philosophical brawls

Philosophers are generally, it seems, bellicose people. In an amusing article in The Guardian, we learn more about a feud between professor Ted Honderich and professor Colin McGinn. McGinn has produced what the Guardian journalist calls "the most negative book review ever written". It was written on one of Honderich's books (On Consciousness). From the review: "It is a pity that his own efforts here are so shoddy, inept, and disastrous (to use a term he is fond of applying to the views of others)." And: "Honderich's understanding of positions he criticizes is often weak to nonexistent, though not lacking in chutzpah. And the view he ends up defending is preposterous in the extreme and easily refuted."

Well, imagine yourself in Honderich's shoes! Honderich defended himself thus: "It is a cold, calculated attempt to murder a philosopher's reputation". Over the telephone, McGinn told the journalist: "It's not like you're hitting someone over the head with a hammer. Ted is not very good at philosophy. That's the problem."

Which philosophical question fuelled the brawl (even though we might have reason to believe there are some personal vendettas going on)? Honderich has presented a position he calls externalism regarding the nature of 'consciousness'.Of the little I've read about Honderich's position, it appears that he defends a form of post-davidsonian epiphenomenalism, to which is added an appendage of 'subjectivity' (Go Here if you are interested). Epiphenomenalism is the idea that the mental is a mere shadow of the physical, the mental being in some sense dependent on the physical without being able to influence it. (But 'epiphenomenalism' is, to my knowledge, something philosophers are criticized for, rather than a position somebody would take up. - But what do I know.) McGinn, for his part, promulgates a theory according to which there are philosophical problems which are inherently "beyond human understanding". To me, this sounds very Nagel-ish. None of these positions seems very interesting.

Here is one example of Honderich's brilliant defence of his position: "And in any case, how dare McGinn rubbish my position. Twelve leading philosophers contributed to a book about my theory [in a special issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies last August] and not one of them was as abusive as he was."

The journalist reminds us of other similarly bellicose philosophers. Wittgenstein got a bit excited in a debate with Karl Popper, who was threatened with a poker. Or so the legend goes. I haven't yet read the book dedicated to Wittgenstein's poker.

Perhaps I haven't gained enough experience about the world of philosophers yet, but brawls like this one I have not encountered - yet. Hostilities due to differences in philosophical traditions are, however, quite frequent occurences. There are also conflicts arising in a situation where a particular philosopher is considered to be a poser, to lack interest in serious interest.