{"id":621,"date":"2024-03-12T10:13:28","date_gmt":"2024-03-12T09:13:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fomblard.fr\/?p=621"},"modified":"2024-03-12T15:43:37","modified_gmt":"2024-03-12T14:43:37","slug":"621","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fomblard.fr\/index.php\/2024\/03\/12\/621\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul>\n<li>Thal\u00e8s de Millet \u00e9tait tellement \u00e0 l\u2019ouest qu\u2019il tomba dans un puits en regardant le ciel. Et mourut.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Selon d\u2019autres sources, le fondateur du scepticisme, Pyrrhon, devait \u00eatre en permanence secouru au fond des pr\u00e9cipices ou prot\u00e9g\u00e9 des chiens enrag\u00e9s&nbsp;; il laissait mourir des proches sans les secourir parce qu\u2019il refusait de croire aux dangers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/fomblard.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/philosophefous.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-624\" srcset=\"https:\/\/fomblard.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/philosophefous.png 1024w, https:\/\/fomblard.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/philosophefous-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/fomblard.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/philosophefous-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/fomblard.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/philosophefous-768x768.png 768w, https:\/\/fomblard.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/philosophefous-500x500.png 500w, https:\/\/fomblard.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/philosophefous-1000x1000.png 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Prenant la d\u00e9fense des sceptiques, Montaigne traitait au contraire de fous les philosophes qui pr\u00e9tendent pouvoir conna\u00eetre quelque chose&nbsp;: \u00abl\u2019humaine science, dit-il dans les Essais (II,\u00a712), ne se peut maintenir que par raison d\u00e9raisonnable, folle et forcen\u00e9e\u00bb \u202f<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Hume consid\u00e9rait parfois ses sp\u00e9culations philosophiques comme un \u00ab&nbsp;d\u00e9lire m\u00e9lancolique&nbsp;\u00bb dont seule la vie ordinaire (une bonne partie de backgammon, un d\u00eener, papoter entre amis) pouvait le gu\u00e9rir (<em>Trait\u00e9 de la Nature Humaine<\/em>, 1.4.7-9) .<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Thomas Reid et les philosophes du sens commun consid\u00e9raient que les autres doctrines philosophiques comme des sornettes dignes d\u2019irrationnel Yahoos. (\u201cSuch philosophy is justly ridiculous, even to those who cannot detect the fallacy of it. It can have no other tendency, than to shew the acuteness of the sophist, at the expense of disgracing reason and human nature, and making mankind Yahoos\u201d (Reid 1764: 10)).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Voltaire d\u00e9peint Leibniz comme un imb\u00e9cile heureux et apr\u00e8s s\u2019\u00eatre moqu\u00e9 des positions de Rousseau, lui conseille \u00ab&nbsp;venir r\u00e9tablir [sa sant\u00e9] dans l\u2019air natal, jouir de la libert\u00e9, boire avec moi du lait de nos vaches, et brouter nos herbes&nbsp;\u00bb (Lettre \u00e0 Rousseau du 30 ao\u00fbt 1755).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Nietzsche, qui aimait jouer au docteur, voyait une forme de maladie mentale dans la tendance des philosophes \u00e0 chercher une r\u00e9alit\u00e9 derri\u00e8re les apparences &nbsp;(<em>Le Gai savoir<\/em>).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Dans <em>Le Monde comme volont\u00e9 et comme repr\u00e9sentation<\/em> (II \u00a719), Schopenhauer caract\u00e9rise le philosophe solipsiste comme un fou \u00e0 placer dans une maison d\u2019ali\u00e9n\u00e9s et \u00e0 r\u00e9futer \u00e0 coups de douches froides (et m\u00eame si peu de philosophes se r\u00e9clament explicitement du solipsisme, beaucoup, y compris Schopenhauer, semblent plus ou moins commis \u00e0 une telle th\u00e8se).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Dans un des gags les plus c\u00e9l\u00e8bres de la philosophie, Wittgenstein se moque de ses coll\u00e8gues en ces termes&nbsp;:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;\u2014 Je suis assis avec un philosophe dans le jardin&nbsp;; il dit \u00e0 maintes reprises&nbsp;: \u00ab&nbsp;je sais que ceci est un arbre&nbsp;\u00bb tout en d\u00e9signant un arbre pr\u00e8s de nous. Une tierce personne arrive et entend cela, et je lui dis&nbsp;: \u00ab&nbsp;Cet homme n\u2019est pas fou. Nous faisons de la philosophie&nbsp;\u00bb.(De la Certitude, \u00a7467)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI am sitting with a philosopher in the garden; he says again and again &#8216;I know that that\u2019s a tree&#8217;, pointing to a tree that is near us. Someone else arrives and hears this, and I tell him: &#8216;This fellow isn\u2019t insane. We are only doing philosophy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>L\u2019historien de la philosophie sp\u00e9cialiste de Descartes et enseignant d\u2019un bon nombre de figures de la French Theory, Ferdinand Alqui\u00e9 (1979\/2023), avan\u00e7ait carr\u00e9ment, dans un article sur Derrida, Foucault, la folie et l\u2019argument cart\u00e9sien du r\u00eave, que \u00ab&nbsp;personne ne deviendrait philosophe s\u2019il n\u2019\u00e9tait d\u2019abord un peu fou&nbsp;\u00bb.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Le philosophe irlandais John Oulton Wisdom (cousin du \u00ab&nbsp;r\u00e9aliste de Cambridge homonyme&nbsp;\u00bb) expliquait l\u2019\u00ab&nbsp;origine inconsciente&nbsp;\u00bb de l&#8217;id\u00e9alisme de Berckeley par le d\u00e9go\u00fbt prononc\u00e9 de l\u2019\u00e9v\u00eaque anglican pour ses propres excr\u00e9tions&#8230;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Tout r\u00e9cemment, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/abs\/pii\/S0010027711001351\">certaines exp\u00e9riences<\/a> ont sugg\u00e9r\u00e9 que dans plusieurs dilemmes moraux, les philosophes utilitaristes, qui consid\u00e8rent qu\u2019une action bonne maximise le bien-\u00eatre collectif et l\u00e9gitiment le sacrifice que quelques-uns pour la communaut\u00e9, agissaient comme les patients psychopathes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>On pourrait sans aucun doute multiplier les exemples (si vous en avez sous la main, je serais content de compl\u00e9ter cette liste). Avant cela, une question&nbsp;: pourquoi les philosophes se traitent-ils si fr\u00e9quemment de fous&nbsp;?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ils invoquent, on l\u2019a vu, des raisons tr\u00e8s vari\u00e9es de consid\u00e9rer leurs coll\u00e8gues comme d\u00e9rang\u00e9s, et ces raisons sont parfois antagonistes (le scepticisme, le dogmatisme, etc.). Cela pourrait sugg\u00e9rer que leurs accusations ne sont qu\u2019un moyen stigmatisant, mais malheureusement banal, de marquer son d\u00e9saccord avec un adversaire. A la mani\u00e8re des les politiciens ou les conducteurs automobiles, les philosophes diraient \u00ab&nbsp;fou&nbsp;\u00bb pour dire \u00ab&nbsp;toi, beurk&nbsp;\u00bb, \u00ab&nbsp;toi vraiment , tr\u00e8s tr\u00e8s tort&nbsp;\u00bb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Il y a sans doute, cependant, une raison plus profonde. Apr\u00e8s tout, bien des doctrines philosophiques peuvent r\u00e9ellement sembler folles. Songez aux monades de Leibniz sans portes ni fen\u00eatres, aux \u00e9l\u00e9ates qui nient la possibilit\u00e9 du mouvement, \u00e0 l\u2019id\u00e9alisme selon lequel cette table est compos\u00e9e d\u2019id\u00e9es ou aux r\u00e9cents illusionnistes qui pr\u00e9tendent que la conscience n\u2019existe pas. Imaginez-vous arr\u00eater quelqu\u2019un dans la rue et lui ass\u00e9ner avec conviction l\u2019une de ces th\u00e8ses\u2026 Je voudrais ici chercher \u00e0 expliquer cette folie ou cette apparence de folie et d\u00e9terminer si on peut (et si on doit) lui trouver un rem\u00e8de.