Eian Kantor (and the philosophical discipline)

Metaphilosophy is an interest primarily to two separate demographics: the new and the old. The young student of philosophy, in their unbridled enthusiasm at just recently have been introduced/initiated into a new mode of investigation, reflects on the parameters and qualities of philosophical thought because they (a) find themselves in uncharted territory, and seek to find the coordinates by which they can move forward in their studies, and because they (b) are pressured to articulate their interests and concerns specifically so they can both be identified (in terms of their position) and so that philosophical dialogue can be properly framed (for the addressee of an essay, a classmate, a colleague, etc). The old student of philosophy reflects on metaphilosophical issues because, after having devoted so much time and energy to a field, it behooves her to justify/identify just what the hell she's been doing with her life (see the introduction to "Qu'est-ce que la philosophie?" by Deleuze and Guattari).

Eian Kantor and myself are new students, so I can immediately identify with some of his high, drunken, sleep-deprived musings:

I've been thinking a lot about weird issues in metaphysics and the philosophy of language lately. I don't even know if my thoughts can even be classified in either of those two categories, because I don't usually like to categorize the philosophy/thoughts that I hold into such arbitrary categories. Almost all areas of philosophy (in my opinion, of course) can be/are conflated with other areas of philosophy (and other areas of academic disciplines)

This is something that has always rubbed me the wrong way about analytic philosophy: however useful it may be for organizing course offerings or editing coherent anthologies, the separate "branches" of philosophy seem awfully contrived. I have to agree that such areas of philosophy are already conflated, althought--being the proponent of Theory (capital "T") that I am--I have to make a distinction when it comes to the boundaries of philosophy of an academic discipline (and not just a mode or area of inquiry).

How can one study ethics without necessarily presupposing or articulating a metaphysical conception of the ethical subjects and the world they inhabit? Is the philosophy of mind all that separate from metaphysics and epistemology? From philosophy of language? Do not propositions on mind, matter, and language also have strict consequences for the way in which we approach ethics? I'd include the philosophy of religion here, but for the most part I have trouble understanding just what philosophical subject the philosophy of religion is supposed to treat. But if it is legitimate, it seems impossible to conceive of a discussion of god, spirit, etc. without taking the above into account. This is why discussions of "consequentialism" will never impress me--the fact that graduate applicants list "the trolley problem" as an "interest" on their CV's and statements of purpose should embarrass us.

And as far as other, external academic disciplines are considered, I'd like to sum up the paper that our colleague here at Missouri State presented at the Mid-South undergraduate philosophy conference (in regard to his proposed "three placements" of the importance of philosophy as an academic discipline):

Placement #1: Philosophy is the university's most important major and should be preserved.

Placement #2: Philosophy, on equal footing with other academic studies, has insights or advantages that are particular to its methodology and to the content of its conclusions, and should be preserved just as other studies are preserved.

Placement #3: Philosophy's methods and conclusions are covered equally well in other departments. Philosophy departments should be liquidated and the responsibility of teaching what is worthwhile in philosophy be redistributed among faculty in other departments.

I maintain, as I did at the conference, that the second position is undoubtedly the most shameful of these three options, and that due to the nature of philosophy one can only with good conscience choose the first or third position.

Under the second placement, philosophy is deprived its universality--opposed to the alternatives in which philosophy has some meaningful relationship to other academic disciplines--and its utility depends upon it being "unique" from other fields of study. Yet against history, anthropology, physics, mathematics, literature, and various emerging cultural studies, it becomes increasingly difficult to make this sort of "case" for philosophy (at least, to an administrative board charged with trimming departmental budgets). I believe that philosophy has a "unique" method, but that its content is contained (I shouldn't say contained--maybe pertinent) within other fields. However, here the distribution is so broad that dissolving it as a discipline would mean unreasonable demands of professionals in countless specialized fields: would we honestly expect faculty to teach chemistry and Popper? This third placement doesn't cut the mustard because it is all the more likely that philosophy as we know it (be it analytic or continental) would disappear from the university, not just as an official department, but altogether.

My demand for the first placement, in opposition to Biondi's own conclusion, is due to the national trend in universities to emphasize interdisciplinarity--coordinating conferences with other departments, encouraging students to double major or to take a variety of electives or to create their own major, and collaborating on cross-listed coursework and publications, etc. I have heard that this is to continental philosophy's advantage since a many european thinkers and writers have always looked to literature, art, history, sociology, politics, physics, biology, psychology and mathematics for inspiration. However, I'm totally opposed here--this formulation has it completely backwards. It is not that philosophy should strive to become more interdisciplinary in its approach; philosophy should identify itself as the only means by which separate disciplines can enter into dialogue. Theory is the interstitial glue for otherwise disconnected arts and sciences. This is why I chose to apply for admission to a PhD program in philosophy (and not literature, or cultural studies, or what have you); because I believe Theory (capital "T") is what irreducibly belongs to philosophy, and that this is much more than any particular "unique" element among other disciplines with their own "unique" elements. Theory is at the bottom of any such discipline.

I don't know how I got off in this crazy direction, but that's life.