The Meaning of Life

I can't remember the exact quote but Iris Murdoch says something rather like this: any philosophical theory that you can't live isn't worth reading. Whatever the exact words; I heartily endorse the idea.

Contemporary philosophy, particularly the Analytic Philosophy in which I am trained, has become remote from life. It has become a series of intellectual puzzles to challenge refined intellectual tastes. It was not always so. In ancient times, particularly in the Hellenistic period, philosophy was viewed as medicine for the soul. It was the use of argument and reasoning deployed for the express purpose of curing the suffering of human life.

My question to my fellow Quaker philosophers is this: to what extent do you, in your teaching or your research, seek to address the problem of how to live. Do you see this as a proper part of philosophy or as something arrogant or juvenile (or both)?

This semester I added a few lectures on Hellenistic philosophy to my Introduction to Philosophy lectures and found that students related quite well to the issue of how we should live. Have any of you had similar experiences?

A Bigger Role for Philosophy in the Curriculum

Philosophy used to have a very big role in the college curriculum. The role has grown progressively smaller with each decade. I think we have been outmanoevered by other fields (mainly by the social sciences) in the game of academic politics. We should have a big role to play. How can we get it back?

In the standard American college curriculum today the English Department gets every student for at least one and usually for two required courses in composition. This means big English Departments. People in general recognize that the thinking skills of college students are poor. So a demand for critical thinking has arisen. But Philosophy has been outmaneovered here. As philosophers we understand clearly that good thinking requires a grounding in logic. You don't have to be able to do proofs in predicate logic with overlapping quantifiers, but if you don't see the difference between modus ponens and affirming the consequent you are in bad shape. Most college students are in bad shape. A simple practical applied logic course would do them a world of good. But instead on our campus we have every department claiming that they teach critical thinking already. The art department claims that they teach students to "think critically" when they teach them how to critique a work of art. Well, as valuable as that skill is, it isn't going to help people to see the fallacies in political speeches and editorials. You need a good solid grounding in logic for that and there is no substitute for it.

We ought to push our institutions to make Critical Thinking a required course for all students and the course should be 100% under the control of people with solid training in logic. This will require a huge shift of resources on campus and this amount of change is not easily accomodated by colleges. It's easier to "solve" the problem of lack of critical thinking skills by redefinition. "Critical Thinking" becomes whatever the Art School, Communications Department, Business SChool etc. want to call by that term. In other words change nothing in fact but rename what we are already doing. Real change requires a shift of resources. A whole army of new philosophers must be hired specifically to teach these courses and that means a gradual shift of resources away from other departments. But the shift does not have to be done overnight. It could most smoothly be accomplished in phases over a ten year period. Right now our Sociology Department mandates PHIL 1180 for its majors as their way of satisfying the humanity general education requirement. A gradual plan could target different years in which different departments made a equivalent shift in their graduation requirements. As the demand for Critical Thinking courses grew new philosophy positions could be added incrementally to handle the demand.

What do you think of my utopian vision?

Plain Speech in Action

I promised to be more regular in posting on this site. Here is a copy of the email I sent to our Provost after her visit with the philosophy department this week.


Dear Dr. Sheer,

Thank you for visiting us to share views about where ECU is going. I thought I’d take a few minutes to try to restate what some of us see as the problem with plans to turn ECU into a high-powered research institution. I speak only for myself and not for Umit and Rodney, though in some ways what I will be saying echoes their thoughts.

The quality of our students is quite a bit lower than that of students at most high-powered research institutions. As our discussion revealed there is no realistic prospect of raising ECU’s admissions standards to anything like Chapel Hill levels. In fact, as you point out, it will be a challenge not to lower them. So the kinds of students we have now are the kinds of students we will have for the next ten years and any rational plan must recognize that as a fact.

