So started paging through Adam Smith’s the wealth of nations . . . and as I’m going through paragraphs about the division of labor - the improvement of the dexterity of the worker through making workers produce one aspect of manufacturing a product rather than making the whole product themselves, such as forging the top of a nail as opposed to making the whole nail (this was a quantum leap in production where workers that were making an entire nail themselves would be able to produce a maximum of 1300 nails a day, as opposed to after the division of labor occurred, there, workers would at the end of the day add up to making 48, 000+ nails a day) - I came upon an analogy to philosophy which raised a very interesting question about the subject.
So to answer the question, is specialization in philosophy good, yes, so says Adam Smith. I think it’s a very interesting argument. And as I have no adequate response to it, I might be willing to accept it. I’ve read a little Marx of late, and I do not remember a counter-argument to this particular idea, though I’m not a Marxist scholar, so perhaps a philosopher with expertise on this area can contribute, but I do know that Marx would dispute the overall optimism Smith has in a general prosperity (perhaps from contemporary terms we might judge which of the two was right).
Anyone wish to challenge Smith’s argument?
Thinking about it some more, I recall a recent book review I read about a new book that had to deal with the frustrations of corporate work, written by a man who graduated with a degree in philosophy, went to work for some Washington think tank, and quit after seven months because he became depressed over the fact that the work he was doing was not intellectually satisfying. In fact, his main point was that ‘intellectual’ work, ‘white-collar work,’ was being divided like early manufacturing. So he quit and became a Motorcycle mechanic (yes, it is a true story and a play on Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance).
His whole argument boiled down to the great feelings that accompany the completion of a task or object from beginning to end, like when he repairs a motorcycle. The great feeling of having a ‘skill’ and of mastering something, which is quite admirable. Perhaps his argument (against Smith) would be that the quality of the worker’s life before the division of labor is greater than the quality of the worker after the division of labor even if the division of labor increases an overall quantity that improves the quality of all workers because it does not do so to a sufficient enough degree to be greater than the quality of life the worker had prior to the division of labor.
An adequate enough response would simply compare the quality of life before and after, one epoch to another, say, the contemporary epoch to pre-industrial society, and attempt to ascertain through historical records and literatures about the quality of the average worker in those days. I’m not able to make this judgment however, and am unable to resolve the argument on that account.
The motorcycle mechanic’s critique of the division of labor in white-collar work (or, since we opened with philosophy, we may simply think of philosophy) is a valid point on the negative psychological consequences of such a division. Consider one of the recent character’s central hang-ups in the new HBO series Hung; a poet works as a spelling editor for a big Insurance company (though the show makes it into a comedy, these are actual jobs college graduates have in the corporate world). The poet, naturally hates her job and is depressed, so of course she becomes a man Pimp and we have a new hit series. In real life, is it better to sacrifice what the mechanic longs for, and what depresses workers, proletarian and white-collar, in order to obtain the benefits (or from Marxist perspectives, problems) of the exponential leap in production? Toilet paper does count for something. (I personally have not made up my mind).
Having just written this, I continue reading Smith, only to encounter the following passage.
Sweet post, I’ve been saying this shiz for months. Democratic society, essentially, is set up to be one big pile of fail. We overload school patrons with worthless bullschitz they will very likely never use during their stay on planet earth and most likely forget a month or so down the road anyway. A culture designed to breed inferiority and then worship it as some sort of God-like structure. College education, oh RLY? Then why is every office with douches in suits filled with imbecilic retards like a Boston Creme donut pumped to the max?
I’ll tell you why, give a retard enough time and they’ll regurgitate all the worthless nerdparadise info you tell them to also. I might be hallucinating but I’m pretty sure I’m seeing alcoholics and hobos with higher logical capacities than the douche at your local post office. Also, ever notice how all the retards are placed in position where they can harass as many members of society during their worthless workday as humanely possible? Don’t even get me started on cops though, you got a better chance of resolving probs after burying em in your backyard than dealing with those badger-brained mental midgets. “To Serve and Protect”, more like to be the biggest dickjohnson in the possibility of all human historical existence because you are a walnut-brained retard on a power trip and most likely an inbred.
