Almost every philosophy I have studied thus far displays some bias or serves some power base. Also, it seems that every philosophy I have read is at war with some other philosophy or with all philosophy that went before it. As I understand this here is the basis for radical critique of philosophy and practically none can escape unscathed.
Class Critique (IE Marx)
How does this philosophy serve the interests of the ruling class?
How does this philosophy help manipulate or oppress the exploited class?
How is this philosophy used in actual practice not in theory?
Critique of Presence (IE Derrida and Heidegger)
How is this philosophy based in some claim to presence, to that which is immediately, fully and transparently present to us by
–a) direct observation, sensation, or impression (empiricism)
–b) clear and distinct idea (Descartes)
–c) an intelligible form or essence(Plato,Aristotle,Aquinas)
–d) God (Jews, Christians, Muslims)
Can this philosophy be deconstructed, on it’s own terms, to show that the presence it claims does not exist and cannot be achieved?
Is this philosophy about something that humans can experience?
If it is beyond human experience, then how is it meaningful?
If this philosophy cannot be disciplined by human experience and cannot be used to deduce claims that can be verified by experience, then of what value is it?
If this philosophy cannot be tested against our shared experience then it is a matter of faith and not of philosophy.
Gender Critique (Various Feminist philosophers)
Does this philosophy reflect gender roles and definitions of masculine or feminine that are biased?
Does this philosophy function to subordinate one gender and privilage another?
Why would objective reason be biased?
Critique of Power (Foucault)
How might the concepts and institutions espoused by this philosophy serve as instruments of social order and control?
Who might be oppressed, excluded, or diminished in power and control by this philosophy?
Does this philosophy serve to diminish the range of human possibility by privilaging certain beliefs and practices as “normal” while quashing those that are called “deviant”.
Critique of Being (Heidegger)
Does this philosophy mistake being for a particular kind of being?
Does this philosophy contribute to our continued forgetfulness of being?
Does this philosophy still express our primordial grasp of being?
Does this philosophy seek to place some purported grasp of some presence in place of being?
Does this philosophy express nihilism caused by the dispair of metaphysics?
Critique of Language (Lacan)
If you look beyond the surface meaning of the words of this philosophy, what does it present as the objects of desire, need and fear?
Are the images and doctrines of the text mere symptoms of submerged and repressed pyschic demands, such as guilt, shame or dred?
Are there secret quasi-sexual pleasures hidden in the text?
What would this text really like to say but finds it impossible to say?
Critigue of Christian-Platonic Culture (Nietsche)
Does this philosophy devalue the human condition and render this world derivative by claiming this world has its source in some superior transcendant world?
Does this philosophy seek to tear down and destroy the strong, free, individual, creative spirits who sustain, invigorate, and lead culture, and seek to reduce them to being equal to the weak, in the name of virtue, morality, equality, and love?
Does this philosophy propogate a desire and longing for the impossible absolute, fixed, universal, literal, non-temporal, singular, unequivicoal, complete, and incorrigible truth for all of mankind, which can never be achieved and which leads us to life-hating, life-thwarting, world-consuming nihilism?
Does this philosophy deny meaning and value that cannot be rooted in something divine, ideal or transcendent?
Pragmatic Critique
Is this philosophy effective in helping us survive in the world?
Does this philosophy help us solve problems and make our lives better?
Does this philosophy express the nature of independent reality in a manner that enables us to manipulate objects in experiments and technologies in ways of which we approve?
Does this philosophy enable us to get along with one another and to still act as we wish?
Does this philosophy enable us to agree about asthetic beauty and how we ought to arrange, feel and think about sensible dimensions of our environments?
Does this philosophy produce more problems than it is worth?
Is there anything about this philosophy that is an obstacle to better living?
Bad Faith Critique (Sartre)
1)Does this philosophy deny our absolute freedom of choice?
2)Does this philosophy attempt flee and hide, out of angst, anxiety, dred or fear of our profound freedom of choice?
3) If so, despite its denial, how can this philosophy be shown to implicitly affirm human freedom of choice?
Should be perhaps Critique FROM (the point of view) rather than Critique OF
As far as Marxism is concerned, the class approach to any bourgeois philosophy forms only the external layer of an, I would say, biased criticism. Any serious Marxist analyst (Historian) of Philosophy would never resort to such superficial methodology. Dialectical materialism offers much better instrumentarium for performing immanent criticism of any doctrine.
