A Concluding Metaphilosophical Postscript
It is not enough to know, we must also apply; it is not enough to will, we must also do.Johannes Goethe, Maxim #324
For centuries (indeed for millennia) philosophers have complained about pseudo-philosophy being practiced by others claiming to be philosophers — and about people being taken in and suffering in one way or another from the mimicry, exploitation, and fakery of the pseudo-philosophers. But no attempt at a careful, comprehensive, and useful characterization of pseudo-philosophy has emerged. I suspect this is because most philosophers simply don’t see pseudo-philosophy as presenting a philosophical problem or a philosophically interesting target for thought and investigation. Pseudo-philosophy, after all, is not philosophy.
Philosophers are often happy to call other people pseudo-philosophers, but they don’t think (and haven’t thought) that the concept of pseudo-philosophy can be given anything more than an amorphous and pejorative sense. And however irritating pseudo-philosophy and pseudo-philosophers may be, genuine philosophers have more important problems to address.
But to treat the concept of pseudo-philosophy as a kind of pseudo concept — as merely a cognitively meaningless epithet hurled by some philosophers at others, or by philosophers at members of other disciplines — is simply facile. And it does a disservice to those from ancient times to the present who have at least attempted to provide objective and substantive characterizations of pseudo-philosophy, who have been concerned about its effects, and who have, to whatever degree of precision, tried to draw a line between what is genuine philosophy and what is not, to warn of the harm that pseudo-philosophy can cause, and to explain how it does this.
So while “pseudo-philosophy” often appears as a handy term for pushing people whose ideas or manners you don’t care for off the philosophical stage, I think it is more than that. Or perhaps a better way of putting this is to say that it is philosophically and methodologically better to view it as more than that because a serious and more cogent view of pseudo-philosophy has a number of benefits, both conceptual and pragmatic.
The Pragmatic Model of pseudo-philosophy
This book provides a comprehensive account — a theory, or a model — of pseudo-philosophy and the pseudo-philosopher that distinguishes these from genuine philosophy and the genuine philosopher in an objective, defensible, informative, and useful way. That account places pseudo-philosophy in its historical context, will be acceptable to the preponderance of professional philosophers and philosophy students, is applicable to real-world cases, and is straightforwardly useful in distinguishing the genuine from the pseudo in the domain of philosophy, and in identifying both the flaws and the dangers of pseudo-philosophy where it is found.
This theory has deep roots and firm grounding in the history of philosophy and in a number of careful conceptual and methodological distinctions between genuine philosophy and pseudo-philosophy, and between the genuine philosopher and the pseudo-philosopher. The criteria of adequacy concerning these are described in Sections 3 and 4 of Chapter 1, and subsequent chapters demonstrate how they have been met.
Unlike prior attempts at capturing the nature and distinctive character of pseudo-philosophy, the theory developed in Part 2 of this book does not seek to provide a definition of pseudo-philosophy nor to provide a quick encapsulated characterization of it through the use of vague or generic concepts and features it exhibits and which may vary across different instances of pseudo-philosophy. But it does lay claim to being the most complete, detailed, and objectively applicable approach to date. And while its conceptual and theoretical underpinnings are strong, we should also recognize that it is to a significant degree a pragmatic approach to capturing the nature of pseudo-philosophy and its relation to genuine philosophy and other disciplines. Accordingly, I’ll refer to it as the Pragmatic Model of pseudo-philosophy. This is especially appropriate given its original goals and the manner in which a substantial part of its usefulness and adequacy has been demonstrated in the examples of Part 3. What is the value, we should wonder, of such an account?
The Pragmatic Model clarifies the nature of philosophy itself by drawing the distinction between it and pseudo-philosophy in ways that are both more comprehensive and granular than previous attempts which remained at a more abstract level and failed to be specific in dealing with purported cases and precisely how an accusation of pseudo-philosophy could be identified and resolved in any principled and systematic manner. By providing this degree of specificity and a clear contrast between the genuine philosopher and pseudo-philosopher, particularly in the context of real-world examples, the model aids us in understanding the natures of both genuine philosophy and pseudo-philosophy.
