Big hopes, humble hearts: How should the philosopher see themself?

There’s a discussion going on at the moment about Analytic Philosophy, which is perceived as being in crisis for various reasons. I think there may be some substance to the crisis, but I also think philosophy may be the kind of discipline that enjoys thinking of itself as in crisis, so who knows?

What I was particularly interested in was this Tweet by @scottedgar:

“This debate about the state of analytic philosophy is hilarious.

It’s like a bunch of playwrights saying out loud that, up until now, they really thought they’d all be as big a deal as Shakespeare, but now they think they might not be. I’ve never seen so much cope.”

Scott is a historian of philosophy. His occupation involves reading work by figures prominent in their own time who we no longer ever think about. Some of them aren’t even mentioned in footnotes. Thus I do not begrudge Scott his cynicism.

Scott is responding to Liam Bright’s article on contemporary Analytic philosophy, which Liam sees as largely based on an attempt to combine different things together in syncretism- disciplines, ideologies etc. Liam argues this kind of syncretic work has a limited historic shelf life compared to other work. He concludes:

“ The attempt to rationalize new socio-ethical movements in the face of decaying empire mean that we join the Alexandrite’s in trying to provide comfort to a time that needs it. The failures and frictions of our attempts to syncretize will no doubt reveal anomalies that are worth attending to. But I think it is less likely to be of lasting interest than ambitious derivations from first principles. These sort of projects are designed to gain attractiveness from the inner plausibility of their premises, and thus gain a sort of independence from the immediacies of their age. Descartes, Hume, and Spinoza have far more secure places in history. I think this will be felt as a loss because for whatever reason lasting influence does seem to be sought after.

We must reconcile ourselves to a justly forgotten oblivion.”

Now I don’t know what to make of Liam’s claim that syncretism is ultimately doomed to oblivion, or what to make of his claim that our own time is particularly syncretistic. Both claims seem plausible on the surface, but I note there are exceptions. E.g. both Augustine (as Liam notes in passing) and Aquinas were fundamentally syncretic figures.

What I am interested in is the question of how the philosopher should view the project of their life.

Barring depression etc., you have a certain amount of control over the narrative you tell yourself about your own career and what it is aiming at. You can decide whether you think of yourself as aiming to be the next Kant or an under-laborer. How should you think of yourself?

Philosophy is, depending on your point of view, particularly kind or cruel to the aspirant in this regard, because whereas in science or mathematics, truly brilliant theoretical innovators usually show signs early, in philosophy it is not uncommon not to have your breakthrough until your forties or even fifties. How many philosophers have - furtively- reminded themselves that Kant didn’t do anything really world historical till his fifties? It wasn’t just Kant either- Descartes, Locke, Hobbes were all late bloomers, and while philosophy has its share of early prodigies (e.g. Mill) I am by no means cherry-picking. There are plenty of philosophers who didn’t get their really big works done until quite late. Most of them weren’t child prodigies in a general sense, and not all the child prodigies were consistent in their powers. Thus in philosophy it is much easier to guiltily tend a little flame of hope that maybe you are set for great things- there are so many late bloomers who are justly lauded

To answer the question of how the philosopher should regard themselves properly, I’d have to draw up a list of great philosophers- or maybe even of great thinkers across all disciplines, and compare how they thought about themselves, maybe with matched controls who worked in similar fields but never became prominent. Then I would have to perform a qualitative synthesis of the way these philosophers saw themselves and their lives to conclude what the most productive viewpoint is. This would give us some evidence on the right way to regard yourself, if you want to maximise the likelihood of doing something really great for humanity in an intellectual sphere.

However, I’m a philosopher, and therefore empirically lazy. What I’m going to do instead is give you my best guess as to the right approach.

Here’s my attitude:

I am a weird little gremlin, working with weird little gremlin ideas. I might have a breakthrough precisely because anyone might have a breakthrough. I don’t have a world historic spirit, but I might- through luck, and a stubborn insistence of following the thread of my ideas- reach something great. I genuinely don’t know where greatness lies. No one knows where greatness lies. If they did, they’d already have gone there. I’ll just keep tugging at my strings.

Socrates got at a similar spirit:

If I am the wisest man alive, it is for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing —Socrates

In other words, I think my talents are nothing special, but I still aspire to be the next Hume. This is partly because I think that, in philosophy, the muse attacks quite randomly, and partly because this kind of hope is a strategic choice. It allows me to pursue bizarre threads to their end, or fossick in my stream for gold. Or if you prefer yet another metaphor, it’s like buying lottery tickets. The likelihood of anything working out is small, but if your best possible hope of making a contribution to humanity is winning the lottery, than you’ll want to buy a lot of tickets.

And the right way to buy a lot of lottery tickets is not convince yourself that you have a magic lottery ticket buying power- because either you will eventually grow disillusioned of that, or you are a narcissist(*)

The right way to buy a lot of lottery tickets is to convince yourself that, while you’re odds are small, they’re no worse than many others, and, given your interests, powers, background etc., this is your best bet for doing something for the human lot. You don’t need a lot of belief in yourself, you just need to believe in your chance.

Big hopes, humble heart.

Footnote:

(*) Why do I say it necessarily leads to narcissism? What if you really are a genius? No one has a true justified belief that they are destined to intellectual greatness in philosophy, thus such a belief can only lead to narcissism. There have been numerous absolutely brilliant and motivated figures who went nowhere very special. If you’re bright, it’s fine to think of yourself as bright, but that’s very different to thinking of yourself as destined for greatness.