Topics Philosophy

Question For ancient philosophers, like the Stoics, Metaphysics, logic, and ethics were all united, working together to form a single self-coherent world view that could provide its adherents with the good life. Is the fact that fields such as ethics and metaphysics are often taught distinctly in modern universities (at least in the analytic tradition) a good or bad aspect of the way we do philosophy today? Should our goal be a single complete world view or should we be satisfied with a successful explanation of a single phenomenon (like language) even if it screws up our understanding of another field?

Accepted:
December 19, 2007

Comments

What a great question! I think the answer will be largely determined by the level at which the course is taught. In an introductory class (which normally will not be metaphysics anyway, right?), I personally feel very strongly about showing the relation, and indeed, basic coherence, between the different branches of philosophy.

I teach a core ethics requirement at a large, public, research-extensive university in the Southeast US. I begin the course by defining philosophy (as the "study" of wisdom, since they can't be expected to "love" what they do not know) and superficially describing its four main branches: logic, metaphysics/epistemology, ethics, and history of philosophy. I then tell the students that the boundaries between these branches are very much perforated. Although the "You Are Here" star appears over "Ethics," we start with logic -- how can one evaluate ethical arguments if one does not know what an argument is, let alone what makes it a good or bad one? -- examine plenty of ethical positions historically expounded, and then end up with metaphysics. Not doing metaphysics, of course. But with the conclusion that given the variety of conceptual schemes or frameworks with which one can approach The Ethical Question ("What ought I to do?"), and between which is it is impossible to adjudicate without reference to notions like truth, good and reality, ethics ultimately relies on metaphysics for its answers.

The result of teaching intro ethics this way is that the students realize there's more to the discussion than what we've done -- and if I'm lucky, will want to do more philosophy. In an upper division ethics course, I think this goes without saying, and the point is to zero in on one area without prejudice to its relation to the others.