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dans une s\u00e9rie d\u2019articles qui culmine avec la r\u00e9cente publication de son livre <em>The Weirdeness of the World<\/em>, Eric Schwitzgebel a propos\u00e9 ce qui ressemble \u00e0 une d\u00e9fense et une explication de l\u2019insanit\u00e9 philosophique. Sa th\u00e8se principale, qu\u2019il a nomm\u00e9e un temps \u00ab&nbsp;crazyism&nbsp;\u00bb est qu\u2019en ce qui concerne les probl\u00e8mes fondamentaux de la philosophie, et en particulier la m\u00e9taphysique, nous sommes tous commis \u00e0 des doctrines folles (crazy) ou (il pr\u00e9f\u00e8re d\u00e9sormais ce terme) tordues (weird), c\u2019est-\u00e0-dire \u00e0 la fois bizarres (contraires au sens commun) et douteuses (mal justifi\u00e9es). Pour \u00e9tayer son propos, il multiplie les exemples de philosophies classiques tordues (le choix est embarrassant) et en montre, plus profond\u00e9ment, que dans un grand nombre de domaines, on peut prouver qu\u2019une disjonction de propositions tordues est forc\u00e9ment vraie. Si on veut s\u2019engager dans l\u2019un de ces domaines, il faudra forc\u00e9ment adh\u00e9rer \u00e0 une proposition tordue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>En ce qui concerne le probl\u00e8me corps-esprit, nous devons par exemple choisir entre le mat\u00e9rialisme selon lequel tout est mat\u00e9riel classique (qui implique selon lui que les USA constituent une entit\u00e9 consciente) l\u2019id\u00e9alisme selon lequel tout est mental et la mati\u00e8re n\u2019existe pas (qui est \u00e9videmment bizarre), le dualisme (qui implique selon lui des bizarreries concernant les interactions corps-esprit et l\u2019extension des entit\u00e9s conscientes) ou d\u2019autres conceptions plus tordues encore selon lesquelles nous ne somme pas r\u00e9ellement conscients (l\u2019\u00e9liminativisme) ou m\u00eame les \u00e9lectrons sont conscients (le panpsychisme). Aucune de ces th\u00e8ses n\u2019est individuellement bien justifi\u00e9e, mais nous devons en choisir une.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Pourquoi les philosophes seraient-ils condamn\u00e9s \u00e0 d\u00e9fendre des th\u00e8ses tordues&nbsp;? Fondamentalement, selon Schwitzgebel, parce que le sens commun, entendu comme l\u2019ensemble de nos croyances communes, est contradictoire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>Le sens commun est incoh\u00e9rent en mati\u00e8re de m\u00e9taphysique. Des contradictions d\u00e9coulent donc in\u00e9vitablement des r\u00e9flexions m\u00e9taphysiques du sens commun, et aucun syst\u00e8me m\u00e9taphysique coh\u00e9rent ne peut adh\u00e9rer \u00e0 tous ses aspects. Bien que le sens commun nous serve bien dans nos man\u0153uvres pratiques \u00e0 travers le monde social et physique, le sens commun s\u2019est av\u00e9r\u00e9 \u00eatre un guide peu fiable en physique th\u00e9orique, th\u00e9orie des probabilit\u00e9s, neurosciences, macro\u00e9conomie, biologie \u00e9volutive, astronomie, m\u00e9decine, topologie, g\u00e9nie chimique\u2026 Si, comme il le semble, la m\u00e9taphysique ressemble plus \u00e0 ces entreprises qu\u2019\u00e0 l\u2019obtention de jugements pratiques sur la cueillette des baies et la planification des f\u00eates, nous pourrions raisonnablement douter de la fiabilit\u00e9 du sens commun comme guide pour la m\u00e9taphysique. L\u2019absence de fiabilit\u00e9 n\u2019implique pas l\u2019incoh\u00e9rence, bien s\u00fbr. Mais cela semble \u00eatre \u2019\u00e9tape suivante naturelle, et cela expliquerait bien les faits historiques en question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Common sense is incoherent in matters of metaphysics.&nbsp;&nbsp;Contradictions thus inevitably flow from commonsense metaphysical reflections, and no coherent metaphysical system can adhere to every aspect.&nbsp;&nbsp;Although common sense serves us well in practical maneuvers through the social and physical world, common sense has proven an unreliable guide in theoretical physics, probability theory, neuroscience, macroeconomics, evolutionary biology, astronomy, medicine, topology, chemical engineering\u2026.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;If, as it seems to, metaphysics more closely resembles those endeavors than it resembles reaching practical judgments about picking berries and planning parties, we might reasonably doubt the dependability of common sense as a guide to metaphysics. Undependability doesn\u2019t imply incoherence, of course.&nbsp;&nbsp;But it seems a natural next step, and it would neatly explain the historical facts at hand.<\/p>\n<cite>Eric Schwitzgebel, The Weirdness of the World<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Tel que je la comprends, l\u2019id\u00e9e de Schwitzgebel est que pour d\u00e9velopper une m\u00e9taphysique qui ne soit pas bizarre, il faudrait s\u2019appuyer sur le sens commun, mais que le sens commun contient certaines th\u00e8ses implicitement contradictoires, de sorte qu\u2019en s\u2019appuyant sur lui, on est forc\u00e9ment commis \u00e0 une th\u00e8se qui contredit directement le sens commun. Celle-ci sera par d\u00e9finition bizarre, et dans la mesure o\u00f9 elle est directement contredite par le sens commun<a href=\"#_ftn1\" id=\"_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a>, vraisemblablement douteuse. Une explication du m\u00eame genre a \u00e9t\u00e9 articul\u00e9e de mani\u00e8re plus pr\u00e9cise dans plusieurs publications par Bryan Frances, qui con\u00e7oit l\u2019ensemble de la philosophie comme un champ de paradoxes r\u00e9futant d\u00e9finitivement le sens commun (cf. par ex. Frances 2022).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>L\u2019hypoth\u00e8se de Schwitzgebel fournit une interpr\u00e9tation assez plausible des accusations de folie que se lancent les philosophes. Selon cette \u00ab&nbsp;interpr\u00e9tation crazyist&nbsp;\u00bb (appelons-l\u00e0 ainsi), (1) une th\u00e8se contraire aux croyances de sens commun semblerait folle (2) et le sens commun \u00e9tant contradictoire, les philosophes devraient forc\u00e9ment endosser des doctrines contraires au sens commun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>L\u2019analyse de Schwitzgebel soul\u00e8ve cependant plusieurs questions d\u00e9licates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Pourquoi le sens commun, entendu, encore une fois, comme l\u2019ensemble de nos croyances communes, est-il contradictoire&nbsp;?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u00c9tant donn\u00e9 que nos croyances communes peuvent changer et que les philosophes sont suppos\u00e9s souligner les probl\u00e8mes pos\u00e9s par ces croyances communes depuis plus de 2500 ans, pourquoi n\u2019avons-nous pas r\u00e9ussi \u00e0 r\u00e9former le sens commun pour en chasser les contradictions&nbsp;? Par exemple, pourquoi n\u2019avons-nous pas, comme le sugg\u00e8rent depuis longtemps certains, fait table rase et remplac\u00e9 le sens commun par la conception scientifique du monde&nbsp;?