By focusing in part on the natures of the philosopher and pseudo-philosopher (rather than on only the discipline of philosophy itself) we come to understand that there are significant components of pseudo-philosophy that involve goals, motivations, and behaviors — and that it can be viewed as a character flaw or a moral weakness as much as a purely intellectual failing. This is consistent with characterizations of pseudo-philosophers, accusations of them, and the animosity directed towards them from Plato, Xenophon, and Isocrates onwards. But the Pragmatic Model exposes this more explicitly, in part by replacing polemic and invective with an objective and neutral conceptual framework in which to make and debate such observations and their relevance.
In a similar way, the Pragmatic Model clarifies what our reaction should be to pseudo-philosophy when we encounter it, why that reaction is reasonable, and indeed why it is required on the basis of fundamental principles embraced by the genuine philosopher. This is supported by the manner in which the Pragmatic Model provides us with a formal basis (codified in the markers, personas, and models of the philosopher and pseudo-philosopher), rather than leaving us with an emotive, purely abstract, or merely intuitive one, for judging a writer, a work, or a portion of a work as pseudo-philosophical. Again, in making an accusation and judgment of pseudo-philosophy, this moves us beyond the historically common approach of invective and polemic, and removes (or at least reduces) the danger that an accusation of pseudo-philosophy may itself be pseudo-philosophical. In the case of particular accusations or judgments, the Pragmatic Model provides a clear and principled basis on which such accusations and judgments may be expressed, evaluated, and disputed.
This leads to the somewhat ironic result that the Pragmatic Model may be of benefit even to the purported pseudo-philosopher. Rather than returning invective for invective and polemic for polemic, the accused may use the Pragmatic Model to mount a defense against accusations — disputing in explicit ways, for example, the degree to which her work matches the persona and model of the pseudo-philosopher. Or she may choose to attack some of the features or assumptions of the Pragmatic Model itself. But at least she is provided with an opportunity and method for responding to the accusation in principled ways and within a framework which provides sufficient clarity for a meaningful dispute to take place.
Philosophy is often about models — models of moral behavior, models of science, models of the person, models of knowledge and rational belief, models of reasoning, models of perception, models of the human condition, models of government, etc. And so it shouldn’t be surprising to find both conceptual and practical value in applying such an approach to pseudo-philosophy where less formal and systematic approaches have yielded little insight and failed to produce edifying results. Some insights are to be found in the Pragmatic Model itself, within the models of the genuine philosopher and pseudo-philosopher. But other insights arise in the details of developing those models. And some of these can be represented by “lessons learned” in working through that development.
Lessons learned
Many, if not most, attributions of pseudo-philosophy include accusations of some degree of dishonesty or exploitation, or of an ulterior motive incompatible with the pursuit of truth and wisdom. We see examples of this going back at least as far as the ancient Greeks’ complaints about the sophists and rhetoricians, and also appearing in discussions of pseudo-philosophy by modern and contemporary philosophers such as Collingwood, Rescher, Frankfurt, and Moberger. In Section 7.3 I’ve argued that a concept of pseudo-philosophy which includes dishonesty or exploitation as a critical component is best in terms of historical senses of pseudo-philosophy and of its intended uses — and that it avoids confusion and unnecessary handwringing over handling cases that otherwise become borderline or problematic to resolve in purely abstract and conceptual ways. But the real lesson to be learned here is that we can of course mean anything we like by pseudo-philosophy, and that it’s simply misguided to think that our job as philosophers is to discover what pseudo-philosophy is. The nature of pseudo-philosophy is not lurking behind a fog bank or screen of conceptual complexity, waiting for us to penetrate the veil and discover its essence.
Adopting an adequate, informative, and useful concept of pseudo-philosophy — and a philosophical analysis and applications of this — is at least to some degree, a matter of decision. It is in part a matter of deciding what sense of pseudo-philosophy is the most helpful and reasonable to adopt for particular goals, and then not creating pseudo-problems for ourselves by trying to construct a single concept to do multiple jobs that are either incompatible with one another, or are at cross purposes and so introduce confusions and conflicts in pursuing solutions to the very real problems with which pseudo-philosophers have confronted us for centuries.
