Pseudophilosophy
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The orthodox understanding of pseudophilosophy is any idea or system that masquerades itself as philosophy while significantly failing to meet some suitable intellectual standards. The term is frequently used pejoratively, and most applications of it are quite contentious. (The term non-philosophy is often taken to refer to similar areas, but with less negative connotations. As such, non-philosophy is a term used to refer to philosophy situated at the margins of the discipline in terms of subject-matter and its critical reception.) The term bears the same relationship to philosophy that pseudoscience bears to science.
Nicholas Rescher, in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, defines pseudo-philosophy as "deliberations that masquerade as philosophical but are inept, incompetent, deficient in intellectual seriousness, and reflective of an insufficient commitment to the pursuit of truth." Rescher adds that the term is particularly appropriate when applied to "those who use the resources of reason to substantiate the claim that rationality is unachievable in matters of inquiry." However one should worry about the abusive use of the designation with those currently too marginal for the academic establishment; philosophy not being an empirical science, academics can easily tag as pseudophilosophers people otherwise rigorous but operating outside the confines of its establishments --academic establishments wanting to protect their own interests. In other words the term pseudophilosopher should not be used as a tag for "nonacademic philosophers".
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[edit] Some accusations of pseudophilosophy
[edit] Accusations of pseudophilosophy in academia
Academia has sometimes denied the title of "philosopher" to certain people. One must recall that philosophy has taken various institutional forms over athe centuries, starting from the Epicurian' gardens and other Schools. It was only in Hegel's time that it started taking its modern, university form. Since Hegel, philosophy has thus been linked to the University, and mainly takes place into this institution. Therefore, it has sometimes denied the title of philosophy to popular books written outside its credentials, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes not. The foundation of the International College of Philosophy in 1983 by Jacques Derrida, François Châtelet and others, specifically had the aim of creating a non-institutional place for philosophy, where new paths could be explored. The College was created "from a non-governmental origin, with an international span, an institution which is not destined to oppose itself, but to balance, question, open, occupy margins ; where we would privilege unfrequent approaches or yet unlegitimized by the university approaches, new objects, new themes, new fields; where we would treat more of intersections than of academic disciplines".[1]
Arthur Schopenhauer wrote the following about Hegel:
If I were to say that the so-called philosophy of this fellow Hegel is a colossal piece of mystification which will yet provide posterity with an inexhaustible theme for laughter at our times, that it is a pseudophilosophy paralyzing all mental powers, stifling all real thinking, and, by the most outrageous misuse of language, putting in its place the hollowest, most senseless, thoughtless, and, as is confirmed by its success, most stupefying verbiage, I should be quite right.
– Arthur Schopenhauer, 'On the Basis of Morality', trans. E.F.J.Payne (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965), pp.15-16.
Schopenhauer's critiques of Hegel, Schelling, and Fichte are informed by his perception that their works use deliberately impressive but ultimately vacuous jargon and neologisms, and that they contained castles of abstraction that sounded impressive but ultimately contained no verifiable content. Søren Kierkegaard attacked Hegel in a similar manner, writing that it was pretentious for Hegel to title one of his books "Reality." To Kierkegaard, this indicated an attempt to quash critics even before criticism was voiced.
Despite these attacks, Hegel is widely considered one of the most influential writers in world history: the rigor of his philosophy notwithstanding, Hegel had a significant effect on the writings of subsequent philosophers, for example Marx. Hegel scholar Walter Kaufmann contends that Schopenhauer's attacks actually illuminate more about Schopenhauer than about Hegel.
