[PART 1]
The taste of San Francisco
The very taste of San Francisco was an encounter with a beggar. Throughout the trip, a dozen more would try to separate me from my very modest supply of cash. Perhaps they didn't see past my semi-formal dress to the young man who would hike up and down six blocks to the McDonalds to order several double-cheeseburgers from the dollar menu. Much in the same way those clothes were meant disguise or at least separate that part of me while I attended the formal conference.
One of the sharpest contrasts in San Francisco is wealth. The biggest thing I notice is the classy restaurants located only a block away from a pawn shop, liquor store, and perhaps an old homeless man. The fact that every building is store, and just about every piece of land is a building or road creates a very money-oriented environment.
Even chess in the park had a fee, or at least it had a large man in a black gown who expected you to pay 50 cents a game. Most of the games had bets placed on them, and I watched several lightning-fast games. Even the way a player cheated, and got caught, gives some flavor to the city. I indulged in a slow game, and drew.
My thriftiness battled the city; I aimed to live on about 10 dollars a day, which meant multiple times I had a meal of a can of beans, fruit, ramen, and some trail-mix that I brought. Cooking would have been no cheaper; a jar of spaghetti sauce was priced at $3 and the meat and noodles would put the price well over $6. I figure that I averaged about $12 a day, which meant my primary liquid intake was water from the APA.
Constantly carrying water around, I was surprised when on several occasions a bum would request my water, which I always obliged to. I wonder how many ethical theories were discussed at the APA, and how many ethicists paused to consider their ethical codes when it came to the matter of the poor people they constantly encountered.
The biggest money-saver was the hostel, and it proved to be an exception to the phrase "You only get what you pay for." After a long day of conferences I would lie across my rail-less top bunk and chat to my two British roommates about cultural differences and similarities, as well as experiences we had. I hope I helped to quash some of their negative stereotypes about us "Yanks," and I found them quite friendly and sensitive.
Each night, the basement of the hostel was always packed full of Swiss, Dutch, English, and other European young adults. They were all willing to share a beer (I'm 21), constantly ready to for a game of pool or foosball, and had no shame about performing karaoke of American songs that had worked their way over to their homelands.
Each morning, I faced another jarring juxtaposition of the city. I dressed in the same formal shirt every day, put on my name tag, misidentifying me as Alex Rohde from "Ohio State University," and walked to the an environment that had nothing in common with the hostel basement of the night before. The biggest difference I noticed was the way people viewed themselves. I sense that a lot of the APA attitude was competitive or arrogant. I recall overhearing comments such as the exasperated complaint, "If I have to listen to one more grad student who thinks he has a brilliant solution to … whatever…."
Still, there was philosophy here. I came ultimately for that philosophy, and didn't let myself get caught up in the feelings involved, even though my natural tendency as a psychologist-to-be is to be very attentive to emotions and motivations. The philosophy itself was more than enough to think about; the breadth of topics was matched only by the depth of the topics. I found myself completely disoriented many times. Sometimes, part-way through an incomprehensible argument like modal property logic, my mind would start to wander, as I stared blankly at a sheet with a set of alien symbols on it that was clarified with such English(?) phrases as "There is no modally defined attribute that can be excluded from propertyhood on purely logical grounds." The topic that would come to mind most forcefully, was "Is this discussion useful?" And I would consider how important money would seem the second I was out on the street, and how important time, sleep, and grades would seem back when I was at OSU.
In a way, San Francisco was an escape from OSU, and although I could forget about those concerns for the week, they still existed somewhere. And the APA could, in turn, be viewed as an escape from the harsh streets of San Francisco, where all my basic needs would be met for the day, I would ultimately end up headed back to the hostile with one day less and several questions more. Some questions seemed simple, some seemed unanswerable, some questions were about my questions.
The most pressing questions, which I still haven't answered today were, "Is this a fair tradeoff? Are those philosophical questions worth the days of my life? Or should I view philosophy as an escape, a vacation, that is enjoyed only for what it is and not judged on what it produces?"
These very questions were addressed, partially, in one of the more concrete and comprehensible discussions:
[PART 2]
One of the underpinning questions in many minds, of philosophy enthusiasts of all levels, voiced or not, is "What is philosophy for?" Professor Raatzsch tried to confront this question and others like it in his piece on teleological metaphilosophy. The discussion gets furthered with the additional question, "If philosophy has a purpose, why is there so much disagreement?"
Professor Raatzsch suggests that the problem isn't that simple, because there is "no easy division between means and ends" in philosophy. He alludes to Hegel who "points to the battlefield on which disagreements take place as a unifying pre-requisite for those disagreements." The meaning and relevance of this counter is beyond me.
The issue is further addressed with the thought by J. W. Powell, "We could confirm as well by reminding ourselves that attacks on philosophy can never succeed, since attacking philosophy on the grounds that, for instance, philosophers are furthering slave morality, or they are margianalizing despised poles of dichotomies with arguments which are only expressions of ideologies, or they are engaging in useless and sterile debates,- since all such attacks involve arguing for or at least endorsing philosophical positions. That is, one must do philosophy to attack philosophy, at least attack in ways which offer grounds, and the result is that philosophy itself is absolutely immune to those attacks." This is mistaken reasoning. Philosophy can be challenged entirely in all areas except the area of challenging itself.
So even though one cannot refute philosophy as a whole, much like one cannot refute thinking as a whole, it is entirely possibly to attack portions even the majority of philosophy, or even every single thing about philosophy, except the use of doubting.
Powell comments that philosophy is given a use through the fact that it is necessary to question one's life, much as Socrates suggested. This is a valid point, but is a narrow defense considering how little of philosophy is necessary to scrutinize one's life.
Powell further says that the purpose of philosophy is to "reveal our delusions," but doesn't give any practical examples or any clearer interpretation.
Discussion questions:
Does all of philosophy have a use? If not, does each piece of philosophy even need a use? Is substantial progress being made in philosophical consensus? If not, does this offer any kind of evidence that those areas which are gridlocked the most are less objective?