Zizek vs. The School of Athens

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Martin Luther King Jr. and Continental Philosophy

Martin Luther King Jr.'s Diagram of Hegel's System

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a great civil rights leader and champion of nonviolence. But beneath his views on race and oppression lies a philosophical schooling that began at least in graduate school, during which time he took courses at Boston University and Harvard on not only the History of Philosophy and the Philosophy of Religion, but also a yearlong seminar on Hegel.

Dr. King's list of courses, from The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., page 18.

While hints at his education in the history of philosophy can be found, for example, in his famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail (which references such philosophers as St. Augustine, Martin Buber, and Socrates), his having been a student in philosophy played a central role in making him the man we know today. In other words, Dr. King not only fought White America, but he did so by turning the ideas of dead white men against the oppressive practices of living white men.

As Dr. King wrote in his autobiography:

Just before [his advisor] Dr. Brightman's death, I began studying the philosophy of Hegel with him. This course proved to be both rewarding and stimulating. Although the course was mainly a study of Hegel's monumental work, Phenomenology of Mind, I spent my spare time reading his Philosophy of History and Philosophy of Right. There were points in Hegel's philosophy that I strongly disagreed with. For instance, his absolute idealism was rationally unsound to me because it tended to swallow up the many in the one. But there were other aspects of his thinking that I found stimulating. His contention that "truth is the whole" led me to a philosophical method of rational coherence. His analysis of the dialectical process, in spite of its shortcomings, helped me to see that growth comes through struggle.

In his Stride Toward Freedom, Dr. King argues, using Hegel, that rather than having to choose either passive acceptance of oppression or violently opposing it, there is a "third way":

The third way open to oppressed people in their quest for freedom is the way of nonviolent resistance. Like the synthesis in Hegelian philosophy, the principle of nonviolent resistance seeks to reconcile the truths of two opposites—acquiescence and violence—while avoiding the extremes and immoralities of both.

Thanks to the King Library and Archives in Atlanta, we can read hundreds of Dr. King's notes on not only Hegel, but also on Kant, Spinoza, Kierkegaard, Marx, and Nietzsche. Here are some samples:

Apparently Kant was not the only one awoken from a "dogmatic slumber"

A discussion of Existentialism

An analysis of Anxiety

The "two assumptions" that "are important in a study of Kierkegaard"

Happiness in Spinoza and Nietzsche

A quote from Nietzsche in a 1966 sermon 

An exam Dr. King gave his students at Morehouse College (#4 is about comparing and contrasting Gandhi and Marx)

An outline for a sermon on history, with references to Hegel, Marx, and Plotinus

A Satire of Philosophy by Washington Irving

You know a book is a satire when the author claims someone else wrote it...

On a recent trip to the wonderful used bookstore The Dawn Treader (admittedly the initial purpose of the trip was to get a bubble tea at TK WU next door), I happened upon Washington Irving's satirical first novel from 1809, Diedrich Knickerbocker's History of New York.

Is there anything that isn't funnier in German?

Not unlike Laurence Sterne's Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (a book which inspired not only Irving to write his History, but Karl Marx to write Scorpion and Felix), Irving's History begins with some philosophical reflections on the origins of existence. However, whereas for Sterne this involved Shandy recounting the story of his own conception, for Irving this involved recounting the story of the philosophical conception of the Earth itself.

"Diedrich Knickerbocker Philosophizing"

As Irving writes:

It is a mortifying circumstance, which greatly perplexes many a pains taking philosopher, that nature often refuses to second his most profound and elaborate efforts; so that often after having invented one of the most ingenious and natural theories imaginable, she will have the perverseness to act directly in the teeth of his system, and flatly contradict his most favorite positions. This is a manifest and unmerited grievance, since it throws the censure of the vulgar and unlearned entirely upon the philosopher; whereas the fault is not to be ascribed to this theory, which is unquestionably correct, but to the waywardness of dame nature, who with the proverbial fickleness of her sex, is continually indulging in coquetries and caprices, and seems really to take pleasure in violating all philosophic rules, and jilting the most learned and indefatigable of her adorers. Thus it happened with respect to the foregoing satisfactory explanation of the motion of our planet; it appears that the centrifugal force has long ceased to operate, while its antagonist remains in undiminished potency: the world therefore, according to the theory as it originally stood, ought in strict propriety to tumble into the sun—Philosophers were convinced that it would do so, and awaited in anxious impatience, the fulfillment of their prognostications. But the untoward planet, pertinaciously continued her course, notwithstanding that she had reason, philosophy, and a whole university of learned professors opposed to her conduct. The philo's were all at a non plus, and it is apprehended they would never have fairly recovered from the slight and affront which they conceived offered to them by the world, had not a good natured professor kindly officiated as mediator between the parties, and effected a reconciliation. 

