Divergent Perspectives

There is foolproof system neither of thinking nor of living. The solitary philosopher travels light, responsible for no one but himself, and ideally isolated so as to allow room for thinking that would otherwise be taken up with the responsibilities of life, and the association of philosophy with Athens typically goes hand-in-hand with the observation that someone like Aristotle, or Plato before him, held slaves to do the manual labor, so that they were free to contemplate the nature of all things, to philosophize. Only with Christianity and the associated insight that suffering is universal, complementing the Greek insight of the universality of geometry, do we get the possibility of philosophy as contemplation of a human condition we all undergo laboriously, rather than as a merely scientific endeavor.

Analytic philosophy proposes to continue on with philosophy as science, ignoring questions of the human condition. One might ask how philosophy can belong to the university conceived of as a research institution intended to facilitate scientific discovery, and analytic philosophy is the answer. But research into the human condition involves introspection of a kind such as Socrates practiced in asking the interlocutor, at a point of inquiry where there is no clear answer, not what he would have to say if he were to justify his argument, but what he actually thinks. Perhaps there is a relationship between Socrates’ plebian origins and his living his philosophy, rather than practicing it as an art of contemplation; he dialogued, rather than reflecting in isolation, and a plebeian has to work for a living (though it seems that Socrates, to be sure, rather relied on his friends for this).