From Wodehouse to Wittgenstein

Anthony Quinton presented Round Britain Quiz but the rest of the time was a philosopher based in Oxford: fellow of All Souls, fellow of New College and president of Trinity College.

This is how he defines philosophy.

The shortest definition, and it is quite a good one, is that philosophy is thinking about thinking. That brings out the generally second-order character of the subject, as reflective thought about particular kinds of thinking – formation of beliefs, claims to knowledge – about the world or large parts of it. (The Oxford Companion to Philosophy)

I was subconsciously put off philosophy, knowing that Jeeves read Nietzsche. It must be strong stuff, I reasoned, not for me, and so for a long time there was – still is, really – a gaping void in my understanding of philosophy. However, I have made some tentative steps towards remedying this.

Examining the tenets of individual philosophers, unless you are reading the subject for a university degree, is hard work. An overview written in simple language is what is required and Stephen Law’s The Philosophy Gym, 25 Short Adventures in Thinking  provides this. He looks at practical questions using philosophical thinking to illuminate them. Here are some extracts.

Is it right to sacrifice the life of one conjoined twin to save the other? Is gay sex morally permissable? Should children be sent to religious schools? Is it morally acceptable to eat meat?

An advantage of a little philosophical training is that it can provide the skills needed to think independently and question what others might take for granted. It can also help fortify your courage in making a moral stand As the philosopher Professor Jonathan Glover points out in an interview in the Guardian:

‘If you look at the people who sheltered Jews under the Nazis, you find a number of things about them. One is that they tended to have a different kind of upbringing from the average person; they tended to be brought up in a non-authoritarian way, brought up to have sympathy with other people and to discuss things rather than just do what they were told.”

Glover adds, “teaching people to think rationally and critically actually can make a difference to people’s susceptibility to false ideologies”. Admittedly, there’s no guarantee that someone who has been encouraged to think critically will avoid such pitfalls. But, like Glover, I believe the greatest risk comes, not from a society of autonomous critical thinkers, but from a society of unreflective sheep.

This post takes its title from a book of nineteen essays by Anthony Quinton. Antony Flew, in Philosophy Now, describes the essay on PGW,

‘Wodehouse and the Tradition of Comedy’ … is a serious, scholarly and at the same time entertaining essay in literary criticism. For instance, “a girl says to Wooster: ‘You’re a pig Bertie’ and receives the reply ‘A pig maybe – but a shrewd, level headed pig.’ At one level this is enjoyable because of the absurdity of ascribing level-headedness, which implies that his condition has been achieved despite the temptations of flightiness, to a creature as sedate, predictable and unenterprising as a pig. But there is a further aspect. The comparison invites us to feel more fellowship with a pig than is customary.

Try a work-out in the philosophy gym.