In Defense of Eclecticism

From an English reader:

The extraordinary eclecticism of the Maverick Philosopher blog has struck me with unusual force just recently. This diversity of interest  is what keeps me reading - though sometimes I stare at your commentaries in ignorant awe.

I'll never get up to speed with many of your discussions, and give up on some of them. I've wondered how many of your readers are capable of understanding at whatever level you choose to communicate.

Although the kind reader praises my eclecticism, his comment provides me an occasion to mount a defense of it.

I've had people ask me why I don't just stick to one thing, philosophy, or, more narrowly, my areas of expertise in philosophy.  Some like my philosophy posts but cannot abide my politics.  And given the overwhelming preponderance of liberals and leftists in academe, my outspoken conservatism not only reduces my readership but also injures my credibility among many.  I am aware of that, and I accept it.  Leftists, being the bigots that many of them are, cannot take seriously anything a conservative says.  But conservatives ought nevertheless  to exercise their free speech rights and exercise them fearlessly, standing up for what believe to be right.  Surely, if liberals are serious about diversity, they will want a diversity of ideas discussed!  Or is it only racial and sex diversity that concern them? 

I should add that I do not hold it against any young conservative person trying to make his way in a world that is becoming ever more dangerously polarized that he hide his social and political views.  It is easy for a tenured individual, or one like me who has established himself in independence, to criticize those who hide behind pseudonyms.   I hesitate to criticize, not being exposed to the dangers they are exposed to.  That being said, I hate pseudonyms.  Do you have something to say?  Say it like a man (or a woman) in your own name.  Pseudonyms are for wimps and cyberpunks, generally speaking.  I am reminded of Charles Carroll, the only Catholic signatory to the Declaration of Independence.  He signed his name 'Charles Carroll of Carrollton' which leaves little doubt  about his identity. There is such a thing as civil courage.

My weblog is not about just one thing because my life is not about just one thing.  As wretched as politics is, one ought to stand up for what's right and do one's bit to promote enlightenment.  Too many philosophers abdicate, retreating into their academic specialties. (Cf. The Abdication of Philosophy: Philosophy and the Public Good,  ed. Freeman, Open Court, 1976)  Not that I am sanguine about what people like me can do.  But philosophers can contribute modestly to the clarification of issues and arguments and the debunking of various sorts of nonsense.  Besides, the pleasures of analysis and commentary are not inconsiderable.

"But why the polemical tone?"

I say polemics has no place in philosophy.  But it does have a place in politics.  Political discourse is unavoidably polemical. The zoon politikon must needs be a zoon polemikon. ‘Polemical’ is from the Greek polemos, war, strife. According to Heraclitus of Ephesus, strife is the father of all: polemos panton men pater esti . . . (Fr. 53) I don't know about the 'all,' but strife  is certainly at the root of politics.  Politics is polemical because it is a form of warfare: the point is to defeat the opponent and remove him from power, whether or not one can rationally persuade him of what one takes to be the truth. It is practical rather than theoretical in that the aim is to implement what one takes to be the truth rather than contemplate it.  'What one takes to be the truth': that is the problem in a nutshell.  Conservatives and leftists disagree fundamentally and nonnegotiably.  We won't be able to achieve much if anything by way of convincing each other; but we will clarify our differences thereby coming to understand ourselves and our opponents better.  And we may even find a bit of common ground.

"OK, you've explained the admixture of politics.  But you talk about such a wide range of philosophical topics.  Isn't there something unprofessional about that?  Surely you are not an expert with respect to every topic you address!"   

There is no good philosophy without a certain amount of specialization and 'technique.'  Not all technical pilosophy is good, but most good philosophy is technical.  Too many outsiders wrongly dismiss technical philosophy as logic-chopping and hairsplitting.  That being understood, however, specialization can quickly lead to overspecialization and a concomitant loss of focus on the ultimate issues that brought one to philosophy in the first place, or ought to have brought one to philosophy in the first place.  There is something absurd about someone who calls himself a philosopher and yet devotes most of his energy to the investigation of anaphora or epistemic closure principles.  There is nothing wrong with immersing oneself in arcana: to each his own.  But don't call it philosophy if burrowing in some scholarly cubbyhole becomes your be-all and end-all.

Study EVERYTHING, join nothing.