Then a few kids see all these pathetically weak drones in schools created by the system so they decide to rebel and be tough. Shit, it seems like the logical thing to do in their flimsilily conditioned minds. To them, not being a bitch of society becomes the ultimate purpose to their previously dog-like excuse for existence exemplified in the masses. But then a few of them, the smart ones, look even further and realize that their rebellion is leading them to becoming bigger bitches of society than they previously could have been as drones. Like all the other lower-classed, poverty-stricken masses who get pissed on like rodents for their entire lives.
But then the great ones, the only ones the drone-masters fear, they finally realize they’ve been playing into the the bull they’ve been fed the whole time. And they see with clear brightness the elaborate safety nets and flimsy facade that subsetize the system. And they finally see it… and they rise above. And they weild total power because they sought the truth unto finality. And then neither death nor pain can stop their onslaught, for they have become eternity.
The object of division of labor is not simply haste, and productivity, but is to ease the alienation of the product from the producers…It really is an aid to the rich that those people engaged in production can never see the whole product, or get the whole picture…They can say: I am just paying you for running that machine, and a monkey working for peanuts could do it cheaper…
The object of philosophy is to get the whole picture… There is still enough of specialization, and haste, and productivity at the expense of quality…Even here, to say anything another must own it…It is a terrible thing, that to have a living we must surrender meaning, and to have meaning we must risk our lives…
We don’t have a democratic society… Yet; much of what you say is true… The problem is common… The form is gone and the meaning with it, but to hang on to power, privilage and position, people preach and teach the form, which fails them… Master the form and you will succeed until you fail, noo matter how obviously without merit you are as a person or without character…We could afford to wait until the fools crash their system if they were not continually making enemies around the world and pushing us into nuclear war…If worst comes to worst, these masters of the form would nuke us to keep their soft jobs and easy money…We may not think of them as the enemy, but they think of us at the enemy, and I hope they are correct…We should throw those babies out with their forms…
"Take an example, therefore, from a very trifling manufacture; but one in which the division of labour has been very often taken notice of, the trade of the pin-maker; a workman not educated to this business (which the division of labour has rendered a distinct trade), nor acquainted with the use of the machinery employed in it (to the invention of which the same division of labour has probably given occasion), could scarce, perhaps, with his utmost industry, make one pin in a day, and certainly could not make twenty. But in the way in which this business is now carried on, not only the whole work is a peculiar trade, but it is divided into a number of branches, of which the greater part are likewise peculiar trades. One man draws out the wire, another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving, the head; to make the head requires two or three distinct operations; to put it on is a peculiar business, to whiten the pins is another; it is even a trade by itself to put them into the paper; and the important business of making a pin is, in this manner, divided into about eighteen distinct operations, which, in some manufactories, are all performed by distinct hands, though in others the same man will sometimes perform two or three of them. I have seen a small manufactory of this kind where ten men only were employed, and where some of them consequently performed two or three distinct operations. But though they were very poor, and therefore but indifferently accommodated with the necessary machinery, they could, when they exerted themselves, make among them about twelve pounds of pins in a day. There are in a pound upwards of four thousand pins of a middling size. Those ten persons, therefore, could make among them upwards of forty-eight thousand pins in a day. Each person, therefore, making a tenth part of forty-eight thousand pins, might be considered as making four thousand eight hundred pins in a day. But if they had all wrought separately and independently, and without any of them having been educated to this peculiar business, they certainly could not each of them have made twenty, perhaps not one pin in a day; that is, certainly, not the two hundred and fortieth, perhaps not the four thousand eight hundredth part of what they are at present capable of performing, in consequence of a proper division and combination of their different operations.
This great increase of the quantity of work which, in consequence of the division of labour, the same number of people are capable of performing, is owing to three different circumstances; first, to the increase of dexterity in every particular workman; secondly, to the saving of the time which is commonly lost in passing from one species of work to another; and lastly, to the invention of a great number of machines which facilitate and abridge labour, and enable one man to do the work of many.
