(Roughly) Daily

Helena de Bres on what philosophy can– and can’t– help us understand about the meaning of life…

… It’s not always clear what the average person is after when seeking life guidance from philosophers, but it tends to be a mix of three things. First, some general orientation in the universe; second, a serving of existential consolation for when life fucks us over; and, more rarely, a dose of specific practical advice (to text back or not to text back?)

The easy reply to the last of those requests is that philosophy can supply at best only part of the answer. How someone should respond to a particular situation depends on facts about the world that we philosophers have no special expertise in… so we can’t pronounce on the question solo.

The more socially uncomfortable reply is that the demand that philosophy be personally helpful, in any of these three ways, sounds wrongheaded to someone with the training of a mainstream contemporary philosopher. Saying that aloud involves accusing a fellow human who’s having a life crisis of being naïve, which is an asshole move I try to avoid. But I do think it, because pretty much the last thing I saw myself as acquiring while I skilled up in graduate school was transferable expertise in how to deal with everyday life, on either the grand or the intimate scale…

Science has practical applications, but to true devotees the applications aren’t the main point, and attempting to go straight to them is likely to backfire. Seeking direct life guidance or swift consolation from philosophy is similarly risky, for similar reasons. Bernard Williams writes in his essay “On Hating and Despising Philosophy” that, though philosophy can be pressing, it doesn’t get there “by instantly addressing the urgent and the deep.” That results in mere superficiality, intellectual kitsch. Being genuinely helpful usually requires being truthful, and because the issues philosophy addresses are complex and difficult, the search for the truth about them should start in the foothills and inch up cautiously. A truthful philosophy will be unspectacular and inaccessible to the average person as it proceeds. And if philosophy does eventually generate good life advice, there’s no guarantee it’ll deliver comfort along with it. Truth can be a bitch…

Academic philosophy and the meaning of life: “Help!,” from @helenadebres in @the_point_mag. Part one of a four-part series (it gets less bleak :). Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

* William James

###

As we search, we might wish a Joyeux Anniversaire to a philosopher whose practice was robustly practical: Denis Diderot, contributor to and the chief editor of the Encyclopédie (“All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyone’s feelings.”)– and thus towering figure in the Enlightenment; he was born on this date in 1713.  Diderot was also a novelist (e.g., Jacques le fataliste et son maître [Jacques the Fatalist and his Master])…  and no mean epigramist:

From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.

We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter.

Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.

A thing is not proved just because no one has ever questioned it.

 source