‘There is no writing of mine about these matters, nor will there ever be one. For this knowledge is not something that can be put into words like other sciences; but after long-continued conversation between teacher and pupil, in joint pursuit of the subject, suddenly, like light flashing forth when a fire is kindled, it is born in the soul and straight away nourishes itself.’
Plato, Letter VII
Why do I write?
When I say write I mean write philosophy. I could try writing other things, I suppose, but what I have been writing up to now is philosophy. And not only writing it but also putting it online for all to see.
What is the purpose of this?
The purpose is originally quite selfish, as I’ve said elsewhere. Finding the right words in the right order helps me to understand things more clearly, and that clearer understanding helps me to live in a way that is better aligned with Nature and my nature.
But this is my business: there is no reason to share it. The only reason to share it would be if it were helpful to others, to teach something valuable, or to show someone something insightful by my dramatic example.
Do I do this? How do I do this?
Form
Muddled words confuse.
Clear words provide clear insight.
Choose your words wisely.
Is it beneficial to write in haiku, or in some other particular form? It’s of no particular benefit to you, I think, but the challenge of capturing your ideas in words and then fitting those words into a particular form forces you to look at your ideas from different angles in order to find the best fit: like rotating Tetris pieces.
Is it beneficial to write in bathetic simile, allegory, or by appeal to illustrative example? Of course: if you can take something big and complicated and reduce it down to something small and simple, it will be easier to grasp.
This shows the true purpose of writing philosophy: grasping.
Is it beneficial to write in ambiguity and double-meaning? I think so. On realising that something can be read in more than one way, you are forced to make a reading – your own reading – and this means you have to decide for yourself. Ambiguity forces you to think things through in a way that clarity doesn’t.
Now we have a contradictory tension: if my aim in writing what I do is to teach philosophy, I ought to write clearly enough to be understood but not so clearly that it can be taken as read. It’s a fine line: you are liable to fall one way or the other.
Content
Is my aim to teach? And if so what is learnt? Philosophy? But I say that philosophy is something that you do, not something that you learn about. I say that you can know all the facts about philosophy and still not understand it. We all say that philosophy teaches you how to think, not what to think.
Can I write something that will teach you how to think? Is there an instruction manual for philosophy? (There is not.) Why is there not? We have been doing this for 2,500 years: why is there no written material that can make someone a philosopher?
It is because no writing can make you think well: you have to do it for yourself. You have to learn how to do it for yourself.
Philosophical understanding cannot be taught by the written word. It’s more like learning to swim: you must at some point get into the water.
Learning to swim by reading instructional manuals on the internet is the punchline to a joke. Is teaching philosophy on the internet a joke, then?
I hope not and I believe not. You can learn a lot from reading philosophy, wherever you read it. (When I say philosophy I mean ‘good’ philosophy, because anything you learn from bad philosophy is nothing worth having.)
But pay attention to what it is that you are learning, because it is not the same as learning about history or science. In those fields you will find facts and experts, and knowing the facts is what makes you an expert, but you will not find either in philosophy.
If philosophy is something that you can learn from reading the written word, but also something that can’t be taught by the written word, then it follows that philosophical understanding is something that you have to discover for yourself in the written word.
My purpose in writing philosophy, therefore, can only be to write such things as will enable people to discover it for themselves.
How can I do this? It is not enough to state the facts. But I can provoke and prod, I can allude and redirect, I can confuse and clarify, I can show more than information and I can show that there is more to this than information.
Plato’s View
This is nothing new. Plato knew it; it is why he wrote in dialogues. He wrote in a way that hid the true meaning, meaning you had to work to discover the true meaning for yourself, and it is this work in you that is his true purpose for writing what he did. He understood that this was the only way to convey philosophy by the written word: by showing that philosophy cannot be directly conveyed by the written word, but only indirectly, like a finger pointing to the sun.
And even then it will only work if the reader is a willing and able participant, which is rare.
‘If I thought [philosophy] could be put into written words adequate for the multitude, what nobler work could I do in my life than to compose something of such great benefit to mankind and bring to light the nature of things for all to see? But I do not think that the “examination”, as it is called, of these questions would be of any benefit to men, except to a few, i.e., to those who could with a little guidance discover the truth by themselves. Of the rest, some would be filled with an ill-founded and quite unbecoming disdain, and some with an exaggerated and foolish elation, as if they had learned something grand.’
Plato, Letter VII
I’ve met and conversed with enough people to know that philosophy isn’t for everyone. All these ‘exoteric protreptics’ are wasted on them. They want only ‘hacks’ and ways to get ahead in the world, or else anything that confirms what they already believe. The constant questioning of the philosopher is not helpful for that, they think. But in this they’ve already missed the point.
Few people have any serious inclination to put their thoughts to the test: they are so established as they are that you might as well call it their nature. But since few will learn if they are not willing, we would seem to be at an impasse.