First, the improvement of the dexterity of the workman necessarily increases the quantity of the work he can perform; and the division of labour, by reducing every man’s business to some one simple operation, and by making this operation the sole employment of his life, necessarily increased very much dexterity of the workman. A common smith, who, though accustomed to handle the hammer, has never been used to make nails, if upon some particular occasion he is obliged to attempt it, will scarce, I am assured, be able to make above two or three hundred nails in a day, and those too very bad ones. A smith who has been accustomed to make nails, but whose sole or principal business has not been that of a nailer, can seldom with his utmost diligence make more than eight hundred or a thousand nails in a day. I have seen several boys under twenty years of age who had never exercised any other trade but that of making nails, and who, when they exerted themselves, could make, each of them, upwards of two
thousand three hundred nails in a day. The making of a nail, however, is by no means one of the simplest operations. The same person blows the bellows, stirs or mends the fire as there is occasion, heats the iron, and forges every part of the nail: in forging the head too he is obliged to change his tools. The different operations into which the making of a pin, or of a metal button, is subdivided, are all of them much more simple, and the dexterity of the person, of whose life it has been the sole business to perform them, is usually much greater. The rapidity with which some of the operations of those manufacturers are performed, exceeds what the human hand could, by those who had never seen them, be supposed capable of acquiring.
Secondly, the advantage which is gained by saving the time commonly lost in passing from one sort of work to another is much greater than we should at first view be apt to imagine it. It is impossible to pass very quickly from one kind of work to another that is carried on in a different place and with quite different tools. A country weaver, who cultivates a small farm, must lose a good deal of time in passing from his loom to the field, and from the field to his loom. When the two trades can be carried on in the same workhouse, the loss of time is no doubt much less. It is even in this case, however, very considerable. A man commonly saunters a little in turning his hand from one sort of employment to another. When he first begins the new work he is seldom very keen and hearty; his mind, as they say, does not go to it, and for some time he rather trifles than applies to good purpose. The habit of sauntering and of indolent careless application, which is naturally, or rather necessarily acquired by every country workman who is obliged to change his work and his tools every half hour, and to apply his hand in twenty different ways almost every day of his life, renders him almost always slothful and lazy, and incapable of any vigorous application even on the most pressing occasions. Independent, therefore, of his deficiency in point of dexterity, this cause alone must always reduce considerably the quantity of work which he is capable of performing." Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations.
Well… we can work as teachers, for non-profit organizations, work in businesses or enterprises that bring about general welfare, as well as enhance people’s lives through the arts and through advances in science. If we choose to, we can make a living without having to join the Red Cross in Africa and be content with what our work provides to others. The problem is that greed motivates people more than virtue-based ideals.
Specialization is the narrowing of focus until you see nothing at all.
Wide (included angle of) Perspective is wide understanding/perception of reality.
The pirate kings ruled the world. Set up trading posts in every major port. They had to be businessmen, navigators, politicians, psychologists, military strategists, astronomers, climatologists, etc… true renaissance men.
‘Specialization’ killed them off, leaving us with their flunkeys who became the ‘rulers’ of/from these ‘ports’. (see; politician)
[quote=“The Underground Man”]
So to answer the question, is specialization in philosophy good, yes, so says Adam Smith.
[quote]
Smith is talking about production. Philosophy is not measured in the number of theses you produce per day (although writing articles for a thinktank may be - that is propaganda and policy rather than any attempt to say “how things are”), but in the quality of these theses and how well one can defend them. There is the synthesis of argument and creativity involved, not the repetitive production of product to a standard. Since his time, most things that can be mechanised have been.
Process managers often make poor project managers, and both often make poor academic managers. Priorities and skills are different. In some fields other than production, versatility is far more useful than specialisation.
Philosophers tend to be more specialised than in the past, but that is a reflection of the amount of knowledge that has been developed - the same is true of doctors, lawyers, architects and engineers.
I’m not interested in evaluating the official definition of democracy, just what it represents today. Inevitably, all democracies degenerate into a socialist drone state as the puppet masters find a way to insidiously corrode the socio-economic fiber of a nation’s constitution and the autonomy of the individual
What u think 9/11 was? Bin Laden and Saddam’s military funding? Gulf of Tonkin? Operation Northwoods? CIA crack epidemic?
Thats because they live in fear for the totality of their void existence. They are enslaved to themselves, to their desire for power and to the world at large. A shadow of humanity, they can scarcely leave their houses in fear, must be followed around like a decrepit, crippled child, and are at the mercy of the very drones they helped create.
They are vampires and cannot survive but through the exploitation of other living beings. Their power solely lasts until the well of human sacrifices finally goes athirst and they disintegrate and return to the perpetual abyss that awaits them.
Versatility= useless existence. I know we can all sit here and ego stroke about how well rounded we all are, yet inevitability makes mince meat of even the most magnanimous facade.