Finding the world would not accommodate itself to the theory, he wisely determined to accommodate the theory to the world: he therefore informed his brother philosophers, that the circular motion of the earth round the sun was no sooner endangered by the conflicting impulses above described, than it became a regular revolution, independent of the causes which gave it origin—in short, that madam earth having once taken it into her head to whirl round, like a young lady of spirit in a high dutch waltz, the duivel himself could not stop her. The whole board of professors of the university of Leyden joined in the opinion, being heartily glad of any explanation that would decently extricate them from their embarrassment—and immediately decreed the penalty of expulsion against all who should presume to question its correctness: the philosophers of all other nations gave an unqualified assent, and ever since that memorable era the world has been left to take her own course, and to revolve around the sun in such orbit as she thinks proper.

Irving goes on to give his reader "fair warning" that, as "an impartial historian," he feels that it is his "duty" to investigate the cosmological theories ("by which mankind have been so exceedingly edified and instructed") of such philosophers as Zenophanes, Strato, Pythagoras, Moschus (whose philosophy was "revived by Democritus of laughing memory, improved by Epicurus that king of good fellows, and modernized by the fanciful Descartes"), and Plato ("that temperate sage, who threw the cold water of philosophy on the form of sexual intercourse"), among many others. 

As Irving warns (and if you're going to put a "trigger warning" in your philosophy syllabi, this would make for a pretty good one):

...I am about to plunge for a chapter or two, into as complete a labyrinth as ever historian was perplexed withal; therefore I advise them to take fast hold of my skirts, and keep close at my heels, venturing neither to the right hand nor to the left, least they get bemired in a slough of unintelligible learning, or have their brains knocked out, by some of those hard Greek names which will be flying about in all directions. But should any of them be too indolent or chicken-hearted to accompany me in this perilous undertaking, they had bester take a short cut round, and wait for me at the beginning of some smoother chapter. 

Rather than be offended by Irving's mockery of philosophy, I think we should take it as a compliment. That a novelist would spend so much time joking about philosophers, and in a novel that was immensely popular, shows that there was a time in America when philosophy was part of the culture. 

So please, novelists, be inspired by Irving, and make fun of philosophers as much as you can (note: making fun of philosophers is not the same as making fun of philosophy, as the former requires reading philosophy, while the latter only requires hearing Neil deGrasse Tyson on a podcast). 

If people are laughing at philosophers, then there is a much greater chance that people will again laugh with philosophers as well.

For those about to rock the JFP, we salute you...

Adjunct Lecturer Vincent Price can draw Plato's Cave on the board faster than you can say, "The Matrix?"

Actually, no one salutes you, nobody.  

Not your parents ("Law school's still an option right?")...

Not your friends ("I made SO much money by not going to grad school!")...

Not your classmates ("I'm not, but you should really wait another year before going on the market...")

Not your advisors ("Why would you want to become as miserable as me?")...

Not your dream jobs ("Dear [insert applicant name here], you are uniquely amazing but...")...

And not even yourself ("Maybe I can change the world once my CV's in order?")...

But once you get that through your thick, phd head, you'll be able to become the cold, hard job applicant the philosophy world wants, nay needs you to be.  

Now go get 'em chalkslinger...

