Professor Simon Critchley recently began to edit an "opinion" column on the New York Times entitled "The Stone", with the inaugural essay, "What is a Philosopher?", check it out for yourself, "The Stone" will be added to the Blogroll on this site, and I imagine that I will have further posts regarding this venture.
The return to this question, "what is a philosopher" today, in the most established News Paper in the United States warrants attention. For today, philosophy is again under assault, it has become a "threat". If the recent proceedings at the University of Middlesex (perhaps the strongest philosophical institute in Critchley's native UK) are any indication, philosophy is under attack from it's presumptive heir, the University.
In his article Critchley writes, "Nothing is more common in the history of philosophy than the accusation of impiety. Because of their laughable otherworldliness and lack of respect for social convention, rank and privilege, philosophers refuse to honor the old gods and this makes them politically suspicious, even dangerous."
I would agree, despite the privlileged role a number of "philosophers" have enjoyed historically from patrons historically (the Medici's to the Catholic Church f.ex.) and today the University and the State. But I would like to go further, and question whether institutionally sanctioned and supported thought is ever, by-itself, philosophical thought. That is, when a philosopher's work is co-opted by the State, Church, or the Economy (thought bought and sold), does it remain philosophical thought?
Institutional appropriation of thought ends up obscuring the capacity to thought itself. As one commenter suggests, challenging Critchley, when one assumes the life of a contemporary scholar, one in fact limits one's time; time is constrained by writing articles for "peer-reviewed journals", teaching repetitive courses on the "introduction to philosophy"; must grade, essentially engaging in a sort of economism of "thought", an accounting of comprehention, an addition and subtraction determined within the situation of the university. Indeed to be a "professional philosopher" is to submit one's thought to the currencey of professionalism, the philosopher becomes another intitutional cog.
Looking to Universities may be a fine place to search out philosophers, or at least those who attribute that name to themselves, but it should by no means be the only place. At first glance Critchley's Socrates, and Socrates' Thales exist "outside" of the academy; not in an imagined "future anterior", but in a kind of mythological-past, a time before the academy. But their common source is Plato, who writes the story of Thales into his own Socrates' mouth. Plato, who expresses these myths to substantiate his own institution, the academy; they are the honorary doctorates, the foundational heroes of Plato's project. Indeed, not long after Plato's death the academy made arguably its first analytic move, to concentrate on definitions, to set them down and catalogue them, those institutional heirs created the first "philosophical" dictionary. But even then, others who venerated old Socrates as well were outside the academy's walls, some were called dogs; even and especially by academic-philosophers, who, with and after Plato had carved out a place within the State.
So what do we have then today? Can philosophy be defined historically? Is it determined by its own history? I don't think so. I largely agree with a friend of Critchley, Alain Badiou, that a philosopher is someone who engages with universal-truth. History is populated by such figures, and I would certainly count Thales, Socrates and Plato amongst philosophy's subjects. It is not because they have been celebrated as academic founders, quite the contrary. In spite of their canonization, which obscures their own project for that of the Church, State or University, these figures were consumed with the pursuit of truth.
I look forward to follow-ups in the Stone, I think it is a worthy project of the New York times, but I will remain a but suspicious, as anyone with a philosophical sense should. Be wary of those who announce themselves as "professional" philosophers, writing for "established and popular media". Note that "the Stone" in the New York times is in the "opinion" section. I wonder what Socrates might think of that.
