Vantage Point

Why Yale needs philosophy

For once in my life, I am writing on a subject with which I am genuinely pleased. I was both impressed and relieved to learn that Yale's philosophy department is regaining strength after the ideological and personal disputes and the controversial hiring decisions that had beset it for so long. For if there is one discipline absolutely essential to the university, it is the study of philosophy.

Most importantly, one must study philosophy to lend coherence to both one's university experience and one's life as a whole. For a person's knowledge and the conduct of his life have only instrumental value, value based on their promotion of the right and the good. Thus, without the study of ethics, one cannot know whether he is making proper use of his studies and his time. Without knowledge of what is good and what ought be done, one is left unsure not only of what goal he ought to pursue in life, but also which skills and knowledge he must obtain to pursue that goal most effectively. Without knowledge of one's ultimate ends, one cannot be a leader. An individual without philosophy is doomed to become a cog in another man's machine, a tool who takes orders and executes them without regard for whether he is doing right or wrong.

Yet philosophy does not merely provide knowledge of how to order one's life. Were ethics left to itself, discussion of humans' fallible moral judgments and conjectures would degenerate into a "shouting match" of conflicting first principles. It is the branch known as epistemology, the study of knowledge, that allows philosophy to test and critique its own judgments. How does what one perceives or deduces differ from what (if anything) is real? To what exactly do one's statements and judgments apply? How and from what sources do individuals form concepts, and how reliable are one's efforts to communicate those concepts to others? And with these questions in mind, what are the areas of which man cannot speak and must be silent? However unsure one may be of one's judgments, without attention to these concerns, one cannot know what those judgments are worth.

It is a mission, if not the mission, of any university to produce knowledgeable and capable leaders for the future. Just as one's study and occupation lack value unless they are dedicated to the good, a political system has no positive reason to exist unless it promotes that good. Thus a political theory has no value unless it is founded on ethical principles that have been critiqued and qualified by epistemology. While the state must be founded on the good, limitations on humans' ability to know the good require appropriate limitations on the government's authority to enforce that imperfect standard. In turn, if the leaders that fill a government's positions are to maintain this standard of the good, they must have knowledge of the principles and goals on which that system was founded. Thus, an extensive knowledge of political philosophy is essential for those students preparing for careers in law or government. Yet not only the governing but also the governed must know whether they participate in a just regime and how to correct what is wrong and how to improve what is already working properly. The scientist is a citizen just as much as the lawyer, and each should know whether his voice and his taxes are furthering the right causes, or whether in order to do right they must defy the power structure in place.

Some level of disagreement is necessary within any department, and perhaps the philosophy department most of all. After all, it is the duty of the university to foster rigorous intellectual inquiry; and its most experienced and dedicated members, the faculty, should continue to test and refine their knowledge of the good, the true, and the just. Yet whatever disagreement exists must be justified on a deeper level by a concern for the mission common to all philosophy, a commitment to the continuing search for those ideals. It is especially good to see Yale's philosophy department on the mend, because without a strong philosophy curriculum, it cannot instill in its students the spirit of inquiry necessary to lend value to their studies and lives.

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