GENIUS FORUMS

Yes, it does.

I have taken the following paragraph from a paper on the "ontology of literature":

"These varying relations in which the different generic entities stand to their elements are also reflected (if, that is, this is another fact) in the degree to which both the generic entities and their elements can satisfy the same predicates. Here we need to make a distinction between sharing properties and properties being transmitted. I shall say that when A and B are both f, f is shared by A and B. I shall further say that when A is f because B is f, or B is f because A is f, f is transmitted between A and B. (I shall ignore the sense or direction of the transmission, i.e. I shall not trouble, even where it is possible, to discriminate between the two sorts of situation I have mentioned as instances of transmission.)"

I did not write this passage myself as a satire of modern philosophy. This is from a real paper written by a real philosopher. I have no idea how this sort of writing can fail to strike anyone as completely irrelevant to daily life, to art (its purported subject), and to...everything else! It astounds me that academic committees consider essays like this one adequate proof that they should hire (or retain) a person as a professor of philosophy.

This is what happens when "specialization" proliferates in philosophy and literature departments. Neither of those subjects are "scientific," and to act as though they are makes everyone involved look ridiculous.

About a year ago, Richard Rorty reviewed a work on the history of analytic philosophy, written by an analytic philosopher very proud of his philosophical "allegiance." Here is part of the review:

"‘I had hoped my department would hire somebody in the history of philosophy,’ my friend lamented, ‘but my colleagues decided that we needed somebody who was contributing to the literature on vagueness.’

‘The literature on what?’ I asked.

‘Dick,’ he replied, exasperated, ‘you’re really out of it. You don’t realise: vagueness is huge.’

My friend’s judgment is confirmed by Scott Soames’s 900-page history of analytic philosophy. In an epilogue titled ‘The Era of Specialisation’, Soames cites ‘the investigation of vague predicates’ as an area of philosophical inquiry that has ‘exploded in the last thirty years’. The intensity with which such specialised inquiries are being pursued is, he says, indicative of the fact that ‘the discipline itself – philosophy as a whole – has become an aggregate of related but semi-independent investigations, very much like other academic disciplines.’

Soames welcomes this change. He ends his book by saying that ‘what seems to be the fragmentation in philosophy found at the end of the 20th century may be due to more than the institutional imperatives of specialisation and professionalisation. It may be inherent in the subject itself.’ Philosophers used to think that the point of their discipline was to attain a synoptic vision – to see how everything hangs together. But, Soames seems to suggest, they may finally be disabusing themselves of this millennia-long misunderstanding of their own enterprise.

To see what philosophy may look like in the future, consider the problem that gave rise to the huge literature on vagueness: the paradox of the heap. Soames formulates it as follows: ‘If one has something that is not a heap of sand, and one adds a single grain of sand to it, the result is still not a heap of sand . . . if n grains of sand are not sufficient to make a heap then n+1 grains aren’t either.’ So it seems that ‘no matter how many grains of sand may be gathered together, they are not sufficient to make a heap of sand.’

Some philosophers, such as Crispin Wright, respond to this paradox in the spirit of Wittgenstein. They argue that (as Soames puts it) ‘the rules governing ordinary vague predicates simply do not allow for sharp and precise lines dividing objects to which the predicates apply from objects of any other sort.’ Others, such as Timothy Williamson, hold (again in Soames’s words) that ‘vague predicates are in fact perfectly precise – in the sense that there are sharp and precise lines dividing objects to which they truly apply from objects to which they truly do not – but it is impossible for us ever to know where these lines are.’

An educational administrator (a dean in the US, a pro-vice-chancellor in Britain), asked to ratify the appointment of someone who has produced a brilliant new theory of heaps, might be tempted to ask whether this sort of thing is really philosophy. Most analytic philosophers would think this a dumb question – as silly as whether inquiry into the neural processes of squids is really biology. Fruitful work in an academic discipline is whatever those trained in that discipline find it important to do. Outsiders do not get to kibitz. But suppose the dean remains obdurate. I know that biology has not reached the stage of decadent scholasticism, she might say, if only because biological research links up with medical progress. The biology department, she continues, had no trouble explaining to me why the work of their squid-neurone specialist might eventually culminate in a cure for Parkinson’s Disease. I expect something similar from the philosophy department. I am told that many philosophy professors in France and Germany think that Anglophone philosophy has lost its way: that it no longer has any relevance to anything else in the intellectual world, and that its hyper-professionalism is a symptom of senescence rather than of robustness. I also hear that the undergraduates keep complaining that your department never gives courses on the philosophers whom they want to hear discussed. Before I ratify the proposed appointment, I need to be told why I should disregard such rumours."

You can read the whole thing here.

‘If one has something that is not a heap of sand, and one adds a single grain of sand to it, the result is still not a heap of sand.

It is if the individual thinks it is.

. . . if n grains of sand are not sufficient to make a heap then n+1 grains aren’t either.

It is if the individual thinks it is.

The problem is that modern philosophy has no relation to what the individual thinks. In other words, it has no connection whatsoever to reality.

It thinks that a "heap" (or anything else for that matter) is independent of what the individual thinks, but is necessarily reached by some kind of consensus by a large number of individuals - preferably academic experts.

Personally I love heaps of sand. There is a huge philosophical, scientific and social lesson involved with the slow addition of extra sand to make a sandslide.

It is easy to assume people are using language rationally and undertanding language rationally because tasks are accomplished, and people get home in time for supper. Without the willingness to examine the structure and logic of language we are left with little certainty that we are speaking correctly, and with little hope that we are being understood correctly. Most statements of philosophy are not easily questioned or corrected, with these forums being an exception. Just as in face to face communication there is room for feedback, and affirmation, and inquiry. Do you understand? If not let me try a different approach.
So, I know what you are saying. Sometimes philosophy is very technical. Much of what we deal with is impossible to measure, and then it is better to use language that is less exacting and more illustrating. Justice isn't what it is, it is more what it is like, or what it results in, or what it becomes in the societies and lives where it is accepted. Some things we do not know for what they are, and only know them when missing, and still must attempt some exactness to language.
Like the old man said: I told him when I nod my head, hit it.

Philosophaster wrote:To see what philosophy may look like in the future, consider the problem that gave rise to the huge literature on vagueness: the paradox of the heap. Soames formulates it as follows: ‘If one has something that is not a heap of sand, and one adds a single grain of sand to it, the result is still not a heap of sand . . . if n grains of sand are not sufficient to make a heap then n+1 grains aren’t either.’ So it seems that ‘no matter how many grains of sand may be gathered together, they are not sufficient to make a heap of sand.’

I don't get how that is at all a paradox. It's not at all surprising that you can't apply mathematically precise ideas to a very vague term like "heap" (although I would be tempted to say one grain of sand is just a very small heap, thus negating the premise).

Mathematics dealt with this decades ago by introducing fuzzy logic and fuzzy set theory. Is modern philosophy just catching up?