Topics Philosophy

Question My uncle tells me that I will never be able to find what I am looking for by pursuing philosophy because of something called the "paradox of philosophy". I asked him what that was and he told me I would find out soon enough if I became a philosophy major. Its been a long time and I havent figured out what the basic paradox of philosophy is. My guess however is that the paradox of philosophy is the idea that in order to obtain absolute truth you must already possess it. Because if you dont know what the truth is how will you recognize it when you find it? Maybe that is why the theory of recollection is so importent to Plato's philosophy? Am I correct about the paradox of philosophy or is it something different than that?

Accepted:
March 2, 2011

Comments

I'm not sure exactly what your Unclemay have had in mind (although it's possible that I'm being a bitthick, and one of the other panelists will see it straight away). Ican think of several possible 'paradoxes', though (not all of whichare, technically, paradoxes). One is that philosophy is its ownundoing; in other words, if philosophy ever achieved the knowledgethat it pursues, then it would cease to exist. Oddly, this has neverhappened... However, such an undoing need not be a big problem, andindeed philosophers such as Schelling or Hegel explicitly embracedsomething like this end of philosophy. Another is that everydescription of something (e.g. a metaphysical account of the real) isonly a description, and thus requires an investigation of itsadequacy as description; and the result of that investigation is,itself, only a description; and so forth. A third (which can be foundin Hume's scepticism and Kant's critical philosophy) is thatphilosophy investigates the conditions of its own possibility andthereby discovers its own limits, beyond which philosophy orknowledge are impossible. A fourth is that philosophy beginsnot by discovery but by exacerbating the condition of ignorance --e.g. by dismantling our opinions as Socrates did, or through a methodof doubt as in Descartes). A fifth, raised by Alexander George, wasthat although philosophical questions are an everyday event,philosophy is only really taught to a few people at universities. Andfinally the one that you mention, the Platonic notion that learningis recollection – more an irony than a paradox, that one, and inany case I am not sure again why this would be a problem for you.

Perhaps the issue here is not theparadox, but what it is you are looking for, which you do notspecify. Let's go back to the first 'paradox' I listed above. Thejoke was that this end has never been reached. Many philosophers havebeen convinced that it has, only for others (or themselves, later) tosay something like 'very interesting, but let's try it again,this way...' Philosophers perpetually start over. Is this a badthing? Not necessarily: it doesn't stop philosophical ideas orarguments from being hugely influential within philosophy and indeedchanging the world outside philosophy; it doesn't mean that therehaven't been many advances and discoveries (provided we understandwhat that means a little differently). Finally, it doesn't mean thatthere is no value to studying philosophy. Philosophy courses atuniversities are sometimes asked to justify their existence. Oneresponse is 'the ability to analyse issues, recognise problems,evaluate solutions – in short, the ability to think. If thoseskills are not valuable, what is?'