Being a high-powered research institution means asking faculty to spend more time doing research and less time teaching. No one should ignore the fact that more time for research means less time for teaching. The question is: is it wise or appropriate to continue to transfer faculty time and effort away from teaching? In high-powered research institutions typically a large proportion of the teaching is turned over to graduate students in order to free up the regular faculty for research. Another way faculty resources are freed up for research is by building and filling large lecture halls so that more students can be taught with less investment of faculty time. This standard operating procedure works tolerably well under two conditions: 1) the undergraduates are reasonably good students and can learn independently with little help from the faculty, 2) the graduate students doing the face-to-face teaching are of high quality.

Unfortunately at ECU neither of these conditions obtains. Our undergraduates are not independent learners and the students admitted to our graduate programs are of marginal quality as well. To move to the high-powered research institution model is, in my opinion, irresponsible. The result will be, and to some extent already is, educationally disastrous. There is plenty of talk among faculty about how those who once regularly assigned papers are now moving to multiple choice tests. Larger classes means that fewer faculty have attendance policies. The decline in educational quality is largely invisible but it is real and it is the result of administrative policies that promote research over teaching. I hope you will seriously consider resisting the drive to turn ECU into a research institution.

Thanks again for your time and attention,


Richard Miller
Associate ProfessorPhilosophy

Philosophers' Roundtable again?

Dear fellow contributors to, and readers of, Q/P blog,

Recalling the surprising and encouraging level of interest in the Philosophers’ Roundtable at the recent FAHE conference at Earlham (which was the motivation for establishing this blog), and remembering the approaching (and early) due date for FAHE proposals this year (November 1st), I am wondering whether we should not be in the process of putting together a proposal for another Philosophers’ Roundtable at the upcoming FAHE conference at Woodbrooke. My suggestion - and I’m just floating something here, open to counter-proposals or revisions - is that we organize around a more focussed query this time (last year’s queries were great, but it turns out were far too extensive to even begin to discuss in the time we had), and invite three or four prepared responses (of a maximum of five minutes each, and from diverse philosophical perspectives - maybe from the more regular respondents to this blog?) that can serve as the stimulus to a broader ranging discussion for the rest of the session. The moderator should probably not be one of the presenters, so that the discussion that follows not be channelled to anyone’s response/interests in particular. Given the theme of the conference, perhaps our query could be: “In what ways does your Quaker faith impact upon your philosophical practice?” (There is a broader question implicit here, of course, as to how one’s Quaker faith impacts upon academic work in any discipline, so the discussion might be of interest to others too.) But I would be interested in what others would like to hear discussed as well. What do we all think?

Jeff Dudiak

One Response to "What is Philosophy?"

In a comment to Jeffrey's posting below, I noted the difference between answering this question in conversations with other philosophers, and answering the question for a broader audience. And so I thought it would only be fair if I offered my own response! Here is one way I answer the question to those not already immersed in philosophy: this is something I wrote for the Philosophy Blog at the college where I teach.

A summary here: I have two related answers.

1. (Following Plato): Philosophy is love of wisdom. What is wisdom? Perception of goodness. What is goodness? It is like a light that shines down on the world, illuminating it in a certain way. You can choose to just focus on what is, or you can see in a more complex way, also perceiving the way that the "light" of goodness plays on this world of "what is": what that light illuminates, and what that light casts into shadow. The philosopher is the person who learns to see in this more complex way.

2. Most (all) other fields of study investigate what is in various ways. The natural sciences focus on physical reality. The social sciences focus on psychological tendencies and social forces. The arts train both in techniques of expression, and in examining and interpreting what others have expressed. The humanities study the ways that people make sense of life and construct meanings. All of these fields do employ critical analysis of what they investigate as well.

Some of philosophy overlaps with some of these, but philosophy does something else besides. It doesn't just study the world of what is, and critically investigate this world. It also acknowledges the reality (at least in human consciousness) of a world of what should be. It acknowledges that our lived experience is comprised of a dual awareness: our awareness of what is is constantly attended by another awareness of what should be (even though we may get this wrong sometimes -- just as we sometimes get wrong what is), and we are always trying to reconcile these. And so philosophy does examine directly this other modality of experience as well. It investigates our critical faculties. It even critically examines our critical faculties! Or, like I said in the above-linked posting, philosophy includes the normative study of normativity itself. I do not think that any other fields of study do this.

