On the intractability of philosophical disagreement, and what this means for philosophical theory and practice

S.R.,

I’ve been gripped these days, more so by the fear than by the thought, that our adherence to philosophies of life is the result, not of reason, but of some psychological disposition. That we have, in light of our own ignorance, no good reason to adhere to one or the other, save aesthetic appeal. Were there anyone to blame for this, I think it would be Lucian of Samosata, who, in his Hermotimus, writes:

“Now, as far as promises and professions go [i.e., in the practice of philosophy, and philosophical discourse], there is no lack of guides; there are numbers of them waiting about, all representing themselves as from there [the way to “Virtue” and “Happiness”]. But instead of one single road there seem to be many different and inconsistent ones…

So I must either believe them all or disbelieve impartially. The latter is much the safest until we have found out the truth” (Hermotimus, 25–29).

And yet this process of truth-seeking is labyrinthine; it twists, meanders, is subject to pitfalls, affords dead-ends, is beset by distractions, and, atop all of this, progresses without end.

“[W]e must absolutely go to and examine them all, trying them carefully, stripping and comparing them; the truth will be hard enough to find, even so” (45).

Lucian is speaking here only of philosophy current to his time, and only those with which he was familiar: the Hellenistic sects (the Stoics, Epicureans, Skeptics, Peripatetics, Cynics, etc., to say nothing of Eastern philosophy), where philosophy and its promise is primarily a matter of knowledge (e.g., apatheia and the perfected reason of the Stoic sage).

Yet, think of all that has been said and written in the last two thousand years; ethics is no longer so simple as the “steep path to Virtue” of Hesiod (one can go back to the paradox in the beginning lines of Plato’s Meno and contend with virtue and its relationship to knowledge). Now we contend with much more than just the question of what virtue is – we ask whether we ought to abide by universal principles, immutable objects of reason, whether we ought to inspect the consequences engendered by our actions and act accordingly, whether our actions even possess an objective moral quality. It is not enough simply to study ethics, but metaethics.

This mentions nothing of the fact that ethics is by no means a separate domain from other areas of philosophy; there necessarily is a relationship between an ethical theory and its underpinning metaphysics, logic, and epistemology. Compound the disagreements in those areas as well. Are moral claims truth-apt? What are moral claims made of? Can we know what it means to be moral?

Start from first principles, one might say. (We accept, after all, that some things are true, that these cannot be subject to proof. Axioms. That laws of inference are simply that – laws.)

And yet the question arises as to whether those principles can stand on their own, let alone support the edifices of ever-complex theory. The world cannot, in its entirety, I think, be sublimated to relationships between abstract components. In that regard I think there is an ineffability to existence, which, perhaps, can only be experienced when reason is transcended. There seems to be, I might say, a fundamental gap between reason and the world reason attempts to make sense of – that there exists a gap in perspective, acquaintance, information. Philosophy in light of this becomes self-refining, ever-increasingly labyrinthine, and asymptotic.

The adoption of one stance to the exclusion of others is dogmatic if not heretical, and to dismiss disagreement as illusory is poor dialogue. The dialectic is endless.

Knowledge is always, then, approximate, and probabilistic.

In th is way, it’s much better termed “opinion” than it is “knowledge”. All of our theorizations is subject to constant scrutiny and rev is ion, and the v is ion of philosophy as “investigating the things which are,” getting at that which is, becomes ever-more w is hful thinking.

“[P]ractically all who pursue philosophy do no more than disquiet themselves in vain” (71).

And so, what to make of all this? Do we give up on philosophy?

Socrates, in the Phaedo, speaks of how we shouldn’t become misologic (hateful of argument), in the same way as we become misanthropic ( 89d–e). Don’t be so quick to trust every argument you encounter, but subject it to a kind of skepticism, to see whether or not it rings true (whatever that is). There is truth out there (whatever that might mean), one simply has to investigate it indefatigably (whatever criteria that might entail, if by criterion is even the right method). We do so by inquiry, running alongthe safest tracks (i.e., the Hypothetical Method) until we reach truth (i.e., the things themselves, the Forms), all the while being cautious so as to not be misled (i.e., by common opinion, by the sentences, by the thousand inconveniences life furnishes).

I’m more amused, however, by a fragment of Aristotle’s Protrepticus, which several sources relate to us:

“[Set in Cicero’s dialogue, the Hortensius]

Hortensius in Cicero, contending against philosophy, is pressed by a clever argument [of Aristotle’s]; inasmuch as, when he said that men ought not to philosophize, he seemed nevertheless to philosophize, since it is the part of the philosophers to discuss what ought and what ought not to be done in life.”

Lactantius, Divine Institutes, 3.16

Or, as it has been put otherwise:

“For truly it appears to me to be [the] proper point for discussion, Whether we ought to philosophize: for its terms are consistent. But if we are not to philosophize, what then? (For no one can condemn a thing without first knowing it): the consequence, even in that case, is that we must philosophize.”

Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, 6, 18. 162. 5

And so?

Do philosophy, even if it seems like nonsense.

At least it leads to pleasure, if not virtue.