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| Ludwig Wittgenstein |
Is Philosophy a Fact-finding Activity?
Wittgenstein says that philosophy is NOT a fact-finding activity. Avrum
Stroll writes that according to Wittgenstein, "traditional philosophy
does not so much discover patterns in reality as attempt to fit the
complex world into preconceived patterns [conceptual models] of how
things must be, and that this process leads to misunderstanding,
misdescriptions and paradox." (Stroll, Wittgenstein, 2007, 84-85).
For example,
in our effort to understand time, we ignore the fact that we already
are "experts" about time. After all, we use temporal language
constantly, e.g. "What time is it?" "When will you arrive?" "I will be
there the day after tomorrow." And when we say these things we are
understood by others! What more do we want?
And then along comes the philosopher who wants us to
reflect on the concept itself and imposes conceptual models that get us
into complete confusion, for example the Augustinian theory that "Time is a river which flows by us,
or perhaps we flow upon it." But don't we wonder where we were
yesterday on the river, when did we see the river flow by, what time will the river flow past us tomorrow, and where is it going? The word "now" is also slippery, because now is
here and then it is gone! Where does it go? How long does "now" stay with us?
Wittgenstein says that it is when we theorize about
time that we get into such muddles. There are no hidden facts about time that
philosophers must discover. We are already masters of time (temporal
language), and that is all we need to know. Thee is nothing hidden,
there is nothing below the surface that the philosopher can dig up and
expose.
Your thoughts?
[For more on the nature and methods of philosophy, see my book UNDERSTANDING PHILOSOPHY: The Smart Student's Guide to Reading and Writing Philosophy. It is now available free to subscribers at my website HoulgateBooks.com]
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