The Conflicted Quaker

"Do we ever find our Quaker identity in conflict with our academic-philosophy identity, and if so, how do we respond to such conflicts?"

I mentioned my own struggle with this question during the roundtable at FAHE, but wasn't too specific about it. My AOS is 19th century continental, and although I make gestures towards Kierkegaard and even Hegel on occasion, my heart lies closer to Marx and especially Nietzsche--both serious critics of Christianity and religion in general. Right now I'm finishing my manuscript for a book on Nietzsche, so I'll be done in time for classes--both the classes I'm teaching and the classes I'm taking at ESR. I mention that because I'm immersed in an atmosphere where the question of Quaker identity, and more generally Christian identity, is a constant topic. What I find as I read Nietzsche is, more often than not, he's right on target. For instance,

"It is not their love for humanity but rather the impotence of their love for humanity that keeps today's Christians from--burning us." Beyond Good and Evil, 104.

I'll offer some exegesis on that if necessary--exactly how I see this aphorism instantiated in a contemporary seminary--and I could easily point to many other similar passages in Nietzsche, but the short version is that I find Nietzsche's comments resonate with me in a way that I find disconcerting. Other than making a lot of jokes about it, I'm not sure how to reconcile these two parts of my identity.

Responses to Quaker Philosophy Roundtable Queries

My responses to the Queries posed at the “Philosophers’ Roundtable” at the 2007 Annual Meetings of the Friends Association for Higher Education:


How do we see ourselves as scholars for peace, justice, or/and sustainability?

I will attempt to respond to this opening question “indirectly,” by means of responses to the subsequent questions, which I understand as sub-questions to this principal one, as ways of “getting at” this principal one. It would be both illusory and an impediment to “peace, justice, and sustainability” to think that we need to answer the following questions “first,” as if they were more abstract or foundational ones, before we could turn to this more practical one. Rather, we are as Quaker philosophers (or should be attempting to be, at least on my view) precisely scholars/philosophers for peace, justice and sustainability, and so the proper relationship between this first question and the subsequent ones is not that between an application and its theoretical bases, but that between end and means. Still, this relationship is complicated by the challenge of determining - even while being committed to them!, and perhaps above all for this reason - more exactly what peace, justice, and sustainability are and should be. And so the question that is perhaps rightly first in “religious priority” may not be the first we should attempt to answer, even if our responses to the subordinate questions cannot be adequate unless they are first of all (albeit necessarily incomplete) responses to this principal one, if at first only tacitly so.


What are we trying to accomplish in our teaching, our research, and our service?

