How Philosophy Happens

How philosophy happens – As I have mentioned before, my background is in academic philosophy, and I spent years studying a philosopher who meant a great deal to me at that time: Friedrich Nietzsche. If nothing else – although there is a lot “else” – Nietzsche was a peerless stylist, and naturally I am influenced not a little in my approach to writing by this great German master whose dynamic but elegant style I cannot hope to equal. I have found myself more and more in disagreement with what Nietzsche actually thought. But I am inspired in writing this blog by the idea that philosophy sometimes comes alive with its greatest intensity in such unconventional, non-academic forms as the aphorisms and paragraphs in which Nietzsche wrote. Sometimes a single sentence by a thinker such as Nietzsche, Kierkegaard or Maurice Blanchot seems to accomplish more philosophically than many scholarly books, such as Kierkegaard’s saying (somewhere) that “the instant of decision is madness.” I take Nietzsche’s own reflections on such matters quite seriously:

I do not desire that either my ignorance, or the vivacity of my temperament, should prevent me being understood by you, my friends: I certainly do not desire that my vivacity should have that effect, however much it may impel me to arrive quickly at an object, in order to arrive at it at all. For I think it is best to do with profound problems as with a cold bath – quickly in, quickly out. That one does not thereby get into the depths, that one does not get deep enough down is a superstition of the hydrophobic, the enemies of cold water; they speak without experience. Oh! the great cold makes one quick! – And let me ask by the way: Is it a fact that a thing has been misunderstood and unrecognised when it has only been touched upon in passing, glanced at, flashed at? Must one absolutely sit upon it in the first place? Must one have brooded on it as on an egg? Diu noctuque incubando, as Newton said of himself? At least there are truths of a peculiar shyness and ticklishness which one can only get hold of suddenly, and in no other way, - which one must either take by surprise, or leave alone.... […] So much with respect to brevity; the matter stands worse as regards my ignorance, of which I make no secret to myself. There are hours in which I am ashamed of it; to be sure there are likewise hours in which I am ashamed of this shame.”

(Nietzsche, The Gay Science, 381)

Don’t mistake me (or Nietzsche): I think there are profound thoughts to be encountered in all kinds of ‘academic’ philosophers as well, from various traditions. But extensive reading and research in the academic field, and the construction of texts on an academic model, are absolutely no guarantee of reaching into the depths of philosophical problems. Is academic philosophy at times a game of citation and intramural debate that spills itself into millions of words, without taking us any further in fundamental problems? I leave it to academics to answer this honestly.

So how does philosophy happen? Well, it’s necessary of course to have one’s eyes opened to some of the fundamental problems of philosophy at some point, maybe by encountering some of the great philosophers of the past, or maybe by just running into them in some other way, or discovering them for oneself etc. - as in a sense the Greeks did. Once the seed is planted, it seems to me that it is often not particularly helpful to be constantly reading academic philosophical books, for those questions often get lost and obscured in those pages. What may result is a certain commitment to definite positions for reasons that may be honestly assumed to be philosophical, but which are often based on something else: identifying with a particular community for example, or looking for a certain security.

This can only ever happen when philosophical problems become sundered from the essential and vital questions of what it means to live one's life. Nothing is more deadly for the path of genuine philosophy than that those questions should just become a professional concern, a technical procedure that belongs to your working life alone, whereas the business of living takes place entirely separately from this, when one leaves the academic office and returns home. Good academic philosophers - and there are many - know better than to let this happen.

                In favourable conditions, the seed of philosophy develops in its own way into a healthy plant, in the context of simply having to live your life, its growth not forced or unduly constrained in any particular direction. It was Nietzsche too who recognized how much of the work of thinking happens below the level of consciousness. For Nietzsche there was an irrational driving force in the psyche which dictated philosophical conclusions in advance and then engineered arguments to justify them. I am more sanguine about how philosophy works: While these forces are of course always in play, a genuine seeking for answers about life can lie within us, a seeking that takes on board the experiences of life and ruminates on them, whatever we think we may be doing at the time. Many will recognize instances of some complex problem to which the solution comes all of a piece, without thinking about it consciously at all. All of this may sound exactly like Nietzsche's “sitting on an egg,” but in a curious way I think it can go hand in hand with the dynamic movement in thought he describes, quickly into and out of specific philosophical problems.

                In my own case, while there is often a voice saying that I should be doing so much more, should be reading more and writing scholarly articles – something I may in fact do one day – another part of me knows that in some sense everything is being accomplished just as it needs to be. That just to continue to let my mind work on these problems, sometimes consciously, sometimes not, to read a little, and to write these short reflections just as they come out – this is exactly what is required, no less and, more importantly, no more.

Paxos, Greece