Skepticism of Philosophical Thought

Last updated 03/18/07.

Published on: December 16, 1998

Innumerable people naively and indiscriminately turn to philosophy in their search for truth. I've long thought that such writings were like ancient traps, waiting to ensnare the latest generations of gullibles. It's patently obvious once one's read a bit that hardly any two philosophers' positions can be harmonized: the vast majority of them must be in error. A classic example of Sturgeon's Law: "90 percent of everything is crap." But it takes quite a bit of reading to notice this, and innumerable people fall victim to belief along the way.

But there's a sanctimony about it all, especially the "great thinkers." A few years ago, Calvin Ostrum recommended to me David Stove's "The Plato Cult and Other Philosophical Follies," which the author declares was written for the express purpose of dispelling that unjustified respect.

I finally got my copy, and struggled to maintain interest until I got to the seventh and last chapter: "What is Wrong with Our Thoughts." There, I was jolted awake by some of the keenest philosophical ridicule and criticism I've ever had the pleasure to read.

In his rather direct Australian fashion, Stove puts it baldly:

"From an Enlightenment or Positivist point of view, which is Hume's point of view, and mine, there is simply no avoiding the conclusion that the human race is mad. There are scarcely any human beings who do not have some lunatic beliefs or other to which they attach great importance. People are mostly sane enough, of course, in the affairs of common life: the getting of food, shelter, and so on. But the moment they attempt any depth or generality of thought, they go mad almost infallibly. The vast majority adopt the local religious madness, as naturally as they adopt the local dress. But the more powerful minds will, equally infallibly, fall into the worship of some intelligent and dangerous lunatic, such as Plato, or Augustine, or Comte, or Hegel, or Marx."

And after some truly dreadful examples, he tops that with:

"But no! Let us, for pity's sake, as well as for horror's sake, draw a veil... But let us never forget, either, as all conventional history of philosophy conspires to make us forget, what the 'great thinkers' really are: proper objects, indeed, of pity, but even more, of horror."

That's the introduction which justifies the need for the main point of Stove's argument: that while it is obvious that much thought has gone wrong, there is no good way of identifying it by specific syndromes. Stove calls for a NOSOLOGY, a classification of diseases, for thought. The classical fallacies of logic and argument are insufficient. As an example, he lists:
40 wrong statements about the number 3.
They are a collection modelled on many famous philosophical statements and are all manifestly nonsensical, yet only a few of those statements can be explained as classical fallacies. Language is capable of far more than correct and erroneous arguments, as anyone familiar with literary devices can tell you; and language may be only an outwards manifestation of our thoughts, which could be even more diverse.

Stove's question is not about the statements, but about the thoughts generating them, and why we are prone to them. My personal guess is that the answer will lie in the sociobiology of humans (a field that Stove happened to particularly despise). Just as fallacies of argument or logic may give correct, heuristic solutions to important problems often enough to be of value, so these pathologies of thought might also serve adaptive purposes having to do with strategy and tactics of competition with each other. Ridiculous philosophy might be the memetic equivalent of peacock's tails, for example, if it doesn't give advantage in even more direct competition. A classical example might be the "my god is bigger than your god" game which has been exploited by monotheistic religions. Alternatively, the cause might be hardwired, as many of our intellectual and perceptual failings are turning out to be (such as tendencies to misjudge values of probabilistic payoffs, which likely accounts for the problems of gambling).

As a postscript, David Stove never exempts himself from these failings, and indeed many of his writings suffer from them. I don't see that as a problem for skeptics who take joy in separating the wheat from the chaff.

"The Plato Cult" is out of print. If you cannot find it in libraries or desire your own copy, you can try Advanced Book Exchange as I did. I'm very impressed with ABE: many books I've been looking for are available through their members at very reasonable prices. Counter image omitted.