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Il existe une r\u00e9ponse \u00e0 ces questions qui sugg\u00e8re, il me semble, une interpr\u00e9tation alternative des accusations de folie lanc\u00e9es \u00e0 la philosophie, et un diagnostic tr\u00e8s diff\u00e9rent, qui ne met pas en cause le sens commun, mais la philosophie elle-m\u00eame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Commen\u00e7ons par quelques remarques critiques sur les affirmations de Schwitzgebel. M\u00eame si nos croyances communes impliquent des contradictions, il me semble malheureux de dire que le sens commun est contradictoire en mati\u00e8re de m\u00e9taphysique. Pas parce que le sens commun ne se prononcerait pas sur des questions m\u00e9taphysiques (je pense qu\u2019il peut en effet se prononcer \u00e0 ce sujet), mais parce que le sens commun ne consiste pas seulement en un ensemble de croyances communes. Il inclut aussi une mani\u00e8re de penser avec ces propositions, laquelle peut d\u00e9samorcer facilement les contradictions. Pour montrer que les croyances de sens commun selon lesquelles A, B, C et D sont contradictoires, le philosophe doit \u00e0 la fois consid\u00e9rer ensemble toutes ces propositions et r\u00e9aliser une s\u00e9rie d\u2019inf\u00e9rences avec celles-ci. Il nous dira par exemple que A et B impliquent E, que E et C impliquent F, et que F implique non D, ce qui trahit une contradiction cach\u00e9e dans le sens commun. Or cette proc\u00e9dure, qui requiert de prendre du recul pour consid\u00e9rer d\u2019un seul regard un grand nombre de propositions et d\u2019en tirer des raisonnements compliqu\u00e9s semble tr\u00e8s \u00e9loign\u00e9e du sens commun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Les anthropologues ont tr\u00e8s t\u00f4t remarqu\u00e9 qu\u2019on pouvait inf\u00e9rer des contradictions des croyances partag\u00e9es par les peuples qu\u2019ils \u00e9tudiaient, mais que ces contradictions, qui ne se pr\u00e9sentaient pas dans des contextes ordinaires, ne les int\u00e9ressaient pas&nbsp;:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>Les Azand\u00e9 ne per\u00e7oivent pas la contradiction comme nous la percevons parce qu\u2019ils n\u2019ont pas d\u2019int\u00e9r\u00eat th\u00e9orique pour le sujet, et les situations dans lesquelles ils expriment leurs croyances en la sorcellerie ne leur imposent pas le probl\u00e8me. <\/p>\n<cite>Evans-Pritchard 1937<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>Azande do not perceive the contradiction as we perceive it because they have no theoretical interest in the subject, and those situations in which they express their beliefs in witchcraft do not force the problem upon them. <\/p>\n<cite>Evans Pritchard 1937<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Cela m\u00e9riterait d\u2019\u00eatre \u00e9tudi\u00e9 empiriquement, mais d\u2019apr\u00e8s mes terrains dans les troquets de Paris et de sa grande banlieue (o\u00f9 r\u00e9v\u00e9ler qu\u2019on est philosophe vous vaut les sympathies loquaces de bien des compagnons de comptoir), il semble que chez nous aussi, le sens commun se d\u00e9sint\u00e9resse des contradictions que pourraient receler ses croyances. Pourquoi&nbsp;? Sans doute parce qu\u2019elles ne peuvent pas appara\u00eetre dans des contextes ordinaires et que les contextes de recul r\u00e9flexif o\u00f9 on les produit semblent tr\u00e8s diff\u00e9rents aux gens. On peut illustrer cela avec ce qui est sans doute le deuxi\u00e8me gag le plus dr\u00f4le de l\u2019histoire de la philosophie, d\u00fb \u00e0 Wittgenstein l\u00e0 encore, qui nous pr\u00e9sente une situation o\u00f9 un observateur ext\u00e9rieur tente non pas de tirer une contradiction des croyances d\u2019une tribu, mais l\u2019\u00e9quivalent \u00e9conomique d\u2019une contradiction, \u00e0 savoir une possibilit\u00e9 d\u2019arbitrage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>Des gens empilent des b\u00fbches et les vendent. Ils mesurent les piles avec une r\u00e8gle, multiplient les mesures de longueur, de largeur et de hauteur, et le r\u00e9sultat obtenu correspond au nombre de livres qu&#8217;il faut demander et payer. Ils ne savent pas &#8220;pourquoi&#8221; cela se passe ainsi, ils le font simplement : c&#8217;est la fa\u00e7on de faire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tr\u00e8s bien, mais que se passerait-il s&#8217;ils empilaient le bois en tas de hauteur arbitraire et variable, puis le vendaient \u00e0 un prix proportionnel \u00e0 la surface couverte par les tas ? Et s&#8217;ils justifiaient m\u00eame cela en disant : &#8220;Bien s\u00fbr, si vous achetez plus de bois, vous devez payer plus cher&#8221; ? Comment pourrais-je leur montrer que, disons-le ainsi, vous n&#8217;achetez pas vraiment plus de bois si vous achetez un tas qui couvre une plus grande surface ? Je devrais, par exemple, prendre un tas qui serait petit selon leurs crit\u00e8res et, en disposant les b\u00fbches autrement, le transformer en un &#8220;gros&#8221; tas. Cela pourrait les convaincre, mais ils diraient peut-\u00eatre : &#8220;Oui, maintenant c&#8217;est beaucoup de bois et \u00e7a co\u00fbte plus cher&#8221;, et ce serait la fin de la discussion.(Wittgenstein 1983, 144-50)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>People pile up logs and sell them, the piles are measured with a ruler, the measurements of length, breadth, and height multiplied together, and what comes out is the number of pence which have to be asked and given. They do not know \u201cwhy\u201d it happens like this; they simply do it like this: that is how it is done. \u2026 Very well; but what if they piled the timber in heaps of arbitrary, varying height and then sold it at a price proportionate to the area covered by the piles? And what if they even justified this with the words: \u201cOf course, if you buy more timber, you must pay more\u201d? \u2026 How could I show them that\u2014as I should say\u2014you don&#8217;t really buy more wood if you buy a pile covering a bigger area?\u2014I should, for instance, take a pile which was small by their ideas and, by laying the logs around, change it into a \u201cbig\u201d one. This might convince them\u2014but perhaps they would say: \u201cYes, now it&#8217;s a lot of wood and costs more\u201d\u2014and that would be the end of the matter. (Wittgenstein 1983, 144-50)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Une mani\u00e8re de pr\u00e9senter cette mani\u00e8re de penser du sens commun qui d\u00e9samorce les contradictions serait de dire que les diff\u00e9rentes propositions qui constituent le contenu des croyances de sens commun sont consid\u00e9r\u00e9es par celui-ci comme \u00e9tant vraies relativement \u00e0 certains contextes ou points de vue locaux diff\u00e9rents, et qu\u2019il faut faire abstraction de cela pour en tirer une contradiction. Ainsi on ne pourrait pas tirer une contradiction de A, B, C, D soit parce que A, B, C d\u2019un c\u00f4t\u00e9 et D de l\u2019autre ne sont pas vraies relativement au m\u00eame contexte, soit de mani\u00e8re plus subtile parce que A, B, C, D sont vraies relativement au m\u00eame contexte mais pas les cons\u00e9quences E et F qu\u2019on tire de , A, B, C, et qui contredisent D. Le simple fait d\u2019enchainer des lignes d\u2019inf\u00e9rences changerait le contexte.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>L\u2019hypoth\u00e8se d\u2019un relativisme du sens commun explique de mani\u00e8re \u00e9l\u00e9gante pourquoi en d\u00e9pit des incoh\u00e9rences qu\u2019ils ont pu tenter de lui mettre sous le nez, les philosophes n\u2019ont pas r\u00e9ussi \u00e0 faire \u00e9voluer le sens commun vers un ensemble coh\u00e9rent, ce qui r\u00e9pond \u00e0 notre deuxi\u00e8me question. Elle semble du reste empiriquement confirm\u00e9 au moins dans le domaine \u00e9thique (Sarkissian et al. 2011).