This doesn’t mean that we can’t find a core of generally agreeable goals, characteristics, and criteria that any reasonable and useful notion of pseudo-philosophy should satisfy. And this has been done in previous chapters. I think that as a brief characterization, we can regard pseudo-philosophy as a certain kind of fraudulent analysis or teaching that uses established techniques of philosophy (or mimics of these) to render itself attractive and plausible. It is this high-level and broad view of pseudo-philosophy that has been provided with detail and precision in Part 2 of this book and whose practical use and value has been demonstrated in Part 3. Given that, then how should making a judgment of pseudo-philosophy affect us, and how should we respond to it? What are the specific lessons we should take away from this analysis and from the Pragmatic Model? There are several:
- While a judgment of pseudo-philosophy can (and arguably should) be interpreted as a moral judgment combined with criticisms of pervasive logical, epistemic, and metaphysical errors or distortions, we should see its pragmatic value as a warning to potential consumers about what is being offered by the pseudo-philosopher and what the consequences of accepting that may be. This goes beyond a warning of “Beware! There is sloppy thinking here!” and includes a warning of fakery and deceit.
- Because an informative, useful, and adequate account of pseudo-philosophy naturally depends on the particular details of the concept of pseudo-philosophy (and more generally, on the concept of the pseudo) that we adopt, there will always be some room to disagree with that account. And within the account, there will be ample opportunity to debate whether and how it may apply in a specific real-world case. But a theory of pseudo-philosophy rigorous and specific enough to satisfy clear historical, conceptual, and pragmatic criteria of adequacy can provide a valuable and useful alternative to the view that the concept of pseudo-philosophy is hopelessly amorphous and suitable only as a basis for rhetoric and polemic.
- Pseudo-philosophy isn’t bad or dangerous because it’s wrong (though most often, it is wrong in fundamental ways). It’s not bad merely because it involves mistakes in reasoning or in the support of positions taken or views expressed by the pseudo-philosopher. The history of genuine philosophy itself is littered with such mistakes. The pseudo-philosopher is bad because he seeks to persuade his intended victims to adopt beliefs or to take actions independent of (and often incompatible with) a pursuit of truth and wisdom, because he does this by mimicking or masquerading as the genuine philosopher through the pervasive use and distortion of philosophical methods, and because adopting those beliefs or taking those actions may quite directly result in harm to the victim. And often he intends that harm. In other cases she may have failed to anticipate or recognize that harm even though she should have done so. We’ve seen detailed examples of this in Chapters 9 and 10.
- In addition to being harmful, the pseudo-philosopher can also be inspiring. And in fact it’s the inspirational part that often conceals the harm lurking behind the masquerade. These two conflicting aspects of pseudo-philosophy have been remarked on by both Eric Mack and Robert Nozick in the case of Rand’s work.
They can be seen as well in the case of Mary Silva’s (and others’) effects on Nursing Theory.
And members of NXIVM and followers of Keith Raniere were enthusiastically inspired by the “philosophy” he offered to them.
- There’s a genuine difference between pseudo-philosophy and poorly done or merely inept philosophy; and enforcing this distinction is one of the goals of the Pragmatic Model. Often, sloppy philosophy is just sloppy philosophy, and is devoid of masquerade and exploitation — as in the case of a student who’s in the process of learning but hasn’t yet mastered the concepts, techniques, and skills, and who doesn’t yet possess the required body of knowledge as described in Chapter 3. In such cases it is typically easy — even for a non-expert — to detect that something is amiss in the philosophical presentation.
It might be argued that Mary Silva’s appeal to philosophy and to philosophical concepts and arguments (Chapter 9) falls under such a description of innocuous inept philosophy — except that it’s not innocuous and she demonstrates, over a period of decades, an aggressive determination to employ philosophy for her specific practical goals independent of any concern for such niceties as truth, coherence, accuracy, and wisdom. Her degree of conformance to the Pseudo persona is simply too striking to allow her to escape entirely the charge of pseudo-philosophy along the Incompetence arm of the Dimensions of the Pseudo described in Section 6.2.
But in cases of pseudo-philosophy perpetrated by more skilled practitioners, it can be much more difficult to detect both the ineptness and the masquerade. Such a case is presented by Ayn Rand who (I think) might have been a philosophically serious contender in the areas of ethics, value theory, and political philosophy — if only she had worked at acquiring the necessary skills and knowledge required of the genuine philosopher instead of thoughtlessly relegating all of that to the realm of Attila and the Witch Doctor.