‘…if his nature is defective, as is that of most men, for the acquisition of knowledge and the so-called virtues, and if the qualities he has have been corrupted, then not even Lynceus could make such a man see.’
Plato, Letter VII
A philosophical nature is different. A philosopher wants to expose their errors, not hide from them. Plato believes he has a simple test that can distinguish and determine these natures:
‘You must picture to such men the extent of the undertaking, describing what sort of inquiry it is, with how many difficulties it is beset, and how much labour it involves. For anyone who hears this, who is a true lover of wisdom, with the divine quality that makes him akin to it and worthy of pursuing it, thinks that he has heard of a marvellous quest that he must at once enter upon with all earnestness, or life is not worth living; and from that time forth he pushes himself and urges on his leader without ceasing, until he has reached the end of the journey or has become capable of doing without a guide and finding the way himself. This is the state of mind in which such a man lives; whatever his occupation may be, above everything and always he holds fast to philosophy and to the daily discipline that best makes him apt at learning and remembering, and capable of reasoning soberly with himself; while for the opposite way of living he has a persistent hatred. Those who are really not philosophers but have only a coating of opinions, like men whose bodies are tanned by the sun, when they see how much learning is required, and how great the labour, and how orderly their daily lives must be to suit the subject they are pursuing, conclude that the task is too difficult for their powers; and rightly so, for they are not equipped for this pursuit. But some of them persuade themselves that they have already sufficiently heard the whole of it and need make no further effort.’
Plato, Letter VII
Of the two natures, the latter is far more common than the philosopher’s. Look around and consider how many people dedicate themselves to philosophy and you will see this to be true.
But if Plato has nothing to say to ‘the multitude’, why did he write for them? If you take him at his word, he did this only because he enjoyed it. Writing was a leisure activity that served a little useful purpose as an aid to memory in your old age.
‘In the garden of letters he will sow and plant, but only for the sake of recreation and amusement; he will write them down as memorials to be treasured against the forgetfulness of old age, by himself, or by any other old man who is treading the same path.’
Socrates in Plato’s Phaedrus
Beyond that, knowing that there is no fertile soil in ‘the multitude’, writing philosophy can’t serve any useful purpose. To those who would try to teach philosophy by the written word, he would say:
‘…you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.’
Socrates in Plato’s Phaedrus
Because the written word is at best a representation of reality, an image of it, and nothing more. There is a difference between a reality and the representation of it: that much is obvious. You can’t feed yourself on a picture of food.
‘I cannot help feeling […] that writing is unfortunately like painting; for the creations of the painter have the attitude of life, and yet if you ask them a question they preserve a solemn silence. […] You would imagine that they had intelligence, but if you want to know anything and put a question to one of them, the speaker always gives one unvarying answer. And when they have been once written down they are tumbled about anywhere among those who may or may not understand them, and know not to whom they should reply, to whom not: and, if they are maltreated or abused, they have no parent to protect them; and they cannot protect or defend themselves.’
Socrates in Plato’s Phaedrus
For Plato, as for Socrates before him, it is only through the alive and changeable word of conversation that philosophical progress can be made, not the dead words of what is fixed and written. And consequently no philosopher will ‘seriously incline to “write” his thoughts “in water” with pen and ink, sowing words which can neither speak for themselves nor teach the truth adequately to others’ (ibid.).
‘Only when all of these things – names, definitions, and visual and other perceptions – have been rubbed against one another and tested, pupil and teacher asking and answering questions in good will and without envy – only then, when reason and knowledge are at the very extremity of human effort, can they illuminate the nature of any object. For this reason anyone who is seriously studying these high matters will be the last to write about them and thus expose his thought to the envy and criticism of men.’
Plato, Letter VII
Irony
But the irony of all this: I am grateful to be able to read Plato’s writing and learn from it. I am grateful that he made some efforts to record his teacher’s teaching; I am grateful that Arrian did the same for Epictetus, and that Diogenes Laertius did the same for so many, and Cicero and Seneca too in their time. I am grateful that someone preserved Plato’s seventh letter or, if it is a forgery, understood enough to add their own compelling interpretation.
And I am especially grateful that Plato made efforts, whether for the sake of ‘amusement’ or not, to express his own ideas in a way that recognised and worked with the limitations of the written word. In this, he shares an insight that has been shared among human beings across the ages:
‘I see now that these nonsensical expressions were not nonsensical because I had not yet found the correct expressions, but that their nonsensicality was their very essence. For all I wanted to do with them was just to go beyond the world and that is to say beyond significant language. My whole tendency and I believe the tendency of all men who ever tried to write or talk Ethics or Religion was to run against the boundaries of language. This running against the walls of our cage is perfectly, absolutely hopeless. Ethics, so far as it springs from the desire to say something about the ultimate meaning of life, the absolute good, the absolute valuable, can be no science. What it says does not add to our knowledge in any sense. But it is a document of a tendency in the human mind which I personally cannot help respecting deeply and I would not for my life ridicule it.’
