Monday, March 22, 2004
I was listening to "Affirmative Action" by Nas, for the first time paid some attention to the lyrics and heard this keeper: "Life's a bitch, but God forbid the bitch divorce me." Rather brilliant, I think. This line also reminded me of Kant for some reason.
So about that article in NYT Magazine about Lou Merinoff (author of "Plato not Prozac" and founder of the American Philosophical Practitioner's Association or something). I haven't read it yet. But my general take on philosophy as therapy is this: philosophy is rather good at straightening out people's thoughts, and a lot of problems people have do depend on confusions. And many of the philosophers I know do seem to have a slightly better sense of perspective than other people I know. On the other hand, they are no less likely to suffer from depression, existential crises, etc. Of course, if your problem is that you think God hates you because you're gay, maybe philosophy can help to show you that there's no reason to believe God exists. Or if your problem is that you think life is meaningless without God, philosophy can show you that God couldn't supply the kind of meaning you want anyway.
But it's unclear that philosophy can really help you deal with the deepest problems of existence, and it may only be through philosophy that some of these problems (e.g. the Absurd) are encountered. Perhaps philosophy can help ensure that you suffer from deep versions of those problems rather than shallow versions of those problems. As Bertrand Russell wrote (while at UCLA), "the net result [of philosophical investigation] is to substitute articulate hesitation for inarticulate certainty." So rather than be certain that life's a bitch, one can note that there are many ways in which calling life a 'bitch' confuses things, but nevertheless there's an important way in which life is bitchy.
¶ 5:19 PM
So about that article in NYT Magazine about Lou Merinoff (author of "Plato not Prozac" and founder of the American Philosophical Practitioner's Association or something). I haven't read it yet. But my general take on philosophy as therapy is this: philosophy is rather good at straightening out people's thoughts, and a lot of problems people have do depend on confusions. And many of the philosophers I know do seem to have a slightly better sense of perspective than other people I know. On the other hand, they are no less likely to suffer from depression, existential crises, etc. Of course, if your problem is that you think God hates you because you're gay, maybe philosophy can help to show you that there's no reason to believe God exists. Or if your problem is that you think life is meaningless without God, philosophy can show you that God couldn't supply the kind of meaning you want anyway.
But it's unclear that philosophy can really help you deal with the deepest problems of existence, and it may only be through philosophy that some of these problems (e.g. the Absurd) are encountered. Perhaps philosophy can help ensure that you suffer from deep versions of those problems rather than shallow versions of those problems. As Bertrand Russell wrote (while at UCLA), "the net result [of philosophical investigation] is to substitute articulate hesitation for inarticulate certainty." So rather than be certain that life's a bitch, one can note that there are many ways in which calling life a 'bitch' confuses things, but nevertheless there's an important way in which life is bitchy.
¶ 5:19 PM
