Donald Phillip Verene - The Rhetorical Sense of Philosophy

CHAPTER 1

by the light of philophosy, (and may she never folsage us!) things will begin to clear up a bit one way or another within the next quarrel of an hour

James Joyce, Finnegans Wake 119.46

Among the fragments from ancient authors relating to the early dialogues of Aristotle, in the Princeton revised Oxford translation of Aristotles Works, this appears: If you ought to philosophize you ought to philosophize; and if you ought not to philosophize you ought to philosophize: therefore, in any case you ought to philosophize. A second sentence follows that intends to elaborate the point: For if philosophy exists, we certainly ought to philosophize, since it exists; and if it does not exist, in that case too we ought to inquire why philosophy does not existand by inquiring we philosophize; for inquiry is the cause of philosophy. This statement is one of the many renderings of the most famous passage in Aristotles Protrepticus, the original composition of which has been lost in its entirety. The Protrepticus stands in a dialectical relation to the Antidosis of Isocrates, the advocate of rhetoric, and is imitated in the debate over the value of philosophy in Ciceros Hortensius. Isocrates view of philosophy stands opposite to that of Aristotle, who regards contemplation as the goal of the philosophic life. Isocrates, as mentioned above in the introduction, insists that the pursuit of wisdom is the achievement of a life of temperance and just action. Aristotle does not deny the value of philosophy in the pursuit of prudence, but he does not hold this pursuit to be the final end of wisdom.

Much of Aristotles dialogue or hortatory essay (logos protrepticos) has been reconstructed from Iamblichuss Protrepticus. whether to philosophize, Quintilian comments: Sometimes two propositions are put forward in such a way that the choice of either leads to the same conclusion: for example We must philosophize (even though we must not philosophize) [philosophandum (est, etiam si non est philosophandum)] (Inst. 5.10.70).

A modern citation is that of Jacques Derrida, in the concluding paragraphs of his essay Violence and Metaphysics, which he attributes simply to a Greek: It was a Greek who said, If one has to philosophize, one has to philosophize; if one does not have to philosophize, one still has to philosophize (to say it and think it). One always has to philosophize.

As Anton-Hermann Chroust puts it, the Protrepticus has as its purpose to be an eloquent eulogy of speculative philosophy and an exhortation to live the philosophic life, that is, a life dedicated to speculative philosophy. Chroust believes that the discussion of the interconnection of philosophic wisdom and happiness in Platos Euthydemus is the likely source of Aristotles main theme of the importance of the philosophic life in the Protrepticus. This discussion in the Euthydemus concludes with Socrates saying: Since you believe both that it [wisdom, sophia] can be taught and that it is the only existing thing which makes a man happy and fortunate, surely you would agree that it is necessary to love wisdom [philosophein] and you mean to do this yourself. Clinias, the young boy Socrates is addressing, affirms: This is just what I mean to do, Socrates, as well as ever I can. Socrates then says: When I heard this I was delighted and said, There, Dionysodorus and Euthydemus, is my example of what I want a hortatory argument [protrepticon logon] to be, though amateurish, perhaps, and expressed at length and with some difficulty (282cd).

In Chrousts reconstruction of Aristotles text, the passage on philosophy runs: The term to philosophize (or, to pursue philosophy) implies two distinct things: first, whether or not we ought to seek [after philosophic truth] at all; and, second, our dedication to philosophic speculation (philosophon theoria). Chrousts summary formulation brings out the ambiguity of whether Aristotles claim is that one should philosophize in the sense of a choice one can make or that one must philosophize in the sense of necessity, not allowing for choice. One has a choice as to what form of life to lead, but mortality is a necessary condition of human life, about which there can be no choice.

Following his initial claim concerning the choice or necessity of philosophy, Aristotle proceeds to elaborate on and extol the merits and nature of philosophy more generally, saying, for example, that the fact that all men feel at ease in philosophy, wishing to dedicate their whole lives to the pursuit of it by leaving behind all other concerns, is in itself weighty evidence that it is a painless pleasure to dedicate oneself wholeheartedly to philosophy. There is perhaps nothing in the history of philosophy to equal the Protrepticus as a praise of philosophy, unless it be some of Ciceros statements.

Preceding the passage quoted above, advocating philosophn theria, Aristotle characterizes phronsis as true wisdom. Phronsis becomes the term central to Aristotles political philosophy, and the intellectual virtue discussed in his ethics. Prudence or phronsis is necessary to govern human actions and civility, but contemplation (theria) from which the word theater is derived, is tied to the achievement of the highest human happiness, or eudaimonia, literally that state of having a good daimon. Contemplation is simply to look upon or observe for the purpose of understanding, without regard to any subsequent doing or making. Theria, therein is what is at issue in Aristotles advocation of the human necessity to philosophize. Prudence is necessary for conducting human affairs, but is contemplation a necessity for human beings?

This is the question at the heart of the Protrepticus, and at the heart of philosophy itself, for philosophy is the only field that takes the meaning of its own existence as a central problem. When a physicist pauses to ask what physics is the physicist is no longer engaged in pursuit of the knowledge of natural phenomena but is reflecting on the philosophical question of the place of physics in human knowledge. When science turns to reflect upon what science is, scientific investigation itself comes to a standstill. The production of any new philosophy is a redefinition of what philosophy is. It arises from grasping the nature of philosophy in a new way. The existence of philosophy, like human existence, is characterized by the fact that it conceives its existence as a problem.

In what follows, I wish to take the distinction Aristotle raiseswhether to philosophize or not to philosophizein Quintilians rhetorical and dialectical sense: that it is an example of two propositions, formulated in such a way that the choice of either leads to the same conclusion. I think this is the point Aristotle attempts to advance. In taking this approach, I wish to go between the horns of any dilemma that the various versions of Aristotles text may contain. To gain perspective on what this double pursuit entails, I wish to consider claims about philosophy made by three figures in the history of philosophyBishop Berkeley, G. W. F. Hegel, and F. H. Bradleyall masters of rhetorical expression as well as holders of metaphysical positions.

In his preface to Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, Berkeley says: We spend our lives in doubting of those things which other men evidently know, and believing those things which they laugh at and despise. Othermen knowor think they knowthat the mind is the brain and that the world is composed of material things that exist independently of our perception of them. These facts about ourselves and the world are indubitable common sense.