Anti-Dogmatism and the Ends of Philosophy

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Teun Willemse 5879841 Research Master Philosophy Universiteit van Amsterdam Supervisor: Dr. Christian Skirke

ANTI-DOGMATISM AND THE ENDS

OF PHILOSOPHY

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It is so difficult to find the beginning. Or, better: it is difficult to begin at the beginning. And not to try to go further back.

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Introduction

At one point in Martin Heidegger’s lectures on Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit he comes to discuss one of the widespread suspicions against Hegel’s philosophy, namely that he “already at the beginning of his work presupposes and anticipates what he wants to achieve only at the end”.1_{Indeed, as Heidegger subsequently claims, we must admit that Hegel is guilty of this}

seemingly devastating charge. But here Heidegger makes an unexpected turn and denies that this ‘fact’ can be brought up as an objection against Hegel’s philosophy. The reason for Heidegger’s surprisingly mild assessment of Hegel’s putative circular fallacy is that “it pertains to the essential character of philosophy that wherever philosophy sets to work in terms of its basic question and becomes a work, it already anticipates precisely that which it says later”.2

This metaphilosophical remark suggests a complacent attitude towards the idea that philosophy never begins from a pure, neutral or ‘Archimedean’ standpoint, but always relies on a seemingly dogmatic and question-begging element that guides the enquiry from the beginning. The angle from which we approach a philosophical problem (in Heidegger’s particular case ‘one’s relation to Being’) and the initial philosophical goal we start our enquiry with, already shapes and determines the outcome of our enquiry – but given that there is no alternative, this should not be brought up as an objection.

However, it is highly doubtful whether such metaphilosophical complacency would be eagerly accepted by a philosopher aspiring to be as radically anti-dogmatic as Hegel. In the Phenomenology, Hegel goes out of his way to escape Heidegger’s allegation by employing a rigorous method to avoid the philosophical sin of dogmatically positing a criterion (Maßstab) to which the results of the enquiry must conform. Like other philosophers who had a strong commitment to philosophising undogmatically – such as Sextus Empiricus, Descartes, Kant, Husserl and the later Wittgenstein – Hegel was acutely aware of the fundamental problems involved with the activity of philosophising, problems of which Heidegger’s point is just one example. What characterises these radical anti-dogmatic philosophers is the recognition of the deep metaphilosophical problems that threaten every philosophical enquiry and their willingness to deeply reflect on them. The great challenges they posed themselves were to be radically critical of any putative ‘authority’ (for example religion, science, common sense, rationality and the philosophical tradition itself), to undogmatically legitimate their philosophical viewpoint against rival positions, to take (meta)philosophical sceptical problems genuinely seriously, and to demonstrate that dogmatism is not an inescapable feature of philosophy, but only an indication of philosophical malpractice. In other words, anti-dogmatic philosophers pose several stringent negative requirements on philosophy (that is, it makes a set of metaphilosophical claims about ‘what philosophy should not be’), whereby significantly raising the bar for what counts as appropriate, undogmatic and legitimate philosophical thinking.

1_{Heidegger, Martin, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. by Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly (Indiana University}

Press, 1994), p. 30.

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Anti-Dogmatism and the Ends of Philosophy

Nevertheless, the anti-dogmatists were not after the complete destruction of philosophy – their philosophical aims were never entirely negative. Whether their goal was to achieve a certain form of (philosophical) peace of mind, to discover an indubitable and absolute foundation for knowledge, to dare to think for oneself, or to demonstrate that “to him who looks at the world rationally the world looks rationally back”, all of them pursued some positive end in their philosophical projects. However, this plurality of positive conceptions of the ultimate goal of philosophy seems to pose a specific challenge for anti-dogmatic philosophy. Once one takes metaphilosophical problems genuinely serious and significantly raises the requirements for legitimate philosophical thinking, the following question arises: can the anti-dogmatist undogmatically argue that his specific positive conception of the goal of philosophy is itself legitimate, justified and appropriate – that his goal must be preferred to other philosophical goals?

Although such questions have been dealt with in various commentaries on specific anti-dogmatic philosophers,3_{the general problem of justifying one’s metaphilosophical criteria –}

and in particular the meta-criterion ‘what philosophy should strive for’ – has not received much attention beyond those philosopher-specific commentaries. However, as I will argue in this thesis, the problem hinted at in these specific analyses runs deeper and transcends the philosophical projects of individual anti-dogmatists. Questions concerning the proper goal(s) of philosophising and the possibility of legitimating a philosophical goal are of fundamental significance for any philosophical project, but have often been heavily underexposed. While the problem of ‘how to ground one’s philosophical meta-criteria undogmatically’ poses a challenge to the activity of philosophy in general, it is especially pressing for those projects that have a strong commitment to anti-dogmatism. The reason for the particularly problematic status of the problem for anti-dogmatic philosophy is that in striving for a specific positive philosophical goal, anti-dogmatism appears to produce a tension between its negative requirements (its metaphilosophical claims ‘what philosophy should not be’), and the possibility of legitimating its positive aim (its metaphilosophical claim ‘what philosophy should be’). In other words, because of the structure of anti-dogmatism, any positive claim about the proper end of philosophy threatens to be undermined by its negative metaphilosophical claims. Therefore the central question of this thesis is how an undogmatic legitimation of one’s positive philosophical goal is possible.

3_{See for example:}

Nussbaum, Martha, ‘Skeptic Purgatives: Therapeutic Arguments in Ancient Skepticism’, Journal of the History of

Philosophy, 29 (1991), 521–57.

Plant, Bob, ‘The End(s) of Philosophy: Rhetoric, Therapy and Wittgenstein’s Pyrrhonism’, Philosophical

Investigations, 27 (2004), 222–57.

Pinkard, Terry, Hegel’s Phenomenology: The Sociality of Reason (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

Lenkowski, William Jon, ‘What Is Husserl’s Epoche?: The Problem of the Beginning of Philosophy in a Husserlian Context’, Man and World, 11 (1978), 299–323.

Kuusela, Oskari, The Struggle Against Dogmatism: Wittgenstein and the Concept of Philosophy (Harvard University Press, 2009).