He is missing the fact that law and architecture, engineering, and medicine are already specializations of philosophy… Philosophy as philosophy is a general pursuit for which all need a general grasp of the accumulated knowledge of the age… It was because we cannot imagine a world or even a cosmos where the laws of physics and every other study are in contradiction with others… Gravity is the same here as there…Plato was essential to the understanding by medieval Europe of the logic of Roman Law…For those people, the dialectic became a means of resolving opposites rather than finding truth…They even applied their knowledge to define God in such a fashion that he could be nothing other… We must know something of everything if we will ever bind the hands of God so they stay bound…
No, I hate it when people take obvious statements and insert their own self-introspective bullshit to make themselves appear cognicious
Is this thread named Defining Democracy? The multiplying swarms of retardosophy doth swarm upon him.
If you lackadaisical rodents knew anything, we wouldn’t be going down the shitter powerflush style. Wanks in Wonderland, how deep does the shithole go?
Keep those eyes closed real tight, wouldn’t want the drones to stir. Don’t be silly, Toto. Scarecrows don’t talk.
Yes, create that bottomfeeding cesspool you are so skilled at scraping along.
Fate doth require no requiem. It falls the facade of noble and pauper alike and cackles withall piercing irony as yonder fools seal their destinies. Unstrokeful solace, their final desire of unrequiety. Where doth vainglory reside henceforth?
The mourning 's deepest as the dawn approaches
Thou can’t even alter your own worm-like existence, yet think you have any true understanding of eternity. The fiddler fiddles for the piper as eternity shrieks upon him. Twice the fool… naught the wiser. The house began to pitch, the kitchen took a slich, it landed on the Wicked Witch in the middle of a ditch
No, I hate it when people take obvious statements and insert their own self-introspective bullshit to make themselves appear cognicious
Is this thread named Defining Democracy? The multiplying swarms of retardosophy doth swarm upon him.
If you lackadaisical rodents knew anything, we wouldn’t be going down the shitter powerflush style. Wanks in Wonderland, how deep does the shithole go?
Keep those eyes closed real tight, wouldn’t want the drones to stir. Don’t be silly, Toto. Scarecrows don’t talk.
Yes, create that bottomfeeding cesspool you are so skilled at scraping along.
Fate doth require no requiem. It falls the facade of noble and pauper alike and cackles withall piercing irony as yonder fools seal their destinies. Unstrokeful solace, their final desire of unrequiety. Where doth vainglory reside henceforth?
The mourning 's deepest as the dawn approaches
Thou can’t even alter your own worm-like existence, yet think you have any true understanding of eternity. The fiddler fiddles for the piper as eternity shrieks upon him. Twice the fool… naught the wiser. The house began to pitch, the kitchen took a slich, it landed on the Wicked Witch in the middle of a ditch
[/quote]
You can’t read any philosopher without getting a dose of definition…Look at Socrates…Look at the nedieval clerics, and their use of the sylogism of Aristotle…Look at Kant, and Neitzsche… What do you think philosopers do except define reality… You did it, and I called you out because you do not know what you are talking about… So get mad…Have a tantrum, but you defined democracy, and you cannot defend your definition… We may have to start another thread, but I am well within my rights pointing out the facts to you…
To me there are two very obvious flaws in this example. The first is that there is no reason the same invention could not have been made by someone who performed all the tasks involved in running the fire-engine, the opposite of Smith’s divided labor. The second, greater problem is, that the chances of a person who had knowledge of the entire machine making this invention would actually be greater, as it involves “another part of the machine” that was not necessarily contained in the boy’s small domain and that he only chanced to be aware of.
While the benefits of division and subdivision of labor in manufacturing may or may not be valid, I definitely disagree that they extend to the realm of philosophy. To explain, I’ll give an example: it is easy to tell one man to produce the stick of a nail and another man to produce the head, and to thus produce them twice as fast as it would be with each producing whole nails individually. However, there is a third man in this equation, the person who tells them how to do it, the coordinator who ensures that the stick will fit the head. This person, in order to do his job, must have knowledge of the entire scheme that he is trying to construct. If you told one worker to design and produce a stick, and the other to design and produce a head, it is not likely that they would fit. So, it is clear that someone is required to do the fitting of concepts, someone who knows how everything works together to make sure that they do end up working together.
This role, of the philosopher, is completely different. The philosopher’s output, first of all, once produced is more or less finished (not accounting for updates and improvements here and there). It can be sold a million times, as it has been in the past, or just once, as musicians are now finding with the advent of the internet, but in the end it’s just an idea easily replicated in the raw materials of every mind given access to it. The speed with which it propagates, and therefore in our world how much money its creator makes, depends on the efficiency of communication and the complexity of the idea. The second difference is that, while the head and stick-makers know exactly the form of what they are trying to produce as it has been done before, the philosopher is trying to do something new. It has to be new, or else it won’t sell, because everybody would have it already (everyone has the raw materials to make an idea). Now, because the philosopher doesn’t know the exact form of what he’s trying to make, because it’s new, he doesn’t know what he needs to know. And so the relevance paradox comes into play, as by focusing on what is immediately relevant to the problem he is trying to solve with his idea, the philosopher might remain ignorant of certain key facts outside of his area, like the other part of the machine on the firetruck, that would actually make the problem simpler. Increasing the benefits of this knowledge from outside the immediate area of the problem is the fact that all possibilities immediately related to the problem have probably already been looked at and exhausted, so unrelated knowledge is the only way you’re going to find something new. So dividing a problem into little sections according to what you see to be relevant to the specialized fields of philosophy (which will be very hard to do properly because if you knew what they knew you wouldn’t need them, and if you don’t know what they know then you won’t be able to figure out which problems are whose) and handing them out to specialized philosopher worker bees won’t work, because first of all without a clear design there is no guarantee that the parts these philosophers in their separate fields produce will fit nicely together, and secondly by not requiring them to understand the entire scope of the problem you let them block off even more facts that they don’t think are important but in the end may prove to be.
Ideas are not nails. Ideas are more like paintings. Try to get 1000 people, even master painters together, and have them produce a beautiful portrait one stroke each. You can’t use paint by numbers, because they if they are to be like philosophers, then they can’t have any idea what the final picture will look like until it gradually resolves itself approaching the end (or doesn’t). There is no set design that they are trying to paint, because the end product is the design itself. The art is not the painting, the art is the art. Now, you might say, “OK of course that wouldn’t work, but say I iterate the problem and have them paint the painting over and over again one stroke per person, and after each one look at what they’ve produced, and fire the people that don’t fit, until eventually they’re producing something better and better each day?” Well you could do that yes, but in the world of ideas, it’s only the most recent painting that counts, you can’t sell the old ones because they’re old and obsolete, nobody will keep using old ideas like they keep using tape cassettes, just because there’s nothing better around. Not for as long anyway. And most importantly, once you produce that perfect portrait with your factory, you’ve got to make something new, because you can’t make an idea over again and expect it to sell just the same. Once it’s made, it’s made, everyone has it, and the person who produced it is out of a job. So even if by trial and error 1000 people eventually learn to paint, one stroke each, a beautiful idea, once they achieve that they would have to start something new.
Sorry for the tired rambling, posts from 1 in the morning start out fine but gradually deteriorate. Thanks for the interesting thought-food though, I wasn’t aware that Smith was that readable, because I’d never looked, because frankly I didn’t think he was relevant to what I’m interested in.
I think it is important to draw a distinction between specialization and mechanization. Specialization is indeed necessary for mastery and I do think that attaining mastery/cultivating internal goods is highly desirable in a philosopher.
But that process is highly distinction from mechanization and its ever-constant companion alienation. A specialist can and often does see much of the project they are working on, oftentimes they do see the entire process. The motorcycle example is key. At the Harley-Davidson factory in Milwaukee, one worker builds one motorcycle. It is the opposite of the Ford assembly-line process. Ironically, given the OP, specialization runs against mechanization. A worker on an assembly-line is easily replaced because their individual job doesn’t require that much skill. A worker who in involved in the entire process is much more difficult to train and replace.
It looks to me like the malaise the philosopher experienced in the OP was due to the mechanization and commodification of philosophy. He wasn’t doing philosophy to do philosophy, he was doing philosophy because it was a product that made him and the financial institution he worked at money. Internal and external goods were conflated and, of course he was alienated and hated it. What else could you expect?