Wittgenstein, Lecture on Ethics (1929)
‘The concept of a noumenon – that is, of a thing which is not to be thought as object of the senses but as a thing in itself, solely through a pure understanding – […] is necessary, to prevent sensible intuition from being extended to things in themselves, and thus to limit the objective validity of sensible knowledge. […] But none the less we are unable to comprehend how such noumena can be possible, and the domain that lies out beyond the sphere of appearances is for us empty. That is to say, we have an understanding which problematically extends further, but we have no intuition, indeed not even the concept of a possible intuition, through which objects outside the field of sensibility can be given, and through which the understanding can be employed assertorically beyond that field. The concept of a noumenon is thus a merely limiting concept, the function of which is to curb the pretensions of sensibility; and it is therefore only of negative employment. At the same time it is no arbitrary invention; it is bound up with the limitation of sensibility, though it cannot affirm anything positive beyond the field of sensibility.’
Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (1781)
‘The way that can be spoken of
Is not the constant way;
The name that can be named
Is not the constant name.’
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching (translated by D. C. Lau)
‘A rabbit snare is a means to get hold of rabbits. You can only forget about the rabbit snare once you’ve had your rabbit.
Words are a means to get hold of ideas. You can only forget about words once you’ve had your ideas.
How could I talk to someone who has forgotten words?’
Zhuangzi (translated by Hans-Georg Moeller)
But as I begin to write about Zhuangzi, again, and I dispute with myself about whether it is better to say ‘caught’ or ‘ensnared’, I wonder: am I more like the trapper, or the rabbit?
Have I got caught up in my words?
Why do I write so bitterly about academic philosophy and the university? If I think I have got out of dirty water, why would I return to spit in it?
Why do I write so disdainfully of non-academic or ‘popular’ attempts at philosophy? It’s not my business, so why should I trouble myself with it?
If I say that philosophy is not found in words, why do I keep putting it into words?
For me?
For you?
On the internet, I speak to everyone and to no one. In this I can only hope to be speaking to those few who are capable of discovering all this for themselves. But if they are so capable, what do they need me for?
And still I write. And still I publish, in an attempt to walk that fine line between clarity and ambiguity, to show without saying, to make myself useful to those who have no use for me.
What results is another paradox: I write things that only a trained philosopher could understand but that only an untrained philosopher could be interested in reading.
Why Do I Write?
So why do I write? And why do I make this public?
To teach what I know cannot be taught by writing? How foolish.
To show what I know? How shameful.
For pleasure and leisure? How indulgent. And it doesn’t feel very indulgent, getting up at 5AM to steal the only hours of opportunity that I have in the day. I can think of more pleasurable and leisurable ways of spending my time.
Do I enjoy it? I’m not sure. But I tend to get very frustrated when I can’t write. It feels like a need, like exercise or natural light. Then again, not all needs are wholesome, or necessary, even though they might feel like it, as any addict will know.
And still I write. And still I publish, in an attempt to show something. What is it that I want to show?
I need to resolve this question, to discover if I’m doing something I shouldn’t; because if I am wasting my time and efforts I would rather know about it than not.
Why do I write? In my loftier moments I say: I want to save philosophy from itself.
Someone needs to speak up for philosophy or it will be lost.
Someone needs to show philosophers what they already know but have forgotten.
Someone needs to show everyone else that philosophy is not what they think it is.
Is that my business? Is it my place to say such things? I’m not sure.
No answer seems satisfactory. And so the honest answer is that I don’t know why I write, but I’m trying to find out.
I write to discover why I write.
When I started writing this piece, I didn’t have that answer. Now I do. And that will do for now.
When is an Answer not an Answer?
It isn’t a final answer.
If I discover that I write, like Orwell, for ego, ‘to seem clever’, I will stop. Because if I really am clever, knowing what I do, could I be proud of that aim?
If I discover that I write in order to teach things that I know cannot be taught by writing, or to capture things that I know cannot be captured in words, I will stop and do something else. Or at least I will stop writing ‘philosophy’ and write something else.
If I discover that it is not my place to say these things about philosophy, or that I do it a disservice, either because I am not capable or because philosophy is – in this time at least – best left in the hands of the YouTubers and academic achievers, I will stop.
‘When the Way prevails in the world, show yourself. When it does not, then hide. When the Way prevails in your own state, to be poor and obscure is a disgrace. But when the Way does not prevail in your own state, to be rich and honoured is a disgrace.’
Confucius, Analects 8:13 (translated by A. Charles Muller)
And if I discover that I have got caught up in my words, like a rabbit in a trap or a fly in a fly-bottle, then I will stop and try to forget my words, to free myself from the hold they have over me.
Read more: Think Well, Live Well: A Free Introduction to Philosophy
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