ARE PHILOSOPHERS MAD?

The Philosopher, Diogenes who lived in a wine barrel.

To begin with, there are three major problems with this question itself that often is made in an affirmative statement - philosophers are mad! The first problem lies in the question itself, it lacks clarity on what being a philosopher is and what the question really is asking. The second problem is a definitional and conceptual problem of what it means to be mad - it is just not clear what it is to be mad in the sense that it is used about philosophers. The third problem lies in the confusion of an unasked question masked in this question, namely whether or not studying philosophy makes one mad (whatever madness means!).


The First Problem. When the question is asked there are two further aspects to the problem that the askers assume everyone understands the question. First, they presume they know who a philosopher is. Second, they do not attach qualifiers or ‘logical quantifiers’ to the question such that they presume the question implies ALL philosophers are mad. Let us deal with this a step by step. Who is a philosopher? This is a very philosophical question (meaning it may lack a definite answer). But roughly speaking, a philosopher is one who clearly reflects on ones claims and arguments (here meaning a claim supported by good and sound reasons), one who listens closely to other people’s claims and arguments, one who knows how to carefully construct ones arguments (claims supported with good reasons or evidence), one who can spot, identify and avoid bad reasoning in one’s and others’ arguments. A philosopher is often seen as a critical thinker of all and everything that there is to think about. As philosophers would have it, we are faced with another problem, who is a critical thinker? Simply put (if it is at all that simple), it is one who systematically studies all aspects of reality using good reasoning and experience; it is about thinking for ourselves by carefully examining the way one makes sense of the different aspects of the world. A critical thinker is one who fully appreciates who he or she is and is content with it and finds creative ways of improving oneself and others. Being so, it is expected that one will life a mature life, a life worth living, a life lived to the full, one where one makes intelligent and carefully thought out decisions. I know some philosophers will not agree with such definitions but let us work with these. From these definitions, it is clear that a philosopher can be any person of sound mind, a person full of wisdom. One does not need to study philosophy to be a philosopher. A person of any background can be a philosopher. Most philosophers historically speaking never studied philosophy as an academic discipline. Now when people ask the question are philosophers mad, they mostly mean are people who have studied philosophy as an academic discipline mad? Therein lies the first aspect of this problem – a misunderstanding of who a philosopher is and probably who is not.

The second aspect of this problem is that the question itself is ambiguous because it is often not clear whether those who ask it want to mean are ALL philosophers mad (if at all they know what a philosopher is), or are SOME philosophers, or are NO philosopher, are philosophers not mad etc. It is not just clear what the question is. It is taken for granted that the question is ARE ALL PHILOSOPHERS MAD? And often, it is asked as a leading question in the affirmative. That YES, all philosophers are mad. And often such arguers or claimants go on to point at a few of us as being mad often those of us in academia teaching and researching philosophy. This way of thinking is problematic on two fronts; one's madness may have nothing to do with studying philosophy even if they are truly mad. Secondly, it is not just true that ALL philosophers are mad. A large chunk of academically trained philosophers are Catholic Priests who are far from being identified as mad as a group. A good number of world renowned philosophers of the likes of Peter Singer or John Rawls are far from being identified as mad even when sometimes seen as controversial. It seems to me that this claim is a case of pointing at a few persons who may be seen as mad and linking such persons’ divergent thinking to having studied philosophy. But EVEN IF the question were to be ARE SOME PHILOSOPHERS MAD which can easily be answered in the affirmative; still there would be no correlation between studying philosophy and them mad people being mad of philosophy. It is plausible to think that some academically trained philosophers are mad, just like we find mad people almost in all professions but they are not mad because of their professions.

The second problem. What is it for one to be mad. The dictionary meaning of madness is 'insanity, having a disordered mind, mentally disordered or deranged, being of deviant character'. I will avoid other definitions that talk about being very foolish, or uncontrolled with excitement or emotion. When people ask, are philosophers mad, their definition of madness is convoluted and confused and unknown at best. It seems clear that they think philosophers are insane, but the starting point of their claim seems to indicate that philosophers are insane because they THINK DIFFERENTLY TO THE MASSES AND IN UNCONVENTIONAL WAYS. When no one cares about whether a tree is green or not, a philosopher will ask is the tree really green or is it my eyes that perceive the tree as green even when the tree in itself may not be green – in any case, what is it to be green? OR when many people take God's existence as a given infallible fact, philosophers ask is it really true that God exists and what evidence can we have to support such a claim? When statisticians claim 10 percent of the population is malnourished, a philosopher would ask is it correct to make such a claim, and are the methods used of any help? Such questions are annoying and the most or least many people can do is to stop conversation and claim the one asking such questions is insane or mad. If madness means thinking clearly about all aspects of reality, asking sound and often unconventional/annoying questions, thinking differently about reality, maybe, just maybe, philosophers are 'mad', because that is the core of their training – to think carefully about all aspects of reality even those that seem straight forward (such as what does beauty mean when you claim you are beautiful).

The third problem. When the question is asked, there seem to be a different question that is being asked – namely, does studying philosophy make a person mad? Philosophy is often seen as difficult, confusing, other-worldly, annoying etc. A sane person can easily be made insane by indulging in philosophy. Again as indicated earlier, if this were to be the case, we would have a world full of mad people because most human beings by their very nature are philosophers, they ask difficult questions about the realities they are faced with [even if when the asking of them questions is not in a logically perfect manner]. And the unasked question is based on a basic misunderstanding of what is the basic aim of philosophy which is to make people think very clearly about reality, to live happy and fuller lives, a life of flourishing. Nothing in the aims of philosophy leads to madness. Most people who have studied philosophy live very happy lives, not lives lined with insanity.

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