This website is nothing but words and I am all talk. And this from someone who says that ethics is best shown by conduct and not by words; that philosophy ought to be shown and said, in such a way that the inner meaning and outward appearance are as one. But what do I show, here, except the continuation of so many ironic contradictions?
I say that philosophy is no good as therapy because it is not the right tool for the job. And yet it is the only tool I depend upon.
By my methods I am rewarded with days as pleasant as circumstances permit. What more could I ask?
I am constantly, like Socrates was occasionally, stuck in thought. I have been like this for years. And yet I have made more progress like this than I ever made in an ‘active life’ of shadow chasing.
I say that you can’t learn philosophy from the written word. But how did I come to learn most of it, and how do I still make progress, except by reading? Perhaps you can’t learn philosophy only from the written word, but that isn’t a very remarkable thing to say and hardly a reason to abandon writing philosophy.
I read Iris Murdoch say: ‘As Plato observes at the end of the Phaedrus, words themselves do not contain wisdom. Words said to particular individuals at particular times may occasion wisdom.’ And, although I’d read this before, on this occasion it prompted something new. It’s clear what made the difference: I had recently read and re-read Plato, and read around the Phaedrus, and this cultivation prepared fertile soil for a seed to germinate.
Plato listens to Socrates and understands, and writes. Murdoch reads Plato and understands, and writes. I read Murdoch and Plato and understand, and now write. It is a chain: full of weak links, undoubtedly, but what matters is to make it stronger. Do I?
I talk as if I have a ‘weight of understanding’ behind me, but this is a kind of lie. I could not be described as a ‘scholar’ about anything. If you ask me what I am an expert on, I will say ‘nothing’. I can tell you an introductory thing or two about most of philosophy, but I have no answers to give, because the more I learn the less I know. And I still can’t land a plane in bad weather.
I say that philosophy has nothing to contribute to public debates, because the difference between a philosopher’s opinion on these matters, with all the weight of philosophy behind them, and someone’s opinion who knows nothing of any of this: the difference amounts to nothing, because what’s said is, in the end, the same thing. And yet I will seek out the opinion of someone who knows what they are talking about and I will trace their reasons as far and as deep as I’m able. Am I to think I’m the only one who does this? And if not, then what reason do I have to be so pessimistic?
I say ‘anyone can know this’ and ‘you already know this but have forgotten’, but then I act on the assumption that no one knows anything.
To my former students I find myself saying I am a cautionary tale. I would not encourage them to follow me. But I think I am better off now than before.
I say I couldn’t again rise to the rigour required for an academic life, and yet I act like it’s beneath me. I ought to say that I would not sink to that again, but I cannot, because I still hold a certain respect for it and I believe it to be important.
I do hear the call of Callicles, which, as Epictetus would say, shows me that I am not convinced. I still write to try to convince myself, still stuck in thought, huddled in a corner, achieving nothing. But then I share that writing as if to answer the call of Callicles: to have something to show for it. I am my own refutation.
What is the line between irony and hypocrisy? The man who puts himself on a stage only to say ‘don’t listen to me’; or worse, the man who refuses to put himself on a stage, complaining that no one could hear. The only resolution of these contradictions would be to be on a stage and insist on being listened to, or else avoid the stage and remain quiet. But if everyone did that where would we be? Only talked at by those who should not talk while those from whom we want to hear remain silent.
I say that philosophy should be shown and not only said, and that it shouldn’t show itself in a way that goes against itself. It shouldn’t show itself to be shallow or trivial or easy when it isn’t. It shouldn’t show itself to be something that can be captured in words when it can’t. But how do you show philosophy, in a world of words, without words?
It seems like a contradiction, to say that philosophy needs words. But it is only a contradiction in the same way that a bird needs the resistance of the air in order to fly. We might think that we’d be better off without it, as we struggle with the effort, but it is the heaviness of the air that allows us to rise.
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