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Consid\u00e9rons maintenant la premi\u00e8re question. Pourquoi les croyances de sens commun sont-elles incoh\u00e9rentes&nbsp;? Ou plut\u00f4t pourquoi apparaissent-elles ainsi lorsqu\u2019elles sont consid\u00e9r\u00e9es de mani\u00e8re acontextuelle&nbsp;? La r\u00e9ponse est dans la question&nbsp;: parce que ces croyances trouvent leurs origines dans des contextes ou points de vue diff\u00e9rents&nbsp;? Peut-\u00eatre aussi, d\u2019ailleurs, parce que certaines trouvent leur origine dans une perspective qui cherche \u00e0 transcender les contextes particuliers pour \u00eatre absolument objective et que celles-ci sont aussi incompatibles avec certaines croyances locales ou subjectives. Une telle r\u00e9ponse a \u00e9t\u00e9 sugg\u00e9r\u00e9e, dans les ann\u00e9es 1980, par le Britannique Bernard Williams et l\u2019am\u00e9ricain Thomas Nagel. Tous deux ont attribu\u00e9 un grand nombre de probl\u00e8mes philosophiques p\u00e9rennes \u00e0 des conflits de perspectives. Le premier, s\u2019il n\u2019a pas \u00e9t\u00e9 jusqu\u2019\u00e0 taxer la philosophie et la psychologie morale dominante \u00e0 son \u00e9poque de folle, l\u2019a de nombreuses fois qualifi\u00e9e d\u2019absurde. Il a reconduit cette absurdit\u00e9 \u00e0 la volont\u00e9 philosophique d\u2019adopter, en \u00e9thique, un point de vue d\u00e9sengag\u00e9, synoptique et objectif et a d\u00e9fendu une forme de \u00ab&nbsp;non-objectivisme&nbsp;\u00bb (qui est un cache-sexe du relativisme).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>D\u00e9s sa naissance, la philosophie s\u2019est d\u00e9finie par sa volont\u00e9 de se tenir en esprit, selon l\u2019expression de Platon, \u00ab\u00a0\u00e9loign\u00e9e des choses, (\u2026) , voler avec d\u00e9dain dans toutes les directions, mesurant en g\u00e9om\u00e8tre &#8220;les profondeurs de la Terre&#8221;, comme dit Pindare, et ses surfaces, observant en astronome &#8220;au-del\u00e0 du ciel&#8221;, et explorant en tout sens l&#8217;ensemble des natures des \u00eatres chacun dans sa totalit\u00e9, ne s&#8217;abaissant vers rien de ce qui est proche de lui\u00a0\u00bb (<em>Le Th\u00e9\u00e9t\u00e8te<\/em>, 173e-174a, cf. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vrin.fr\/livre\/9782711629497\/la-science-des-hommes-libres\">Benatou\u00efl 2020<\/a>). Comme la science apr\u00e8s elle, et peut-\u00eatre, pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment pour \u00e9chapper aux contradictions g\u00e9n\u00e9r\u00e9es par les points de vue locaux (cf. la discussion du morceau de bois dans <em>Le Ph\u00e9don<\/em>, 74c-d), la philosophie a cherch\u00e9 \u00e0 adopter le point de vue de nulle part. Mon hypoth\u00e8se est que c\u2019est cela, paradoxalement, qui l\u2019a amen\u00e9e \u00e0 d\u00e9fendre des positions folles. Les philosophes semblent fous, car ils abordent notre monde comme un Martien ou un S\u00e9l\u00e9nien l\u2019aborderait\u00a0: de beaucoup trop loin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cette hypoth\u00e8se s\u00e9l\u00e9nienne \u2013 appelons-l\u00e0 ainsi \u2014 n\u2019est pas toute neuve. Pour soigner la princesse Elizabeth de la m\u00e9lancolie et lui faire comprendre l\u2019interaction du corps avec l\u2019esprit, Descartes affirmait qu\u2019il fallait \u00e9viter les sp\u00e9culations philosophiques et \u00ab&nbsp;ne s\u2019occuper qu\u2019\u00e0 imiter ceux qui, en regardant la verdeur d\u2019un bois, les couleurs d\u2019une fleur, le vol d\u2019un oiseau, et telles choses qui ne requi\u00e8rent aucune attention, se persuadent qu\u2019ils ne pensent \u00e0 rien. Ce qui n\u2019est pas perdre le temps, mais le bien employer&nbsp;\u00bb. Hume, on l\u2019a vu, attribuait aussi sa m\u00e9lancolie aux sp\u00e9culations philosophiques et, selon certains interpr\u00e8tes (je pense \u00e0 Livingston 1998), \u00e0 une \u00ab&nbsp;attitude h\u00e9ro\u00efque en philosophie&nbsp;\u00bb caract\u00e9ris\u00e9e, justement, par la vis\u00e9e du point de vue maximalement objectif et d\u00e9tach\u00e9. Je comprends les remarques de Wittgenstein sur la folie des philosophes (dans <em>De la Certitude<\/em>) comme allant dans le m\u00eame sens. Si elle n\u2019a pas parl\u00e9 de folie (mais plut\u00f4t d\u2019adolescence attard\u00e9e) la philosophe britannique Marie Midgley a port\u00e9, <a href=\"https:\/\/ravenmagazine.org\/contributors\/mary-scrutton-midgley\/\">dans un article ironiquement rejet\u00e9<\/a> par la BBC parce qu\u2019il m\u00ealait le trivial \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9th\u00e9r\u00e9e philosophie, le m\u00eame genre de critique \u00e0 l\u2019encontre des g\u00e9ants de la tradition. Sous l\u2019autorit\u00e9 du grand psychologue du d\u00e9but 20<sup>e<\/sup> Pierre Janet, j\u2019ai modestement ajout\u00e9 <a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1111\/meta.12666?af=R\">une petite pierre \u00e0 la d\u00e9fense de cette hypoth\u00e8se s\u00e9l\u00e9nienne<\/a> en rapprochant le discours m\u00e9taphysique sur la r\u00e9alit\u00e9 d\u2019une pathologie psychiatrique r\u00e9elle, fr\u00e9quemment associ\u00e9e \u00e0 la m\u00e9lancolie d\u2019ailleurs (poke Descartes et Hume), la d\u00e9personnalisation<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Contre l\u2019interpr\u00e9tation crazysit inspir\u00e9e de Schwitzgebel, l\u2019interpr\u00e9tation s\u00e9l\u00e9nienne voit dans l\u2019insanit\u00e9 philosophique le signe d\u2019un probl\u00e8me de la m\u00e9thode philosophique et pas du sens commun. Quel rem\u00e8de sugg\u00e8re-t-elle&nbsp;?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dans <em>The Weirdness of the World<\/em>, Schwitzgebel se livre \u00e0 un plaidoyer pour les th\u00e8ses tordues en philosophie. Non seulement elles sont selon lui in\u00e9vitables, mais elles stimulent l\u2019imagination et permettent d\u2019envisager des possibilit\u00e9s qui nous avaient \u00e9chapp\u00e9. Je suis d\u2019accord avec ce second point, et je lis bien des travaux de philosophie tordue avec l\u2019\u00e9merveillement et l\u2019app\u00e9tit que je r\u00e9serve \u00e0 la meilleure science-fiction (<em>The Weirdness of the World, justement, The metaphysics of hyperspace<\/em> de Hud Hudson (2006), <em>Your Digital Afterlives<\/em>, d\u2019Eric Steinhart (2014)). Je suis en d\u00e9saccord avec le premier point et je pense qu\u2019une certaine philosophie devrait et peut \u00e9viter les th\u00e8ses folles. Comment&nbsp;? Il y a de nombreuses options. Le qui\u00e9tisme de Wittgenstein en est une, la philosophie humienne (telle qu\u2019interpr\u00e9t\u00e9e par Livingston) une autre. Peut-\u00eatre la philosophie tao\u00efste du Tchouang Tseu&nbsp;?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Il est tentant de penser que si l\u2019on veut \u00e9viter l\u2019approche s\u00e9l\u00e9nienne et les th\u00e8ses folles en philosophie, il faudra quoi qu\u2019il en soit \u00e9viter d\u2019\u00eatre syst\u00e9matique, et de faire vraiment de la m\u00e9taphysique ou m\u00eame de la philosophie. Russell reprochait \u00e0 la seconde philosophie de Wittgenstein d\u2019\u00eatre fain\u00e9ante (lazy) et on peut se demander si ce reproche ne concerne pas toute approche anti-s\u00e9l\u00e9nienne, disons, \u00ab&nbsp;terrienne&nbsp;\u00bb. Le sens commun ne serait pas un socle suffisamment solide pour fonder une m\u00e9taphysique. Il ne permettrait pas de dire quoi que ce soit de syst\u00e9matique.