Philosophy: Yesterday and TodayAlloy S Ihuah PhD Dept of Rel and Philosophy Benue State University, Makurdi. alloyihuah@yahoo.com +2348026242031; +23480334017856 The inspiration of this title goes back to a remarkable article that appeared in Time Magazine on January 7th, 1966 and entitled What (if anything) to expect from todays philosophers. A similar title appears in one of the chapters of Kwasi Wiredus recent book Philosophy and an African Culture. The chapter in question is What can philosophy do for Africa? These titles are somewhat provocative because they mean to suggest that there I some doubt as to what the philosophers have to offer to the world today; there may even be the suspicion that it has nothing to offer. Such questions are not asked of engineers, doctors or bakers because it appears to be quite obvious that they have something to offer and what they have to offer. Such a question would not have been asked of philosophers even three centuries ago because although at that point in time there was confusion in the air, the importance of philosophy was never seriously in question. In fact if we look through the centuries we discover that philosophy was always held in high esteem, even though some of its practitioners may at times have been severely criticized. For Plotinus (.270 a.d.) philosophy was a dear delight. And Plato (.348 B.C.), one of the greats in the service of philosophy, would place philosophers over the affairs of man. He risked his life and reputation for his conviction, even though, unlike Socrates, he never had to drink the hemlock. Protagoras (d.411 B.C.) made the human mind the measure of all things and philosophizing itself was the greatest activity of that mind. Marcus Aurelius (d.180 A.D.) loved philosophy more than his throne. Boethius (d.524 A.D.) consoled himself and even wrote a book while in prison entitled The Consolations of Philosophy. As the Time Magazine article put it: The world has both favoured and feared the philosophers answers. ThomasAquinas was a saint, Aristotle was tutor to Alexander the Great, and Voltaire was a confidant of kings. But Socrates was put to death, and Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake.

In order to understand the ways in which the tasks of philosophy have changed over the centuries and suggest what the tasks of philosophy are today we must look back into the history of philosophy. In the 6th century B.C. men from the coast of Asia Minor began to ask questions that had never been asked before. They began to ask what the world was made of and how it originated. The discovery that the origins and nature of things were questions that might be resolved by rational discussion constitutes a landmark in human history. Only a very few individuals were conscious of it. Nevertheless, the first blow for liberation had been struck.1

Men had begun to ask those questions which not only enriched his consciousness, but ultimately led to control over the forces of nature. The search started not only for information but also for understanding. Appeals to tradition and authority were replaced by appeals before the court of reason. It is true that the early writers made no distinction between philosophy and science, such as we make today. I deed, science grew out of philosophy, a development we do not consider here. When later, Socrates appeared a new feature entered philosophy. It is not that the earlier activities ceased, it is that philosophers now began to discuss also the nature and destiny of man, moral conscience and the laws by which it is guided. Concerning philosophy, therefore, Socrates declared: Let no one delay to study philosophy while he is young and when he is old, lethim not become a weary of the study And he who asserts either that it is not yet time to philosophize, or that the hour is passed, is like a man who should say that the time is not yet come to be happy, or that it is too late.

Socrates himself, of course, is well known as the father of moral philosophy. Finally, and particularly under the influence of the growing contacts between Christianity and Greek philosophy, the Christian philosopher was called upon to justify the existence of God on rational grounds, to give for the faith that was in them. This task arose from the fact that although Christianity presented a total way of life, nevertheless there was a strong challenge from Greek philosophy, which also presented a way of life and without any reference to supernatural helps. The Christian therefore was compelled to meet the challenge of Greek philosophy. If now we are to sum up the tasks of the philosopher in traditional times, a task that survived up to quite recently we could say that the traditional philosopher did the work of three men. By his interest in the origin and nature of things, the principle of change and stability in the world, the philosopher did the work of the scientist. By his interest in the aims of human activity and the guide that should be given to human conduct; the philosopher did the work of the morality. By his interest in questions of religion and particularly in defending the faith against various attacks the philosopher did the work of the apologist. Now concerning the traditional philosophers and their task we might make the following observations: Although these philosophers from Thales in the 6th century B.C. to Aquinas in the 13th century A.D. depended on reason as the tool of enquiry they made different claims concerning the nature of the universe. Thales claimed that water was the source of all things. Pythagoras declared that all things are resolvable into numbers and their relationships. Heraclitus argued that change itself is the very essence of things while Parmenides denied the possibility of any change. The awareness among philosophers themselves of such differences eventually forced them to ask serious questions about the methods of their inquiry. Although these philosophers were aware of the fact that different kinds of inquiry demand different approaches they neglected this fact in practice. Thus, for example, Aristotle treated vital questions of the nature of the universe as mathematical issues and because he did so he2

