Philosophy as Social Philosophy

Nicolas Haines

doi:10.1017/S003181910000084X

Philosophy as Social Philosophy

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 February 2009

Nicolas Haines

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Nicolas Haines: Affiliation:
University of Surrey.

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Just before the second world war, in a paper read to the British Association, Morris Ginsberg talked about the failure of social philosophy and the social sciences to work together in the universities ‘toward the rational ordering of society’. Some time after the war Alexander Macbeath complained to British sociologists of his own vain search for a social philosopher who could teach in a course on public administration. Then a few years later A. E. Teale told an inter-professional conference at Keele that people who teach and train teachers, those who train social workers of all kinds, were disappointed when philosophers professed themselves unable to help those who had to ‘equip students with the skill to change prevailing moral attitudes and standards’.

Type: Articles
Information: Philosophy , Volume 42 , Issue 159 , January 1967 , pp. 37 - 52

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S003181910000084X [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1967

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^{page 37 note 1} Ginsberg, Morris, Reason and Unreason in Society (Heinemann, 1947), p. 129Google Scholar, read as a paper to Section L of the British Association, 1937.

^{page 37 note 2} Subsequently published in Philosophy, vol. XXX, no. 113.

^{page 37 note 3} Published in the Sociological Review Monograph, no. 3. Keele, August 1960.

^{page 37 note 4} This paper was read to the staff of the philosophy section of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Battersea College of Advanced Technology (now the University of Surrey), during the Spring Term, 1966.

^{page 38 note 1} Natural Law and the Theory of Society, Introduction, p. xiv, etc.

^{page 38 note 2} The Faith of the Counsellors (Constable, 1965).

^{page 38 note 3} A term explained in the introduction to a text-book I have written for such people, to be published by Macmillan, July 1966, under the title Freedom and Community.

^{page 39 note 1} Gierke, op. cit., p. 226.

^{page 39 note 2} Ibid., xviii.

^{page 39 note 3} Nietzsche, Notes of 1874.

^{page 42 note 1} Hazlitt's, Life of Napoleon (Gibbings, 1894), vol. I, p. 24.Google Scholar

^{page 42 note 2} Op. cit., Introduction and ch. I.

^{page 42 note 3} The sociologists: I have in mind McIver and Page in their text book, Society, bk I, part I, ch. iii. McIver defends the phrase ‘social animal’ as a translation of Aristotle's in his book The Web of Government. For a treatment of the question which I follow see Arendt, Hannah, The Human Condition (Anchor Books, 1959), ch. ii.Google Scholar

^{page 43 note 1} In the Inaugural Lecture published in Philosophy, Politics and Society, First Series (ed. Laslett, Blackwell, 1956).

^{page 43 note 2} In a symposium edited by Zollschan, and Hirsch, , Explorations in Social Change (Routledge, 1964).Google Scholar

^{page 43 note 3} The Philosophical Theory of the State, ch. ii.

^{page 43 note 4} Quoted by Richard Church in The Growth of the English Novel.

^{page 44 note 1} Personal Knowledge, p. 313.

^{page 44 note 2} Social Principles and the Democratic State, p. 31.

^{page 45 note 1} Roberts, Moira, Responsibility and Practical Freedom (Cambridge, 1965), p. 285.Google Scholar

^{page 45 note 2} Ernest Gellner uses a similar figure in his contribution to The Crisis in the Humanities.

^{page 45 note 3} The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy, p. 3.

^{page 46 note 1} Back to the Pre-Socratics, published in Conjectures and Refutations, ch. v.

^{page 46 note 2} Op. cit., ch. i, section vi.

^{page 46 note 3} ‘Philosophy reduced to a “theory of knowledge”, is no more in fact than a diffident science of epochs and doctrine of forbearance: a philosophy that never even gets beyond the threshold…philosophy in its last throes…something that awakens pity…’ (Beyond Good and Evil, ch. vi, section 204.) Compare this with the reference in the following note.

^{page 46 note 4} Philosophy in a New Key, where, incidentally, comment on epistemology is compatible with that mentioned in the last note. I find Langer's stress on the transformational nature of human understanding relevant to what has been called here ‘interpretation’ but I have not studied this sufficiently.

^{page 47 note 1} As a reviewer of Stewart's, John B. recent book The Moral and Political Philosophy of David Hume (Columbia, 1963),Google Scholar suggests. He says: ‘Hume has been parcelled out by the professionals…to men who appear entirely unaware of the other little Humes, still less of the whole gigantic creature’ (R. L. Colie of Iowa, Political Science Quarterly, vol. LXXX, no. 4, p. 688) —a weakness from which, according to the reviewer, Stewart's book is free.

^{page 47 note 2} I am referring to the proposed University of Surrey. See Note, p. 37.

^{page 47 note 3} Quoted by Macbeath. See Note 2, p. 37.

^{page 47 note 4} Adventures of Ideas, ch. xv.

^{page 47 note 5} The author plans a contribution to this in a new type of book now in preparation for Macmillans where the social problem will be the ‘situational centre’, so arranged that students of all disciplines will be able to undertake philosophical criticism at their own level. The author takes the view that approached in this way philosophy would be able to take its proper place at all levels of education.

^{page 48 note 1} I am thinking of Ernest Gellner (see Note 2, p. 45) and George Steiner's broadcast lectures, To civilise our gentlemen (published in The Listener, vol. LXXIV, nos. 1908/9). Steiner uses a popular assimilation of ‘human’ to ‘humane’ to weaken what he calls ‘the confident link between literature and civilised values’.

^{page 48 note 2} The Problem of Knowledge (Pelican Books), p. 10.

^{page 48 note 3} Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse.

^{page 49 note 1} I think I am influenced here by Polanyi's Personal Knowledge but I do not yet understand him well enough to be sure.

^{page 50 note 1} As I understand Peter Winch to be saying. See Note 3, p. 45.

^{page 50 note 2} Does Political Theory still Exist? (Published in Philosophy, Politics and Society, Series 2, ed. Laslett, Blackwell, 1964), p. 33.

^{page 50 note 3} Ibid., p. 9.

^{page 51 note 1} Haines, N., Responsibility and Accountability later developed for a Ph.D. thesis The Concept of Responsibility in the Theory of Democracy (University of London Library).Google Scholar

^{page 51 note 2} See Philosophy vol. XXXII, no. 140, pp. 165 ff., XXXVIII, no. 143, pp. 69 f., XXXIX, no. 149, pp. 268 f.

^{page 52 note 1} Barrett, William, Irrational Man (Mercury Books, 1964Google Scholar, first published by Doubleday, 1958), pp. 3 f. The author was Associate Professor of Philosophy at New York University.

^{page 52 note 2} Karl Popper, The Nature of Philosophical Problems and their Roots in Science, now available in Conjectures and Refutations, ch. ii.

^{page 52 note 3} I tried to give some impression of the teaching-situation earlier on in an article published in Common Factor, October 1964 under the title Tools and Values.

^{page 52 note 4} See Note 5, p. 47.

^{page 52 note 5} Seven Pillars of Wisdom, prefatory note.

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