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Je ne crois pas cependant que ce soit le cas. Il suffit peut-\u00eatre, comme nous l\u2019avons sugg\u00e9r\u00e9 et comme je tente de le d\u00e9fendre dans un livre \u00e0 para\u00eetre, d\u2019endosser explicitement une forme de relativisme qui admet que certains faits n\u2019obtiennent que relativement \u00e0 certains contextes d\u2019\u00e9valuation. Est-ce que cela ne nous condamne pas alors \u00e0 une forme d\u2019obscurantisme ou de rel\u00e2chement intellectuel tr\u00e8s French theory, qui permet d\u2019affirmer \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s n\u2019importe quoi et d\u2019ignorer des pans entiers de la connaissance scientifique&nbsp;? Encore une fois, je ne pense pas que cela soit le cas. Il existe des relativistes radicaux tr\u00e8s rigoureux (comme Goodman). Il existe du reste bien des relativistes mod\u00e9r\u00e9s, qui restreignent leur relativisme \u00e0 certains domaines du discours seulement, ne remettent pas en cause la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 absolue de certains faits scientifiques, et sont parfaitement rigoureux (songez au fragmentalisme de Kit Fine et aux nombreux philosophes qu\u2019il a inspir\u00e9s tels G. Merlo et M. Lipman, songez aussi au relativisme quant \u00e0 la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 de certains \u00e9nonc\u00e9s de John McFarlane).<a href=\"#_ftn2\" id=\"_ftnref2\">[2]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Alqui\u00e9, F.&nbsp;1974\/2023. \u201c&nbsp;Le philosophe et le fou.\u201d\u2009In\u2009&nbsp;<em>\u00c9tudes Cart\u00e9siennes<\/em>,&nbsp;316\u201333.&nbsp;Paris: Vrin. Reprinted from J.-R.Armogathe and G. Belgioioso, eds.,&nbsp;<em>Descartes metafisico: Interpretazioni del Novecento<\/em>, 107\u201316. Rome: Istituto dell&#8217;Enciclopedia Italiana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B\u00e9natou\u00efl, T., 2020. La science des hommes libres.&nbsp;<em>La digression du Th\u00e9\u00e9t\u00e8te et ses contextes. <\/em>Paris&nbsp;: Librairie philosophique J. Vrin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Frances, B., 2022.&nbsp;<em>The Epistemic Consequences of Paradox<\/em>. Cambridge University Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sarkissian, H., Park, J., Tien, D., Wright, J.C. and Knobe, J., 2011. Folk moral relativism.&nbsp;<em>Mind &amp; Language<\/em>,&nbsp;<em>26<\/em>(4), pp.482-505.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Schwitzgebel, E., 2014. The crazyist metaphysics of mind.&nbsp;<em>Australasian Journal of Philosophy<\/em>,&nbsp;<em>92<\/em>(4), pp.665-682.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Schwitzgebel, E., 2024. The weirdness of the world. Princeton, Princeton University Press<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>*********English<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F12f8dd34-cbbb-4ca3-ab04-98b69b63747b_1024x1024.png\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F12f8dd34-cbbb-4ca3-ab04-98b69b63747b_1024x1024.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Merci de lire Le Substack de Alexandre ! Abonnez-vous gratuitement pour recevoir de nouveaux posts et soutenir mon travail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8211;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Thal\u00e8s of Millet was so spaced out that he fell into a well while looking up at the sky. And died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8211;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; According to other sources, the founder of skepticism, Pyrrho, had to be constantly rescued from the bottom of precipices or protected from rabid dogs. He also let loved ones die without rescue because he refused to believe in danger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8211;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In defense of the skeptics, Montaigne called philosophers who claim to know something crazy: &#8220;Human science, he says in Essais (II, \u00a712), &#8220;can only be maintained by unreasonable, mad and forcible reason.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8211;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Hume sometimes regarded his philosophical speculations as a &#8220;melancholic delirium&#8221; from which only ordinary life (a game of backgammon, a good dinner, chatting with friends) could cure him (<em>Treatise on Human Nature<\/em>, 1.4.7-9).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8211;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Thomas Reid and the common-sense philosophers regarded other philosophical doctrines as nonsense worthy of irrational Yahoos (&#8220;Such philosophy is justly ridiculous, even to those who cannot detect the fallacy of it. It can have no other tendency, than to shew the acuteness of the sophist, at the expense of disgracing reason and human nature, and making mankind Yahoos&#8221; (Reid 1764: 10)).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8211;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Voltaire portrays Leibniz as a happy fool, and after mocking Rousseau&#8217;s positions, advises him to &#8220;come and restore [his health] in the native air, enjoy freedom, drink with me the milk of our cows, and graze on our grasses&#8221; (Letter to Rousseau, August 30, 1755).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8211;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Nietzsche, who liked to play doctor, saw a form of mental illness in philosophers&#8217; tendency to look for reality behind appearances (<em>Gay Science<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8211;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In <em>The World as Will and Representation <\/em>(II \u00a719), Schopenhauer characterizes the solipsistic philosopher as a madman to be placed in a madhouse and refuted with cold showers (although few philosophers explicitly claim to be solipsists, many seem more or less committed to such a thesis).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8211;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In one of philosophy&#8217;s most famous gags, Wittgenstein mocks his colleagues with these words:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>I am sitting with a philosopher in the garden; he says again and again &#8216;I know that that&#8217;s a tree&#8217;, pointing to a tree that is near us. Someone else arrives and hears this, and I tell him: &#8216;This fellow isn&#8217;t insane. We are only doing philosophy (On certainty, \u00a7467).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8211;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In an article on Derrida, Foucault, madness and the Cartesian dream argument, the historian of philosophy Ferdinand Alqui\u00e9 (1979\/2023), a specialist in Descartes and teacher of a great number of French Theory figures, puts it even more bluntly: &#8220;No one would become a philosopher if he wasn&#8217;t first a bit mad&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8211;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Irish philosopher John Oulton Wisdom (cousin of the homonymous \u201cCambridge realist&#8221;) explained the &#8220;unconscious origin&#8221; of Berckeley&#8217;s idealism by the Anglican bishop&#8217;s pronounced disgust for his own excretions&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8211;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; More recently, <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/abs\/pii\/S0010027711001351\">some experiments<\/a> have suggested that in many moral dilemmas, utilitarian philosophers, who believe that a good action maximizes collective well-being and legitimizes the sacrifice of a few for the community, act like psychopathic patients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We could undoubtedly multiply the examples (if you have any to hand, I&#8217;d be happy to add to the list). But first, a question: why do philosophers so frequently call each other crazy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As