Pseudophilosophy

Template:Short description Template:Broader Pseudophilosophy is a philosophical idea or system which does not meet an expected set of philosophical standards. There is no universally accepted set of standards, but there are similarities and some common ground.

DefinitionsEdit

According to Christopher Heumann, an 18th-century scholar, pseudo-philosophy has six characteristics, the 6th of which has been considered to diminish the credibility of the first 5:Template:Sfn

It has a preference for useless speculation.
It appeals merely to human authority.
It appeals to tradition instead of reason.
It syncretises philosophy with superstition.
It has a preference for obscure and enigmatic language and symbolism.
It is immoral.

According to Michael Oakeshott, pseudo-philosophy "is theorizing that proceeds partly within and partly outside a given mode of inquiry."Template:Sfn

Josef Pieper noted that there cannot be a closed system of philosophy, and that any philosophy that claims to have discovered a "cosmic formula" is a pseudo-philosophy.Template:Sfn In this he follows Kant, who rejected the postulation of a "highest principle" from which to develop transcendental idealism, calling this pseudo-philosophy and mysticism.Template:Sfn

Nicholas Rescher, in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, described pseudo-philosophy as "deliberations that masquerade as philosophical but are inept, incompetent, deficient in intellectual seriousness, and reflective of an insufficient commitment to the pursuit of truth."Template:Sfn Rescher adds that the term is particularly appropriate when applied to "those who use the resources of reason to substantiate the claim that rationality is unachievable in matters of inquiry."Template:Sfn

HistoryEdit

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The term "pseudo-philosophy" appears to have been coined by Jane Austen.Template:Sfn

Ernest Newman, an English music critic and musicologist, who aimed at intellectual objectivity in his style of criticism, in contrast to the more subjective approach of other critics, published in 1897 Pseudo-Philosophy at the End of the Nineteenth Century, a critique of imprecise and subjective writing.

According to Josef Pieper, for Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle philosophy is the human search "oriented toward wisdom such as God possesses".Template:Sfn It suggests that philosophy includes, in its essence, an orientation toward theology.Template:Sfn Pieper notes: Template:Quote

UsageEdit

The term is almost always used pejoratively and is often contentious, due to differing criteria for demarcating pseudophilosophy (see also: Demarcation problem).

RomanticismEdit

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According to physicist and philosopher of science Mario Bunge, Template:Quote

For Kant, intellectual knowledge is discursive knowledge, not intuitive knowledge.Template:Sfn According to Kant, intuition is limited to the realm of senses, while knowledge is "essentially realised in the acts of researching, relating, comparing, differentiating, inferring, proving".Template:Sfn Kant criticised Romantic philosophy, which is based on feeling and intuition,Template:Sfn and not on "philosophical work":Template:Sfn Template:Quote

Kant called Romantic philosophy pseudo-philosophy, "in which one is entitled not to work, but only to heed and enjoy the oracle in oneself in order to take complete possession of that wisdom toward which philosophy aims".Template:Sfn

MysticismEdit

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Mysticism has a long history. In the Age of Enlightenment mysticism had fallen into disrepute.Template:Sfn Kant called mysticism pseudophilosophy.Template:Sfn In the 19th century, with the rise of Romanticism, interest in mysticism was renewed. Rationalists and Lutherans wrote histories of mysticism to reject its claims, but there was a widespread interest in spiritualism and related phenomena.Template:Sfn

Interest in Eckhart's works was revived in the early nineteenth century, especially by German Romantics and Idealist philosophers.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Since the 1960s debate has been going on in Germany whether Eckhart should be called a "mystic".Template:Sfn The philosopher Karl Albert had already argued that Eckhart had to be placed in the tradition of philosophical mysticism of Parmenides, Plato, Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus and other neo-Platonistic thinkers.Template:Sfn Heribert Fischer argued in the 1960s that Eckhart was a mediaeval theologian.Template:Sfn

German IdealismEdit

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Arthur Schopenhauer wrote the following about Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: Template:Quote

A hundred and fifty years after Schopenhauer's death, physicist and philosopher of science Mario Bunge recommended "avoiding the pseudo-subtleties of Hegelian dialectics",Template:Sfn and wrote of "Hegel's disastrous legacy": "It is true that Marx and Engels criticized Hegel's idealism, but they did not repudiate his cult of nonsense and his rejection of all modern science from Newton on."Template:Sfn Bunge noted, Template:Quote

Continental philosophyEdit

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Soccio notes that analytically inclined philosophers tend to dismiss Heidegger's philosophy as pseudophilosophy.Template:Sfn According to Christensen, Heidegger himself called the philosophy of Husserl scheinphilosophy.Template:Sfn

ScientismEdit

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Dietrich von Hildebrand used the term to critique the central place modern science is occupying in western society: Template:Quote

ObjectivismEdit

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} Journalist Jonathan Chait used the term to criticize the work of Ayn Rand in "Ayn Rand's Pseudo-Philosophy", an article in The New Republic, in which he wrote, "She was a true amateur who insisted on seeing herself as the greatest human being who ever lived because she was almost completely unfamiliar with the entire philosophical canon."<ref name="chait">Template:Cite magazine</ref> Physicist and philosopher of science Mario Bunge classified Rand as a "mercenary", among those who "seek to defend or propagate a doctrine rather than an analyzing ideas or searching for new truths",Template:Sfn while science writer and skeptic Michael Shermer claimed that "it becomes clear that Objectivism was (and is) a cult, as are many other, non-religious groups".<ref name="shermer">Template:Cite journal</ref> The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy said of Rand, "For all her popularity, however, only a few professional philosophers have taken her work seriously."<ref>Template:Cite SEP</ref>