Good points Xunzian. I’d point out though that a danger in specialization is that it often involves a sort of faith-based system building. You can’t build a system without having a vast and complex set of propositions at hand to build on, and it’s only natural to stop questioning the basic assumptions at some point - to take them as truths. Sort of a slipperly slope problem. I do think it’s possible to stay grounded and fresh while at the same time specializing and maturing, but in the real world it seems to be a somewhat rare quality. I think the truly great thinkers manage to pursue this unified course (say, “building” and “excavating”?).
I think that the principle of inertia is a good one for one’s philosophical foundations. As long as they are working, that is there is no substantive reason to question them, one can proceed without bothering to question them and be fine. As specialization increases, problems will no doubt arise and have to be resolved. Oftentimes this is done by abandoning or modifying a foundation. But personally, I think a lot of time is wasted in philosophy by people who insist that before we replace a storm window on the second floor, we need to see whether our basement carbon monoxide levels are up to code.
Some stimulating discussion is going on here. Thank you for the replies. Please allow me to apologize in advance if I am not able to address everyone tonight.
Nameless,
Is Specialization in Philosophy Good?
‘Good’? From what Perspective? What context?
Specialization is the narrowing of focus until you see nothing at all.
Wide (included angle of) Perspective is wide understanding/perception of reality.
We can probably define the parameters, to not go overboard, in as general terms as the distinctions between, ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics and logic. To be sure, much greater sub-divisions occur in every category.
Now notice how you approach ‘wide,’ with the hope of attaining an understanding (I’ll omit perception) of reality. In what terms and to what degree? The way Spinoza understood ‘reality’ is far different from Heidegger, and even then, they each sought to understand particular aspects of reality, be they even as grand and general as ‘substance’ and ‘being.’ To push the example further, each philosopher is already specialized through the particular approach that he undertakes in the attempt to arrive at truths of a certain order (in these cases, universal concepts).
If we take an even closer look at Heidegger, we see that he is working as a phenomenologist, out of Husserl, but narrowing the scope that Husserl set out for phenomenology, and in some cases, ‘widening’ it, to use your term.
Now Adam Smith proposes that this specialization, which he believes is already occurring (and he is right) is good from the perspective ‘progress.’ For example, psychology was once a philosophical discipline, now however, through specialization it has become it’s own science. And within psychology just consider the vast number of schools and approaches to the science. Gestalt, behavioral, therapeutic, dream-analysis, emotive, what have you. Experts study within these particular fields and advance our collective knowledge on the whole, Smith would argue, faster and more efficiently. If each psychologist dabbles a little here and a little there, without specializing in a certain field, this would ultimately be at the cost of ‘progress in the science.’
Only_Humean,
Good points.
“In some fields other than production, versatility is far more useful than specialisation.”
I wish to challenge you a little on this point. Let’s take a hypothetical. We have a world full of very talented people, close to geniuses in their respective specialties and skill sets. Let’s say, for instance, all the great philosophers are alive, and some have greater aptitudes for logic than others, others have greater abilities at combining different data into coherent wholes, while others are great at applying systems of say logic to existential dilemmas, etc. Some of these people specializes in just the skill you mention, versatility. Taken as a team, on the whole, if we set each of these great philosophers to work, with oversight from those with the best skill-set to do so, would we stand to achieve better results?
(In essence this would be Husserl’s dream of a scientific philosophy).
Juggernaut,
Hello again,
'Philosophy as philosophy is a general pursuit for which all need a general grasp of the accumulated knowledge of the age…"
Could you follow up a little for me here; a general pursuit of what end?
thezeus18,
Hey zeus it’s been a while.
Smith does not dispute this, and says so as much himself. However, historically, he argues that it was precisely such innovations within factories, made by individual workers, especially when their tasks were limited to working on smaller parts of a machine, as opposed to the carrying out of 10-20 different operations that constantly kept their minds focused upon the switching of procedures, which helped accelerate innovation. For example, I may be too busy to note an improvement in formal logic if I am always busily focused on the ‘big picture,’ ‘the grand scheme,’ even though I may be using formal logic in the process of searching for that answer. If, on the other hand, my main focus is on formal logic, through my acquaintance and focus on this aspect of philosophy, I may be able to discover that Aristotle had an extra operation here and there, and thus advance the science.
