|
Józef Niżnik,
The Arbitrariness of Philosophy
Contemporary European Cultural Studies
Series editors, Gianni
Vattimo and Santiago Zabala
Some of
the great philosophers believed that philosophy is an art of ‘the
right beginning’. The author argues that philosophy itself is the
beginning that cannot be justified by anything outside it. The
nature of philosophy consists of an intellectual activity that
follows its own arbitrary conceptual decisions. Philosophy is an
irreplaceable feature of culture, the function of which is to secure
cohesion of a human symbolic world, and is, therefore, a uniquely
human ability. Illustrating the specificity of philosophy, Niżnik
shows how the discipline is coping with a changing human environment
and, at the same time, preserving its identity due to its capability
for creative arbitrary conceptual creation. Discussing some key
philosophical concepts, like ‘knowledge’, ‘truth’ or ‘rationality’,
the author demonstrates philosophy’s flexibility in accommodating
still newer meanings of those concepts, while maintaining the
function of philosophy. In the time of a shattered symbolic
world it is philosophy that could possibly offer new ‘orientation
points’ that may lead to a new cohesion of a contemporary humanity’s
symbolic universum.
Contents
Preface
Introduction: the crisis of identity
Chapter 1 Philosophy as a rigorous science: The end of a dream
Chapter 2 The contemporary status of philosophy
Chapter 3 The idea of rationality and the contemporary status
of philosophy
Chapter 4 Arbitrariness and sense
Chapter 5 Knowledge, truth and society
Chapter 6 Emotion as knowledge
Chapter 7 The ideological dimension of philosophy
Chapter 8 Philosophy and social knowledge. On some connections
between philosophy and sociology
Conclusion
Notes
Conclusion (from the book)
The
considerations contained in this book were directed towards the
cultural role of philosophy and were intended to show that, among
other things, the function of philosophy is a lasting element of its
character. In other words, the identity of philosophy bases itself
on its function. Realizing this function,
philosophy creates the basic structure of sense and delineates the
horizon of our discourse, thereby allowing constitution of a
symbolic universe with the necessary coherence. However, the human
symbolic world is subject to constant reconstruction, and its
coherence is constantly disturbed. This is so because of many
factors, among which the dominant role is played by the cognitive
activity of man and the changes in his material artificial
environment connected with this. Another kind of factor is the
experiences that an individual is not spared in the history of human
communities. So then the coherence of the symbolic universe is
disturbed as much by new theories of physics, as by dramatic social
changes, including various kinds of conflict. Shocks requiring the
reconstruction of our symbolic world were, on the one hand, the
heliocentric theory of Nicholas Copernicus, the physics of Isaac
Newton, and later of Albert Einstein and, on the other hand, the
appearance of new global religions such as Christianity or upheavals
such as the Second World War. The most recent example is certainly
the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on The World Trade Center.
However, because this coherence is a basic condition of man’s
functioning in his world definite “repair mechanisms” are needed.
Philosophy is exactly such a mechanism, competing in fulfilling this
function with everyday thinking or mythical thought. Even if, in the
short run, these rivals to philosophy seem to have a certain
advantage over it, nevertheless in the final reckoning philosophy is
the sphere of human symbolic activity that is able to rebuild
effectively the coherence of the symbolic universe. “Effectively”
means: in such a way that the structure of that symbolic world
allows man to go on with creative intellectual activity.
Philosophy owes it effectiveness in realizing its basic function to
its capacity for arbitrary creative acts. If we do not view this
arbitrariness as such, it is precisely because it is a particular
answer to a new cognitive situation created by facts external to
philosophy. One of the most convincing popular examples in the past
is the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, understood as the specific
reaction of philosophy to the picture of the world laid down by the
physicist Isaac Newton.
The thesis about the arbitrariness of philosophy disrupts our
linguistic habits. However, without the ‘original arbitrariness’
that appeared at the beginning of philosophy it would not have been
possible at all to clarify the existence of our symbolic world, and
particularly the occurrence of basic conceptual categories that lead
to our discourse expressing a definite order, taken by us as sense.
Maintaining sense, and in this way ensuring the coherence of our
symbolic world in a constantly changing human reality, requires that
philosophy continue to have recourse to its arbitrary acts.
This situation, however, gives rise to a row of fundamental
questions. I’ll formulate just two of them. Are there any limits to
the arbitrariness of philosophy? How does that arbitrariness relate
in particular to philosophical tradition? There is much to suggest
that even in abandoning some elements of this tradition the
philosopher will not remain indifferent to them and his opposition,
finding expression in new ideas, will not be understandable without
this negative reference. So the next charge is made. If it is
possible to indicate any factor that a philosopher may not ignore in
his creative activity, then what he wants to call arbitrariness is
not arbitrariness at all. In the end, every intellectual activity
has its beginning in a definite historical, biographical,
intellectual or other context that delineates its frame. So is not
then the concept of arbitrariness in reference to philosophy simply
misuse of language or, at best, a misunderstanding?
An attempt to answer objections of this kind would lead us into
various fields on the borders of philosophy, like — for example —
sociology of knowledge. Without doubt similar unease lies at the
source of Michel Foucault’s idea of archeology of knowledge. In the
most general way we can at least answer as follows: the influence of
context on the ideas of philosophy is mostly beyond conscious
choice. Apart from that it is hard to maintain that any of these
ideas are the only ones possible. After all, the fact that
philosophy is a specific reaction to ‘context’ is what was meant to
be rendered in my earlier propositions by the concept of ‘the status
of philosophy’. Apart from this, the theoretical decisions of
philosophers are arbitrary, although this is perhaps an ‘imperfect’
arbitrariness. Robert Ginsberg, the creator of the philosophical
series of the Rodopi publishing house, with whom I had the
opportunity to discuss the idea of the arbitrariness of philosophy
on the occasion of the Congress of Philosophy in Boston, wanting to
save the essence of this idea, and at the same time free it from the
above mentioned objections, suggested a linguistic maneuver, which
occurred to him in connection with one of my own slips of the tongue
when at one point instead of ‘arbitrariness of philosophy’ I used
the phrase ‘arbitrarity of philosophy’. Professor Ginsberg suggested
that this term be used throughout the text. It would suggest the
special role of philosophy in human intellectual activity and at the
same time would not disrupt our linguistic habits with respect to
the concept of arbitrariness. It seems however that such a
conceptual subterfuge would not change the essence of the
proposition very much, and would seem like an attempt to evade
criticism, perhaps the most precious element of philosophy.
Author
Józef Niżnik is
co-founder of The International Graduate School for Social Research
at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy
of Sciences in Warsaw. Most of his research work has been devoted to
the theory of knowledge, metaphilosophy, and the intersection of
philosophy and sociology. He has authored over eighty major
publications in Polish and English — in philosophy, methodology of
social sciences, sociology of knowledge and since 1989, in global
problems and the problems of European integration — including
Socjologia wiedzy, Zarys historii i problematyki ( Sociology of
Knowledge. An outline of History and Problems), Pogranicza
epistemologii (Borderlands of Epistemology),
and Debating the State of Philosophy: Habermas, Rorty, and
Kołakowski. (with John T. Sanders).
|