we&#8217;ve seen, they invoke a wide variety of reasons for considering their colleagues to be deranged, and these reasons are sometimes antagonistic (skepticism, dogmatism, etc.). This might suggest that their accusations are merely a stigmatizing, but unfortunately banal, way of marking one\u2019s disagreement. Like politicians or car drivers, philosophers would say &#8220;crazy&#8221; to say &#8220;you, yuck&#8221;, &#8220;you really, really wrong&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is, however, a deeper reason. After all, many philosophical doctrines can actually seem crazy. Think of Leibniz&#8217;s monads without doors or windows, the Eleatics who deny the possibility of motion, idealism according to which this table is made up of ideas, or even the recent illusionists who claim that consciousness doesn&#8217;t exist. Imagine stopping someone in the street and convincingly asserting one of these theses&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here, I&#8217;d like to try and explain this madness or appearance of madness \u2013call that philosophical insanity\u2014 and determine whether we can (and should) find a remedy for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">1. The crazyist hypothesis.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In a series of articles culminating in the recent publication of his book <em>The Weirdeness of the World<\/em>, Eric Schwitzgebel has proposed what looks like a defense and explanation of philosophical insanity. His main thesis, which for a time he called &#8220;crazyism&#8221;, is that when it comes to the fundamental problems of philosophy, and metaphysics in particular, we are all committed to crazy or (he now prefers this term) <em>weird<\/em> doctrines, i.e. theses that are both bizarre (contrary to common sense) and dubious (poorly justified). To support his point, he multiplies examples of weird classical philosophies (the choice is embarrassing) and, more profoundly, shows that in a large number of fields, it can be proved that a disjunction of weird propositions is necessarily true. If you want to engage in one of these fields, you&#8217;ll have to adhere to a weird proposition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When it comes to the mind-body problem, for example, we have to choose between classical materialism, according to which everything is material (which, he argues, implies that the USA is a conscious entity), idealism, according to which everything is mental and matter does not exist (which is obviously bizarre), dualism (which he says involves oddities concerning mind-body interactions and the extension of conscious entities) or even more weird conceptions to the effect that we are not really conscious (eliminativism) or that even electrons are conscious (panpsychism). None of these theses is individually well justified, but we have to choose one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Why should philosophers be condemned to defend weird theses? Fundamentally, according to Schwitzgebel, because common sense, understood as the sum total of our shared beliefs, is contradictory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>Common sense is incoherent in matters of metaphysics.&nbsp; Contradictions thus inevitably flow from commonsense metaphysical reflections, and no coherent metaphysical system can adhere to every aspect.&nbsp; Although common sense serves us well in practical maneuvers through the social and physical world, common sense has proven an unreliable guide in theoretical physics, probability theory, neuroscience, macroeconomics, evolutionary biology, astronomy, medicine, topology, chemical engineering&#8230;.&nbsp;&nbsp; If, as it seems to, metaphysics more closely resembles those endeavors than it resembles reaching practical judgments about picking berries and planning parties, we might reasonably doubt the dependability of common sense as a guide to metaphysics. Undependability doesn&#8217;t imply incoherence, of course.&nbsp; But it seems a natural next step, and it would neatly explain the historical facts at hand.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>As I understand it, Schwitzgebel&#8217;s idea is that in order to develop a metaphysics that is not bizarre, one would have to rely on common sense, but that common sense contains certain theses that are implicitly contradictory, so that by relying on it, one is necessarily committed to a thesis that directly contradicts common sense. Such a thesis will, by definition, be bizarre, and insofar as it is directly contradicted by common sense<a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"#_ftn1\">[1]<\/a>, probably dubious as well. A similar explanation has been articulated more precisely in several publications by Bryan Frances, who sees the whole of philosophy as a field of paradoxes that definitively refute common sense (cf. e.g. Frances 2022).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Schwitzgebel&#8217;s hypothesis provides a fairly plausible interpretation of philosophers&#8217; accusations of insanity. According to this &#8220;crazyist interpretation&#8221; (let&#8217;s call it that), (1) a thesis contrary to common-sense beliefs would seem crazy (2) and common sense being contradictory, philosophers who rely on common sense would necessarily have to endorse doctrines contrary to common sense. Even though Schwitzgebel does (as I understand him) not recommend it, this crazyist interpretation naturally suggests a remedy for philosophical insanity: entirely give up common sense<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Schwitzgebel&#8217;s analysis raises a number of tricky questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8211;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Why is common sense &#8211; understood, once again, as our shared set of beliefs &#8211; contradictory?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8211;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Given that our common beliefs are subject to change, and that philosophers have supposedly been pointing out the problems posed by these common beliefs for over 2,500 years, why haven&#8217;t we succeeded in reforming common sense to expunge its contradictions? For example, why haven&#8217;t we, as some have long suggested, wiped the slate clean and replaced common sense with the scientific conception of the world?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is an answer to these questions that suggests, it seems to me, an alternative interpretation of the accusations of madness hurled at philosophy, and a very different diagnosis, one that calls into question not common sense, but philosophy itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">2. The Selenian hypothesis<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Let&#8217;s start with a few critical remarks on Schwitzgebel&#8217;s assertions. Even if our common beliefs imply contradictions, it seems to me unfortunate to say that common sense is contradictory when it comes to metaphysics. Not because common sense wouldn&#8217;t pronounce on metaphysical issues (I think it can indeed pronounce on them), but because common sense doesn&#8217;t just consist of a set of shared beliefs. Properly understood, it also includes a way of thinking with these propositions, which can easily defuse contradictions. To show that the common-sense beliefs that A, B, C and D are contradictory, the philosopher must both consider all these propositions together and make a series of inferences from them. He will tell us, for example, that A and B imply E, that E and C imply F, and that F implies non D, which betrays a