Philosophy must be constantly renewed

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And the answer to the original question is: even if all possible 'philosophical' questions had already been posed and answered comprehensively, there would still be major ongoing tasks. The first of these would be interprative, maintaining that philosophical discourse as meaningful in new situations and cultures as they arise. The second task would be pedagogical, in teaching philosophical skills as the best means for encouraging understanding of the arguments, but also to ensure that they can be reconstructed 'without loss' through time. Oh how Platonic!

But of course it is not the case that all possible 'philosophical' questions have already been posed and answered. There are no pure Platonic forms constituting the philosophical questions and answers. There are of course arguments that punctuate the 'history of philosophy', but only as discourses that are creatively reconstituted each time, subject themselves to doubt in relation to their 'original representation' (and why do we need that to rely upon?). It is possibly true that arguments relating to more mechanistic and restricted areas 'formal logic' are more easy to reconstitute through time, as the formal mechanisms over which they operate are themselves easy to reproduce. In this aspect of the discipline philosophy really is closer to science, capable of distinct progress as our abilities to master a fromal domain improves. Or perhaps we should say that logic is more like engineering, in that we are incrementally developing the formal domain to give us more control. At which point philosophy becomes computing. But once you start to consider more compex and less mechanistic subjects, things get a lot less certain and a lot less progressive. And finally you have two options, limit the scope of philosophy, or abandon the idea that it is like a science or like engineering.

Philosophy then, as a means for dealing with complex fundamental issues, is something that must be constantly renewed.

Robert O'Toole : 10 Oct 2004 09:45 |  Tags: Philosophy Research Transversality Transversality |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem