Philosophers Behaving Badly
Peter
Owen Publishers, 2005, 240pp, 0 7206 1219 5, £13.95
A cautionary note from the
authors…
We have used our
best endeavours to be scrupulously and equally unfair to all the philosophers
alike, and highly selective in the material that we have sought to examine.
Neither should the fact that a philosopher has not been mentioned in this volume
be taken to imply that he or she may be considered to be of good character.
We have resisted
the temptation to distinguish carefully between bad behaviour, foolishness and
plain social ineptitude. Such distinctions are relevant only to the moralistic
evaluation of behaviour, whereas our intention is merely to introduce the
follies of the wise, thereby preserving their memory from the embarrassment of
sanctification.
However, in doing
so, we recognise that integrity is frequently presented as a key feature of the
morally good life. Hence it has been necessary to include an outline of both the
life and principal contributions to thought of each of the philosophers whose
behaviour we examine, since we consider the worst form of behaviour to be that
which goes counter to those things that one professes to be just and true. Hence
we present an introduction to eight thinkers of the ‘modern’ period, with their
thought set in the context of their lives. ‘Modern’ is the term generally taken
to refer to philosophy produced since the time of Descartes. There were, of
course, many ancient iniquities and mediaeval misdemeanours, but these are
beyond the scope of our present enquiry.
The chapters on Rousseau, Schopenhaur,
Nietzsche, Russell and Wittgenstein were written by Nigel Rodgers; those on
Heidegger, Sartre and Foucault by Mel Thompson. However, sifting through the
follies of intellect has been a shared task, and both authors have contributed
to some degree to the final form of all chapters.
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