contradiction hidden in common sense. But this procedure, which requires us to step back and consider a large number of propositions at a glance, and to draw out complicated reasoning, seems far removed from common sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Anthropologists noticed early on that contradictions could be inferred from the beliefs shared by the peoples they studied, but that these contradictions, which did not arise in ordinary contexts, were of no interest to them:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>Azande do not perceive the contradiction as we perceive it because they have no theoretical interest in the subject, and those situations in which they express their beliefs in witchcraft do not force the problem upon them. (Evans-Pritchard 1937)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>It would be worthwhile to study this empirically, but from what I&#8217;ve seen in the bars of Paris and its greater suburbs (where revealing that you&#8217;re a philosopher earns you the loquacious sympathies of many a fellow bar-goer), it seems that here too, common sense is uninterested in the contradictions that its beliefs might conceal. Why is this? Probably, like in the Azande case, because they can&#8217;t appear in ordinary contexts, and the contexts of reflexive hindsight in which they are produced seem very different to people. We can illustrate this with what is undoubtedly the second funniest gag in the history of philosophy, again by Wittgenstein, who presents us with a situation where an outside observer attempts not to derive a contradiction from a tribe&#8217;s beliefs, but the economic equivalent of a contradiction, i.e. an arbitrage opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>People pile up logs and sell them, the piles are measured with a ruler, the measurements of length, breadth, and height multiplied together, and what comes out is the number of pence which have to be asked and given. They don&#8217;t know &#8220;why&#8221; it happens like this; they simply do it like this: that is how it is done. &#8230; Very well; but what if they piled the timber in heaps of arbitrary, varying height and then sold it at a price proportionate to the area covered by the piles? And what if they even justified this with the words: &#8220;Of course, if you buy more timber, you must pay more&#8221;? &#8230; How could I show them that-as I should say-you don&#8217;t really buy more wood if you buy a pile covering a bigger area?-I should, for instance, take a pile which was small by their ideas and, by laying the logs around, change it into a &#8220;big&#8221; one. This might convince them-but perhaps they would say: &#8220;Yes, now it&#8217;s a lot of wood and costs more&#8221;-and that would be the end of the matter. (Wittgenstein 1983, 144-50)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>One way of presenting this contradiction-busting common sense way of thinking would be to say that the various propositions that make up the content of common sense beliefs are considered by common sense to be true relative to certain different local contexts or points of view, and that this must be disregarded in order to draw a contradiction from them. So we couldn&#8217;t draw a contradiction from A, B, C, D either because A, B, C on the one hand and D on the other are not true relative to the same context, or more subtly because A, B, C, D are true relative to the same context but not the consequences E and F that we draw from , A, B, C, and which contradict D. Simply chaining lines of inferences would change the context.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The hypothesis of a form of common sense relativism elegantly explains why, despite the inconsistencies they may have tried to put under its nose, philosophers have not succeeded in making common sense evolve into a coherent whole, which answers our second question. This hypothesis might be to some extent empirically confirmed, at least in the field of ethics (Sarkissian et al. 2011).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let&#8217;s consider the first question. Why are common-sense beliefs inconsistent? Or rather, why do they appear so when considered \u201cacontextually\u201d? The answer lies in the question: because these beliefs have their origins in different contexts or points of view. Perhaps also, for that matter, because some have their origins in a perspective that seeks to transcend particular contexts to be absolutely objective, and these are also incompatible with certain local or subjective beliefs. Such an answer was suggested, in the 1980s, by the British Bernard Williams and the American Thomas Nagel. Both attributed a large number of perennial philosophical problems to conflicts of perspective. While the former did not go so far as to label the dominant moral philosophy and psychology of his day as insane, he repeatedly described it as absurd. He attributed this absurdity to the philosophical desire to adopt a disengaged, synoptic and objective point of view in ethics, and defended a form of &#8220;non-objectivism&#8221; (which is a disguise for relativism).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From its inception, philosophy has been defined by its desire to remain, in Plato&#8217;s words, &#8220;distant from things (&#8230;), flying disdainfully in all directions, measuring as a geometer &#8216;the depths of the Earth&#8217;, as Pindar says, and its surfaces, observing as an astronomer &#8216;beyond the heavens&#8217;, and exploring in every direction the whole of the natures of beings, each in its totality, stooping to nothing that is close to it&#8221; (<em>The <\/em>Theaetetus, 173e-174a, cf. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vrin.fr\/livre\/9782711629497\/la-science-des-hommes-libres\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Benatou\u00efl 2020<\/a>). Like science after it, and perhaps precisely to escape the contradictions generated by local points of view (cf. the discussion of the piece of wood in <em>The Phaedo<\/em>, 74c-d), philosophy has sought to adopt the point of view of nowhere. My hypothesis is that it is this, paradoxically, that has led it to defend crazy positions. Philosophers seem crazy because they approach our world as a Martian or a Selenian would approach it: from far too far away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This Selenian hypothesis &#8211; let&#8217;s call it that &#8211; is nothing new. To cure Princess Elizabeth of melancholy and help her understand how the body interacts with the mind, Descartes argued that we should avoid philosophical speculation and &#8220;occupy ourselves only with imitating those who, by looking at the greenness of a wood, the colors of a flower, the flight of a bird, and such things as require no attention, persuade themselves that they are thinking of nothing, which is not to waste time, but to employ it well\u201d. Hume, as we have seen, also attributed his melancholy to philosophical speculation and, according to some interpreters (Livingston 1998 comes to mind), to a &#8220;heroic attitude in philosophy&#8221; characterized, precisely, by the aim of the maximally objective and detached point of view. I understand Wittgenstein&#8217;s remarks on the folly of philosophers (in <em>On certainty<\/em>) as going in the same direction. If she did not speak of madness (but rather of retarded adolescence), the British philosopher Marie Midgley, <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/ravenmagazine.org\/contributors\/mary-scrutton-midgley\/\">in an article ironically rejected<\/a> by the BBC for mixing the trivial with ethereal philosophy, made the same kind of criticism of the giants of the tradition. Under the authority of the great early-20th psychologist Pierre Janet, I modestly added <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1111\/meta.12666?af=R\">a small stone to the defense of this Selenian hypothesis<\/a> by bringing the metaphysical discourse on reality closer to a real psychiatric pathology, which is frequently associated with melancholy (poke Descartes and Hume), depersonalization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Against the Schwitzgebel-inspired Crazysit interpretation, the Selenian interpretation sees philosophical insanity as a sign of a problem with philosophical method, not common sense. What remedy does it suggest?