The Times (London)
Aug. 11, 1997
Roger Scruton
The return of the sophist
.... on the danger of philosophies
sold from the shelf
The ancient Athenians, who
roved far and wide in the Mediterranean, saw the variety
and absurdity of man's eligions. After centuries of
successful trading, the local gods and festivals could
no longer satisfy their religious need. Their spiritual
hunger was exacerbated by the stress of city life, by
the constant threat of destruction, and by the grim
vision of totalitarian Sparta: the vision of Greeks
living without light or grace or humour, as though the
gods had withdrawn from their world.
Into the crowded space of
Periclean Athens came the wandering teachers, selling
their wisdom to the bewildered populace. Any charlatan
could make a killing, if enough people believed in him.
Men like Gorgias and Protagoras, who wandered from house
to house demanding fees for their instruction, preyed
on the gullibility of a people made anxious by war.
To the young Plato, who observed their antics with outrage,
these "sophists" were a threat to the very
soul of Athens. One alone among them seemed worthy of
attention, and that one, the great Socrates whom Plato
immortalised in his dialogues, was not a sophist, but
a true philosopher.
The philosopher, in Plato's
characterisation, awakens the spirit of inquiry. He
helps his listeners to discover the truth, and it is
they who bring forth, under his catalysing influence,
the answer to life's riddles. The philosopher is the
midwife, and his duty is to help us to be what we are
- free and rational beings, who lack nothing that is
required to understand our condition. The sophist, by
contrast, misleads us with cunning fallacies, takes
advantage of our weakness, and offers himself as the
solution to problems of which he himself is the cause.
There are many signs of the
sophist, but principal among them are these: mumbo-jumbo,
condescension and the taking of fees. The philosopher
uses plain language, does not talk down to his audience,
and never asks for payment. Such was Socrates, and in
proposing him as an ideal, Plato defined the social
status of the philosopher for centuries to come.
No one should doubt that
sophistry is alive and well. Many of today's gurus are
sophists: Derrida, Foucault, Heidegger, Lyotard, Rorty,
to name but five. But those that are alive make their
profits through the university system, giving lectures
that pretend to be educational. The pre-Socratic practice,
of offering private guidance to the bewildered and curing
their troubles by squeezing their purse (a practice
which creates a powerful motive to leave bewilderment
behind), has been the monopoly until recently of the
psychoanalysts.
But we have entered the post-modern
era - the era when beliefs and faiths are available
off the shelf. More and more people are turning to philosophy,
a kind of Which? report on available options. And what
is the use of guidance if it cannot be packaged for
the consumer, as the personal ointment to his personal
wound? Lou Marinoff, Professor of Philosophy at New
York's City College, has been first off the mark in
exploiting the new cultural climate. If philosophy is
to be marketed successfully, then people must pay for
it. For people value goods according to the price required
to obtain them, and in a consumer culture only what
is costly can console.
Professor Marinoff compares
his goods favourably with those of the psychotherapist.
Discussing a recent case in which he treated a woman
haunted by her dead brother's spirit, he said: "Psychotherapists
would say she is recreating the guilt triggered by her
brother's death. But it may be possible, according to
some belief systems, that there was something there.
I am there to help the client understand her belief
system."
The remarks were reported
in the New York Observer, and may not be verbatim. But
they tell us much about the professor's vision of his
trade. No longer does the philosopher guide us towards
the truth, through awakening our inherent reasoning
powers. He parades before us a catalogue of "belief
systems", helps us to identify our own among them,
up-to-date. And no doubt, in order to persuade the client
that her money has been well invested, the favoured
"belief system" will be dressed up in suitable
mumbo-jumbo, and priced at a rate that will make it
psychologically necessary for the client to persuade
herself that she is being cured.
Small wonder, then, that
Professor Marinoff's wheeze is catching on, and New
York's psychotherapists are hurriedly lowering their
fees in response to the only competition they have had
since the collapse of the old religions.
The sophists are back with
a vengeance, and are all the more to be feared, in that
they come disguised as philosophers. For, in this time
of helpless relativism and subjectivity, philosophy
alone has stood against the tide, reminding us that
those crucial distinctions on which life depends - between
true and false, good and evil, right and wrong - are
objective and binding. Philosophy has until now spoken
with the accents of the academy and not with the voice
of the fortune teller.
When Plato founded
the first academy, and placed philosophy at the heart
of it, he did so in order to protect the precious store
of knowledge from the assaults of charlatans, to create
a kind of temple to truth in the midst of falsehood,
and to marginalise the sophists who preyed on human
confusion. Little did he suspect, however, that he was
providing the sophist with his ultimate disguise.
Marinoff's Reply
to Scruton (Unpublished)
To The Editor,
I am responding briefly but
sharply to Roger Scruton's "The Return of the Sophist"
(11 August), in which he libellously misrepresents my
professional philosophical practice and draws utterly
false inferences about my political inclinations.
On the first point: Mr. Scruton
knows and is known to none of us in the international
community of philosophical practitioners, has attended
none of our conferences, has read none of our publications,
has learned none of our history, and has talked with
none of our clients. Thus, by the postmodern debasement
of objective standards he rightly but ironically deplores,
one might suppose him ideally qualified to pass judgement
on our movement. In fact, droves of individual and corporate
clients alike are finding the expertise and services
of philosophical practitioners well-worth the price.
We have far more satisfied clients than rash critics,
and far more rash critics than dissatisfied clients.
On the second point: there
is no valid inference from the fact that someone markets
legal, medical or psychological expertise to reliable
knowledge of that person's political views. Lawyers,
physicians and psychologists can be found who espouse
every conceivable (and often inconceivable) political
position. The same argument applies to us who market
philosophical expertise. Some practitioners are social
constructivists and deconstructionists; others--such
as myself--their unrelenting ideological and political
opponents. Were Mr. Scruton to read my third novel ("Fair
New World"), which savagely satirizes political
correctness and militant feminism, he would remove both
feet from his mouth. "Fair New World" is so
politically incorrect that no major publisher has yet
shown the courage to re-issue it. I am Derrida's and
Rorty's worst nightmares, not their political bed-fellows.
In sum, I stand squarely
against those who stand against realism and reason.
We are so few, and our foes so many, that we ought not
rake one another with careless friendly fire. I do concur
with Mr. Scruton's critique of sophistry. But I would
counsel him to read some of my works, both philosophical
and political, instead of attempting to divine my thoughts
from tertiary sources. And I would counsel Her Majesty
not to knight Sir Roger just yet, given his proclivity
for tilting at windmills.
Sincerely,
Lou Marinoff