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Introduction As any ‘how-possible’ question, this question derives its significance from the difficulties that an answer of ‘how it is possible’ faces.4_{In this case, the question becomes significant}

when there is an obstacle (or multiple) that stands in the way of legitimating one’s positive conception of the goal of philosophy undogmatically. An important part of this thesis will therefore focus on identifying such obstacles for justifying one’s conception positive goal of philosophy. After giving an initial and abstract formulation of the problem anti-dogmatism faces in chapter 1 – a problem I will call the problem of ends – I will substantiate this problem with four vignettes of how the problem of ends manifests itself in various anti-dogmatic projects. By sketching the anti-dogmatic projects of Sextus Empiricus, Descartes, Husserl and Wittgenstein, I will identify two concrete obstacles to the undogmatic legitimation of one’s philosophical goal. On the one hand, as we will discover by analysing the (anti-)philosophical projects of Sextus and Wittgenstein, anti-dogmatism faces a dilemma concerning its positive goal: is it strictly necessary to pursue that philosophical goal or is it only reasonable if one already takes for granted a metaphilosophical framework that itself cannot be justified? On the other hand, as will be demonstrated by an examination of Descartes and Husserl’s search for a radical beginning, anti-dogmatism evokes an aporia concerning the order of goal and method: if undogmatic philosophising requires one to strictly rely on a rigorous method, and every philosophical method is already aimed at (and is therefore preceded by) a specific philosophical goal, how could the goal driving that method itself ever be undogmatically legitimated? Then, in the third and final chapter I will examine Hegel’s proposed solutions to these obstacles to see whether the phenomenological method employed in the Phenomenology could overcome both obstacles. The rationale behind choosing Hegel as the final anti-dogmatic figure is twofold: first, Hegel can be read as the first philosopher who was highly aware of the metaphilosophical problems involved in positing a particular end of philosophy, and second, through Hegel’s proposed solutions to such metaphilosophical problems we can truly recognise how deep those problems run and what it would take to solve them.

Framing the present enquiry as an ‘how-possible’ question, we seem to be faced with three possible answers: a positive answer, a negative answer and a complacent answer. A positive answer to the question would be to show how the obstacles that seem to threaten the possibility of an undogmatic legitimation of one’s philosophical end can be overcome without relapsing into dogmatism. In effect, such an answer must prove that the anti-dogmatic project can be made consistent (at least with regard to the problem of ends) and that the apparent tension between the positive and negative aspects of anti-dogmatism is in fact not a structural feature, but only arises under certain conditions or in specific shapes of anti-dogmatism. A negative outcome of the enquiry would be to find out that while the obstacles one faces when legitimating one’s goal of philosophy are truly problematic, they could never be overcome. This would be to say that the problem of ends, as it will be formulated in the following chapter, is not only insurmountable, but also presents a genuine and pervasive threat to

4 _{Quassim Cassam’s perspicuous treatment of how-possible question explains the obstacle-dependence as}

follows: ‘We ask how x is possible when there appears to be an obstacle to the existence of x. We don’t ask how x is possible if there is no perceived obstacle or no inclination to suppose that x is possible. So, for example, we don’t ask how baseball is possible or how round squares are possible.’

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philosophy. A complacent answer to the ‘how-possible’ question agrees that put in these terms the problem of ends cannot be solved, but denies that this impossibility poses a genuine threat to philosophy. The complacent answer admits that there can be no undogmatic legitimation of one specific conception of the end of philosophy, while maintaining that this should not be seen as a failure of any significance. The main objective of this thesis is to convincingly argue that there is no viable positive answer to the ‘how-possible’ question (that is, that there is no genuine solution to the problem of ends and its concrete obstacles), which means that only the negative and complacent answers remain.

But before describing the problem of ends and its concrete obstacles, we must begin by determining what anti-dogmatic philosophy is, and ask why we might be motivated to philosophise undogmatically in the first place. That is, why can we not simply dismiss the imperative to philosophise anti-dogmatically as a mistaken, inconsequential or even silly demand from the past? After introducing the commitment to anti-dogmatism as a common thread in the history of philosophy in section 1.1, we will turn to the question why one’s philosophical goal should be legitimated at all (section 1.2). For is the goal of philosophy not just an unproblematic ‘given’ that needs no further legitimation?

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1. Anti-Dogmatism and the Problem of Ends

Dogmatism – or the inclination “to identify the goal of our thinking with the point at which we have become tired of thinking” – is so natural to man that it is not likely to be a preserve of the past.

L. Strauss1

1.1 Anti-dogmatism and its Motivations

Ever since the ancient sceptics accused their philosophical rivals of being ‘dogmatists’, the idea that philosophy should be devoid of dogmatic tendencies has been widespread and enduring. Throughout the history of western philosophy, philosophers have demanded – from themselves and from others – that they would instead think undogmatically. However, there is no straightforward answer to the question what undogmatic thinking or ‘anti-dogmatism’ is. An initial yet vacuous response would be to point to anti-‘anti-dogmatism’s most obvious feature – its negative appreciation of dogmatism. Clearly this answer only shifts the burden of explanation to another, equally ambiguous concept. For what the term ‘dogmatism’ is supposed to mean has varied from one philosophical tradition to another and has, moreover, often been defined from one philosophical position to describe the position of its dissenters.2_{Sextus Empiricus, for one, used the term to describe every philosophical}

position that claims to “have discovered the truth”.3_{Another famous yet particular rendering}

of dogmatism is found in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, in which he states that dogmatism is the “presumption of getting on solely with pure cognition from (philosophical) concepts according to principles, which reason has been using for a long time without first inquiring in what way and by what right it has obtained them”.4

But unlike such technical definitions of dogmatism – definitions that make sense only within a specific system and within a specific intellectual climate – the contemporary use of the concept of dogmatism in philosophy is usually broader and less specific.5_{As it is defined in}

various dictionaries, dogmatism points toward an “unfounded positiveness in matters of

1_{Strauss, Leo, Natural Right and History (University of Chicago Press, 1953). [Citing Lessing's January 9, 1771}

letter to Mendelssohn]

2_{As Alvin Plantinga correctly notes: “Dogmatism is an indexical term; whether you properly apply it to a given}

doctrine or belief depends upon where you yourself stand.”

Alvin Plantinga, “Dogmatism”, in Dancy, Jonathan, Ernest Sosa, and Matthias Steup, A Companion to Epistemology (John Wiley & Sons, 2009), p. 322.

3_{Empiricus, Sextus, Sextus Empiricus: Outlines of Scepticism, trans. by Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes (Cambridge}

University Press, 2000), p. 3.

4_{Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Pure Reason (Cambridge University Press, 1998), XXXV.}

5_{Recently there have several been attempts to define and analyse dogmatism as a psychological phenomenon.}

Although not completely irrelevant to the subject at hand, the psychological dimensions of dogmatism and the cognitive, emotional and behavioural aspects of those individuals that are identified as being dogmatic, will fall outside of the scope of this study. Instead, the focus will be entirely restricted to the philosophical phenomenon of dogmatism, where, as we will see, the emphasis will strictly lie on the epistemological and legitimacy problems of dogmatism.

For research on the psychological side of dogmatism, see:

Johnson, Judy J., What’s So Wrong with Being Absolutely Right: The Dangerous Nature of Dogmatic Belief (Prometheus Books, Publishers).

