Why I’m not a philosopher

I’ve been following, sort of, a conversation here that started out to be about meaning, delved into questions having to do with “is there anything more/other than the physical universe?”, and recently turned to the basis of morality and our sense of morality. This led me to this post, which discusses the matter of consciousness and feelings (qualia of consciousness).

I’ve posted a few comments in these other conversations, but decided to save my snippier comments for my own blog, so here goes:

1) The reduction of philosophy to strings of propositions and attempts to make these strings of propositions imitate mathematical proofs seems to me to shunt modern philosophy onto the sideline of utter irrelevancy. (Told you I was going to be snippy). Too often important questions/problems/issues are discussed in such abstruse terms as to have virtually no contact with anything anyone cares about, and in such a way as to preclude having anything actually helpful or useful to contribute in the way of solutions. It becomes something of a parlour game, entertaining for the participants, but with no significance outside the parlour. Of course, one may do as one chooses in the privacy of one’s own parlour–I’m not suggesting otherwise–but I do long for some visible attempt to connect to the outside world and the issues thereof from time to time in such discussions. (I hasten to add that while the discussion here has prompted these remarks at this time, many other discussions, on the internet and in books, have inspired them.)

For instance–consider the question of the basis of morality and our moral sense. Why does it matter? I’m not asking why does morality matter, mind you–I’m taking that for granted–but why does the more abstruse question regarding the basis of morality matter? I think it matters to us because we hope that if the basis of morality is understood, it will help us resolve questions of morality, especially in cases of conflict over such questions. Otherwise, why would the questions of morality’s basis be of any interest at all?

Meself, I think that one of the reasons that pretty much everyone feels that some things just are right (or wrong), regardless of what anyone thinks about it is because if morality has some validity outside our own opinions, we can hope to discover what is right and what is wrong; and if we can hope to do that, then we can hope to settle conflicts over morality by such inquiry, discussion, and discovery. The alternative to this is either not settling the conflicts, but rather ignoring them, or settling them by violence–ultimately, war. Not a happy alternative. But it has in fact been, and continues to be, the final alternative we’ve resorted to, as a species. So for me, the question becomes–is there hope for a replacement? A better way of resolving such conflicts? I don’t know–but I do think this is a question worthy of applying the full force of our intelligence, individual and collective, to.

2) As I commented this post, IMO anyone, such as Dennett, who professes to believe that consciousness doesn’t exist and hence they themselves are not conscious has abdicated their right to be considered rational, or to have pretty much anything they say on the matter taken seriously. Here I will go further: I question the motivation of such people. I strongly suspect that what they are really denying is the consciousness, and hence the personhood, of other people. I suspect them of having a particular combination of very strong ego and inability to perceive others’ points of view or even conceive of anyone who is really different from themselves as being fully human. It simply denigrates other people: “You may think you exist, but I know different. You may think you’re smart, but I’m smarter–I know you don’t even have a mind.” The strength of their own ego–and lack of insight into themselves, perhaps–allows them to put forth these declarations without ever applying them to themselves, leaving them always in a position of superiority, in their own minds at least.

Ha. Hem. OK, I’m done. Do I feel better? Well, yes, a little 🙂