In Rand’s case it’s not unreasonable to raise the question “But if Rand’s treatment is so complex that it requires a highly trained philosopher to see the problems in it and expose them through lengthy and careful analysis and argument, doesn’t that mean that in fact it’s not pseudo-philosophy? That instead it’s genuine philosophy which simply contains some errors — as virtually all philosophy is inclined to?” The answer to this, however, is “No, it doesn’t mean that.”
The lesson instead is that while it’s not difficult to do philosophy in a sloppy way that gives the appearance of deep consideration and careful thought, this appearance is in fact simply an illusion. And the fact that the illusion is difficult to penetrate doesn’t make it any less an illusion.
A skilled magician may successfully deceive some very skilled investigators — at least for a period until the investigators can piece through the components and details of his trick. And of course he uses those components and details precisely to obscure the nature of the trick and deflect our attention (as Rand does with the Shuffle identified by Mack). Such cases can be difficult to untangle in order to demonstrate how their vagueries and equivocations result only in nonsense. This is one of the difficulties in exposing pseudo-philosophy and its consequences, particularly to an audience inexperienced or untrained in some of the methods required to do that untangling. And this is why I said (Section 11.3) that if Ayn Rand was a pseudo-philosopher, then she was a major league pseudo-philosopher.
The kind of intensive analyses that Mack and Nozick performed in order to expose the pseudo-philosophical aspects of Rand's presentations is beyond the skill of most readers. But as the examples of Chapters 9-11 demonstrate, the Pragmatic Model of pseudo-philosophy provides a relatively compact tool set and an understandable approach and method for detecting pseudo-philosophical elements where they occur. It accomplishes this through the personas of the genuine philosopher and pseudo-philosopher, the markers of genuine philosophy and pseudo-philosophy, the anti-sophistical stance, and the Practical Guidelines for applying the models of the genuine philosopher and pseudo-philosopher to specific cases. The best defense against pseudo-philosophy is the anti-sophistical stance and practical guidelines described in Chapter 8.
Finally, there is the question of how to respond to pseudo-philosophy. I discussed this briefly in Chapter 8, but a more meaningful answer can be given now that we’ve seen the Practical Model applied in three real-world cases. Deciding that we’ve encountered the work of a pseudo-philosopher should result, foremost, in the withdrawal of any degree of trust that we might have — however provisionally — accorded his work, ideas, conclusions, and recommendations. Indeed, this should now be replaced with an explicit attitude of distrust. It should be accompanied by heightened degrees of skepticism and scrutiny in evaluating anything that has been claimed or argued by the suspect author. If we have previously found his work (perhaps in other forms or contexts) to be valuable, we should review our confidence in that on the basis of our new realization of his use of pseudo-philosophy.
We may not (as Eric Mack and Robert Nozick point out in the case of Ayn Rand) be required to give up fundamental attitudes or beliefs inspired by the pseudo-philosopher. But we may need to give up any confidence that she has provided us with a sound (and so pragmatically reliable) justification for those beliefs. Alternatively, we may be compelled to the realization that we’ve been duped and manipulated into believing things that are false and dangerous, and that we’ve consequently made decisions and performed actions that have been harmful to ourselves or to others. The Raniere case is an especially poignant example of this, although it appears in the case of Nursing Theory as well — in the form of ineffective or harmful treatments delivered to patients on the basis of “theory” justified in part by pseudo-philosophy, and in broader effects it may have on the scope and delivery of nursing services as well.
The theory of pseudo-philosophy presented in this book has been designed specifically not only to be amenable to classic historical notions of pseudo-philosophy and to enable a deeper understanding of those, but to provide methods for identifying and dealing with pseudo-philosophy and pseudo-philosophers as we may encounter these “in the wild.” It can’t pretend to be the only cogent and applicable account of pseudo-philosophy that may be developed. It almost certainly is not. But it meets a broad range of criteria of adequacy that any such theory should satisfy, and so may constitute a kind of standard to serve as a measure for competing accounts. Understanding pseudo-philosophy, its goals, methods, characteristics, consequences, and dangers is a genuinely philosophical task. The Pragmatic Model is one approach to acknowledging and completing that task.