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opinion”6_{or a “viewpoint or system of ideas based on insufficiently examined premises”.}7

What is central to these deflationary definitions is the idea of an unwarranted epistemological deficiency in the dogmatist’s beliefs. In the history of philosophy, however, there have been many more substantial and elaborate critiques of dogmatism. Philosophers who have discussed (and often rejected) dogmatism, either explicitly or according to their interpreters, include (but are certainly not limited to) some of the most prominent names in philosophy: Socrates, Pyrrho, Sextus Empiricus, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Husserl, Wittgenstein, Adorno, Derrida and Rorty. Given the enormous differences between their philosophical commitments, orientations and traditions, the attempt to formulate a single underlying ‘essence’ of anti-dogmatism would be doomed to fail. This does not mean that it is not possible to discern several structural features – or family resemblances – from the numerous conceptions of dogmatism. The contemporary and less technical use of anti-dogmatism might be said to intimate (at least) four important characteristics: (1) a deep commitment towards certainty or legitimacy of one’s own philosophical position,8_{(2) an}

appreciation of the force of (metaphilosophical) sceptical arguments, (3) a largely negative assessment of the philosophical tradition that demands nothing less than a ‘radical break’,9

and, finally, (4) a strong emphasis on philosophical method.

At its centre, as was already indicated in the dictionary definitions above, anti-dogmatism involves a strong commitment against any uncritical, unreflective and persistent acceptance of unjustified philosophical claims. Such claims are in turn often identified (and simultaneously rejected) as mere opinion (as in the ancient doxa/episteme distinction), presuppositions (as in Hegel’s and Husserl’s concepts of Voraussetzung and Vorurteil), philosophical dogmas and theses (as in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy) or, more generally, unjustified beliefs. Anti-dogmatism, therefore, is marked by its reluctance to ground a philosophical project on presuppositions, illegitimate authority or dubitable beliefs that are unrightfully unnoticed, neglected or even disguised within its philosophical project.10_{This can}

be contrasted with the anti-dogmatist’s positive attempt to philosophise by accepting only what has been critically examined and legitimated, or, to put it differently, to formulate a legitimate position that is not based on simply adopting ‘fashionable’ presuppositions, re-raising the same questions, and positing the same philosophical goals. Anti-dogmatism, in

Brown, Rupert, Prejudice: Its Social Psychology (John Wiley & Sons, 2011).

6_{The Random House Dictionary of the English}

(New York: Random House, 1987) p. 579.

7 _{“Dogmatism.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 17 June 2014.}

<http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dogmatism>.

8 _{To phrase the dogmatists ideal purely in terms of certainty clearly overstates the uniformness of}

anti-dogmatic philosophies. Sextus Empiricus, for one, explicitly rejects attempts to attain epistemological certainty. It is, however, hard to deny that even though those philosophers are suspicious of epistemological certainty as an ideal, they are nonetheless striving towards an undogmatic, legitimate philosophical position, one which can be reasonably defended against rival positions.

9 _{Although the question what the dominant (dogmatic) philosophical tradition is (which tradition is used as a}

springboard) depends of course on the anti-dogmatic philosopher in question.

10_{Which is not to say that anti-dogmatism necessarily adheres to a foundationalist theory of justification. Hegel,}

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1. Anti-Dogmatism and the Problem of Ends short, redefines what it is to philosophise legitimately, and, as a result, it radically raises the bar for what counts as legitimate, genuine or justified philosophical thinking.

Secondly, such anti-dogmatic ideals, like criticism, reflection and maintaining stringent criteria for genuinely legitimate philosophy, are all to some degree rooted in an appreciation of the potency of sceptical reasoning. Only by appealing to the force of sceptical concerns about the dogmatist’s position can the anti-dogmatist get the distinction between dogmatism and genuine anti-dogmatism off the ground.11_{Anti-dogmatists must begin by}

raising awareness of the naiveté of ‘ordinary’ dogmatic philosophy, because without grounding (or even merely expressing) their suspicions concerning the dogmatic nature of other philosophical systems there would be no reason to reject the philosophical status quo. This is not to say that every anti-dogmatic philosopher is driven by specific sceptical problems – such as the problem of other minds or the existence of the outer world – but rather that the aforementioned suspicions concerning dogmatism are closely related to a sceptical tendency, a radical questioning of what is usually taken for granted by philosophers (whatever that may be taken to be). In this sense it might be more appropriate to speak of a certain appreciation of a metaphilosophical scepticism, a scepticism about ordinary philosophical thinking, than to regard it as an interest in specific sceptical arguments. However, once the distinction between dogmatism and anti-dogmatism is made, and once the underlying sceptical worries about philosophical thinking are out of the bottle, it is hard to turn one’s back on such sceptical doubts again without inviting obvious charges of inconsistency and hypocrisy. Therefore, anti-dogmatism is (and must be) at the same time rooted in, and a genuine response to, (metaphilosophical) sceptical concerns. That is why it is only by facing the sceptic (and especially the sceptic of his own philosophical project) that the anti-dogmatist can avoid falling back into dogmatic slumber.12

Thirdly, related to the metaphilosophical scepticism about ordinary philosophical thinking, anti-dogmatism is marked by its attempt to bring about a radical break with prior philosophical traditions (traditions that all share an unwarranted confidence in their central claims, and a persistent, and sometimes even deliberate, blindness towards possible objections). A common thread in the works of the most notable anti-dogmatists is their depiction that all prior philosophy had in one way or another fallen prey to sin of dogmatism. As a consequence, anti-dogmatists share the sentiment that philosophy’s most important

11_{The triadic sequence of dogmatism, scepticism and ‘anti-dogmatism’ (in whatever form it presents itself), can}

already be found in Kant’s famous metaphor of the tribunal of reason: “At first, her government, under the administration of the dogmatists, was an absolute despotism. But, as the legislative continued to show traces of the ancient barbaric rule, her empire gradually broke up, and intestine wars introduced the reign of anarchy; while the sceptics, like nomadic tribes, who hate a permanent habitation and settled mode of living, attacked from time to time those who had organized themselves into civil communities. (…) It is, in fact, a call to reason, again to undertake the most laborious of all tasks--that of self-examination, and to establish a tribunal, which may secure it in its well-grounded claims, while it pronounces against all baseless assumptions and pretensions, not in an arbitrary manner, but according to its own eternal and unchangeable laws. This tribunal is nothing less than the critical investigation of pure reason.”

Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, A-IX.

12_{This does not necessarily mean that the anti-dogmatist must dismantle or refute sceptical concerns. On the}

contrary, Sextus Empiricus is a perfect example of a philosopher whose scepticism is the only road to genuine anti-dogmatism.

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problems cannot be solved by making some ‘minor’ adjustments to the existing responses to those questions. What is needed instead is a radical new beginning, a new way of philosophising, even if that involves a critical re-examination of the status and legitimacy of philosophical thinking (and the problems it creates) itself.