had a most retarding effect on the development of the natural sciences. His theory of the geocentric character of the universe is a notorious case in point. When the Scientific Revolution took place in the 17th century a new method of enquiry was discovered. It was the method of factual observation, careful hypothesis and empirical verification of results. It stood in direct contrast to the appeals to the authority of Aristotle or resort to the Bible. In general it has five steps, which mark the scientific method to this day: (i) enquiry must be based on factual observation (ii) it must trace relations between events, primarily in a causal way. (iii) it must seek to generalize these relations in hypotheses, provisional proposals, which must be tested by further observations. (iv) tested hypotheses may then be translated into statements of explanations or laws, or theory. (v) theory must be verified, or confirmed by further and continuous observation. Although the pure scientific method did not grow overnight it did however begin to quickly have resounding results. The scientific awakening began with Roger Bacon (d.1294). it grew with the versatile work of Leonardo da Vinci (artist, engineer, astronomer, physicist). It reached new heights with the astronomy of Copernicus (1475-1543) and Galileo (15641642). The theories of Gilbert in magnetism and electricity were influential. Also the work of Vesalius on anatomy in the 17th century and of Harvey (1578-1657) on the circulation of the blood. Faced with such stupendous achievements by the scientists, philosophers were forced to question their method. And they did so mainly in order to answer two questions: (i) why could not some of the fundamental questions of philosophy be settled once and for all? A search for certainty. (ii) Why could not philosophy be as successful as science in solving problems? A search for success. The one man who made a resolute attempt to conquer certainty and who was also confident of success was Descartes (1596-1652). His methodic achieved for him a reasonable level of knowledge out only of his being, but of God and the world. It was an approach whereby he systematically doubted about everything he could for any reason doubt until he arrived at a truth he could not in any way doubt. It was in this fashion, as we noted, that he established the following truths: (a) His own existence as a thinking subject. (b) The existence of God (c) The existence of the external world And he established these truths purely from thought. Any other truths, he might establish must, like these, be clear and distinct and necessarily connected with each other. Without repeating what we have already stated regarding Descartes, the following observations may be added:3

(a)

According to Descartes, there is a general sharing of intellectual ability among human beings. The achievements of individuals differ because they apply different methods, some more effective than others. It had a strong mathematical stamp. (b) Because of the method he chose, Descartes gave the impression that the world is a sort of clock with very intricate, but discoverable mysteries and secrets. They could be discovered provided the correct method was used. In such a world, God was the great clock-maker and man the discoverer. Once the existence and intelligibility of the world were established, the clock-maker was no longer necessary. God became very much a caretaker God. (c) If the world is a system of truths, which are discovered as necessarily connected with each other, then, it would seem that everything is necessarily related to everything else. If so, there is little place for human freedom, less scope for responsibility and the whole world of morality is jettisoned. In a word, the world of Descartes is a mathematicians laboratory. While one admires the daring of Descartes one must admit that his ambition was unrealistic, that it did not do justice to the range of enquiry he imposed on himself and, above all, that he sacrificed complexity on the altar of certainty. The fact that God played such a central role at the base of his system was somewhat a mixed blessing as the subsequent history of philosophy proved. Quite quickly a reaction set in against Descartes. (a) The first reaction came from John Locke (1632-1704) in England. He attacked some of the basic positions of the Rationalist Descartes and claimed that it is from experience that all our knowledge is founded, and from that, it ultimately derives itself. Locke was followed by George Berkeley (1685-1753) and David Hume (17111776). These are the well-known founders of Classical Empiricism and between then they bombarded the highly metaphysical and rationalist fortress of Descartes. Humes famous declaration indicates how far the Empiricist world was removed from that of Descartes. Having criticized a number of metaphysical doctrines of the medieval philosophers, particularly causality, Hume went on to say concerning his own principles:When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in hand any volume of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask: Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matters of fact or existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion. (Omoregbe, 1991:73).

