If You Hate Philosophy There is a Good Chance You Will Be Part of Its History
The top-4 famous philosophers that hated philosophy.
I’m a philosophy teacher, and from time to time, I have to deal with students that despise most of what they see in and study about philosophy.
I reach out to these students by showing them there is a way they can hate philosophy more professionally. I introduce them to four great philosophers that spoke against philosophy in a very broad sense—and then I recommend a few books about each one of such philosophers.
Another good thing about this lesson is that it seems to amuse another kind of student (the kind that doesn’t hate philosophy). They end up seeing philosophy in a not so simple way.
Here is how I present those four philosophers to them, and which books I recommend when doing so.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Denounced that there are a lot of “fake problems” in philosophy. He emphasized “philosophy is not a natural science,” in his Tractatus (section 4.111), and was convinced that he showed “the fly the way out of the fly-bottle,” analogizing to metaphysical problems he helped rid from philosophy.
Ryle, one of Wittgenstein’s contemporaries, states that he was:
“proud not to have studied other philosophers — which he had done, though not much — and second, that he thought that people who did study them were academic and therefore unauthentic philosophers, which was often but not always true.” — Gilbert Ryle in Autobiographical (1971).
To begin to know more about Wittgenstein I usually recommend two things: first, I tell my students to take a look at some of Wittgenstein’s most famous quotes; second, to examine Ray Monk’s Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius, 1991.
The reason I recommend these is because you don’t need to engage in philosophical discussions to admire Wittgenstein’s ideas and personality (and realize how great they are).
Two of my favorite quotes by Wittgenstein are:
“A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring.” — Wittgenstein in Personal Recollections, 1981.
“The limits of my language means the limits of my world.” — Wittgenstein in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 1922.
Friedrich Nietzsche
He tried to criticize the western tradition whenever he could and praised only empirical and mathematical knowledge. He detested Platonism, and only liked two philosophers, Heraclitus and Spinoza, but because their beliefs were quite close to his own philosophy (which was, according to him, the ultimate one, or almost the ultimate one).
Nietzsche was, in fact, quite provocative, and this is how he viewed the entire history of philosophy:
“Supposing that Truth is a woman — what then? Is there not ground for suspecting that all philosophers, in so far as they have been dogmatists, have failed to understand women — that the terrible seriousness and clumsy importunity with which they have usually paid their addresses to Truth, have been unskilled and unseemly methods for winning a woman?” — Nietzsche in Beyond Good and Evil, 1886.
I wouldn’t recommend anything from Nietzsche if you are not participating already in any course of philosophy. Mostly, because a great part of Nietzsche’s works was written to be understood by those acquainted with the history of western philosophy.
Although, I believe there is one book that can be read by any reader. The book is The Dawn of Day, 1881. This book can be read easily: you can open any page and read a good, perhaps provocative, philosophical passage, or you can begin your reading at any point in the book without difficulty.
René Descartes
One of France’s brightest students of his time. He was a successful fencer, mercenary (he worked for the Dutch army), and a formidable mathematician. He rejected all philosophies of his time (which he said were all “unsafe” in his famous Meditations).
He is also one of the most empirical of all rationalists. For example, he was sure it was possible to find the connection between the body and the holy soul in a human organ (and he thought this when dissection of the human body was forbidden by the Catholic Church).
If you want to learn more about Descartes I would recommend Grayling’s Descartes: The Life and Times of a Genius, 2006. He presents Descartes not only as a philosopher but as a soldier, spy, fencer, mathematician, and much more.
Karl Marx
“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.” — Marx in Theses On Feuerbach, 1845.
‘Materialism’, ‘atomism’, and ‘dialectics’ are the fundamental philosophical terms we can find in his thoughts. But these terms are used by him like weapons with which he fought idealism, and then shaped an extremely modern way of analyzing our society and economy (whether you like it or not).
One of his greatest accomplishments was to make evident to us what “class struggle” meant throughout the history of mankind; and of course, he also offered a revolutionary solution for it known as “scientific socialism.” But he did not invent the term “socialism,” or its moral principles. There were many intellectuals at his time that were also discussing “what would be possible under a socialist society,” and “how to build one.”
Marx should be read as a political scientist, therefore I think the best way to understand marxism is “in practice”, which means, “discussing history and economy”. So I recommend A History of the Cuban Revolution, 2015. This book helps to analyze a socialist experience in Cuba (a very small country), and it may help you decide which side of history you are in.
Final Thoughts
Sometimes I would like to tell my students, “revolt, write, study. Don’t you guys think there is anything useful to tell the world?” Unfortunately, some of them think “it’s better not to think much,” and others feel like there isn’t much they can do; so I just don’t force anything to them.
One of the ways I try to motivate my students is by showing them the importance of their thoughts. If they want to hate philosophy, that’s okay. They can try, and if they really hate it it’s possible they will become great philosophers. If they think the world is perfect the way it is, that’s fine too (Leibniz tried to prove we live in the best of all possible worlds!).
In fact, one of the good things about teaching philosophy today, I believe, is that it seems we can make students not feel alone in the way they are thinking, mostly because there are plenty of philosophers with very different ideas recorded in history.
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