Lastly, given the previous structural features of dogmatism, it is clear that anti-dogmatism holds itself to extremely high standards. Simply positing particular ‘givens’ as less demanding philosophers might do (whether those are axioms, definitions, revelations, intuitions, definitions, popular opinions or scientific facts), is therefore a non-starter. For how can we be certain that our own ‘givens’, as opposed to our opponents’ ‘givens’, are truly legitimate? The common, and perhaps the only viable anti-dogmatic response to their own requirements is a great emphasis on philosophical method.13_{The guiding idea is that only by}

employing the right method can the anti-dogmatist non-arbitrarily distinguish doxa from episteme, mere opinions from clear and distinct ideas, presuppositions from justified true beliefs, dubitable givens from indubitable foundations, certainty from naiveté, pseudo-philosophy from true philosophical thinking or, to put it most generally, legitimacy from illegitimacy. And only by using the right method can the anti-dogmatist make the required radical break from the dogmatic attitude.14

To sum up, anti-dogmatism amounts to a critical attitude that constitutes a radical break from ‘traditional’ philosophical thinking, an attitude that is guided by a strict and rigorous philosophical method, in which no presuppositions, unjustified beliefs or putative ‘givens’ are naively accepted and no relevant sceptical arguments wrongfully neglected. These characteristics combined reveal why the aim of radical anti-dogmatic makes it impossible for the anti-dogmatist to settle for a ‘piecemeal approach’ to particular philosophical problems (the sort of philosophy that seems fashionable in academic philosophy departments), and why it necessarily demands an entirely new and comprehensive approach to philosophy. However, merely identifying the basic characteristics of anti-dogmatic philosophies does not need to convince us of the need to philosophise anti-dogmatically. Why should we be persuaded to reject dogmatism? And is some degree of dogmatism not permitted, or perhaps even necessary?

Although the various versions of anti-dogmatism share the structural features discussed above, the reasons behind their rejection of dogmatism seem to be, at least at first

13_{C.f. Pippin: “Once so much is put in doubt (once the world is lost) on what basis can the human subject}

re-establish a connection with the actual world? On what basis can a true science of reality be built? Descartes’ famous answer to this question simply created the modern problem in philosophy. For Descartes’ answer is, to put it in one word: method. If we can discover the right method, if we can construct a procedure whose rules can in general be argued to produce safe or even certain results, repeatable in other experiments, at other times and places, we will have the weapon to master the elusive, deceptive nature.”

Pippin, Robert B., Modernism as a Philosophical Problem: On the Dissatisfactions of European High Culture, 2 edition (Malden, Mass: Wiley-Blackwell, 1999), p. 23.

14 _{This presentation might raise legitimate questions about how Sextus and Wittgenstein fit in this picture.}

However, these questions must be postponed to the second chapter, where I will describe their projects by emphasising Sextus’ stress on the importance of scepticism as a dunamis (a capacity to employ the sceptical method) and the grammatical nature of Wittgenstein’s method. Although both philosophical methods have little to do with strict rules or achieving absolute epistemological certainty, both Sextus as Wittgenstein clearly recommend their methods as the (only) means to avoid philosophical dogmatism.

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1. Anti-Dogmatism and the Problem of Ends appearance, much less uniform. Clarifying the different motivations behind each anti-dogmatic philosophy would necessarily lead to discussing the particular anti-anti-dogmatic projects in much more detail. This does not mean that no general reasons can be given for anti-dogmatism.15_{The aforementioned demands for (1) legitimacy and (2) trying to take}

scepticism genuinely serious might already provide some provisional answers to the question. One important objection against dogmatism might be that since it is not able – or even not willing to try – to answer the sceptical problems lurking in the background, it miserably fails the second demand. This has obvious consequences for the first demand: how could the dogmatist be certain about her view if she is unable to respond to the sceptical arguments that threaten it? If one considers philosophy as a quest for ultimate legitimacy and a response to radical scepticism, the dogmatist’s position indeed seems unattractive.

However, at this point the dogmatist might take a step back to question the need to strive for abstract ideals as ‘absolute certainty’ and a ‘genuine response to radical scepticism’. Are such ideals not simply unreachable, insignificant or completely empty?16_{What is exactly}

the problem with basing one’s philosophical claims on certain dogmas – on non-rational (or not entirely rational) motivations for belief such as presuppositions, intuitions, common sense, popular opinions, science or tradition? One potent negative response to this question is already implied in the very dialectic between the dogmatist and the anti-dogmatist, namely the widespread existence of deep disagreement within philosophy. Indeed, one of the most obvious characteristics of the history of philosophy is that it is a history of persistent disagreement between different philosophers, philosophical positions and traditions. As Bob Plant remarks, philosophy strongly differs from the consensus-oriented natural sciences, in that we can find in philosophy:

diversity and disagreement not only between broader philosophical schools or traditions but also within these various sub-communities. […] Disagreement runs all the way down; every substantive philosophical issue has raised – and continues to raise – a cacophony of dissenting voices.17

Furthermore, what makes disagreement within philosophy especially problematic is that it is persistent (there has been no lasting and widespread consensus on any substantive philosophical issue), pervasive (no part of philosophy is entirely free from disagreement) and fundamental (philosophers have disagreed, and continue to disagree, about everything – including the correct methods, aims, foci, and objectives of their opponents, and of philosophy more generally).18_{These are not merely empirical descriptions of the practice of philosophical}

15_{Even if those general reasons were not precisely the ones motivating the anti-dogmatic commitments of, say,}

Husserl or Wittgenstein.

16_{One can think for example of Cavell’s contention that: “Scepticism and solutions to scepticism make their way}

in the world mostly as lessons in hypocrisy; providing solutions one does not believe in to problems one has not felt.” (Of course, justification and legitimacy play an important role in Cavell’s work. So this quote is not to say that Cavell is a proper example of a dogmatist questioning the need for anti-dogmatism)

Cavell, Stanley, The Claim of Reason:Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy (Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 393.

17_{Plant, Bob, ‘Philosophical Diversity and Disagreement’, Metaphilosophy, 43 (2012), p. 569.} 18_{Ibidem, p. 570.}

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thinking, as they seem to carry significant normative implications as well. The result of such persistent, pervasive and fundamental disagreement is that it might lead (and has often led) to irresolvable disagreements: two philosophers who can be considered epistemic peers19_{might not}

only disagree about some particular philosophical claim, but can also disagree about what standards should determine which of those philosophical claims are right, correct or appropriate. At this point the dispute becomes irresolvable, as both parties can only resort to assuring that their side has really got it right simply because the other side has failed to live up to their standards. Evidently the other side is capable of making the very same claim.