(b)

According to Hume, all human knowledge derives from the impressions made on us by physical objects during sense perception. From these formed, and these ideas are copies, images or representations of the impressions. In different ways the attempts of both Rationalists and Empiricists were selfdefeating because besides the over-claiming (Descartes) and under-claiming (Hume) philosophers became obsessed with questions about the origins and nature of4

(c)

knowledge, they rarely got on to the more central issues of philosophy itself: the world about us and ourselves. They were like certain footballers; too concerned with style and technique they played the game poorly. Thus for the last three hundred years, it is true to say, philosophers have been largely epistemologists. They concerned themselves more with the theory, nature of and origin of human knowledge. But such occupations have not been a total waste. The search for certainty and success compelled philosophers to go to the very roots of human enquiry. Thus the traditional problems received a new stimulus: the problem of knowledge, the nature of perception, the nature of truth, evidence, different kinds of evidence for different situations etc. such discussions persist to this day and the likelihood is that they will continue to do so. This is one of the permanent features of philosophy: basic problems will always be its staple diet because the human mind will always be returning to its sources, questioning its assumptions, re-stating its aims in the light of current conflicts and issues. This is not a criticism of philosophy as if it were an unproductive occupation. It simply draws attention to the fact that there will always be a need and scope for such questions even though the emphasis will vary according to the needs of the occasion.

But while philosophers were discussing their methods and approaches the world was moving and many new sciences emerged in order to understand it: (a) The knowledge explosion of the last three centuries has made any attempts of the philosopher to give a synoptic view of the whole world look like a childs attempt to empty the sea with his toy bucket. (b) The discovery of new-lands, the breakdown of some and the growth of new ideological systems and the like, have destroyed the credibility of any claims to a single and comprehensive view of the world. (c) The emergence of a new world with its increasing scientific base has shattered many of the traditional claims. Building a new epistemological foundation has become an urgent priority. (d) The recognition of different levels of inquiry and the need for distinct methods of investigation has created the need for clarity and guidance in determining areas of specialization, their nature, function and scope. (e) In a world where abundance and destitution rub shoulders, where rising expectations and developing abilities become a cosmic phenomenon; new social and political foundations must be developed lest chaos leads to violence without end. (f) In a world of increasing industrialization and urbanization, education becomes a condition of participation in life. In a modern society there can be no such thing as democracy without education. No manipulation of the ignorance of the masses. (g) In times of change particularly the type of change brought about by secularization everything comes into question and the old wisdoms have to be redefined: the value of work, the evidence for God, the meaning of life, the aim of education, the standards of morality and many others.5

(h)

The search for solution of the distinct problems of the new world in-the-making at first sight appeared to leave the philosopher behind. As one science after another came into existence and as it became increasingly clear that different kinds of evidence are the key to knowledge, if not certainty and success themselves, philosophy seemed to be in a process of liquidation. Intellectually it was being ousted by science. In fact it had become at best the handmaid of science.

But this is not really the full story. Philosophy today may not be able to aspire to, much less, achieve the great designs of a Descartes, a Spinoza, or a Leibniz. At the same time it is not as bereft of contributions as Hume might suggest. In describing the task of the philosopher today we must however keep in mind two facts not only for the philosopher himself but for all enquirers today. First of all, philosophers today, like all other professionals, are far more aware of the distinctiveness of their contributions than they were centuries ago. In a simple, small-scale, largely illiterate society the distinctiveness of different professionals is not very clear in fact the awareness of such distinctiveness may not even have emerged. But when a society becomes more educated, industrialized and urbanized not only is there a demand for new skills, but there is also a call for the refinement of more traditional skills. This applies to the philosopher in a particular way. The business of the philosopher is with ideas, their nature, establishment and evaluation. In traditional times philosophers were not sufficiently aware of the distinctiveness of their business. And so they encroached themselves and took on the business of the scientist, the moralist, the apologist. But in saying this, we must keep in mind that such an intrusion was practically inevitable in the context of the intellectual development and sophistication of the time. Secondly, the philosopher since the 17th century has more and more realize that different kinds of evidence yield different results, that different types of inquiry postulate different approaches; that in discovering and understanding facts about the universe observation is a prime condition of progress. Thus philosophers now realize that discovering god is not like discovering an unidentified body in outer space, that, in fact, proving the existence of God is not so much discovering something as interpreting it and in that sense discovering God as the source of all things. Philosophers realize that evidence in the natural sciences, in the social sciences, sciences and in the legal sciences bears some striking differences in each case. Finally, while philosophers appreciate the role of logic mathematics in the pursuit of knowledge they realize there can be no real progress without the input of factual knowledge, careful observation and hypothesis. The main roles and task of the philosopher may be briefly described as listed as follows: (a) We distinguish but not too severely two levels of inquiry, that is, second order activities and first order activities. By first order activities we mean those enquiries of activities where people are directly engaged in the situation at hand. Thus parents and teachers engage in giving moral instructions. They teach and educate in various ways. In so doing they appeal to principles and use concepts: You ought not to be naughty, You should obey your parents, You should be respectful to your teachers and they use concepts like teach, instruct, play, educate etc.6

