Andrew Luber is a great mind, artist, and conversationalist, and I’ve benefited greatly from his insight and philosophical schema of “story” and “theme.” This schema has been employed numerous times during “The Net” discussions, and the framework also helps close the gap between “philosophy” and “art,” which I believe is paramount. “The Phenomenology of the Artist” is a fruitful field to explore to help us establish new ontoepistemologies and metaphysics, but that field will be left unharvested if philosophy and art continue to exist antagonized from one another, a mistake thinkers like Mr. Luber work to avoid and correct.
I
A point that arose in our recent discussion is the idea that many philosophers “build systems,” which is an idea that I have talked and written on in the past. I don’t deny the existence of “system building,” but I also think we are often too quick to call something “a system” that is simply a depiction of “what follows.” Is Aquinas building a system? I guess, but the Suma Gentiles strikes me as more of a collection of responses that don’t require all the other parts of Aquinas to be true to stand. Yes, I find sections and chapters of philosophers all “rising or falling together,” but not the whole of their work. “Building a system” just doesn’t strike me as describing what many philosophers are in the business of doing, for a “system” to me is something in which all the parts have to work or nothing works at all. No, this doesn’t have to be what people mean when they talk about “systems,” but this is how the metaphor comes off to me, and metaphors matter (as written on throughout O.G. Rose).
Today, I think most people have been trained to automatically discount anything that feels like a “system” to them, and for good reason: the probability that a large and extensive argument which relies on all of its parts being correct is very low. We should be skeptical of “systems,” but at the same time it’s also very important that we name things “systems” which are in fact systems, and in my opinion most philosophers are not constructing systems, and so mislabeling them as doing such is a mistake. Funny enough, I actually think there is a lot more “systems building” going on in economics and the like, but we instead call it “modeling” in those fields, making it seem like it’s not “systems building.” This means we dismiss philosophers for “systems building” and “abstract assumptions,” when that is not what they are doing, while we permit economists to “systems build,” because we label what they are doing as “modeling” — a terrible irony.
There might be a subconscious incentive to think of philosophers as “building systems,” for if we find a mistake in their thinking (which we inevitably will), believing due to the metaphor that everything has to be correct or it all falls apart, it becomes easy to then absolve ourselves the responsibility of diving deeper into the thinker. No, few people actually dismiss a whole philosopher when they find a single error or point of disagreement, but the motivation can lessen dramatically, a development to which I think the metaphoric schema contributes. Furthermore, we might want to think philosophers develop “systems,” because either we can dismiss them upon finding a single mistake, or, if they succeed, they will give us “a system” that we just have to follow (no thinking is required). A system is something that works “in itself” — we can basically “set it and forge it” and/or “let it operate on its own.” The personal and active elements are removed, which remove from us responsibility and existential anxieties. Thus, there are two motivations to think according to “systems”: either we absolve ourselves work or we gain something that doesn’t demand thinking. As we’ll explore, philosophical “clearings” demand much more of us though, hence why there might be subconscious incentives away from thinking according to them.
Now, there was indeed during Modernism an emphasis on “systems” and “totalizing visions,” and we should be on guard for those. Postmodernism was justified to react against those movements and seek to deconstruct them, but I fear we now assume the presence of systems (even when they are not there), to assure the mistakes of Modernism are not repeated. I think this is a mistake, especially since this critique is mostly levied against philosophy, because (as we’ll explore) I think philosophy will only prove ever-critical as Pluralism intensifies. We may need to “voice our ground” so that people know where we are coming from, which means we will require “clearing” — but more on that later.
At the same time, it can seem like philosophers are indeed in the business of building and creating systems — why? A fair question, and I believe this impression is a result of how philosophers tend to “orbit” the same subject for an extended period of time and describe it from different angles. This makes it seem like a system is being constructed, but really we are dealing with a “constant orbit.” Philosophers often “orbit” the human subject and describe the subject consistently, coherently, and thoroughly, and this feels like an effort of “building something.” And indeed, a case is built, but a system is something different. What philosophers do is far more “horizontal” than “vertical,” per se, and I would describe their efforts as often “orbiting” more than “systematizing.” Yes, this creates an impression of “building a system,” but I think the distinction is metaphorically critical to grasp.
II
Andrew Luber beautifully described thinkers like Kant as “making clearings for us,” which I think is a much better way to think of philosophical work. When Kant gives us “the categorical imperative,” he is not presenting a principle that we should think about all day; rather, Kant is providing us with “a social space” we can enter and occupy together. We can live in “the categorical imperative,” which means we can live and work assuming that the people around us, more often than not, will treat us like they want to be treated. Laws are not things we repeat mentally every five seconds like a robot, but instead parameters and outlines we live and work within to the best of our abilities. Ethics is clearing, and the same applies to aesthetics and ontology.