The prospect of genuinely irresolvable disagreements between epistemic peers in philosophy is often considered to be extremely dissatisfying. Especially so because the existence of irresolvable disagreement with opposing positions seems to present us with the following dilemma: if you can't rationally defend the legitimacy of your philosophical position against your opponent’s challenges by appealing to some shared standard (that is, a standard that is not itself part of the disagreement), you can either continue believing in the legitimacy of your position (and claim that other positions are simply wrong), or you can suspend judgement and drop any claim to the legitimacy of you position. The drawback of the first option is that it is a clear case of dogmatism, since it is a persistence in believing in a position that cannot be defended against reasonable challenges from other positions. The problem with the second option is that it ultimately leads to a “broad scepticism about philosophical matters”.20_{Of course, when one bites the bullet of disagreement and accepts that other}

philosophers can (and will) always reasonably disagree with your position, alternative options are available. For instance, philosophers like Kornblith and Rescher have argued that the only rational response to irresolvable disagreement that avoids the Scylla of dogmatism and the Charybdis of scepticism is a certain kind of metaphilosophical modesty.21_{This results in the}

claim that, even though we should continue to philosophise seriously, we must always realise that “at the metaphilosophical level one’s own position is merely one alternative among others”.22

All three positions – dogmatism, scepticism and metaphilosophical modesty – seem to have highly dissatisfying implications. Dogmatism seems to claim to know more than it does, scepticism to know less than it does, while metaphilosophical modesty claims to know more and less than it does at the same time (paradoxically, it knows enough to continue philosophising, but not enough to be entirely serious about it – which begs the question, why continue if we

19_{This technical term refers to the situation in which your philosophical rival is “just as smart as you are, just as}

well informed, and have thought about the issue just as long as you have and just as carefully”. (Kornblith, Hilary, ‘Belief in the Face of Controversy’, in Disagreement, ed. by Richard Feldman and Ted A. Warfield (Oup Oxford, 2010), p. 31). In short, it describes those disagreements in which “understanding, knowledge, and expertise are equally distributed among conflicting parties” (Plant, ‘Philosophical Diversity and Disagreement’, p. 571).

20_{Kornblith, ‘Belief in the Face of Controversy’, p. 33.} 21_{Kornblith, ‘Belief in the Face of Controversy’, p. 52.}

Rescher, Nicholas, The Strife of Systems: An Essay on the Grounds and Implications of Philosophical Diversity (Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985), p. 250.

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1. Anti-Dogmatism and the Problem of Ends cannot be entirely serious about the results?).23_{Therefore, the most attractive solution to the}

problem of irresolvable disagreement is to deny that every philosophical position could lead to an irresolvable dispute with other positions. This would require one to show that their own philosophical position is not merely one possible view among many, but that it is somehow on another level, not subject to irresolvable disagreement. Because only by establishing a position that one cannot reasonably disagree with can the problem be avoided. This approach is precisely the strategy to the problem of disagreement taken by the anti-dogmatists. As we will see in the next chapter Descartes and Husserl attempt to avoid the predicament of being just one position among others by arguing that their philosophical position is the natural beginning of philosophy (philosophy as first philosophy, or even as a prelude to philosophy), while Sextus, Wittgenstein and Hegel (although in radically different ways) attempt to establish a position that constitutes the natural end of philosophy (its ultimate limit or state of maturity).

This is not to say that all anti-dogmatic philosophers explicitly employ the problem of disagreement to show the importance of anti-dogmatic philosophy (although most of them have at least mentioned it as a significant problem that is to be avoided). Rather, the claim is that it is useful to understand anti-dogmatism as a reaction to the problem of disagreement. Of course, not all anti-dogmatic philosophers ultimately aimed to solve the problem in the traditional sense (that is, show why irresolvable disagreement is not applicable to their philosophical position). Sextus, for one, happily accepts that irresolvable disagreement (or what he describes as Agrippa’s trilemma) is an inescapable result of philosophy that should lead to abandoning its claim to truth. Rather, they all seem to take the problem of disagreement seriously and attempt to adopt the proper attitude towards it. Their anti-dogmatic methods can be seen in precisely the same light, namely as a path to lead them to a position not troubled by reasonably disagreeing rivals. The commitment to anti-dogmatism of Sextus,24_Descartes,25_Hegel26_{, Husserl}27_{and Wittgenstein}28_{can therefore be understood (at}

least to a certain degree) as a reaction to the ever-present threat of deeply disagreeing views.

23 _{There is unfortunately not enough space to argue in depth for these somewhat cryptic (but most likely}

intuitive sounding) claims. For a convincing critique of the third option, see Plant, ‘Philosophical Diversity and Disagreement’.

24_{Sextus’ connection to disagreement is perhaps the most obvious of all anti-dogmatists. As we will see in the}

following chapter, Sextus entire sceptical method turns on the ability to bring about disagreement through which one recognises that both positions in the discussion have equal weight. For a discussion of Sextus’ relation to disagreement, see Machuca, Diego E., ‘The Pyrrhonian Argument from Possible Disagreement’, Archiv Für

Geschichte Der Philosophie, 93 (2011), 148–61.

25 _{Although Descartes is not often presented as dealing with the problem of disagreement, it is possible to}

interpret his argument from radical doubt as strongly related to the argument from disagreement. For such an attempt, see Lammeranta, Markus, ‘The Role of Disagreement in Pyrrhonian and Cartesian Skepticism’, in Machuca, Diego E., ed., Disagreement and Skepticism, 1 edition (New York: Routledge, 2012).

26 _{Hegel’s concern with the problem of the criterion and his general relation to ancient scepticism has been}

heavily discussed in contemporary Hegel scholarship. However, judging from his introduction to the

Phenomenology of Spirit, his argument for the need of the Phenomenology might similarly be interpreted in terms of

disagreement between different philosophical positions. This would be to say that Hegel clearly recognised the conflicting claims to knowledge of the plurality of philosophical positions, and therefore deemed it necessary to avoid take up one of such positions. In this sense, his phenomenological method could equally be presented as a reaction to the pervasive occurrence of deep disagreement within philosophy. See chapter 3 for a more elaborate reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology and its context.

27_{In contrast to the other anti-dogmatists discussed in this thesis, it might appear that Husserl cannot be easily}

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After identifying four important ‘family resemblances’ of anti-dogmatism, we considered multiple answers to the question why dogmatic philosophy should be avoided. Such considerations are of course not supposed to be knockdown arguments for the need to philosophise radically anti-dogmatically (that attempt would obviously far exceed the limits of this study). What these arguments are supposed to show, if only briefly hint at, is that the anti-dogmatic demands are not just silly or gratuitous ideas from philosophers of the past. On the contrary, they point to serious problems with dogmatism that cannot easily be brushed aside.

1.2 The Myth of the Given End of Philosophy

When confronted with possibly the worst question one can ask a philosopher – ‘what is philosophy?’ – it is common to analogise philosophising with the act of searching. Following up on this metaphor we could, as we have seen, conceive of anti-dogmatic philosophy as a search wherein the searcher refuses to rely on anything accepted by mere positing, trust, authority, tradition or common sense, and instead, searches by employing a special method that guides every step of its search in order to find a position that is absolutely legitimate and justified. But what are we exactly searching for in philosophy?29_{And how can we be certain that what}

we are searching for is actually worth finding? Or, to put it more concretely, what is the appropriate goal of philosophy? And what determines whether or not a conception of the ultimate end of philosophy is legitimate?