In Defense of Obscurity: Zizek vs. Chomsky and the Continental/Analytic Divide

From Some Bewildered Clarifications: A Response to Noam Chomsky by Slavoj Žižek:

Slavoj Zizek

But I think that that the differences in our political positions are so minimal that they cannot really account for the thoroughly dismissive tone of Chomsky’s attack on me. Our conflict is really about something else—it is simply a new chapter in the endless gigantomachy between so-called continental philosophy and the Anglo-Saxon empiricist tradition. There is nothing specific in Chomsky’s critique—the same accusations of irrationality, of empty posturing, of playing with fancy words, were heard hundreds of times against Hegel, against Heidegger, against Derrida, etc. What stands out is only the blind brutality of his dismissal...

Noam Chomsky

After Noam Chomsky's recent attack against not only Zizek but also Jacques Lacan—"Try to find in all of the work you mentioned some principles from which you can deduce conclusions, empirically testable propositions where it all goes beyond the level of something you can explain in five minutes to a twelve-year-old"—it once again became fashionable to criticize the "obscurantism," "charlatanism," and "nonsense" of Continental philosophers.  Though it would only take a couple of minutes on Brian Leiter's blog to see the excesses of such anti-Continentalism (made all the more entertaining by the fact that Leiter consistently claims to be a friend to Continental philosophers, just not to those he deems unworthy because, you know, he gets to categorically decide such things while hypocritically criticizing what he sees as the divisiveness of others), such views, as Zizek points out, have quite a lengthy history behind them.

That's just Schelling being Schelling...

Ironically, I believe that when Hegel accused Schelling of using his publications as a means to living his education in public a schism was instantiated that has since only grown.  Either your work is completed or it is not to be put forth, either it is clear and concise, or it is obscure and obfuscation. "Obscure" philosophers struggle with what is hardest to grasp yet easiest to take for granted: everyday life. This comes out most clearly in the challenge Derrida issued to Levinas to, essentially, become MORE obscure in order to properly frame a discussion of how language really operates, to put on the printed page what is most ephemeral: real life.

Seriously??

When Plato uses analogies he is attempting to, essentially, say what is unsayable, and, because this is Plato, this is treated as genius that withstands the test of time.  But when Derrida, Foucault, Levinas, or countless others, try to similarly say the unsayable, they are read alongside analytic philosophers, philosophers who say only what is sayable, who struggle with what is not everyday life and do not struggle with what is.  Trolley car problems should receive the mockery reserved for Zizek's attempts to analyze Tahrir Square, but because the former is immediately understandable and the latter is not, the former wins. If you read something and don't understand it, thinking it belongs more to poetry than to philosophy, then maybe you should ponder why "philosophy" no longer looks like the poetic struggle it did for Plato rather than taking for granted that philosophy and clarity are desirable bedfellows.

As Zizek aptly concludes:

I think one can convincingly show that the continental tradition in philosophy, although often difficult to decode, and sometimes—I am the first to admit this—defiled by fancy jargon, remains in its core a mode of thinking which has its own rationality, inclusive of respect for empirical data. And I furthermore think that, in order to grasp the difficult predicament we are in today, to get an adequate cognitive mapping of our situation, one should not shirk the resorts of the continental tradition in all its guises, from the Hegelian dialectics to the French “deconstruction.” Chomsky obviously doesn’t agree with me here. So what if—just another fancy idea of mine—what if Chomsky cannot find anything in my work that goes “beyond the level of something you can explain in five minutes to a twelve-year-old because” because, when he deals with continental thought, it is his mind which functions as the mind of a twelve-year-old, the mind which is unable to distinguish serious philosophical reflection from empty posturing and playing with empty words?

Inspiring, and makes

for a great coaster...

I have often thought that the Continental/Analytic divide comes down to the fact that Continental philosophers are disappointed comedians whereas Analytic philosophers are disappointed mathematicians.  What is important to remember though is that comedy is at its best, like the tradition of philosophy that stretches back beyond Plato, when it's trying to illuminate the world in which we live in new and unexpected ways.  But mathematics is at its best when it's trying to explain the world, offering explanations that philosophy was born to criticize for their superficial clarity and their underlying obscurity.  Analytic philosophy—a tradition that stretches back beyond logical positivism—however parrots these superficialities while mocking those who instead prefer to follow a different bird for their inspiration: the Owl of Minerva.