8. Addendum on Western Philosophy

[This is a Supplemental Page]

In the previous two essays I take great liberties to caricaturize philosophers and their ideas to construct a story about how the great thinkers of Western civilization grappled with the fundamental questions of truth, reality, and meaning, and were thwarted at every turn in their quest for certainty.1 I am taking cheap shots. Each of them started with deep and compelling questions and added something insightful, usually ingenious, to the evolving dialog. Through their scholarly skirmishes (sometimes collegial, sometimes not) they discovered useful distinctions and worked out many of the dead ends and circular paths that inevitably await the deeply curious. There are many more ways to build a precarious bridge than a safe one, and the passed-on knowledge of “what not to do” and “ideas that may seem good but won’t work for this reason…” is invaluable. (See the essay on The Believing Game.)

Still, in the end, it is mostly their critiques of each other’s lines of reasoning that remain valid, while their claims to truth are eminently fallible. Philosophers, like all of us, are most vulnerable when they propose that something is true, and on steadier ground when they shoot holes in the theories of others. This state of affairs would be disconcerting to the classical philosophers, but, as we will see, in modern times it is increasingly accepted as a given in the game of philosophizing (and the game of truth-claiming). But what of this game? As we increasingly acknowledge the fallibility of human reason we do not need to give up on the possibility that ideas, always fallible, but still useful, can productively build upon on another. In addition to critiquing each other this is precisely what philosophers have been doing. I am reminded of this from Barack Obama’s inaugural speech: “know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.”

  1. I have left out Eastern Philosophers in this essay, but will consider them later. Eastern thought had a subtle but significant influence on some of the post-Kantian directions of thought. [↩]