More recently, accusations of pseudophilosophy have been made against Martin Heidegger, postmodernists, and certain late twentieth century french thinkers like Derrida, Jean Baudrillard, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Lacan and Jean-François Lyotard by numerous philosophers in the tradition of analytic philosophy and some 'hard scientists' such as Alan Sokal who claim that these thinkers use of scientific concepts is lacking in rigor. W.V.O. Quine, along with Barry Smith, Hugh Mellor (then Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge), and various other academic philosophers, once wrote to protest Cambridge University's award of an honorary degree to Jacques Derrida, claiming that Derrida's work "does not meet accepted standards of clarity and rigor" and that it is made of "tricks and gimmicks similar to those of the Dadaists".[citation needed] Such attacks are usually considered as a sign of the breach between analytical and continental philosophy. Furthermore, while French reception of (Foucault, Althusser, Lacan, Deleuze, Derrida, etc.) considers their work to be within widely different fields and intellectual traditions, American critics have frequently responded to them as a homogenous body. The label of "structuralism" was denied by almost all of the so-called structuralists thinkers (Claude Lévi-Strauss, Lacan, Althusser, early Foucault), and the label of post-modernism was adopted by few of the movement's "founding fathers". Derrida would warn several times that the "deconstruction" of metaphysics didn't mean that "we didn't need metaphysics"; but we need to do something else, beside it: the deconstruction of metaphysics is not an abandonment of metaphysics.
Likewise, numerous philosophers in the tradition of analytic philosophy have been dismissed as pseudophilosophical by their peers in continental philosophy. For example, In "Signature, Event, Context", Jacques Derrida refers to John Searle's theory of speech acts as having "inherited from a certain Continental tradition [..] numerous gestures and a logic I try to deconstruct". He claims that Searle's ignorance of the history of philosophy in general and continental philosophy in particular has led to his "repeating its most problematic gesture, falling short of the most elementary critical questions..."[2] Similarly, Alain Badiou refers to analytic philosophy as "anglo-american linguistic sophistry", and claims that analytic philosophy of science relies wholly on untenable metaphysical presuppositions.[3] Analytic philosophers generally regard these critiques as misguided or ignorant.[citation needed]
[edit] Popular philosophy
Alfred Korzybski's theory of General Semantics has been given this appellation (also by Quine). The works of Albert Camus, Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957, have also been so named, in particular by Jean-Paul Sartre who claimed it was "philosophy for classe de terminale" (last class in high school before the Baccalauréat). Camus' works are generally considered as literature and not as philosophy, although they definitely posed some philosophical questions.
Ayn Rand's Objectivism is often cited as a pseudophilosophy, for several reasons.[4] Many of her views are presented in her "romantic realist" novels, rather than in scholarly publications. In addition, Rand was self-taught, and consequently the philosophical issues that she discussed were out of sync with the research program of mainstream academic philosophy during the years she was active. Her grasp of the historical problems of philosophy is considered idiosyncratic in many ways – her proposed resolution of the problem of universals, for example, treated it as a question of epistemology although it has usually been taken as a question of metaphysics (though Rand notes this fact in her treatment of the problem).
Finally, she and some of her followers are often perceived as being dogmatic, frequently ignoring published criticism of the system instead of responding to it. This is in part because many of them were young people excited by her novels and unlearned in philosophy; such people are not often aware of the complexities of their subject and prone to construe disagreement as ignorance. Furthermore, many of her supporters would not permit modifications or additions to her system of ideas, leading some to label Rand as a cult leader.[5]
There have been few published reactions to Objectivism in academic journals. The most comprehensive academic criticism to date is "With Charity Towards None" by William F. O'Neill, published in 1971. However, academic work on Objectivism has grown in recent years: see Response to Objectivism for some examples.
Furthermore, the New Philosophers (Bernard-Henri Lévy, Alain Finkielkraut ...) have been also accused to be a form of pseudophilosophy, although some of their early work was academic. Gilles Deleuze particularly criticized the movement. Some have criticized them for reversing the classical model of the intellectual: while the classical intellectual uses the influence gained in their field for moral or political purposes, and thus goes from their scientific field to the public space, New Philosophers invert this by capitalizing on their appearances on TV talk shows to derive their scientific legitimacy. They are not studied by philosophy students.
