Philosophy, what are you?

What is philosophy? Is it a science as analytic philosophers suggest? Does it reveal the Truth? If so, why are philosophers still asking the same questions that have been asked for centuries without coming any closer to the truth? For my MA thesis, I have worked through some of these ideas. My thesis concerns faith and reason -- a confrontation between the two revealed how philosophy has attempted to deal with its other -- and Kant's arguments against metaphysicians who wrangled endlessly about transcendental entities such as God and the soul, brought to light, the anxiety of philosophy as it attempts the truth in the face of natural sciences which were once a part of it. In the natural sciences, intersubjective assent is possible and the best argument wins through a formal method of inquiry (the scientific method). Philosophy is different.

Swedenborg, a mystic and scientist who claimed to speak to angels, described the condition of philosophy to the angels. He said that human beings have made little progress in reaching truth, “beyond terms, and certain shifting rules,” and that they continue to debate such basic questions as the nature of “form,” “substance,” “mind,” “soul” (Swedenborg, Arcana Coelestia, 175). At this, the spirits tell Swedenborg that such “artificial rules” render the subject senseless, and that essentially, the metaphysicians with their bickering “drag down the understanding into the dust,” and that such disputes are merely “feculent froth” (175). At times, despite the manner in which philosophy has changed me, I do feel its attempts to reach the truth are futile. Hegel writes a book, a book is written about the book, another book about that book, and another...and still, we ask what does Hegel really mean. Hegel meant X, but so what? What does that change? What is philosophy for?

Here, I am reminded of Hayden White who argues historians, like the scientists of yesteryear, have not decided upon what constitutes the proper historical enterprise. There are numerous interpretations of a particular historical event, depending on the diversity of the nomological-deductive arguments historians employ, and thus, there are numerous renditions of what the actual task of the historian constitutes. History, according to White, is in the same state of conceptual anarchy as were the natural sciences during the 16th century. Is this true of philosophy?

On the one hand, I think, philosophy should be as the analytic philosophers understand it. They claim to care about the truth (see: http://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/~swb24/reviews/Heidegger.htm). Heidegger and his ilk, the dreaded post-modern philosophers, deal with the truth too loosely. They don't seem to carefully reason through to their claims, their language is extremely difficult, they use concepts loosely, and such lack of clarity seems irresponsible -- but it isn't. These philosophers (more precisely Heidegger and Derrida whom I have read sufficiently enough to make a claim about, I hope), do not see concepts as the German Begriff entails, suggesting the physical act of grasping. Sometimes, the truth cannot be arrived at directly. One must be humble, merely hinting at it, instead of saying, "here, this is the truth." Such a position falls in line with the kind of humility I find in Heidegger. To this extent we can turn to his "Question Concerning Technology" --

Heidegger's discussion in the essay concerns the essence of technology -- what I understand as its nature, i.e. what is technology, at bottom? He says the contemporary understanding of technology is an entrapment. According to Heidegger, the common (and commonsensical) understanding of technology views it as a means, an instrument. Anything from a pen to a tractor is an instrument of use. Heidegger refers to this as the instrumentalist rendering of technology. According to Heidegger, the belief that technology is merely a means, neutral in itself, is an entrapment that places itself between us and the true nature of technology, successfully obstructing its essence. This notion of technology goes back to language and our understanding of causation, and later to the view of nature as something calculable and controllable which is the hallmark of modernity.

Heidegger explains we cannot control technology as the instrumentalist definition suggests; technology, far from being an object of control, is in reality a revelation of our being: it shapes our being and also reveals our reality in certain ways – technology “determines how reality is viewed and how man views himself” (Smith 179). Man fashions technology, but technology fashions man. So the "Rhine itself appears to be something at our command" as we build structures to control the flow of water, and so the natural world, as well, becomes a resource for our use. But doesn't this view of things change us as well? If technology changes us in ways we can hardly begin to  trace, we delude ourselves when we assume these "instruments" are neutral objects of our control. Far from being autonomous characters, according to Heidegger, we are determined by previous ages. Our present understanding of technology, as well, is a continuation of the logic of the past. In other words, “Every man is determined by a prior revelation of reality, hence incapable of the autonomy that could willfully master the reigning revelation of reality” (169). We are shaped by existing paradigms of both language and thought. Each age reveals itself differently than prior ages, yet it is, nonetheless, a continuation of what came before. We are bound to work within the inner logic of what comes before.

What is wonderful about Heidegger is that he shows us the tenuousness of ideas we take for granted. Yes, this is generally what philosophers do, but Heidegger's interpretation reverses, radically, common ideas, such as the understanding of technology as neutral, as a mere instrument. He humbles us, because he says, no, technology changes you. In America, you change technology. In Soviet Russia, technology changes you. Terrible joke. Moving on. The point he makes is that we, under the inner logic of the Enlightenment, the dichotomy of subject/object, are in the habit of assuming we are the masters of things, in control of technology -- but we are mistaken. Similarly, in the "Origin of the Work of Art," he argues that art works on us, that it is not a mere object, but is like an organic being, emerging from a struggle between its materiality and its meaning.

But when we look at the world through the lens of absolute scientific certitude, as Descartes did, and argue anything that does not survive the rigors of science and reason is dispensable, then, yes, Heidegger and his ilk seem deserving of ridicule, silly obscurantists. When, however, we understand what Heidegger is really saying, that the truth hides when we approach it as the sciences do, we begin to appreciate the kind of philosophy Heidegger upholds. As, he says, in "Origins," we can cleave a rock apart, measure the wavelengths of light and color, but by doing this, can we come to understand what a rock means? Are we brought any closer to the essence of a rock if we know its measurements and its numerical characteristics, how much it weighs etc.? An entirely different kind of truth is involved when we ask such questions.  

So, Heidegger's inquiry is on a different plane. He is not asking after scientific certitude. 

To be continued...

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Smith, Gregory Bruce. Martin Heidegger : Paths Taken, Paths Opened. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, Incorporated, 2007, 169.


Swedenborg, Emanuel. Arcana Coelestia. N/A: Forgotten, 2008. Vol. 1, 175.

*I promise I will add proper citations soon...

**And I will qualify my arguments carefully in future re-writes.