“Yeah I guess you're right”, I
replied, thinking of all the time misspent by so many of my philosophy teachers
eschewed away in their secluded studies.
“Philosophy doesn't actually
influence anything”, the dialogue continued.
“Yeah totally. Then again”, I
hesitated, “I guess there was that Plato chap, the man who
arguably shaped the entirety of western intellect for millennia to
come and whose ideas shaped the world's biggest religion.”
“Okay. But ignoring a few anomalies,
what have philosophers ever done
for us?”, they retorted.
Well,
if we're going to accept Plato we'll have to allow for Aristotle. He
changed history a bit by contributing to all existing academic fields
at the time via his philosophical paradigm. He arguably planted seeds
for the scientific method and influenced both Christianity and Islam,
which sometimes play a part in people's lives even to this day.
 |
| Raphael's School of Athens. Some of these dudes may just have changed the course of everything. |
In
more modern times the odd household name such as Descartes, Rousseau,
Locke, Kant or Hume might be credited, for better or worse, for moulding
much of the west's current values and institutions. Those who paid
attention at school might remember Marx, under whose philosophical
system countless revolutions were plotted.
In
the 20th century there is Turing, father of computer science, who was
arguably philosophically oriented. There's Wittgenstein who fellow
blogger Bryan Nelson describes as an “unmatched catalysis for
creative thought in the 20th century”. In popular culture Russell
still frequently materialises. Rawls, Dewey, Simone de Beauvoir, endless
philosophically motivated political figures.
 |
| Marx. Somewhat influential. |
Feminism. Now there's a movement that
has effected the lives of millions people, and if we're going to be
generous, we'll have to accept some role played by intellectuals such
as Mary Wollstonecraft, Jane Addams, Avita Ronell, Mary Daly...
I
suppose if we're going to allow for theologians we might have to
accept some minor influence from those dudes like Augustine, Thomas
Aquinas, Karl Bath, Gregory Nazianzus, Maximus the Confessor, Gregory
Palamas.
But
that's about it. And before you say anything, we're not really talking
about the East so Confucius, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Zhuang
Zi, Dogen, Avicenna,
none
of them really count (and they probably didn't achieve much anyway).
Tiresome
sarcasm aside, the notion that philosophy has not influenced the
course of history promptly seems like a philistine dismissal, and realising its historical potential seems important. Critical readers might argue that many of the most so-called influential
philosophers were influential for reasons other than their
philosophy, perhaps in spite
of
their philosophy. However, I think a cursory glance over the
biographies of some of the names above quickly weaken that claim.
More often than not the philosophy done by these thinkers is integral
to their other work overall. Of
course none of this means that philosophy's influence is a good
thing, it just affirms its existence. It also does not mean
philosophy is
always
influential. Philosophy is still often, perhaps most often, indulgent and
self-contained.
Russell famously
makes the appealing claim that philosophy is often the seed for new
scientific disciplines (e.g. psychology in the late 19th century,
computer science in the 20th, and once upon a time, physics). He
says, “...as soon as definite knowledge concerning any subject
becomes possible, this subject ceases to be philosophy, and becomes a
separate science” (Russell, 1968, 90). This is not a snub, it is a
realisation of philosophy's often integral requisite role in
constituting practical subjects. As Russell also alludes to, much of
philosophy's influence does not come in the formation of grand
historical events, though clearly that does happen, but through
quieter, subtler, though no less profound, influences in the
psychology individual lives.
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