Question What the role does cannabis (or any other mind-altering substances) play in the world of philosophy?

Accepted:
December 4, 2010

Comments

Great question! As it happens, just this fall a new book has come out: Cannabis and Philosophy edited by Dale Jacquette with multiple articles, mostly in favor of the use of cannabis in moderation. Michel LeGall and I (under the title "The Great Escape") actually defend the permissibility of moderate cannabis use in response to some moral and religious (mostly Christian and Islamic) objections. In the world of philosophy, there has been little explicit attention given to mind-altering substances except with respect to alcohol and then mostly wine. Most philosophers who do discuss drinking wine defend it or seem to assume it is acceptable in moderation. Pascal comments somewhere that if you do not drink wine you will not find the truth, but if you drink too much you will wind up in the same state (without truth). Cicero and Erasmus both wrote against excessive drinking. Although perhaps more of a novelist and free thinker than philosopher, Aldous Huxley does offer a case for psychotropic drugs in The Doors of Perception. If you read Huxley's classic text, you should check out Zahner's book Our Savage God; he was a distinguished philosopher and historian of religion who took LSD in an effort to determine whether Huxley was right!

William James has some interesting observations on drink and drugs in The Varieties of Religious Experience. But of course probably the most definitive, irreverent and amusing look at mind-alteration and philosophy is captured in the great Monty Python's philosophers' drinking song.

Well, there's mind-altering and mind-altering! Dope that makes you dopey might give you time out from the nagging concerns of philosophy, but isn't likely to play a role in producing serious thought. Wine or beer seems different. The glass or two in the pub after the seminar do often lubricate good philosophy, and the convivial arguments in the conference bar certainly play their part in world of philosophy.

As to philosophizing about mind-altering stuffs, there's of course a good amount of discussion on the ethics and politics of legalizing this or banning that. But Charles Taliaferro is right that, when it comes to writing about our experience of the stuff itself (as opposed to ethical and legal issues about it), it is wine that traditionally gets the attention. That's not too surprising, perhaps, when we recall that at least some it is produced, not just to be glugged down, and certainly not just to make you intoxicated, but to be an object of aesthetic attention and reflection, as a continuing part of a tradition in human life of considerable complexity. There is room then, as with other such aspects of human life, for philosophizing about wine and our experiences of it -- as in Barry Smith's recent edited collection of essays Questions of Taste which is indeed subtitled The Philosophy of Wine.

Question What the role does cannabis (or any other mind-altering substances) play in the world of philosophy? Accepted:December 4, 2010

Question What the role does cannabis (or any other mind-altering substances) play in the world of philosophy?

Accepted:
December 4, 2010