hope that those who have thought about the meaning of religious terms and studied the literature on religious terms, on diverse religious views, and on religious questions might be able to contribute something to the discussion of religious questions. Even if such hopes should not be realized in the individual case, they are surely reasonable, and the tradition is therefore worth continuing: if we fail, others may learn from our mistakes and do better.

Similar considerations apply to form. Let some philosophers favor the monograph, and others more artistic forms. Clearly, the scholarly monograph is the best way of making some kinds of contributions; but it would be a pity if the monographic mind monopolized the field. Let us remember that most of the finest philosophic classics were not monographs; for example, Plato’s Symposium and Plato’s Republic, Hobbes’s Leviathan and Spinoza’s Ethics, Hume’s Treatise and Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Hegel’s Phenomenology of the Spirit, and the whole lot of Nietzsche’s books.

Each form has its dangers. They are too numerous to catalogue. One obvious danger of the monograph is pedantry (see § 4). But pedantry will always be with us. The prophets scorned it, but some of the Talmudic rabbis carried it to new heights. Jesus opposed it, but at the church councils it reached unprecedented triumphs. It is not the shadow of science, but found in all ages: the misguided aping of the natural sciences is merely one form of pedantry—to which Schiller’s verse applies:

How he coughs and how he spits

Is quickly aped by lesser wits.

Pedantry is the mode in which the relatively uncreative can be endlessly creative. Since creativity flags even in creative geniuses, some of the very greatest, too, have sometimes sought security on the crutches of pedantry—including, for example, Thomas, Kant, and Hegel.

Obviously, an aversion to pedantry is no guarantee of any worth; and no philosopher has ever supposed that it was. Pretentious non-pedants of little or no substance are legion.

Artistic modes of expression are likely to be merely suggestive and needlessly inconclusive. One is apt to be treated to a brilliant display of epigrammatic fireworks, but sometimes the writer does not stick long enough with any point to show us what might be said for it and what against it. Everything remains at the level of a suggestion, and little is done to help us decide whether the suggestions are good or bad. It is at this point that the monograph may seem to have its strength; but actually many articles of the best analytic philosophers are strangely inconclusive, too. No form is a panacea.

Some philosophers want to get across their experience of philosophy, too—that way of life in which the particular problems they treat are merely episodes. They recall, and take seriously, Plato’s disdain, in his Seventh Letter, for “those who are not genuine philosophers but painted over with opinions” and his insistence that there neither was nor ever would be any written work of his containing his own philosophy: “for this cannot be formulated like other doctrines; but through continued application to the subject itself and living with it, a spark is suddenly struck in the soul as by leaping fire, and then grows by itself” (340 f.).

A philosopher may try to communicate what, as he knows, cannot be communicated to everybody. He may exert himself to strike a spark here and there in a mind that is ready. He may hope that, though some readers will merely browse, whether to take offense or pleasure, others may, as it were, live with his book until the spark leaps over.

Nor is there only one way of sticking with a point—the monographic way. One may want to show how one point is related to others, how a judgment derives part of its meaning from its relation to other judgments, how a view that is seemingly clear appears in a different light when seen in a wider context. Microscopic work can be of the greatest importance; but it has no monopoly on importance, and not everything macroscopic is necessarily popular in the bad sense—or popular at all. The gadfly’s function is hardly a paradigm of popularity.

One can take up a single point and worry it as a dog worries a bone, though occasionally with more fruitful results. One can also ask oneself about the significance of a whole trend in philosophy, and be carried hence into reflection about commitment, and then theology, and then a non-theological approach to a theological problem, and a non-theological appraisal of our religious heritage, and the nature of organized religion, and morality. Such an attempt to spell out a comprehensive position does not have to be uncritical, merely inspirational, and unworthy of a philosopher. To be sure, the effort is more hazardous than a painstaking and detailed analysis of a single problem, and it is more likely to fail. But as Whitehead remarked in Modes of Thought, “Panic of error is the death of progress” (22). As long as one is aware of the dangers and warns one’s readers, instead of wearing the mantle of omniscience, the risk is hardly excessive: if the prose is clear, errors can be corrected.

Too many philosophers resemble Graham Greene—or, rather, try to: they strive for a competence that is always at its best—professional, craftsmanlike, even slick. Compared with Greene’s fiction, some of Camus’s seems amateurish: his fiction has flaws and sometimes does not quite achieve what it seems to aim for; it is not slick but approximate greatness.

This point received its classic statement from a somewhat amateurish poet who is in eclipse in our current period of professionalism—in poetry, too: it is the theme of Robert Browning’s long poem, Andrea del Sarto (Called “The Faultless Painter”). A few lines at least may conclude this argument:

Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,

Or what’s a Heaven for? all is silver-grey,

Placid and perfect with my art—the worse!

Then, looking at a work by Rafael (a curious choice—Browning’s, not mine):

That arm is wrongly put—and there again—

A fault to pardon in the drawing’s lines,

Its body, so to speak: its soul is right,

He means right—that, a child may understand.

Still, what an arm! and I could alter it….

I hardly dare—yet, only you to see,

Give the chalk here—quick, thus the line should go!

Ay, but the soul! he’s Rafael! rub it out!

The intellectual conscience of Socrates was superbly embodied by J. L. Austin, who also had a keen wit and a wonderful sense of humor. G. E. Moore, whose writings are lacking in humor, stood for the same heritage. And honesty that tries to live up to high standards is so rare that such men as these deserve ungrudging admiration. Still, it would be wrong to leave the case for Socrates’ other legacy, best symbolized by his own image of the gadfly, on an unduly defensive note. It would be wrong, as well as deeply un-Socratic, to ask merely that the gadfly, too, ought to be tolerated.

The anti-academic conception of philosophers as “the bad conscience of their time”—to cite Nietzsche’s phrase once more—was taken up to some extent by Sartre and Camus, though their philosophic works compare unfavorably with the writings of the best British philosophers in intellectual conscientiousness and carefulness, as will be shown later in this book.

In a lecture at the Sorbonne, in 1946, at the first general meeting of UNESCO, Sartre spoke on “The Responsibility of the Writer.” Like most of his non-fiction, the lecture is curiously uneven; and in the next chapter, on “Commitment,” I shall argue that it is a central weakness of existentialism that it does not adequately understand the nature of responsibility.

Sartre’s reach often exceeds his grasp; but his best is magnificent, and the following passage says powerfully what badly needs to be said. (The curious “if” will be discussed later, in Section 92.)

“If a writer has chosen to be silent on one aspect of the world, we have the right to ask him: Why have you spoken of this rather than that? And since you speak in order to make a change, since there is no other way you can speak, why do you want to change this rather than that? Why do you want to alter the way in which postage stamps are made rather than the way in which Jews are treated in an anti-Semitic country? And the other way around. He must therefore always answer the following questions: What do you want to change? Why this rather than that?”