Before attempting to answer such questions it might be useful to first pin down our terminology. With ‘a conception of the ultimate goal of philosophy’ I will not merely mean the end that an anti-dogmatic philosopher explicitly identifies as his or her goal. Rather, I will consider the goal of one’s philosophical project to be the criterion that determines the success of one’s

several remarks in his Cartesian Mediations that seem to point to Husserl having disagreement as a possible motivation for phenomenology. Consider for example his remarks that the “splintering of present-day philosophy” raises the problem that “When we attempt to view western philosophy as a unitary science, its decline since the middle of the nineteenth century is unmistakable. The comparative unity that it had in previous ages, in its aims, its problems and methods, has been lost.” In these remarks, Husserl clearly sees the cacophony of different philosophies as a troubling and disconcerting state. Indeed, one of the essential motivations of his Meditations is to discover a common starting-point from which philosophy must begin.

28 _{Wittgenstein’s recognition of and discussion on the problem of deep and irresolvable disagreement appears}

mostly in his late work On Certainty. However, Oskari Kuusela, a Wittgenstein scholar who will be discussed more thoroughly in the next chapter, also departs his therapeutic interpretation of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical

Investigations from the problem of disagreement. As he states in his introduction: “the conception that the only –

or indeed the best – way to positively contribute to philosophy is to present doctrines, theses, or theories cannot be taken for granted. The fact that philosophers, unlike scientists, have not been able to reach any agreement about their doctrines, theses, or theories is already sufficient grounds to question this assumption.”

In:Kuusela, Oskari, The Struggle Against Dogmatism: Wittgenstein and the Concept of Philosophy (Harvard University Press, 2009), p. 2.

See also: Fogelin, Robert, ‘The Logic of Deep Disagreements’, Informal Logic, 7 (1985), 3–11.

Godden, David, and William H. Brenner, ‘Wittgenstein and the Logic of Deep Disagreement’, Cogency: Journal of

Reasoning and Argumentation, 2 (2010), 41–80.

29_{This question comes dangerously close to a possibly even harder question to answer: why are we searching at}

all? I will not directly deal with this question (but see chapter 3 in which Hegel’s answer to this question is discussed). Instead, I will take it for granted that we, philosophers, accept that we have to search, but disagree about what it is that we are searching for. The following critique of anti-dogmatism could, however, be even stronger if one starts even without the ‘desire for searching’.

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1. Anti-Dogmatism and the Problem of Ends philosophical project.30_{In turn, whether the results of a philosophical project are ‘satisfying’ or}

not (whatever satisfying is taken to be), depends on one’s initial conception of the ultimate goal of philosophy. It is important to recognise that anti-dogmatism, as discussed above, is generally speaking not an end in itself, that is, it is not the ultimate criterion of the success of the anti-dogmatic project. Judging from the history of anti-dogmatic thinking, even the most radical anti-dogmatist does not merely aim to be anti-dogmatic, but also aims for a positive end – without such a positive goal the easiest way to avoid dogmatism would most likely be to not begin philosophising at all.31_{Rather, anti-dogmatism functions as a set of restrictions on one’s}

philosophical enquiry. The anti-dogmatist strives for a positive goal, but does that under the condition that the goal cannot be achieved by dogmatic means, that is, anti-dogmatism holds itself to restricting requirements that are designed to avoid dogmatic thinking. Anti-dogmatism entails a negative set of metaphilosophical claims about what philosophy is not supposed to be (its anti-dogmatic restrictions), while it necessarily posits a positive claim about what philosophy should be (its positive goal).32

But this already suggests a fundamental yet not fully articulated problem of ends for anti-dogmatic philosophy – its positive metaphilosophical claim appears to be in tension with its radically negative metaphilosophical claims. For if the restrictions posed on itself by the negative claims of anti-dogmatism are stringent and rigid enough to preclude any kind of dogmatism (as they are designed to do), they might at the same time preclude its own positive claim about philosophy’s ultimate end. To avoid this problem, the anti-dogmatic philosopher must not only undertake his philosophical enquiry without relying on dogma, he must also legitimate his positive goal of philosophy undogmatically. But how could a particular conception of the goal of philosophy be undogmatically legitimated?

Before answering this specific question, it might be informative to first restate our initial question what the goal of philosophy is as such. If we could discern a single goal that underlies every philosophical enquiry – perhaps the ultimate aim that must be pursued in order to even call it philosophy (and failing to pursue that goal would mean that one’s enquiry is simply not philosophy) – anti-dogmatism’s problem of positing its positive goal undogmatically might turn out to be much less intractable. Anti-dogmatic philosophy would then aim for the exact same goal as ‘dogmatic’ philosophy, but would merely put more emphasis on legitimating its results.

30 _{Given that identifying the specific aim or criterion of success of a philosophical project is obviously a}

precarious task, it might be more appropriate to speak of an underlying set of beliefs – a metaphilosophical framework – that explains why it makes sense to undertake that project.

31_{As we will see, even the ancient sceptics, who came closest to a complete dismissal of philosophy, did not turn}

to their sceptical tactics because those were the only remedy for dogmatic thinking. They clearly strived for (and propagated) a positive goal as well, namely to achieve a tranquil state of mind (ataraxia).

32_{Interestingly, this could be formulated even broader; the positive claim of anti-dogmatism does not only consist}

of the positing of the proper goal of philosophy, rather, the positive claim might be said to refer to the positing of an entire metaphilosophical framework. That is, philosophy necessarily carries metaphilosophical judgements and evaluations with it (for example about the nature, methods and boundaries of philosophy), which makes every position in philosophy inherently metaphilosophical. Although it is not possible to argue for the suggestion further, I hold that the following critique of anti-dogmatism’s (im)possibility to justify its positive goal undogmatically, also applies to the broader formulation discussed above. Anti-dogmatism always implies a set of metaphilosophical evaluations that can themselves not easily be legitimated undogmatically.

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One common and nowadays almost trivial-sounding view of the goal of philosophy is to find solutions to philosophical problems. Although this deflationary conception of philosophy’s goal might be an accurate description of the current state of philosophy within the academic world, one look at the history of philosophy shows that matters are much more complicated.33_{Instead of pursuing one single goal, philosophers have often vehemently}

disagreed on the proper end of philosophy. It is hardly an exaggeration that there have been as many conceptions of the aim of philosophy as there have been philosophers. To mention a few, philosophy has been portrayed throughout the ages as an examination of the good life, a preparation for death, a method for finding an indubitable foundation for science, a way to achieve knowledge of the absolute, the rediscovery of Being, a way to achieve inner peace, a personal reflection on the human condition, a critical tool to (re-)evaluate science, the realisation of freedom, a method for analysing our most fundamental concepts, and as a critique of ideology. So instead of there simply being one single goal that every philosophical system is aimed at, a goal that must be pursued by everyone doing philosophy, there has been a plurality of considerably different aims throughout the history of philosophy.