I see my task as a teacher, broadly speaking, and as a teacher of philosophy in particular, as one of “encouraging cultivated imaginativity.” That is, I am of the conviction that “the world” (which is always the world in which we live and so includes us and our formative practices) is ever changing, and that each generation therefore faces challenges that the previous generations could not even have anticipated. (Analogies to already navigated waters can, of course, very often be found “after the fact,” so to speak, but to determine that a new situation is analogous to a foregoing one [and that it therefore calls for an already worked out solution, or some variation of it] itself requires a fresh judgment, and one that cannot presuppose the validity of the analogy.) My students will not only have to provide answers to new problems that I could not have taught them (the “answers” that I can teach them [even if “correct,” which is far from certain] may well not be answers to the questions that they will have to ask, and will almost certainly not be the answers that will fit the context in which they will be called upon to provide their answers), they will even have to ask questions that I could not have anticipated. In fact, I see it as one of the great disservices of dogmatic philosophy (and dogmatic theology, and dogmatic science) to put itself forth as providing, or even as seeking, timeless, “once and for all” answers that will not only be serviceable in every possible context, but will even, as universal, be an attempt to govern the parameters of any possible context. My task, then, cannot be to teach my students the right answers, for even if (miracle of miracles!) I could do so today, these answers would no longer be the right answers for tomorrow by dint of the changing questions. Or less radically (though for this perhaps so much the more subtle and the more commonly missed), the changing contexts in which the “same” questions need to be answered (those of a reputed philosophia perennis, for example) would effectively change the questions, and thus the required answers. I see it as my task then, to provide students with the broadest possible range of “tools” (in the loosest possible sense) for the imaginative work that lies ahead. I want to encourage an ever deepening plasticity and agility of mind (coupled with a perpetual questioning of the status quo), and philosophy is (historically, at least, and whatever else we might take it to be) a discipline (perhaps the paradigmatic one) that by its practice - if not always by its doctrine - is a model of the indefatigable variation of “takes” on things, of alternative paradigms, of the restless “reconstituting” of “the world” (i.e., of what we “best” take “the world” to “be,” and what we are to “do” about it - where all of these terms in scare quotes - and others - are precisely “in question,” i.e., yet to be determined). This is, whatever else it claims to be, at least rich fodder for the imagination. I take this (for rhetorical purposes, to be sure, but for more than that) to extremes in encouraging students “not to be intimidated too much my reality,” which is admittedly a peculiar charge coming from a philosopher. But I want students to genuinely believe that things do not have to be what they are, that (positive and radical) change is possible (tied to the Pauline claim that the me on is brought to humble and confound the on, that “what is not” is the necessary interruption and ultimately the redemption of “the powers that be [that are]”). And if this is not able to be transacted on the deepest levels (at the level of what is generally considered as the most real, at the level of what we generally take to be questions of ontology, or metaphysics, or cosmology), then the “changes” will correlatively never be anything other than ornamental. (Such that we might well get the change that, for a time at least, it will be lambs eating lions rather than lions eating lambs, but, unless the very structure of things is malleable, we’ll never get to the truly revolutionary: “lions lying down with the lambs” - which is a wonderful example of a marvelously imaginative, necessary, and true [“truer than true”] counter-factual.)

And yet, this “imaginativity,” so important on my view, cannot rest content with being an imaginativity “free like the wind,” cannot be confused a with mere fantasizing that abandons rather than transforms reality. (I am simultaneously committed to and want to question my own “cannot” in the forgoing statement. Who says we “cannot” rest content with mere fantasy? Backed up by what, or whom? But it is this “backed up by” that in each case I am suggesting we question, for it is this - and the fact that not only may we not question them, but that we cannot [reasonably] do so - upon which “the powers” rest.) And this is why it is essential to qualify this imaginativity with cultivation. We do not (it seems) get to start fresh, with a clean page, but inherit an already made world (but not for that immutable), one with which we need to seriously and soberly engage if our work of communal re-imagining is to be effective, and thus one it is essential that we understand as best we can. We awaken, spiritually and philosophically, already implicated in a history, in a history of struggle over “what is (to be) what”. Entering into this struggle is not only limiting, but also empowering. It is what we have been “given,” but it is not given as given once and for all - it comes with a call, a call to an ongoing responsibility.


What is philosophy?

My own sense is that philosophy is without an enduring essence; that philosophy, like everything else, is going to be for us largely what we make of it. Part of the task of each generation (school, type) of philosophers is to determine what philosophy is, i.e., what philosophy can and should responsibly be for its own time. And, indeed, perhaps the mark (or one of them) of a mature philosopher is a well worked out (and often idiosyncratic) version (although I would prefer here “vision”) of the nature of philosophy. (Never mind that in most cases this has been dressed up as the very essence of philosophy for all time, rather than as a responsible version for its time.) But this “responsibility” bespeaks a response; the discourse of philosophy is, qua discourse, a response to something beyond itself. We do not answer to our philosophies, we need to answer for our philosophies. Working out what it is that our philosophies answer to, trying to articulate “within” philosophy that which “precedes” in calling for philosophy, is one of the most interesting and perplexing problems of philosophy. What needs to be avoided is the “illusion” - created by the effort to articulate that to which philosophy is a response (and thus related to idolatry) - that that to which philosophy is a mere response becomes the “object” of philosophy, over which it then exercises a power. What we “have” within philosophy is a response, and not that to which it is a response (the call to philosophizing), we “have” the echo without the original sound, which leads to the illusion that it is philosophy that is, and that whatever else is going to be (to be taken as being) has to prove itself on philosophy’s terms. Thus the disasters of the famous “proofs for the existence of God,” “the criteria for meaningfulness” arising from logical positivism, even the prejudicing of “knowledge” over mere opinion, and an endless line of such pretensions.