(b)

(c)

(d)

By second order activities we mean those enquiries in which the principles and concepts directly used at the first order level are evaluated and analyzed. Thus philosophy is a second order activity. As I say we should not make this distinction too severe because at times in practice there is quite a blur in the distinction as we already noted in discussing the philosophy of history. The task of conceptual clarification is important and urgent. The philosopher who helps by getting people to clear their ideas, to question their assumptions and attitudes concerning the crucial issues affecting them individually and collectively is making a major contribution. Thus there are concepts being freely use today and which are in urgent need of clarification and refinement as, for example, equality, development, tolerance, ethical revolution, radical and many others. Furthermore by the throwing light on the distinctiveness of different kinds of enquiry, the philosopher not only supplements the work of scientists, but also of sociologists, moralists, theologians and educationists. Thus the work of the philosopher today is more confined and at the same time perhaps more significant. The philosopher today may not be able to provide a justification of the existence of God in the manner of Anselm in the 11th century, Aquinas in the 13th or Descartes in the 17th century. The contemporary mentality is too tough-minded and critical to the impressed by such displays of philosophical virtuosity. But the philosopher today may do much ground work by showing the need to ask questions about life, what it means to talk about God, to remove much confusion surrounding the concept of religion, for example and illustrate the sort of language that is religious as distinct from scientific language, political language, poetic language etc. The philosopher today may not be able to lay down a great system of morality and place it within a cosmic view of things as Plato and Aristotle did, but he may cut through much of the nonsense and confusion written in the name of morality by insisting on what one precisely means by a moral point of view. But philosophy today is more than a matter of clarification of concepts. And if indeed philosophy is more than a clarification of concepts yielded by the natural and social sciences, if it is more than a conceptual expression of different world views, if, in fact, philosophy reveals certain fundamental truths concerning the world of human beings, the relationships among human kind and its relationship to the physical universe about it, then it is incumbent on the philosopher to discover such truths. Such truths indeed enhance the human enterprise to know more and do more in order to be more by conceptually expanding the base of human decision and systematically evaluating the options open to humankind. Today the forces of change compel the philosopher to examine the care of ones being as a developing, social animal, to re-orient the basic principles that constitute morality with the purpose of expanding their scope, deepening their implications while refining their meaning in the context of a dramatically changing situation. This is one urgent task of the philosopher today and that is to restore the human dimension to the enterprises that characterize the age. The fact is that a general dehumanization of human relationships has set in on a global scale. It is not only that7