Interesting observations. Thank you, whitelotus. Well, as always, I do not know or claim to know. My list was merely a first draft effort at offering a “tool” which could be used in the way of a “healthy skepticism”. If it is incomplete, then please, provide the additional questions. This is exactly why I posted it here.
I wonder though that you doubt the usefulness of the list. Would it not be true that if one or more of these radical critiques revealed underlying weaknesses in the philosophy, then one would have cause to question the philosophy and look at the motives of the philosopher. Revealing a bias or prejudice, revealing a subtle power strategy, revealing a pragmatic flaw in the philosophy, or bringing into question it’s meaning or relevance, all of these would certainly give one pause and cause one to re-examine the philosophy and philosopher. These are powerful critiques, no doubt.
Not to press the point, but the angry and condecending tone of your own reply reveals your own power games and your own bias. You claim to have intellectual superiority, you claim to be better read, you imply that leaving out Kant destroys the usefulness of the tool, you speak with a finality as if your ideas were the absolute authority. I think all of these flaws in your response cause one to question it.
To deny the war of ideas, seems to me to be a “bad faith” arguement. To imply a harmony of philosophy seems to depart from reality. Take your own “I-am-absolutely-right-and-you-are-absurd” response. Not much harmony in that, was there?
Yes, each generaton builds on the knowledge and ideas of previous generations. But each generation also destroys and rebuilds as well. Thank God that philosophers publish, and that they survived the book burnings, or we would have lost much of this treasury of ideas. We don’t know how much of great thinking we did lose to the power games of history.
Thank you Imago for your observation. Yes, I agree with you that changing our point of view often reveals previously undiscovered flaws in our thinking. So it behooves us to ask these thorny questions. It we are the oppressed then we may well be painfully aware of the power games. But if we are the privilaged then we need to “walk in another’s shoes”. So I suppose that all critique is FROM a point of view. But that is the point, isn’t it? The source of the criiticism does not enhance or discredit the validity of the criticism. If the criticism has merit, then one has to pause and re-examine the philosophy and the motives of the philosopher. A philosophy built on a foundation of bias and prejudice for one class or one gender over another always causes one to ask, “Why would objective reason be biased?”
As to Marx, I do not claim to be an expert. I have read the manifesto. I have studied world history and the radical impact of his ideas. But help me undestand this, please. I undertood that Marx, himself, insisted he was NOT an idealist. but rather claimed to be a “historical materialist” which term, I think, can be used interchangably with “dialectical materialist”. He believed that specialization of the means of production lead to socialization of the means of production, and this mutual dependence determines whose interests are in conflict with mine. This gives rise to socio-economic classes that are constantly changing as the ways and means of production changes. Class conflict drives the creation of the social superstructure, including religion, philosophy, politics, arts, etc.
So how does this differ from your concept of “dialectical materialism”?
I wish that our high schools offered such courses. Good luck finding one in the United Sates. Private acadamies, maybe, but public high schools never. Our young are not exposed to philosophy until college and then it is an elective. I went through our public school system with straight A’s and graduated in the top 5% of my college class, but I never read any philosophy until I was in my 40’s. If I could publish such lists to our American Kids and require them to be aware of the history of mankind’s thinking, I would do it in an instant. I cannot tell you the sense of betrayal I felt when I first discovered these ideas and regretted not having them to aide me as a young man…
Thank you, Philosphic Caveman!!!
You have the courage to challenge the wide structure of Philosphy.
The "ad hominem"resposnses show how sensitive the professiionals are to any attack on their stronhold.
My amateurish thread “Unified theory of philsophy” engendered much flack.
You have expressed in the phisophical vernacular, my own doubts about the self importance with which the whole field is imbued.
You may not agree with me on everything,but I am happy to see the opening of such a debate.
“A Daniel has come to judgement!”
Congratulations Philosophic Caveman, you are evolving. This kind of far-reaching critique is exactly what philosophy needs.
hermes the thrice great. Could you explain this ‘ecology’ you are always talking about. I may find it interesting and may even read a book on it or a whole score. If you could recommend a good text (i prefer clear explanations, perhaps a synopsis, especially if it is elegant, all-encompassing, and original).
Not necesserily. One can be dialectical materialist without sticking to the historical materialism. Most of the “eurocommunists” in the 70-ies just forgot about historical materialism. And conversely, one can be historical materialist without being dialectical materialist. Take for instance the blunt economic materialism (determinism) opposed by Lenin.
Class struggle is the driving force of history in all non-information societies, including the socialism. It is only very indirectly reflected in such superstructural phenomena like philosophy, religion and art. To claim the opposite would be not very much “diamatically.”
