Theories and Things

W. V. Quine
The Belknap Press of
Hanard university Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
and London, England
1981
Has Philosop.hy Lost
Contact with People?
What is this thing called pbilO<Sophy! Professor Adler finds
that it has changed profoundls in the past half century. ]t
no longer speaks to the ordinary man or confronts problems
of broad human interest. What is it? Is there some recog-
nizable thing, philosophy, that has undergone these changes"!
Or bas the mere word 'philosophy" been warped oer, apply-
ing earlier to one thing and now to another'! Clearly Adler
is e:-:ercised by nothing so superficial as the migratory se-
mantics of a four-syllable word, however resounding. He
would say that philosophy is indeed somehow the same sub-
ject, despite the deplored changes. To show this he might
cite the continuity of its changing history. But continuits
is characteristic like,...,ise of the mig1:atory semantics of a
tetrasyllable. We may do better at assessing the
scene if we look rather to actual endea,;ors and adivities
old and ne'" e.'l:oteric and esoteric. grave and frh-olous, and
let the word 'philosophy' fall where it may.
Aristotle was among other things a pioneer physicisl and
biologist. Plato was among other things a physicist in a way,
This piece was fer X ru-aday by reque.""t as a respo-nse t.o a
b) Mortimer Adter. The twc were t.o appear t.ogetber tbe above
title. Upon pu'blkali<ln. Nc.-ember IB, 19"79, what appeared under my
name p:ro'"ed t.o ha,e been rewritten to suit the editor's faney. Thi:s is
m:runcorropted
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Has Philosopfly Losl Conuu:t 1L-ith People? 191
if cosmology is a theoretical '"ing of physics. Descartes and
Leibniz were in part physicists. Biology and physics were
called philosophy in those days. They were called natural
philosophy until the nineteenth Plato, Descartes,
and Leibniz \vere also mathematicians, and Locke, Berkeley,
Hume, and Kant were in large part psychologists. All these
luminaries and others whom we revere as great philosophers
were scientists in search of an organized c<Jnception of
reality. Their search did indeed go beyond the special sci-
ences as we now define them; there 1.\'ere also broader and
more basic concepts to untangle and clarify. But the strug-
gle with these ooncepts and the quest for a system on a grand
scale "'ere integral still to the <Jverall scientific enterprise.
The more general and speculative reaches of theon are what
we look back on nowadays as distinctively philosophical.
\Vb.at is pursued under the name of philosophy today, more-
over, bas much these same concerns when it is at what I
deem its technical best.
Until the nineteenth century, all available scientific knowl-
edge of any consequence oould be encompassed by a single
first-class mind. This COZ)' situation ended as science ex-
panded and deepened. Subtle distinctions crowded in and
technical jargon proliferated, much of which is genuinel..v
needed. Problems in physics, microbiologY, and mathematics
divided into subordinate problems any one of v:bich, taken
out of context, strikes the layman as either idle or unin-
telligible; onl)- the specialist sees bow it figures in the wider
picture. Xow philosophy, where it was oontinuous with sd-
enee, progressed too. There as elsewhere in science, progress
e:q>Osed rele.,ant distinctions and connections that had been
passed over in former times. There as elsewhere, problems
and propositions were analyzed into constituents whlcb,
viewed in isolation, must seem uninteresting or worse.
Formal logic completed ib; reru:Us.sancc and became a seri-
ous science just a hundred years ago at the hands of Gottlob
Frege. A striking trait of scientific philosophy in subsequent
years has been the use, increasingly, of the powerful new
logic. This has made for a deepening of insights and a
sharpening of problems and solutions. It has made also for
the intrusion of technical terms and symbols which, while
192 Themus and
ser\1ing the investigators well, tended to estrange lay 1eaders.
Another striking trait of scientific philosophy in this pe-
riod has been an increasing concern with the nature of lan-
guage. In responsible circles this has not been a retreat from
more serious issues. It is an outcome of critical scruples that
are traceable centuries back in the classical British em-
piricists Loeke, Berkeley, and Hume. and are cleare:r in
Bentham. It has been appreciated increasingly in the past
sixty years that our traditional introspective notions-our
notions of meaning, idea, concept, essence, all undisciplined
and undefined- afford a flabby and unmanage-
able foundation for a theory of the world. Control is gained
by focusing on words, on how they a11e learned and used,
and how they are relatedto things.
The question of a pri\"ate language, cited as frivolous by
Adler, is a case in point. It beoomes !Philosophically sig-
nificant when we recognize that a legitimate theory of mean-
ing must be a theory -of the use of language, and that lan-
guage is a social art, socially inculcated The importance of
the matter was stressed by Wittgenstein and earlier by
Dewey, but is lost on anyone who encounters the issue out
of context.
Granted, much literature produced under the head of lin-
guistic philosophy is philosophically inconsequential_ Some
pieces are amusing or mildly intere;,-ting as language studies.
but have been drawn into philosophical journals -only by
superficial association_ Some, more philosophical in purport,
are simply incompetent: for quality control is spotty in the
burgeoning philosophical press. Philosoph:r has long suf-
fered, as hard sciences not, from a wavering consensus
on questions of professional compet.ence. Students of the
heavens are separable into astronomers and astrologers as
readily as are the minor domestic ruminants into sheep and
goats, but the separation of philosophers into sages and
cranks seems to be more sensitive to frames of reference.
This is perhaps as it should be, in "-iew of the unregimented
and speculative eh.aracter of the subject.
l\!uch of what had been recondite in modern physics has
been opened up by p-opularization. I am grateful for this,
for I have a taste for physics but cannot take it raw. A good
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Has Phil6$ophy Lost Ctmtact with People? 193
philosopher who is a skillful expositor might do the same
1."lith the current technical !Philosophy. It v.-ould take artistry,
because not all of what is philosophically important need
be of lay interest even when clearly and fitted
into place. I think of organic chemistry; I recognize its im-
portance, but I am not curious about it, nor do I see '''hY
the layman should care about much of what concerns me in
philosophy. If instead of having been caned upon to perform
in the British television series "Men of I deas" I had been
consulted on its feasibility, 1 should have e.'---pressed doubt.
What I have been discussing under the head of philosophy
is what I call scientific philosophy, old and new, for it is the
disciiJ)Iine whose latter-day trend Adler criticized. By this
vague heading I do not exclude philosophical studies of moral
and aesthetic values. Some such studies. of an analytical
casl:, can be scientific in spirit. They are apt, however, to
offer little in the wa:r of inspiration or consolation. The stu-
dent who majors in philosophy primarily for spiritual com-
fort is misguided and is probably not a ...-ery good student
anyway, since intellectual curiosity is not what moves him.
Inspirational and edifying writing is admirable, but the
place for it is the novel, the poem, the sermon, or the literary
essay. Philosophers in the professional sense have no pe-
culiar fitness for it. Neither have they any peculiar fitness for
helping to get society on an even keel, though we should all
do what we can. What just might fill these perpetually crying
needs is wisdom: sophia. yes, p1Ulosophia. not necessaril:r.