When I know the distinction between “lack” and “nothing,” then the world becomes a place where I can “live within that space,” which is to say that the world becomes a place where that distinction matters and exists. Luber is a Heideggerian, and the language of “clearing” speaks to Heidegger’s overall project, but I also see in the language something Hegelian in that there is change and progress in the gaining of an idea. If I have a plant and don’t know anything about it, but then I go to knowing something about the plant, there is real progress that occurs, even if the material condition is identical. Now, I will do things regarding the plant that I otherwise wouldn’t do (such as keep it in appropriate sunlight, water it, etc.), which suggests why we cannot draw a bold line between “practical” and “abstraction” (thinking organizes practice as what we practice influences what we think). Ideas change the world in which we are operating, which in term changes how we operate and what we do. When I know nothing about the plant, I work and operate “in a different clearing” than “the clearing” I operate in when I know about the plant. When ideas, I brush aside my ignorance and weed out my false ideas, and so enter into a place where I can relate to the plant differently: what is between me and the plant is not the same.
Philosophers are in the business of making “clearings” for us more than they are in the business of “building systems”; in my opinion, they more so “clear aside” our present ideas or ignorance and help us occupy and live in a new world. In this clearing, things can “strike us” in new and different ways, a passionate concern of Heidegger. Also, I personally am always interested in the topics of motivation, inspiration, action, and the like, which I believe are philosophically rich. In a “clearing,” we can approach and consider our motivations in more insightful ways, and so I believe “clearings” are indeed “for us” to really understand our motivations anew and really explore their metaphysical content.
III
Ethics, ontologies, aesthetics — these are not so much “systems to build and run” but “clearings to enter and live.” We live in an ethics, ontology, and aesthetics: these are not things we construct to then operate alongside us like a machine. They are more like gardens than conveyer belts, and yet the language of “system” suggest a technology or construction, reminiscent of a vacuum or robot. Why is this a consequential mistake? Well, I’ll point to something Mr. Luber said: people cannot readily understand one another if they do not know or share “the ground” from which they speak.
To expand, Luber pointed out how, in the past, when some people introduced themselves, they not only shared their family heritage, but also shared their religious tradition, which is to say they shared with one another “the ground” from which they spoke. They told one another they were Methodist, Baptist, Sufi — otherwise, how could there be any hope of communication? If I don’t know “the ground” or “clearing” from out of which you come, how can I have any hope of understanding who you are as a person? Perhaps with the advent of science and primacy of materiality, we ceased to think “ground” was relevant: after all, we came to be seen as “part of the same species” (a scientific classification), and so there was no need to share “ground” with one another. Well, as Jonathan Pageau notes, there is currently a return of “the symbolic world,” which is to say that the emphasis on “meaning” and “the phenomenological” as primary is returning. “Pure materialism” is impossible, for we simply aren’t reducible to our material composition, and Pageau notes that “pure materialism” eventually devours itself, forcing us to return to a worldview that takes seriously meaning and phenomenology. In this Pluralistic world, an explicit statement of our “ground” might again prove necessary and unavoidable; otherwise, we might find ourselves only further confused and unsure what to think.
“Systems” do not need people — they are robotic and operate “object-ively” — and so when philosophy is considered as “systematic,” the personal element is not only overlooked but considered antithetical to philosophy itself. But “philosophy as clearing” is profoundly personal, for a clearing is also an “opening.” When we create a clearing, we create a common dwelling place, and other people can come and join us in that place of dwelling. “Language is a house of being,” Heidegger taught us, because languages are common places of dwelling, Philosophy and language are similar that way, but it is hard for us to grasp this when we think about philosophy and language as “systems.” Both are clearings and openings in which people can live together, and when we use philosophy to “clear,” we use it as I think Derrida intended “deconstruction,” which is to say we make “space for others.” In this way, “philosophy as clearing” can align with Hegel’s work on “being-for-other” — Hegel and Heidegger can overlap.
“Clearing” is communal, while “systems” are mechanical: considering this, failure to think of philosophy as “clearing” can contribute to our failure to grasp its “communal element.” As a result, we will likely fail to realize that philosophy is invaluable and necessary for our growingly diverse and Pluralistic world: as there is more complexity, there will be more need for “clearing” so that we can get to other people through that complexity; furthermore, we will need to be able to articulate and express “our ground” so that people know where we are coming from (so that they “know our language,” per se). Where diversity and difference increases, “grounds” (or “givens,” as discussed in Belonging Again) will be less and less self-evident, and so we will need to be able to describe and express these “grounds.” Even if we wanted to, without philosophy, we will lack the ability to “clear an opening” in which we can be seen and in which others can stand with us.
IV
In closing, Andrew Luber discusses “theme,” and he notes that all of us must live and organize our “story” according to one (which I personally associate with “lack,” meaning “our theme” is “our lack”). If we never realize this, our “theme” will not be our own, and it will likely be something we thoughtlessly absorb from the larger culture. Our “ground” is our “theme,” but if we cannot see our “ground,” we’ll likely fail to garner our “theme” from it. This is why “clearing” our “ground” is important, but if we continue to think that philosophers primarily just “build systems,” we’ll likely miss how they could help us go about undertaking this act of “clearing.” Fortunately, we have thinkers like Andrew Luber to help us not make this mistake — the kind of person who’s wonderful to join in an opening.
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