The great variety of philosophical ends not only raises the descriptive question ‘what is philosophy?’, but, more importantly, it confronts us with the prescriptive question ‘what should philosophy be?’.34_{The prescriptive question would be less pressing if the many aims}

strived for in philosophy would all somehow be in harmony. The philosophical reality, however, is that many of the proposed goals of philosophy are genuinely incompatible with other goals. This means that it is not only impossible to achieve all of philosophy’s goals given practical hurdles – such as a lack of time, intellectual power or energy – but that these goals are mutually exclusive on a theoretical level. For example, striving for a mind free of disturbances (ataraxia, the goal of many ancient sceptics) will most likely be in conflict with the goal to criticise certain aspects of bourgeois society, and vice versa. Ataraxia impedes genuine activism, while genuine activism precludes ataraxia. That means that even if such projects were successful in achieving their respective goals, its success could still be challenged by someone striving for an entirely different goal. This shows that it is not only in their methods and results that philosophers often disagree, but that there are also deeply conflicting conceptions of the appropriate goal of philosophy.35

Besides the plurality of incompatible goals there is an even more radical challenge to the idea that the goal of philosophy is simply ‘given’. This challenge has to do with the emergence of what can be called ‘metaphilosophical suspicion’. ‘Masters’ of

33 _{Indeed, as Pippin observes, “The whole idea that philosophy consists of ‘problems’ is itself a relatively new}

one, has a history”.

Pippin, Robert B., ‘Philosophy Is Its Own Time Comprehended in Thought’, Topoi, 25 (2006), 85–90.

34 _{C.f. Overgaard, Søren, Paul Gilbert, and Stephen Burwood, An Introduction to Metaphilosophy (Cambridge}

University Press, 2013), p. 18.

35_{Or, as Piercey puts the point in his article ‘Metaphilosophy as First Philosophy’, philosophical disputes are not}

limited to particular answers to philosophical questions, since “there are even larger disputes between the overarching structures that organize our thinking: structures such as paradigms, traditions, and conceptual schemes. Thomists and Nietzscheans, for example, do not just disagree about which philosophical theories are correct. They disagree about what a philosophical theory ought to do, and about what counts as a philosophical question in the first place.”

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1. Anti-Dogmatism and the Problem of Ends metaphilosophical suspicion such as Marx and the later Wittgenstein raised the possibility that philosophers have all been utterly mistaken about the nature of philosophy.36_According

to Marx, philosophers are deeply deluded in thinking that philosophy is nothing but interpreting the world, while the philosopher’s actual task is “to change it”.37_{Wittgenstein on the other}

hand attempted to ‘cure’ philosophers of the thought that philosophy has to do with real, substantial problems. Instead, Wittgenstein argued that these problems are nothing but “diseases of the understanding”, or ‘mental cramps’, that should be dissolved (rather than solved) by philosophical therapy.38_{These are of course very crude and simplified descriptions of}

Marx and Wittgenstein’s metaphilosophy (not to speak about the highly contentious interpretations they rest on). The point here, however, is not to give a detailed and balanced interpretation of their work, but to describe the unsettling potential of their fundamental critiques of philosophy, since they point to the idea that philosophy as it is commonly practiced is a deeply flawed enterprise, not in the least because philosophers have been systematically mistaken about philosophy’s proper goal. Masters of metaphilosophical suspicion thus confront us with the possibility that it is possible to be deeply mistaken about what we should aim for in philosophy, without even having the slightest awareness of our delusion. This means that we might spend our whole life thinking about philosophical problems under the illusion that they have actual depth and significance, while they in fact are the result of being bewitched by our language or a dogmatic attitude. Or, on the other hand, we could waste our time trying to solve highly abstract intellectual riddles, while they are in fact nothing more than the result of a bourgeois hegemony that leads us away from the real problems (such as inequality, domination or alienation) – practical problems philosophy should in fact busy itself with.

To sum up, there is widespread disagreement about what philosophy should aim for, the goals that are proposed can be genuinely incompatible, and there has been a growing suspicion in the last two centuries that philosophers themselves can be universally deluded about what their philosophical aim should be. This suggests that the goal of philosophy is anything but an unproblematic ‘given’. Philosophising is not a neutral activity, thinking about one topic now, another topic later. Instead we are forced to take a stand on the question which philosophical ends (which goals, which questions, which problems) we must consider to be valuable, legitimate or achievable.39_{Moreover, these normative commitments are open to}

powerful challenges – there is the disconcerting possibility to get it wrong.

36_{Other philosophers might also fit the bill. One can think for example of Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida and}

Rorty. A more contemporary example is Kitcher (2011), who describes the present practice of philosophy as ‘‘self-indulgence for the few’’ that has caused philosophers to forget why philosophy is even important.

See Kitcher, Philip, ‘Philosophy Inside Out’, Metaphilosophy, 42 (2011), 248–60.

37 _{Marx, Karl, The German Ideology: Including Theses on Feuerbach and Introduction to The Critique of Political Economy}

(Prometheus Books, 1976), thesis XI.

38_{More on this interpretation of Wittgenstein in chapter 2.1.}

39_{Rescher describes the ‘normatively-loadedness’ of the dispute about philosophical ends (slightly dramatically)}

as a philosophical war: “it is distinctly reminiscent of that of politics, and the fact is that philosophy at large exhibits a certain ‘political’ aspect because the struggle to set philosophy’s question agenda is in effect a dispute for territorial dominance, a ‘turf war’ of sorts. Philosophizing thus has an in-escapable ‘political’ (as it were) dimension. Philosophers would fain be in a position to dictate the agenda, taking the line (however discretely or even tacitly) that ‘my issues are the ones that have top priority’. To articulate a philosophical position is to

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This would all hardly matter if the goal were just a trivial and unimportant aspect of a philosophical project. But this is clearly not the case. In fact, questions concerning which philosophical problems one should address (and in what order they have to be dealt with), which traditions one should take serious and which branches of philosophy one should engage with, make sense only against the background of an underlying idea about the appropriate goal of philosophy. Even more importantly, choosing one goal (or more) over many other possible goals will have a major influence on the outcome of one’s philosophical project and whether that project is successful (and to whom). Disputes between philosophical positions that fundamentally disagree about the proper goal of philosophy might be genuinely irresolvable. For not only do they disagree about whether the other’s position actually delivers what it aims for, they also disagree about whether what the other’s position aims for is appropriate in the first place. Without common ground between these positions, no genuine discussion is possible – they both consider the other’s position to be a failure relative to their own standards of success, standards which are themselves subject of disagreement. This means that it might be entirely reasonable to accept that the other’s philosophical project is successful under its own conditions, but at the same time deny that the resulting philosophical position is legitimate. For if the goal that is achieved in the project is deemed to be insignificant, inappropriate or illegitimate, the results of the project will be equally insignificant, inappropriate and illegitimate. Therefore, given the importance of our conception of the goal of philosophy, the large variety of differing and incompatible ends and the unsettling possibility of pursuing the wrong goal, it is important to be able to legitimate the underlying conception of the goal of philosophy.40_{Just as any other philosophical claim,}

the initial orientation and goal philosophers begin their enquiry with might be reasonably challenged by others and must therefore be legitimated. Consequently, for an anti-dogmatist the legitimation of his conception of the ultimate aim of philosophy, would have to conform to his own requirements of undogmatic legitimation.

