I Want To Think Big: Emotional Denial Has Undermined The Role of Philosophy

We need to let emotion back into philosophy if we want to escape social inertia, and allow this purest of reasoning disciplines the chance to regain its ambition: of making life and the world a better place. 

Until recently, if a Martian were suddenly to land on earth and attend a University philosophy lecture, it could easily have believed that it had arrived on the most perfect and harmonious culture in the universe. Why else would we be concerning ourselves only with the minuscule details, unless we had the big issues already covered? This is what Simon Glendinning suggests when talking last week to Nigel Warburton on Philosophy Bites. In the 40s and 50s, he says, thinking big rather went out of fashion in philosophy academia. But a renewed interest in what he calls the 'two cultures of philosophy', is giving belated credibility to the often criticised Continental philosophy, as it aims to stand shoulder to shoulder with the confident, muscular logic of the Analytic school. So let's hear it for prose and thoughts and convictions; this is where the quest for truth begins. Why? Because in order to become analytic you need an ideal from which to build it.

Two things prove to me the importance of upholding a culture of philosophy that is rooted in human emotion. First of all, philosophy is fundamentally concerned with what it means to be true, and how the individual can reconcile his personal desires with others in the world. It starts from the premise that humans are emotional animals, and everything else follows from this given. Secondly, the fact that humans are reflectively aware of their efforts and achievements, proves how we justify moral behaviour based on practical experience of our emotions. These are cognitive qualities that have mobilised us as a race, and allowed us to flourish in a world of savages. No other animal can reason to such a sophisticated degree. These are characteristics entirely specific to humans.

Our emotions indicate levels of morality. If something seems abhorrent, such as rape or battery, we know we are witnessing a grossly immoral act. [Cross refer John Mikhail on Battery and Morality] If something seems delightful or wonderful, then we know we are witnessing an act of great moral fortitude. Morality is our way of codifying the specifically human condition of emotion. No other animal has morality because no other animal has an emotional life. This is why philosophy is unique to humankind. Our morals therefore necessarily reflect this inclination. So to deny this strain of philosophical insight in favour always of logical argument, contradicts our very nature, and what it means to be human. If philosophy is about searching for absolute truths, then we cannot place analytic philosophy above its more openly emotive continental cousin.