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In <em>The Weirdness of the World<\/em>, Schwitzgebel makes a plea for weird theses in philosophy. Not only are they inevitable, in his view, but they stimulate the imagination and allow us to envisage possibilities that had eluded us. I agree with this second point, and I indeed read many works of weird philosophy with the wonder and appetite I reserve for the best science fiction (last exemples, <em>The Weirdness of the World, precisely, <\/em>Hud Hudson&#8217;s <em>The metaphysics of hyperspace <\/em>(2006), Eric Steinhart&#8217;s <em>Your Digital Afterlives <\/em>(2014)). I disagree with the first point, however, and I think that a certain philosophy (maybe not the whole of it) should and can avoid crazy theses. But how? There are many options. Wittgenstein&#8217;s quietism is one, Humian philosophy (as interpreted by Livingston) another. Perhaps the Taoist philosophy of Chiang Tzu?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s tempting to think that, if we want to avoid the Selenian approach and crazy theses in philosophy, we&#8217;ll have to avoid being systematic, and really doing metaphysics. Russell criticized Wittgenstein&#8217;s second philosophy for being lazy, and one wonders whether this reproach does not apply to any anti-Selenian, let&#8217;s say, &#8220;earthy&#8221; approach. Common sense would not be a sufficiently solid foundation for metaphysics. It wouldn&#8217;t allow us to say anything substantial and systematic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I don&#8217;t think this is the case. Perhaps it&#8217;s enough, as we&#8217;ve suggested and as I&#8217;m trying to defend in a forthcoming book, to explicitly endorse a form of relativism admitting that certain facts only obtain in relation to specific contexts of evaluation. Doesn&#8217;t this then condemn us to a form of obscurantism or intellectual laxity (French theory style), allowing us to assert just about anything and ignore whole swathes of scientific knowledge? Again, I don&#8217;t think so. There are very rigorous radical relativists (like Goodman). There are also many moderate relativists, who restrict their relativism to certain areas of discourse only, do not question the absolute truth of certain scientific facts, and are perfectly rigorous (think of Kit Fine&#8217;s fragmentalism and the many philosophers he inspired, such as G. Merlo and M. Lipman; think also of John McFarlane&#8217;s relativism regarding the truth of certain statements).<a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"#_ftn2\">[2]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Alqui\u00e9, F. 1974\/2023. &#8220;The philosopher and the madman.&#8221;In <em>\u00c9tudes Cart\u00e9siennes<\/em>, 316-33. Paris: Vrin. Reprinted from J.-R.Armogathe and G. Belgioioso, eds, <em>Descartes metafisico: Interpretazioni del Novecento<\/em>, 107-16. Rome: Istituto dell&#8217;Enciclopedia Italiana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B\u00e9natou\u00efl, T., 2020. The science of free men. <em>La digression du Th\u00e9\u00e9t\u00e8te et ses contextes. <\/em>Paris: Librairie philosophique J. Vrin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Frances, B., 2022. <em>The Epistemic Consequences of Paradox<\/em>. Cambridge University Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sarkissian, H., Park, J., Tien, D., Wright, J.C. and Knobe, J., 2011. Folk moral relativism. <em>Mind &amp; Language<\/em>, <em>26<\/em>(4), pp.482-505.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Schwitzgebel, E., 2014. The crazyist metaphysics of mind. <em>Australasian Journal of Philosophy<\/em>, <em>92<\/em>(4), pp.665-682.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Schwitzgebel, E., 2024. The weirdness of the world. Princeton, Princeton University Press<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"#_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a> Note that Schwitzgebel&#8217;s idea is not just that philosophy should be bizarre (contrary to common sense) like whole swathes of our exact sciences, but that it should be weird (bizarre and dubious). <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/book\/8595\">Some scientist-philosophers<\/a> propose to model metaphysics on our fundamental sciences, and to disregard common sense entirely. They claim that metaphysics can be bizarre without being dubious. It seems to me that Schwitzgebel doesn&#8217;t think this is possible, and that&#8217;s because he&#8217;s also committed to the claim that common sense is an important source of justification in metaphysics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"#_ftnref2\">[2]<\/a> Thanks to Ph. Vellozzo for his expert proofreading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><a id=\"_ftn1\" href=\"#_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a> Notons que l\u2019id\u00e9e de Schwitzbgebel n\u2019est pas seulement que la philosophie doit \u00eatre bizarre (contraire au sens commun) comme des pans entiers de nos sciences exactes, mais bien tordue (bizarre et douteuse). <a href=\"https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/book\/8595\">Certains philosophes scientistes<\/a> proposent de calquer la m\u00e9taphysique sur nos sciences fondamentales et de faire enti\u00e8rement fi du sens commun. Il pr\u00e9tendraient qu\u2019elle peut \u00eatre bizarre sans \u00eatre douteuse. Il me semble que Schwitzgebel pense que cela est impossible, c\u2019est qu\u2019il consid\u00e8re que le sens commun reste une source de justification importante en m\u00e9taphysique.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref2\" id=\"_ftn2\">[2]<\/a> Merci \u00e0 Ph. Vellozzo pour sa relecture \u00e9clair\u00e9e.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pourquoi les philosophes se traitent-ils si fr\u00e9quemment de fous\u00a0?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":624,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/fomblard.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/philosophefous.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/saQFcA-621","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fomblard.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fomblard.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fomblard.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fomblard.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fomblard.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/fomblard.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":628,"href":"https:\/\/fomblard.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621\/revisions\/628"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fomblard.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fomblard.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fomblard.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fomblard.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}