war has escalated to a horrifying degree; it is also that the world of politics, education, industry and family life are losing their distinctively human character. Now if preachers and poets may be described as guardians of our traditions and prophets in our societies then surely this too must be said of the philosopher. But the distinctiveness of the contribution of the philosopher must be brought out. The philosopher, as we know, is concerned with ideas. Strictly speaking he changes nothing but ideas yet, by clarifying concepts he does affect the world. For the clarification of concepts is neither a random sample of ideas nor an attempt at clarification for its own sake. The clarification achieved by the philosopher persuades people to look at the world in a certain way. He carries out certain propaganda for a particular point of view, but always in the name of truth. Human behaviour changes over a period as a result of the influence of human thought upon it. Thus, for example, the philosopher may be concerned with a clarification of the concept of man. Through his analysis he is giving us an insight into the nature of man, reminding us of aspects otherwise forgetting or underestimated of totally neglected, persuading us to look at him in a certain way as a result of which we begin to treat him in a certain way. Such treatment is more than the translation of theory into practice. It is a new modification of man because, as a result of that understanding, he is a new man a new selfcreation. By clarifying concepts the philosopher affects the world. In doing so he may support the forces of resistance to change by attempting to sustain the status quo as Hobbes did or he may unleash new forces of change as Marx did in the last century. But the philosopher too may retain the best that is in society by grounding its traditional values in the rationality of man and thereby ensuring its core values while stripping them of their accretions. In fact we can say that the philosopher is something of a prophet not only because he may predict future developments with remarkable foresight as Nietzsche did but also because he is the voice of humanity in search of new values, trying to express a new meaning as the world becomes itself a new reality, something more. The prophetic role can be precarious not only because the philosopher may err in very serious matters but also because when his insights run counter to the received values of his own society those benefiting from such a system may land him in jail as the history of philosophy abundantly explicates in ancient Athens in the care of Socrates. The philosophy that has had the greatest notoriety and impact today is undoubtedly Western philosophy with its more recent Rationalist and Empiricist strands in their various forms. While not doubting its achievements it has had a commanding role in bringing about a deep crisis of civilization, a crisis within the spirit of Western man himself and consisting mainly in an unbridgeable separation between knowledge about the world and how to understand it, on the one hand, and wisdom, that is, the ability to place all knowledge and achievement within a human frame of measure. While the study of such philosophy is necessary, it is equally important not to be dazzled by it, as contemporary man seems to be. Philosophy, then, is a dangerous medicine. Undoubtedly it has a certain therapeutic role to play in society. But it itself may be part of that disease. Therefore caveat emptor, that is, let the buyer beware.8

If one were to draw attention to Africa in particular in determining the tasks of the philosopher today one would have to draw attention to certain facts: (i) The process of modernization is going on at a fantastic rate as a result of which Africa is moving from small-scale, illiterate societies with their tribal gods and social systems to the larger modernized, industrialized and urbanized democratic states. (ii) This process has certain contrasts with modernization in the West. It is chronologically more accelerated and, the cultural distance between the past and present between the traditional societies from which Africa moves and the contemporary societies toward which it moves is far greater in Africa than it was in the West. (iii) It is in Africa alone that we have the greatest concentration of a people who have been culturally deprived and racially oppressed. The ability of Africans to integrate themselves to the world community, without resorting to recriminations because of past experiences has serious consequences for the world at large. (iv)Furthermore, granted that in Africa as a whole you have vast resources of industrial development there is a supreme challenge not only to industrialize but to do so with the human dimension of the whole enterprise kept intact: The real problem here is whether Africans can learn to select, to choose among the techniques of the outer world and adapt them without contracting the forms of neo-slavery that marked much of the history of the Industrial Revolution in the West in particular. (v) Finally, as traditional allegiances along religious lines via with each other for acceptance there is the distinct challenge to jointly construct a live together in societies that all can jointly judge worthwhile. Given this all too brief list of issues affecting Africa in particular the tasks before the philosopher in Africa are many: (a) Given that the culture of a people is its source and way of life the philosopher in Africa must do his share in preserving the soul of African culture without canonizing all its features. He must be sufficiently critical of these cultures without decimating them in the name of progress and reason. As ignorance and fear are driven out by knowledge and daring, many of the anachronisms associated with religious thought patterns must be eliminated. (b) Without the benefit of a common cultural ethos to absorb the impact of modernization, philosophers in Africa are called upon to develop strategies of understanding and expectations that will release the great pillars of society-truth, justice, concern for others and freedom from their traditional small-scale tribal moorings and re-set them to form the pillars of a new Africa in a contemporary world. (c) The myth that all modernization is Western-style must be exploded. But it must also be realized that this cannot be done by mere goodwill alone. The challenge is an intellectual one to evolve a new conceptual frame within which understandings and expectations are emerging in Nigeria, to analyze the main characteristics of that frame so that in order to bring about a sense of direction one first understands the processes of social change.9

(d)

(e)

As the various religious traditions come more in contact with each other there is a growing realization that fashioning the new Nigeria has to be a work of collaboration. There has to be an increase of tolerance and generosity without a loss of commitment. Finally, up and down the continent African nations are moving into the era of planned economies, democratic processes and pluralistic societies. The sort of Africa that will emerge depends in large measure on the decisions being made today. The fact is that todays generation is equipped to fashion a future that will be substantially mans own making. Thus the morality of options, the categorical imperative to choose among ideologies and life-styles becomes a new sine qua non in the Africa of the future. If so, the agenda for philosophers is heavy and their task is not singular but multiple.

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