Paraphilosophy and Reality

Pursuant to current tangents…

There’s a real question whether this thread ought be in Mundane Babble, as it is something of a defense of mundane babble, as a philosophical enterprise. But I will risk it being considered philosophical proper.

If I were once aspiring to be a Medical Doctor, I now work as an EMT. Or is it I were a psychologist, and now bust ghosts? Neither, I think, connects directly to what might be meant by Paraphilosophy, perhaps. Paramedicine implies emergency field work. But the field of Philosophy is one broad emergence already, is it not? Parapsychology implies fringe pseudoscience, as opposed to real pseudoscience. Ok. Maybe it’s more like that. Maybe I’m living out a Harold Ramis role.

To be clear, though, and while I have my share of experiences I’ve put on the wtf shelf, I have no standing belief in the paranormal.

I was relatively straightlaced Philosophy in my MA. My doctoral studies occured in an Interdisciplinary context (Social & Political Thought at York University, being a program that arose out of the ashes of Rochdale College), but were essentially a Neo-Continental Philosophy extravaganza. I coined it “Paraphilosophy” at the time, and eventually dropped-out (such being a prerequisite of the Rochdale spirit).

As philosophy became para-science, Heidegger began calling himself simply a Theorist or was it Thinker… I forget. In that sense, anyhow, he agreed with many of his critics.

But what is it to be a Philosopher, if it is not to be a Theorist? As Physics allows for the longer stretches of String Theory, does it thereby permit paraphysics?

Perhaps, then, so too Philosophy ought permit it’s weirder strands of thinking (wherewith, of course, weird refers to Norse destiny).

The question, then, is whether Paraphilosophy is real Philosophy. I adamantly say yes, though I claim that that reality is a fuzzy one. How bout you?

I think there could be a real philosophy “of paraphilosophy”, but paraphilosophy might not be real philosophy. But it could be. I mean, where’s the distinction? What should we call it?

I like paraphilosophy, at least as entertainment. Occasionally some fringe thesis is actually compelling, which is pretty neat.

The distinction is grey, I think, though we can clearly distinguish light grey from dark grey. It’s “grue” all over again. Naming it is part of the problem, and of the purpose.

And those occasions, I think, are the source of “new blood”. They don’t occur otherwise, in the hard and fast work of recomposing tradition (which I by no means wish to discredit). Hybrids of plant and ghost sometimes require innanity to understand what unifys them.

What’s paraphilosophy?

Paraphilosophy is a neologism for the notion of that sector of “philosophy” which, as such, is debatable. It is a largely relative term with potentially defined vagueness. On the one hand, it can capture the sense that, say, a radical empiricist might use to describe an existential phenomenologist, or vice versa. In that sense, it may be considered a disparaging term.

It may also refer to that form of informal “philosophizing” which is less concerned with internal consistency or doctrinal purity, and more concerned with pursuing the free association of thought, at the risk of flakiness, for the purpose of pure theorizing. As such, it may allow the likes of paralogic, for instance, to take a stab at the game, or poetry to exercies its conceits.

If pure theory is speculative, paraphilosophy is (potentially) Theory; in contrast, a subcomponent of Philosophy proper might be described as parrotheory, or the technical skill of reiterating the past (a wholly legitimate pursuit in its own rite, but not the whole of what Philosophy ought properly be defined by). When Philosophy is pure theory (which at its center, I think, it ought to be), it embraces the potential in thought of paraphilosopy, such that there is a recursively donut like relation between the center and edges of “Philosophy”.

…moraless…

So then are there any official examples of paraphilosophy? Are there any published philosophers who refer to themselves as such?

I agree with the part about “parrotheory”. I always say there is a difference between philosophy and philosophology. People who write their own unique philosophies are philosophers, and people who just read, analyze, interpret, and identify with philosophers/philosophies already written are philosophologists.

Well, I googled and, besides this thead, a couple of blog spots came up, one of which noting 3 candidates (Julien Offray de la Mettrie, Max Stirner, and Wilhelm Reich – I’m only familiar with Stirner, and ya, he was definitely a breed of paraphilosophical … I would very much hesitate to say that Nietzsche was also, but will completely refrain from doing so (damn, did I write that out loud?)).

I coined the word myself in the early '90s, and haven’t published, so, no, nothing “official”. And I don’t mean to start a movement, but just describe a space more or less “in” the philosophical universe. I would want to make some distinction from “Pop-philosophy”, though not an exclusive one.

An interesting relation to Philosophy in general might be thought in terms of which categories of publication occupy adjacent shelves to the Philosophy Section in bookstores. More erudite shoppes might buffer Philosophy with Literary Criticism, Feminist Studies, and the like, but mostly I find Philosophy stuck smack dab in the midst of Self-help, Mysticism, Astrology, New Age, and of course the more respectable (Eastern/Western) Religion. Paraphilosophy might thuswise offer a greater buffer to Philosophy in the larger scheme of things. Perhaps we could shelve Ayn Rand more comfortably there (I’ll take one for the team ).

It is not few (amongst the respective few) who fear for the future of Philosophy as a distinct Department in Universities. Relations must be made, marketing done, lest Philosophy be axed as redundant… and Paraphilosophy be coopted by the forces of Self Help.

