Among the texts we pick up to read, some few will shape our thoughts and therefore our beliefs in ways much more profound than others. “No one opens a book on algebra with anxiety”, writes Brand Blanshard in his Philosophical Style, “as to whether the author is going to treat the binomial theorem roughly, or a book of physics with the feeling that hope will be blighted if Ohm’s law comes out badly.” So too, we might read histories of distant lands and foreign cultures with curiosity but no investment. On the other hand, when we read philosophy, we find ourselves faced with something of a personal nature. “But”, Blanshard continues, “people do feel that it is of importance whether their religious belief is honeycombed, or their hope of survival blasted, or even whether pleasure is made out to be the only good.”
Deadened Minds
Most of us are born inquisitive; we seek to know. Shortly after discovering speech, we learn to ask not only for things that we want, but what things are, and why they are the ways they are. But as we age, and mostly as we are subjected to modern methods of schooling, our inquisitiveness becomes curbed. In the words of Mortimer Adler:
What happens between the nursery and college to turn the flow of questions off, or, rather, to turn it into the duller channels of adult curiosity about matters of fact? A mind not agitated by good questions cannot appreciate the significance of even the best answers. It is easy enough to learn the answers. But to develop actively inquisitive minds, alive with real questions, profound questions–that is another story.
Adler 1972: How to Read a Book, 270.
Much of modern education unfolds according to the pretense, held in unreflective consciousness, that knowledge is a possession; and that teachers hold it more than students, and students, in studying, dispose themselves to receive it. What, primarily, is learned by this model? Not to ask good questions. Good questions unveil our ignorance; they force us to search, again; they give the lie to knowledge as a possession!
Style and Philosophy
Often, when minds begin to wake from their unnatural, questionless slumber, they find authors whose answers stimulate thinking in ways unexpected, given the bland and rote education most have received. In recent decades, as the internet exposes a larger number of people to unorthodox thinkers, these writers ordinarily operate under the guise of deliberate provocateurs. Thus the popularity of some pseudonymous bloggers, such as Costin Alamariu, or the resurgent interest in writers like René Guénon. Their sway comes from the appearance of possessing special knowledge–deeper knowledge, knowledge that others don’t want you to have.
Writers of this sort, however, seem less interested in what might be properly called philosophy, but rather, the exercise of rhetorical persuasions toward their own beliefs. With talents of style, many fall under the spells they weave in words. Talented sophists have, since the days of Socrates, succeeded in making the worse appear as better, and vice versa. Further, they excel at making the wise seem foolish to the many, and their own foolhardiness appear as wisdom in its place.
Reading Philosophy against Sophistry
These points, scattered though they are, raise a question itself of pivotal importance in these our days of late modernity: how do we read philosophy, today, to distinguish what truly is wisdom from what merely persuades by style? How do we discern the true meanings of texts? Can we grasp abstruse reasoning from reading alone? What else is needed to pursue wisdom in the written word?
These, and many other questions, will obtain our attention this Wednesday at our Philosophical Happy Hour! Use the links below to join in the conversation.
Philosophical Happy Hour
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Come join us for drinks (adult or otherwise) and a meaningful conversation. Open to the public! Held every Wednesday from 5:45–7:15pm ET.
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