An Alliance for Understanding
In a May 1991 issue of The Atlantic, a non-cover story generated more reader comments than any other piece in the publication's history. One might guess the piece was about a controversial event — this was only months after cameras captured the police beating of Rodney King and the same period that American troops were exiting the Persian Gulf. No, this article was about something seemingly far less contentious. The piece was titled "Can Poetry Matter?".
Dana Gioia sparked a firestorm of chatter about the role of poetry in the modern world — much to the shock of Gioia himself. In his essay, Gioia called out an interesting paradox. He noted that the crisis of poetry "comes at a moment of unprecedented expansion for the art. There have never before been so many new books of poetry published, so many anthologies or literary magazines. Never has it been so easy to earn a living as a poet."
Poetry was booming by modern measurements like jobs, income, collegiate programs, ease of publication, etc. What could Gioia possibly take issue with? But Gioia's realization is a stark reminder that statistics and metrics are stealthy tools, able to shape-shift even to the point of supporting opposing arguments simultaneously. Gioia saw a transition that simple measurements couldn't capture.
“But the poetry boom has been a distressingly confined phenomenon. Decades of public and private funding have created a large professional class for the production and reception of new poetry comprising legions of teachers, graduate students, editors, publishers, and administrators. Based mostly in universities, these groups have gradually become the primary audience for contemporary verse. Consequently, the energy of American poetry, which was once directed outward, is now increasingly focused inward.
In other words, only poets were reading poetry.
Gioia's insight about his passion — poetry — extends far beyond stanza and verse. His observation hits on the theft of soul that occurs when a cultural instrument becomes relegated to academia and a niche subculture. What Gioia witnessed with his beloved poetry, I imagine amateur philosophers observed as philosophy became something only pursued by professional philosophers.
Today, philosophy seems to be experiencing a rebirth — a rising from the soulless ashes of university philosophy departments (hopefully, the audience of non-poet poetry readers is also increasing). This revival seems like a supply response to rising demand from meaning seekers like myself, spawned from a pandemic and isolation-inducing government-mandated lockdowns.
In the same vane as Gioia, I ask, Can Philosophy Matter?
To some, philosophy's corpse has been in decay for some time. Stephen Hawking, in his 2010 work, The Grand Design, declared philosophy flat-lined, calling into question its ability to discover anything new:
“We each exist for but a short time, and in that time explore but a small part of the whole universe. But humans are a curious species. We wonder, we seek answers. Living in this vast world that is by turns kind and cruel, and gazing at the immense heavens above, people have always asked a multitude of questions: How can we understand the world in which we find ourselves? How does the universe behave? What is the nature of reality? Where did all this come from? Did the universe need a creator? Most of us do not spend most of our time worrying about these questions, but almost all of us worry about them some of the time.
Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.”
As someone who appreciates science and philosophy, I see room for both fields to improve the human condition; we don’t lack ethical questions to explore. Further, the more I study both domains, the harder they become to differentiate from one another. Still, many scientists seem tone-deaf to the fact that many of the fundamental assumptions (epistemology/ontology) they heavily rely on are a result of philosophical developments.
On the other hand, Albert Einstein was well aware of the importance of philosophy to the scientist. In a 1944 letter, he wrote:
So many people today — and even professional scientists — seem to me like somebody who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest. A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is — in my opinion — the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth.
Surely, Hawking's love of science led to his going too far in declaring philosophy dead. Perhaps science is better equipped to answer questions of the physical world, but what of the human one?
Most scientists will look to science and philosophers to philosophy, this is unsurprising, but the two fields need each other, much like frenemies. The two fields surprisingly have much in common, yet their distinctive differences make them useful in different ways.
Philosophy and science share the tools of logic, conceptual analysis, and rigorous argumentation. Yet philosophers can operate these tools with degrees of thoroughness, freedom, and theoretical abstraction that practicing researchers often cannot afford in their daily activities. (Laplane et al. 2019)
In their excellent exploration of the relationship between science and philosophy, Laplane et al. illustrated three examples of how philosophy has an important and productive impact on science. They conclude that science and philosophy are "located on a continuum." They argue for increased cooperation between scientific researchers and philosophers — but what of the rest of us? Can philosophy matter to us?
It's fair to say that Hawking prematurely presumed philosophy dead. I see Hawking's statement as a philosophical one, not an empirical one, proving that philosophy is indeed alive and well. But having a "pulse" and having an impact are not the same.
Philosophy is a love of wisdom and a thirst for knowledge. Philosophy seeks to answer those questions for which a methodology has yet to be developed. What looks like a lack of progress may be a feature of philosophy, not a bug because philosophers move on to other "leftover" questions once progress is made.
But the main reason philosophy matters has little to do with metaphysics or great questions of existence; it has to do with living a well-lived life. Science has much to offer, but I don't see how quantum knowledge can answer questions of ethics and morality. Science can provide many answers about what “is,” but can it offer answers to human questions of "should"?
What is a life well-lived? What does it mean to flourish? How should one act? What is good? These are important questions, unanswerable by the scientific method. And yet great thinkers have attempted to answer these questions for thousands of years. Socrates pointed to the four cardinal virtues (wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance) in search of Eudaimonia, or a life well-lived.
In my quest to live a meaningful life, I’ve found philosophy to be a suitable framework for dealing with human issues like relationships, impermanence, desire, judgment, wealth, emotion, adversity, and knowledge. Today, scientific thinking dominates the collective quest for explanations, but on the individual level, philosophical exploration can lead the way to a meaningful life.
Philosophy is not dead. It matters — and it will until humans are reduced to algorithms or ash.