In short, I’m being moderately facetious, but only in the sense that facetiousness is one of the many aspects of thought permissible within the workings of Paraphilosophy.

And then there’s Pop-Paraphilosophy:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA[/youtube]

I guess I am a paraphilosopher then. I certainly raise a lot of controversial points anyway. Interesting that you mention Ayn Rand and bookstores. I peruse half-price books fairly often, and last time I went I looked for Ayn Rand in the philosophy section and there was none there. Then I asked an employee if they carry her books because I thought it odd that they wouldn’t have her, with her being a pretty famous author and all, and found out she is in the fiction section. I also noticed that they do group philosophy in with religion, but I didn’t think anything of that, since I consider religion to be an organized version of philosophy that people get too serious about and isn’t written well.

I had heard the name “Wilhelm Reich” before, but had forgotten who he was, so I wikipedia’d him and then remembered he is the orgone/cloud buster guy. Well I read the whole very extensive page and I have to say that he has more character then any person I have ever read a bio on. I was constantly thinking WTF!? during the whole section. I don’t even know what to think about it. Come to find out, all of his books were burned in the 1950’s too which oddly enough was ordered by the FDA. What the hell does the FDA have to do with books anyway? And his orgone machines were also all ordered destroyed by the FDA. I don’t get why the hell they cared so much. It makes me think maybe he was onto something. He and Freud seemed to agree a lot and were friends as well. Yet Freud became a standard part of psychiatric care and Reich was labeled a nut, put in prison, and had his inventions destroyed and books burned. Pretty weird if you ask me.

Everybody loves a nut,
the whole world loves a wierdo.
His mind might be in a rut,
but,
everybody loves a nut!!

Why not divide it up nice and easy. Analytic philosophy is real philosophy and continental philosophy is paraphilosophy.

Not that there is anything wrong with continental philosophy, I sure as shit can’t do the analytic stuff. At least not well. But whereas there are clearly defined rules and systems in psychology, none exist in parapsychology. Medicine exists in the relatively controlled environment of the hospital and doctor’s office whereas paramedicine is a lot crunchier, on the streets where rules and control are often absent (hence “good Samaritan” laws to gloss over the lawlessness of the situation).

If I want to sit down and “think about things” it is paraphilosophy. It has some relationship to real philosophy, sure, but it lacks the discipline that makes philosophy real (if not meaningful).

There’s a flavour of truth to that, Xun, along the lines of: Analytic sharpens knives, Continental cuts meat. And your extension of the analogies is pertinent.

But I’d hesitate to put the likes of Kant, Hegel, Marx, or even Derrida et al automatically in that mix… they’re just too careful with what they do… I’d reserve paraphilosophy for much more hairbrained/outlier projects (though that, too, is an oversimplification). Also, where do we place the likes of Dewey or James, or pre-Enlightenement Philosophy (nevermind Eastern/Chinese). The later Wittgenstein was clearly a paraphilosopher, I think.

Everyone loves him, so his books get burned and he is killed in prison? I don’t see the joke.

The radical version: Now that the masses have been brought more or less under control, Reich is no longer such a threat. His invention is allowed to be sold. His radical physiological marxism has been thwarted and what remains is a gadget for quirks. An invention of which Reich himself misunderstood the scientific implications, because he misunderstood science, not because his invention doesn’t work.
I’m not saying Reich wasn’t actually dangerous to national security - his ideas should not be measured to the background of the acceptable spectrum within which or socio-political sanity (read: safety) is guaranteed. At least if you do not want to reject him a-priori on account of your status as a citizen.

The moderate version: He has nothing to offer, his books were burned because there was a scarcity of fuel.

I dunno.

The big thing amongst sinologists right now is to assert that one can be philosophical about Eastern (by that, of course, “Chinese” is meant because, well, let’s be honest: fuck everybody else) concepts but Chinese concepts are, in-and-of themselves not philosophical in nature. I’ve gotta say, they make a good argument (all the sacks of shit saying this are steeped in the analytic tradition and, fuck it, I can’t disagree with them. Well, that isn’t true, I can disagree with them but I can’t show why they are wrong and that amounts to the same thing!).

Tu Weiming (who I’d like to describe as “My boy” but, errr, that relationship is entirely one-way and by that I mean, entirely in my own head) takes the proper Continental road on this issue, just like he does with religion and eastern philosophy. That is to say, he says that he isn’t interested in the distinction while vehemently arguing a particular angle. A good bit of rhetoric that!

But to riff Tu, we can be philosophical about Eastern traditions – indeed to ignore such a dimension would be to our detriment. But at the same time, they aren’t philosophical, per se.

With earlier European philosophies, I think we can read a teleology into them without too much difficulty since we currently have continental and analytic traditions. It isn’t hard to retrocon those distinctions onto the entire tradition(s)! Think about it. Plato and Aquinas fit pretty comfortably into the proto-analytic sphere whereas Aristotle and Augustine fit pretty comfortably into the proto-Continental tradition.

Sure, we can quibble over details. But it is a heureistic so of course it breaks down after sufficient analysis. I’m not sure that that means anything.