Dissense

I agree with much of what York says, but I disagree with his main conclusion and many of the points he makes on his way to it.  He is right that history of its own sake is not worth all that much in philosophy and similar disciplines.  The ideas and arguments are what should matter most.  Also, arguments from authority are the weakest form of argument as St. Thomas argues from the authority of Boethius.  I still hold, however, that the classics should retain a place in modern education in philosophy and similar disciplines.

York claims that the study of the classics leads to the lionization of thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, etc.  I share York’s disgust of arguments that rely only on jargon-filled repetition of the famous philosophers of the past.  But, I see a greater hindrance to an open-minded investigation of truth in the exclusion of the classic philosophical works.

Philosophy has not merely advanced throughout history from inaccurate theories to accurate ones. Take the shift from Aristotelianism to Cartesianism—it’s not the case that in the 17th century people all of a sudden came up with rebuttals to all the Aristotelian principles.  There were many problems with aspects of the Aristotelian system (geocentrism, the distinction between celestial and terrestrial physics, etc.) that could be better explained with Cartesian mechanism, but largely the new system was set up along side the old, and then people picked the new one without disproving every part of the other one or even the most important parts of the old system.  Throughout history, arguments are sometimes refuted, but they are usually just ignored.  Continuing to ignore some of the most intelligent ideas ever because they are no longer “in vogue” (to use York’s words) for non-intellectual reasons is an unfortunate exclusion of ideas.

While the hard sciences also did not just proceed linearly from inaccurate to more and more accurate theories, they do not have the same degree of need of ideas from the past.  They have the constant sounding board of experience and observation to help prevent them from following fashionable theories.  Philosophy does not have such a recourse (or at least in the same way).  One of the checks to the whims of philsophical fashion is opening up any discussion to not only the moderns, but also the great minds of history.

I also hold that the classics are of great value for introducing many of the important topics of philosophy.  I did not become a Platonist after reading Plato’s dialogues, but I was introduced to questions about the nature of virtue, knowledge, the universe, man, and universals in a way that showed why these were even topics that required examination.  A professor today could give me a lecture on the same topics without telling me that Plato wrote about these things that would serve much the same point (after all, it’s still the ideas that are important).  Unfortunately, there are few professors who lecture as well as Plato wrote.

A connected issue that is worth examining some time in greater depth is the role of educators and influential thinkers in philosophy.  While it would be great if we could all just figure out everything for ourselves, we do rely on the intellectual work of others.   I do not think that that necessarily means that we have to be the people spouting off in York’s example though.  It is possible to follow the work of someone else while thoroughly digesting it and making it one’s own.  This person might be living or dead, but the possibility of having empty-headed followers  exists in either case.