Richard Carrier: Advice to Everyone on Becoming a Philosopher.

Richard Carrier, PhD., is a philosopher, lecturer, blogger and contributor to several naturalist websites.

On a recent blog post, he gives instructions on being a philosopher, and rightly suggests that everyone should perform self-examination. And one can’t help but agree with Carrier’s conclusion:

”Everything that's important follows from this process: what's right and wrong, what's important and unimportant, beautiful and ugly, true and false, better and worse, worthwhile or a waste of time. You will thus be able to make yourself a better person, and enjoy a better life, a life of less error and ignorance and greater wisdom and contentment--all at least within the limits set upon you that you can't escape.”

Carrier gives what he calls his four pillars of philosophy, written as tasks:

”Task Number 1. Spend an hour every day asking yourself questions and researching the answers.

Task Number 2. Read one good philosophy book a month.

Task Number 3. Politely argue with lots of different kinds of people who disagree with you on any of the answers you come to above.

Task Number 4. Learn how to think.”

But he immediately goes awry by insisting on three fundamental questions of philosophy, or at least to be answered first by the philosophically inclined, followed by three analytical examination questions:

"Who am I?"
"What do I really want in life? "
"How do I safely obtain it?"

…and to every answer to any of these questions then ask …

"Why is that the case?" and
"How do I know that's true?" and
"Are there other, better ways to answer that question?"

And to any of those answers, ask those same three questions, and so on, all the way down the line.”

First I suggest that his tasks are not in a proper order. “Learn how to think” should be first, and the task should be well established before any other philosophical tasks are attempted. While this seems obvious, apparently it is not. So here is the rather obvious reason why: If you still don’t know the proper process for analytical thinking, then you shouldn’t be doing analytical projects. Certainly not projects of enough import to direct the formation of your worldview. Learn the proper process first and thoroughly, and only then proceed into analytical philosophical projects.

Next I suggest that the original questions posited by Carrier are not the fundamental questions of philosophy. The questions posed by him are not basic to anything but narcissism in the seeker. Those question should be answered only after a solid grounding in deeper questions, such as these in the two lists below. The first list is mine, and is based on Russell’s list, below, and on “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding”, by John Locke, and “the Laws of Thought”, by George Boole”, and ”An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding,” by David Hume.

1. What is universal, and underlies valid thinking? (ontology)
2. What is truth? (epistemology)
3. What is knowledge? (epistemology)
4. What is life? (idealism vs. metaphysics)
5. What is a mind? (idealism vs. metaphysics)
6. What are origins and purpose? (teleology)

Bertrand Russell discusses the remaining philosophical questions to be answered by modern philosophers in his book, ”The Problems of Philosophy”. These can roughly be listed as,

a) Perception, reality, matter and idealism;
b) Knowledge, induction, general principles, universals and intuitive knowledge;
c) Truth, Falsehood and error;
d) The limits of philosophical knowledge.

Russell outlines and critiques the three basic first principles [1]:

”For no very good reason, three of these principles have been singled out by tradition under the name of ‘Laws of Thought’. They are as follows:

(1) The law of identity: ‘whatever is, is’.
(2) The law of contradiction: ‘nothing can both be and not be.’
(3) The law of excluded middle: ‘Everything must either be or not be’.

These three laws are samples of self-evident logical principles, but are not really more fundamental or more self-evident than various other similar principles: for instance, the one we considered just now, which states that what follows from a true premiss is true. The name ‘laws of thought’ is also misleading, for what is important is not the fact that we think in accordance with these laws, but the fact that things behave in accordance with them; in other words the fact that when we think in accordance with them we think truly”

Russell also attacks issues of the metaphysics of the self and mind as uncaused causers and non-empirical “substances” in his ”Fifteen Lectures on the Mind”. Ultimately he declares that mind must be of some non-material substance, as elemental and fundamental as matter, but not the same as matter, because the mind, as an uncaused causer, does not behave according to the laws of matter and is not therefore material. Russell was not a materialist.

Carrier offers no guidance toward the objective of validity in thinking. This is, in my opinion, a severe flaw in any recommendation to beginning seekers of validity and truth. Moreover, he has an a priori bias toward idealism, which is a generally discredited thought process, even amongst modern public intellectuals.

[1] Russell, "The Problems of Philosophy"; Oxford Univ Press; 1912 / 1997; pg. 72.