I’ve always felt a philosopher’s project to be incomplete if she does not reflect on her own role as a philosopher in the new system she has created. Here can breed a particularly pernicious form of ignorance. An inability to recognize your own role in the creation of an idea leads one to lack full understanding of the idea. Both the classical pragmatists and a man who some characterize as a proto-pragmatist, Adam Smith, reflected on the proper place of the philosopher and the dangers of those who mistreat their role as thinkers. Their philosophy of the philosopher informed both their work and the way that they conducted themselves as philosophers. The pragmatists saw ideas as tools. The “truth” or “goodness” of an idea is judged by its use in the world. If an idea fails at alleviating one’s doubts, then it has failed as an idea. Adam Smith did not explicitly commit to a form of pragmatism, but the way that he describes the philosopher’s role in the division of labor fits the school of thought very well. They both see the philosopher as a manufacturer of ideas. She is not a disinterested observer, but rather acutely interested in developing good answers to genuine problems. Like a carpenter, the philosopher attempts to make an object for other’s use. The level and saw are tools like logic, self-reflection, the scientific method, and public debate. These intermediate tools produce a product which is then judged by its efficacy in practice. The tools that produce it are similarly judged by their efficacy in producing a good quality product and may be dropped, adapted or harnessed anew as the carpenter sees fit.
Adam Smith is most well known as the godfather of economics. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations very much sounds like a hard-nosed natural science attempt to state cold hard facts about the way the economy runs, whether you like it or not. His earlier book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, makes one see the Wealth of Nations in a different light. Smith is doing much more than blackboard economics. The most widely respected insight from Smith is known to us as the theory of the “Invisible Hand” or the division of labor that is the product of human action, but not of human design (a phrase taken up by spontaneous order theorists like Hayek). Smith marvels at the creation of a coat. How many workers efforts and actions were necessary to produce the coat despite the fact that few of them directly communicated with one another nor even knew that their labor would end up in a coat. Smith offers three major reasons why he thinks the division of labor is so effective. “…first, to the increase of dexterity in every particular workman; secondly, to the saving of the time which is commonly lost in passing from one species of work to another; and lastly, to the invention of a great number of machines which facilitate and abridge labour, and enable one man to do the work of many.” (WON 17)
The first two reasons are interesting in their own right and say much more about Smith’s ideas in economics, but it is the third reason that he uses to explain his thought on the role of the philosopher.
Many improvements in machinery, however, have by no means been the invention of those who had occasion to use the machines. Many improvements have been made by the ingenuity of the makers of the machines, when to make them became the business of a peculiar trade; and some by that of those who are called philosophers or men of speculation, whose trade it is, not to do anything, but to observe everything; and who, upon that account, are often capable of combining together the powers of the most distant and dissimilar objects. (21-22) WON
In other words, the philosopher’s role is at the same level as any other craftsmen but is only different in the scope of its topics. A carpenter may realize that certain measurement and technical practices having to do with the shape of the wood with which he works. A philosopher, since she is in the economic position where she doesn’t have to be producing new products every day, can observe the carpenter’s practice and apply it to what the artist or builder is doing, thus becoming a philosopher of geometry. “The difference between a philosopher and a common street porter, for example, seems to arise not so much from nature, as from habit, custom, and education.” WON 28-29
Dewey describes his concept of common sense inquiry and its distinction from scientific inquiry along similar lines. “Such inquiries are, accordingly, different from those which have knowledge as their goal. The attainment of knowledge of some things is necessarily involved in common sense inquiries, but it occurs for the sake of settlement of some issue of use and enjoyment, and not, as in scientific inquiry, for its own sake.” (60-61) Common sense inquiry is the issue of searching for a solution to a problem. He describes it in terms of biology. Common inquiry is what allows an organism to respond to its environment, survive, and reproduce. Much like the simple craftsmen, creating tools allows him to produce quality products, sell these on the market and continue his business. All questions are towards that end.
Scientific inquiry is thus a slave to common sense inquiry. Its goal is in the creation of bodies of facts and theories for use in common sense issues. Just like answers to common sense inquiry, scientific inquiry is judged by its ability to solve problems. Science’s goal is not to give us what Hilary Putnam would call a God’s eye view, but to provide solutions to genuine conundrums. Good science achieves that goal. In Smith’s conception of the philosopher, the division of labor would be more productive if the products of the philosopher’s observations proved beneficial those who end up using it. Science and practice are not two different endeavors.
Some, perhaps they could be called common sense, conceptions suppose that practice is impossible without knowledge. The goal of science, philosophy, or any inquiry is to access true facts that tell the actor what, how, and why to do what they’re doing. Practice always comes second. There is here an epistemological difference between book smarts and street smarts. The knowledge produces according to scientific methods are facts, and the various musings and insights of the street porter are just opinions. This ontological chasm has had a degree of harm on the ability of individuals to solve issues.
In the region of highest importance to common sense, namely, that of moral, political, economic ideas and beliefs, and the methods of forming and confirming them, science has had even less effect. Conceptions and methods in the field of human relationships are in much the same state as were the beliefs and methods of common sense in relation to physical nature before the rise of experimental science. These considerations fix the meaning of the statement that the difference that now exists between exists between common sense and science is a social, rather than a logical, matter. (The Logic of Inquiry pg. 77)
Science has its victories, but it has failed to solve the vast majority of human issues. Neither should we expect it to, if we just treat it in its role as subservient to the greater realm of common sense inquiry.
Dewey attempts to show examples of the social distinction between the forms of inquiry appearing in history. In ancient cultures, labor was often divided into higher and lower faculties. The lower faculty was the direct labor of the artisans. The higher faculty was also for a particular practice, but it involved cultivating a good relationship with the gods or organizing the whole of society from the top. These types of labor were so different from one another that they developed social distinctions, and their labor took a very different character. Similarly, in Ancient Greece, philosophy became associated with rational thought while practical work was associated with empirical knowledge.
Lastly, I want to mention a character brought up in Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments, known as the man of system.
The man of system… is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it. He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chessboard of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might choose to impress upon it. If those two principles coincide and act in the same direction, the game of human society will go on easily and harmoniously, and is very likely to be happy and successful. If they are opposite or different, the game will go on miserably, and the society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder. TMS 233-234
We can imagine that a practitioner of scientific inquiry only could easily be characterized by the man of system. A scientist can fall in love with their own discoveries. If a biologist falls in love with their genetic discovery, they may treat others as potential breeding partners in a mad experiment. More pertinently, if an economist falls in love with their model of the economy, they may treat policy as a series of cogs and levers to be manipulated regardless of the real effects. The problem here is not that the scientists attempted to answer questions or develop useful theories, but that they did so in a way that divorced them from the proper role of scientific inquiry. Their discoveries were no longer judged by their efficacy in practice, but rather the opposite. The world was judged by whether or not it accrued to their theory. If a philosopher is granted a position where her word is taken as truth, then she is no longer tied to the efficacy of her ideas. In a very Smithian sense, the sentiments here are misplaced. The philosopher’s role is to cultivate and develop in the abstract what is to be exported to and judged by the concrete.
- Smith, Adam. 1976. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Dewey, John. n.d. “Common Sense and Scientific Inquiry.” Essay. In The Logic of Inquiry. New York: HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY , 1938
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