Back to Basics

Posted by Robert Sharp Dec 20, 2006

For some reason, I find the Greeks fascinating. Maybe it's the fact that much of our culture today is heavily influenced by Greece. Maybe it's from growing up reading Greek mythology and thinking about gorgons and heroes and gods. Whatever the reason, I always see Greek philosophy as magical, as a way to return to what makes philosophy so fascinating.

Today's philosophers are often cynical. You'd be surprised how many conferences consist of one person reading a paper and the others doing their best to shoot the paper down. There are even articles published that are basically just attacks on popular (or non-popular) books and articles other people have written. In fact, the most prolific article writers in philosophy often find half their articles by simply reacting to something someone else said, not in a critical way (which would be fine) but in a destructively argumentative way.

The Greeks do some of this, to be sure. Aristotle spends a good deal of effort in shooting holes in the work of his mentor, Plato. Still, Artistotle shows great respect for Plato, even when he disagrees with him. Plato himself often discusses philosophers who came before him, but he too shows respect for the most part. The exception is the so-called sophists, mercenary teachers who instructed students in rhetoric. Plato seems to have little patience for them. But any genuine philosopher is viewed as a respectable member of a group seeking the same ends: knowledge.

I think we should get back to the attitude of the Greeks. As philosophers, we are not enemies. We need not confront each other from an adversarial position. I've watched colleagues leave the field altogether because it did not live up to the expectations they had as undergraduates. When you read Plato or Aristotle, you feel like you are being guided by a teacher who cares about you. But when someone senselessly attacks your work, you gain nothing from it. If you are lucky, you might get some insight into how to improve your ideas, but you will also be discouraged from putting them out there again.

I am not, as you might think, speaking out of some recent personal experience. While I have been confronted with this problem in the past, I have no recent example of it. Still, I see it so often that I am forced to wonder whether it has become the norm for philosophical discourse in the modern world. If so, it's a real shame, something we should all fight to overturn.