To recapitulate, anti-dogmatism might be said to intimate four characteristics: (1) a strong commitment towards the legitimacy of one’s own philosophical position, (2) an appreciation of the force of (metaphilosophical) scepticism, (3) the call for a ‘radical break’ in

engage in an imperialism of sorts. For half the battle, so to speak, lies in managing to set the agenda, to be in a position to determine the rules of conflict by delimiting the shape of the battlefield. Its declaration regarding some discussion that ‘this just isn't really doing philosophy (as it should be done)’ is in general deeply revelatory about the substance of any philosophical discussion.[…] The question of just what is to figure on the agenda and what the relative priority of these items should be is itself clearly an appropriate, nay ultimately inevitable subject of philosophical deliberation.”

Rescher, Nicholas, Interpreting Philosophy (Frankfurt; Piscataway, NJ: De Gruyter, 2007), p. 53.

40 _{It is an interesting question to what extent this requirement applies to different varieties of philosophical}

thinking. For example, it might seem highly inappropriate to demand a comprehensive justification for the goal of philosophers who deal with philosophical problems in a piecemeal way (the modus operandi of contemporary academic philosophy) – a justification that would explain why that specific problem is particularly pressing, why that problem must be solved (before other problems), why others should be interested in solving the problem, why the solution to the problem would be valuable to obtain, and most fundamentally, why philosophy should be a problem-solving enterprise at all. This is of course not to say that this task might not be taken more seriously by academic philosophers if they want to avoid losing a wider audience. However, while the problem of ends seems less pressing and significant for the piecemeal philosopher, it is, as we will see in the following chapter, much deeper and significant for the radical anti-dogmatist.

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1. Anti-Dogmatism and the Problem of Ends philosophy and (4) a strong emphasis on philosophical method. Subsequently several reasons were provided for the need to philosophise undogmatically, of which the most persuasive reason had to do with the ever recurring and deeply problematic occurrence of deep, systemic and irresolvable disagreement within philosophy. Next we turned to the question what the goal of (dogmatic) philosophy is. After noticing an apparent tension between anti-dogmatism’s positive metaphilosophical claim about the goal of philosophy and its radically negative metaphilosophical claims, we evaluated the possibility that the goal of philosophy is somehow a simple and fixed given. As it turned out, however, philosophy can hardly be said to have such a single ‘essence’, that is, one neutral conception of its ultimate end. On the contrary, what was discovered was that any ‘positive metaphilosophical claim’ (a conception of what philosophy should be and what it should strive for) is equally subject to widespread disagreement and deep scepticism, and thereby raises the same kind of problems that anti-dogmatism was designed to avoid. Therefore the question how to legitimate the goal of philosophy undogmatically, as it was formulated only abstractly and preliminary above – in short, the problem of ends – remains unanswered. The problem is even more pressing when one considers that anti-dogmatists disagree among themselves about the proper goal of philosophy (as we will see in the following chapter). The initial formulation, however, remains too abstract to reveal the true tension within anti-dogmatism. For must the negative metaphilosophical claims of anti-dogmatism necessarily undermine its positive claim about the goal of philosophy? Or is this merely a thorny yet avoidable problem for the anti-dogmatist? And why exactly is it so problematic for anti-dogmatism to legitimate its goal undogmatically? To answer such questions and to formulate a more precise critique of the inherent tension within anti-dogmatism, it will be illuminating to evaluate several concrete, historical examples of anti-dogmatic projects. The question guiding this enquiry will therefore be whether such anti-dogmatic philosophical projects indeed exhibit a tension between their anti-dogmatic ideals and their positive philosophical aims, and if so, to uncover how this tension is produced within anti-dogmatism.

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2. Manifestations of the Problem of Ends

Take what is needed;

do as you ought; and you will get what you wanted.

Leibniz At this point we have an account of radical anti-dogmatism and a preliminary conception of the tension between anti-dogmatism’s negative claims about what philosophy should not be, and its positive goal – what philosophy should be. The problem of ends, as it was only abstractly formulated in the previous chapter, arises because the positing of the positive claim about philosophy’s ultimate end requires an extreme and undogmatic legitimation if it is not to be undermined by the anti-dogmatist’s own negative metaphilosophical restrictions. However, without any reference to actual anti-dogmatic projects such a critique would remain abstract and empty. Must anti-dogmatism’s positive and negative claims necessarily be in conflict and how should we precisely conceptualise this conflict? What is needed to answer these questions is an evaluation of various concrete shapes of anti-dogmatic philosophies. If the claim that radical anti-dogmatism produces an inherent tension is correct, it should be demonstrable in concrete philosophical works. Moreover, such a demonstration would bolster the problem by showing how even those philosophers who pursued the anti-dogmatic ideal to its most radical extremes have struggled to legitimate their positive philosophical goal without betraying their own anti-dogmatic commitments. As we will discover in this chapter, the attempt to ground one’s goal undogmatically faces two obstacles: the dilemma of legitimating one’s goal and the aporia of the order of goal and method.

Needless to say, it would be impossible to give a detailed account of every individual anti-dogmatic system. Instead, I will try to bring about a sensitivity for the conflict between anti-dogmatism and its possibility of legitimating one’s positive goal in philosophy by sketching short accounts of Sextus Empiricus, Wittgenstein, Descartes and Husserl,1_{in each}

case discussing three questions: how (and to what extent) is their philosophy supposed to be anti-dogmatic? What is their proposed goal of philosophy? And how does the conflict between the two arise? It must be stressed that the role of these descriptions – it might be more appropriate to speak of philosophical vignettes – is merely to uncover what the problem of ends is and how it arises. Given these specific purposes, I will not be able to deal with the

1_{The reasons for this specific selection of anti-dogmatists will become clear in the particular descriptions (and}

the obstacles extracted from them). As a preliminary explanation, two general reasons might suffice (besides the obvious practical advantage of discussing anti-dogmatists with whom I happen to be most familiar with). First, through this selection we discover that, despite the immense differences between the four approaches (anti-philosophy vs. (anti-philosophy, anti-theoretical vs. strict philosophical ‘Wissenschaft’, (epistemic) theoretical goals vs. (therapeutic) practical goals, recommendations to end philosophy vs. recommendations to begin philosophy, etc.), the problem of ends appears to be a structural feature of all of them. Second, these four philosophers are often interpreted to be prime examples of philosophers that are concerned with avoiding dogmatic tendencies. If it would turn out that even these great anti-dogmatists can be accused of succumbing to the problem of ends (as I will argue in this chapter), their failure provides a strong reason for accepting that there is no acceptable positive answer to the question how an undogmatic legitimation of philosophy is possible.

Anti-Dogmatism and the Ends of Philosophy