Fair enough. To challenge you however, why cannot human beings (you know, theoretically, for real life shows egos and other flaws obtrude) work as a team, with a genius (name any great philosopher you admire) calling the shots, telling the logicians, linguists, etc., what fits where and how.
In response to your second paragraph (great job!) I would ask why we need a grand narrative? Why do all the different specialized fields of philosophy and philosophers need to unify? Contradictions notwithstanding, advances in Derrida’s Gramatology does not necessarily have to have any relation to the ethical or aesthetic theories of other philosophers. They may raise problems in other fields, but why must it still be the job, in the following of the idealist philosophers of the past, to ‘unify’ everything into one system? I think the painting analogy falls into the same critique.
Xunzian,
Good to see you. Thanks for the response, it is thought-provoking as always.
‘Alienation’ the perfect word that I could not find to describe the mechanic’s dissatisfaction.
"A worker who in involved in the entire process is much more difficult to train and replace. " This is one of the main arguments the philosopher-turned-mechanic makes in favor of possessing an actual skill as opposed to the now-a-days versatility and adaptability of the white-collar worker who can expect to change positions, on average, at least four times before retirement (notwithstanding unforeseen downturns and calamities in the ever-increasingly precarious future).
“What else could you expect?” One of his main qualms was the division of intellectual work, much like the division in mechanical work. Some people, but very few, do actually make decisions (the people that oversee him for example), and have more or less intellectual work to do. The main workers however, well, the intellectual formulas are so set up that it creates precisely what you mentioned and I’m sure more grievances we have yet to imagine. In short, he expected that a college degree, that ‘white-collar’ work, would in some way require thinking, and not be all mechanization as you eloquently phrased it.
anon,
Good insight. I guess, we might say that science operates in a similar fashion? I mean, the scientist does put faith (despite Hume) that the formulas for gravity will apply tomorrow just as they do today. In other words, there is really a degree of faith in every human pursuit, varying greatly between scientists and theologians, granted, but never entirely absent in either. Perhaps philosophy might one day fall close to the scientist scale of the divide, and then faith would not be such a big deal.
“Because it’s all kind of vague and unspecific.”
Any thoughts on phenomenology . . . that’s as specific an example as I’m able to conjure.
Duality,
I admire your enthusiasm, but please respond closer to the parameters of the subjects of the OP, or start a different thread. I’ve read through you’re contributions and really have little idea of what you’re going on about, and why you’re doing it here.
Well, let’s avoid specific examples and instead use my own experience as a model. My mother would be best described as a Brechtian, that is her life-philosophy embraces a fusion of Nietzschean and Marxist philosophies. She also has a hefty dose of cultural Confucianism/Sinicism thrown in to complicate the mix, not wholly embraced because they are antiquated and problematic but persisting in no small part because of the problems of Maoist philosophy. My father is more free-wheeling but most identifies with the Campbellian axis. Couple that with my having been raised in America and thus steeped in the Western tradition. So the works of Xunzi fit me like a glove. Especially in light of some of the work that the so-called “South of the Charles River” school of New Confucianism is doing in that area. So I embraced that and threw myself into it full force. Because of the rather niche realm that post-Imperial Confucian philosophy occupies, I couldn’t help but be exposed to the more orthodox Mencian line of thinking. As I studied more and more I found the Xunzian line of thinking less and less satisfying. For a while I fluttered and vacillated attempting to adopt a hybrid approach. Such an approach was necessarily self-limiting and involved a certain amount of cognitive dissonance. This eventually lead me to abandon the heterodox line of Xunzian thinking and to wholly identify with the Mencian line. First through Zhu Xi who co-opted many Xunzian principles while decrying Xunzian philosophy. But through that, I encountered Wang Yangming and others who were more of the straight-up Mencian line. It was a complete rejection of my previous position but the transition was gradual and so while there were inflection points of note in retrospect at the time they didn’t feel all that radical. Specialization demands addressing those concerns. That is why I like it
Underground,
Yeah, but that is the distinction between being a part of a product that is efficiently made (mechanization) and making a new product (which requires specialization). Why shouldn’t white collar work be subject to the same stress that blue collar work is? Is there some magical distinction between the two besides the size of the paycheck? Neither is necessarily more authentic than the other nor is one subject to stresses the other is not.
People have that distinction in their mind because they are either glad to be Alphas and not Betas or because they are glad to be Betas and not Alphas . .