There is therefore some cause for preferring to think of philosophy as “a way of life” rather than as a discipline with its subject matter, as a love of “wisdom,” but before “wisdom” is translated as “knowledge.” Philosophy needs be, on my view, an attentiveness to that to which it is a response, an “attentiveness” (an ongoing attending to, “hearing” of) precisely because none of its articulations of that to which it is a response are going to capture it. Philosophy is thus both a questioning (which gives it a certain power), and a being in question (which demands of it a deep humility) - charged to respond, to be responsible.


Is it the task of philosophy to connect with real world problems?

On my view, it is indeed the task of philosophy to engage in real world problems, and more than that, to transform them; that is, not only to participate in the clarification of the questions, and the formulation of responsible answers to our questions, but to assist (and perhaps even take the lead) in encouraging a re-visioning of the questions themselves (although this latter will of necessity be an “interdisciplinary” project [even if the tenets and outcomes of the very idea of disciplinarity are themselves questionable]). Put most radically: philosophy is not only charged to engage in real world problems, but to transform “the world” - to revision, to re-constitute, what “the world” itself is. (Mundane example, but for the sake of clarity: we might want to participate as philosophers in answering the question of how we can more justly distribute wealth, but we might also want to call into question the very mode of thinking whereby “wealth,” its meaning and value, is presupposed.) And that requires, at the same time, both the deepest engagement with the problems (the “cultivated” from above) and a supreme power of abstraction (the “imaginativity” from above). I cannot be “detached” or I’ll fail to understand the problem in its profundity and seriousness, and yet I cannot be so “engaged” that I cannot see a way “through,” or a way to reconfigure the field to allow for creativity and innovation. The “purely theoretical” aspect of philosophy is thus constitutive of its practicality, is one of the key moments in its applicability; philosophy must be “above it all” (but not in any moral [or extra-moral sense]) if it is to perform its function, but it cannot perform its function if it is merely or arrogantly “above it all.” The “abstract” nature of philosophy is thus not to be gainsaid by a too quick demand for relevance, but neither may it be an end in itself, or provide a justification for a smug and aloof sense of superiority.


Do we ever find our Quaker identity in conflict with our academic-philosophy identity, and if so, how do we respond to such conflicts?

This has never been a problem for me, but perhaps in part because of the way in which I conceive of philosophy.


Is there something that could be called “Quaker Philosophy”?

I am hesitant to think there is something that could be called “Quaker philosophy” if by that we were to think that we could translate “Quakerism” - a living religious practice - into a set of philosophical claims (against which I would have the same objections as I would against translating Quakerism into a set of theological claims).

I am more inclined to think that we should rather think of philosophizing in a Quakerly manner, but where the “way of engaging” in philosophical discourse is no mere add-on after the fact that would leave “philosophy” undisturbed at its core, but where the manner of philosophizing (e.g., in a Quakerly way) would affect (and sometimes even transform or effect, though not as a one-to-one correlation) the content of philosophy itself. (For this reason I think it ultimately inadequate for Quaker philosophers to be engaged only at the level of the adopting/adapting of philosophers that seem to resonate with, or at least not violate, Quaker notions, and avoiding those that do seem to contradict them). To philosophize peacefully, for example, neither presupposes nor guarantees any definitive philosophical content, but could hardly fail to give shape to whatever content it had at its disposal, or any content to which it would participate in giving shape.