So-called integral thought is an example of new-age ideology, written for a popular audience, that at least strives for the appearance of philosophical rigor. For example, the promotional material printed on the back of Ken Wilber's Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality (Second Edition) claims, "Ken Wilber is one of the most widely read and influential American philosophers of our time," even though Wilber is at best a fringe figure in contemporary philosophy.
[edit] Prominent people in other spheres calling themselves philosophers
Frederick II of Prussia, is undisputably one of the greatest "artists of warfare" of all time. In the seven-year war he succeeded in defending his expanding Prussia against the combined forces of such great nations as Russia, Austria and France. He is often mentioned as the prime example of an enlightened despot. He was in close contact with Voltaire, who even spent a few years as Frederick's invited guest in Prussia. Frederick considered himself to be a philosopher in his own right. By academic philosophers he is not recognised to be a serious philosopher. Due to his influence on European political, economic and cultural history his opinions and ideas on philosophy were, and are, read and considered to a much greater extent than had been the case, if he had not been King of Prussia.
George Soros, an American Hungarian-born financier and philanthropist, has written several books and notwithstanding his impressive achievements in other fields is most flattered if someone calls him a philosopher as can be seen in this statement in his book "The Age of Fallibility: Consequence of the War on Terror": "I have developed a philosophy that has played a central role in my life. It has guided me in making money and spending it, although it is not about money. I know how important that philosophy is for me personally, but I am still in the process of finding out whether it can have a similar significance for others. That is my first priority..." Similar to Fredrick II of Prussia Soros is generally not considered to be a serious philosopher by academic philosophers --but academic philosophers might not be consequential to real life while he is and has a considerable number of followers.
[edit] Pseudophilosophy in popular culture
Other works that have been labelled as "pseudophilosophy" include the material in Richard Bach's fable Jonathan Livingston Seagull, The Satanic Bible, James Redfield's The Celestine Prophecy and the novella The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Other New Age works are generally considered speculative or unanalytical by philosophers. Here, the label of pseudophilosophy is used to criticise these works as being conventional, sentimental, or platitudinous; and of lacking rigor, system, or analytical content.
Another cultural phenomenon that has been labelled pseudophilosophy is the form of philosophical skepticism that is the central premise of the motion picture The Matrix.
Special type of pseudophilosophy is mock philosophy, proposed as a mystification, just for fun, such as externism by Jára Cimrman in the Czech theatre play Akt (English The Nude).
[edit] References
- ^ (French) Derrida: "d’origine non gouvernementale, à portée internationale, une institution qui n’est pas destinée à s’opposer, mais à équilibrer, à questionner, à ouvrir, à occuper les marges ; où l’on privilégie des approches peu fréquentes ou point encore légitimées dns l’université, de nouveaux objets, de nouveaux thèmes, de nouveaux champs ; où l’on traite des intersections plus que des disciplines académiques" Interview with Derrida
- ^ Derrida, Jacques "Signature, Event, Context" Northwestern University Press
- ^ Badiou, Alain "Being and Event" Continuum Press 2005 pp. 3-7
- ^ Nicholas Rescher (1997). Objectivity: The Obligations of Impersonal Reason. University of Notre Dame Press. ISBN 0268037019.
- ^ See, for example, Michael Shermer, Ayn Rand: The Unlikeliest Cult in History, originally appearing in Skeptic, vol. 2, no. 2, 1993, pp. 74-81
[edit] See also
- Emergent philosophy
- Obscurantism - Philosophy against knowledge
- Alfred Jarry's ’Pataphysics, a deliberate kind of "pseudophilosophy", or of philosophy presenting itself as "pseudophilosophy"
- Cod philosophy
[edit] External links
- Letter protesting the Cambridge award of an honorary degree to Derrida, with critical commentary
- Jean Baudrillard's Pataphysics by Joseph Nechvatal
