Submissions are invited for Vol. 3 of
SHIBBOLETHS on the theme of 'Philosophy or Theory?'.
It is well known that the term 'philosophy' is derived from the Greek word
Φιλοσοφία which
means in English 'love' (philos) of 'wisdom' (sophia).
Historically, many
philosophers have certainly viewed themselves as engaged in a quest to answer profound metaphysical
questions concerning the nature of the universe and our place in it (What is the meaning of life?;
Who am I?; etc.).
However,
many contemporary philosophers would argue that
philosophy, at least in its current incarnation, is less concerned with
making bold metaphysical pronouncements concerning the nature of things ("the
world is this or that way") than exploring the precise means through which we
arrive at such pronouncements. From this perspective, the goal of
philosophy is ultimately to lay bare the foundations of and presuppositions
which inform our claims about the world as well as to engage in critical
reflection on and put to the test the various beliefs which humans entertain.
In focusing on the formation of concepts and
theories, philosophy is tantamount to nothing less than a 'thinking about
thinking.'
Distinguishing between philosophy (the
philosophical quest in general to make sense of reality) and Philosophy
(the scientistic conception of the field which currently prevails at
least in the English-speaking world), Richard Rorty contends that contemporary philosophy is split
into at least three major, competing paradigms:
Three answers have been given, in our century, to the
question of how we should conceive of our relation to the Western
philosophical tradition, answers which are parallelled by three
conceptions of the aim of philosophizing. They are the Husserlian (or ‘scientistic’)
answer, the Heideggerian (or ‘poetic’) answer and the pragmatist (or
‘political’) answer. ("Philosophy as Science, as
Metaphor and as Politics" 9)
Advocating a combination of the socio-historical and
rhetorical approaches to philosophy, Rorty has devoted much of his later
career at least to a critique of Philosophy, that is, of the dominant
scientistic model. Arguing that 'philosophy' may be an inappropriate
name for the former, Rorty has proposed several alternatives, including
'hermeneutics,' 'cultural criticism' and, perhaps most importantly,
'Theory':
I shall use
the word ‘theorist’ rather than ‘philosopher’ because the etymology of
‘theory’ gives me the connotation I want, and avoids some I do not want.
The people I shall be discussing do not think that there is something
called ‘wisdom’ in any sense of the term which Plato would have
recognised. So the term ‘lover of wisdom’ seems inappropriate.
But theoria suggests taking a view of a large stretch of
territory from a considerable distance, and this is just what the people
I shall be discussing do. They all specialise in standing back
from, and taking a large view of, what Heidegger called the ‘tradition of
Western metaphysics’ – what I have been calling the ‘Plato-Kant canon.’
(Contingency, Irony, Solidarity 96)
Rorty contends that although both Philosophers and Theorists are involved in
similar projects to grasp the basis of our truth-claims, they are broadly
distinguished by their respective methods, by differing perspectives on the
likely outcome thereof and, consequently, by very different understandings of
the nature of the philosophical enterprise as a whole. To be precise,
where a Philosopher most often seeks to solve particular problems (such as the
nature of beauty or of right and wrong) by paying scrupulous attention to the
logic advanced in support of his / her particular thesis, a Theorist tends to
explore the history of previous discussions on the matter at hand with a view to emphasising the
socio-historical specificity and rhetorical dimension of all truth-claims.
Moreover, where the Philosopher tends to assume that accurate empirical
knowledge is a possibility, albeit not without much effort, the Theorist tends
to be much more skeptical of the possibility of ever arriving at a 'truth' which
is not somehow impregnated with, if not entirely the product of, a particular
set of theoretical assumptions. Last but not least, where the Philosopher most often assumes
that the history of philosophy is tantamount to a journey towards ever-greater
enlightenment, leading to an ever more secure grasp of the true nature of
reality, the Theorist mostly considers the history of thought to be nothing more
than a contingent succession of vocabularies and conceptual frameworks none of
which have any greater claim to veracity than any other.
The term 'theory' is derived from a cluster of related Greek words (not
least the verb theorein and the noun theoria
[θεωρία])
associated with the spectators at a theatrical event and the activities in
which they engage (including to look at, to view, to contemplate, and to
speculate). In common usage, the
term 'theory' often signifies a conjecture, opinion, speculation,
hunch or guess, that is, a view not necessarily based on facts or consistent
with reality. The term 'theory' is often also opposed to that of
'practice,' implying a realm of pure ideas divorced from the real world of
action.
In the positivistic natural and social sciences, a theory is a
model of reality thought to be derived largely a posteriori from empirical data,
that is, a proposed description or explanation of the interaction of an observed
set of natural or social phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences of
the same kind and of being proved or otherwise falsified through empirical
observation. Where the Philosophy of Science mainly examines the logic and
what Karl Popper et al. called the 'scientific method' employed in the
advancement of such theories, the Rhetoric of Science explores the literary and
so-called Science Studies (a
synonym nowadays for the Sociology of Science) the social, political, and cultural
dimensions of scientific truth-claims.
In
the arts and humanities as well as the interpretive wing of the social
sciences, Theory
(sometimes also referred to as Critical, Cultural or Literary Theory) has emerged
in recent years as an umbrella term for efforts to explore those a priori
theoretical frameworks through which knowledge is thought to be produced in disciplines
such as literary criticism, communication studies, history, psychology, and
so on. Jurgen Habermas argues that there are two basic, sometimes overlapping
tendencies in Theory: critical (in the sense of interpretive) theory
applies techniques developed principally in the analysis and criticism of
literary texts to a variety of other texts (e.g. historical or popular
cultural texts) and other kinds of phenomena treated as if they were texts
(e.g. films or social structure), while critical
(social) theory is devoted to the analysis, critique and, ultimately,
the radical transformation of society as a whole, in contrast to the
traditional theories of philosophers oriented only to understanding or
explaining it (Marx argued that it was not enough to merely interpret the
world, the point was to change it).
For ISSUE 1 (SEPTEMBER 2007), we invite papers that reflect on
the nature of
'Philosophy'
and / or 'Theory' in general and their relation to each other.
Reactions to Rorty's claims as well as those of other metaphilosophers or
metatheorists are welcome. The deadline for
submissions for Issue 1 is July 1, 2007.
For
ISSUE 2 (JANUARY 2008), we invite papers that seek to trace the
history of
'Philosophy' and / or 'Theory' (including broad overviews, discussions of particular
philosophers / theorists, specific phases or periods, and various schools of thought) as well
as the development of 'Philosophy' and / or 'Theory' in particular
locales (e.g. African
philosophy or Russian theory).
The deadline for submissions for Issue 2 is November 1, 2007.
For
ISSUE 3 (MAY 2008), we invite submissions that address particular theoretical
topics, problems
or issues in such areas as:
The deadline for submissions for Issue 3 is
March 1, 2008.