So while the idea of a “Quaker philosophy” is not unproblematic, it is no more problematic than is the idea of philosophers who happen also to be Quakers (as if the latter were incidental to their philosophical practice), and so I generally prefer - at least in most contexts, and at least until persuaded otherwise - the former problematic term to the latter problematic one, as I prefer the designation “Quaker philosopher” to that of a “philosopher who is (i.e., just happens to be) a Quaker.”


Do Quakers have anything distinctive to offer to academic philosophy?

I trust this is the case, and am - buoyed and inspired by (and in gratitude for) the strong precedents established by Quaker philosophers in the twentieth century - anxious (and committed) to participate in discovering what we, as Quaker philosophers, might have to contribute in the twenty-first. Of course, such offerings are already being made by various individuals in a range of philosophical areas and schools, and I think it essential that we encourage and support each other, and learn from each other, even (and perhaps particularly) when we don’t agree with one another. But I wonder too whether there is not a contribution that we are called to make as a community of Quakers in philosophy, with the particular and peculiar set of sensibilities and insights and responsibilities with which we have been gifted. I am excited at the prospect of being a participant in an ongoing process of determining what this “distinctive offering” might be, and am hopeful that our “philosophers’ roundtable” at FAHE at Earlham College, and the discussions following up on it, may be an opening upon such an “opening.”

Jeffrey Dudiak, Associate Professor of Philosophy
The King’s University College, Edmonton, Alberta

Our Responsibility to the Natural Philosophers

Some people are natural philosophers. The very first time that they are exposed to philosophical thinking it explodes in their brain like a bomb going off. Not only do they see that philosophers question basic assumptions and try to get to the bottom of things. They also instinctively want to try to do it themselves. With very few exceptions we professional philosophers are people like this and so should be able to understand what it is like to go through this again for the first time.

Being a natural philosopher causes lots of problems for people. For one thing it is very exciting and more than a little addictive. Once you start you want to do it all the time. At first it interferes with your relationships with people who are not natural philosophers--they think you are being more than a little tedious and argumentative. And you, for your part, are astonished that everyone isn't just as fascinated by these ideas as you are. So relationships can suffer at least at first. Second, philosophy seems to give you a God's eye view of things. It can cause an ego to swell rapidly to enormous proportions. Thinking about things from this angle can make one feel infinitely superior to the common rabble who are immersed in ordinary life. This is potentially very dangerous and harmful to people. How do we communicate to those we have "infected" with philosophy that it does not mean that they are better than other people? Finally, I worry about those who graduate with degrees in philosophy and are clearly addicted but are not going to make careers as professional philosophers. Honestly only a very tiny percentage of our majors will be professors some day. But a substantial percentage of our majors are addicted to philosophy and will have a hard time adjusting to a world where they won't get their daily philosophy fix! What do we do for these addicts to prepare them to adjust to the "real world."

Have others thought about these issues? Do you have helpful ideas to share?

Quaker Philosophy Roundtable

The following questions were raised at the most recent meeting of Friends Association for Higher Education as part of a roundtable discussion about what it means to be a Quaker and a philosopher and how these things intersect with issues facing Quakers (i.e., Peace, Justice, and Sustainability). As one participant put it, all three days of the conference could have been spent on these questions; because of the interest in and complexity of these questions, this blog has been started in order to foster an ongoing discussion.These questions are intended to be a starting point, rather than boundaries around discussion.

• How do we, as philosophers, each see ourselves as "scholars for peace, justice, or sustainability"?
• What is it that you are trying to accomplish in your teaching, in your research, and in your service?
• What is philosophy, anyway?
• Is it the task of philosophy to connect with real world problems, or not?
• How do you see your primary identity? Quaker? Philosopher? Quaker-Philosopher? Teacher? Scholar? Something else?
• Do you ever find your Quaker identity in conflict with (or in tension with) your academic-philosophy identity? How do you respond to these situations?
• Is there something that could be called "Quaker Philosophy"?
• Do Quakers have anything distinctive to offer to academic philosophy?

Anyone is welcome to reply, but we hope others will join this blog in order to write at greater length.