WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY FOR?

To reach the age of ninety-nine years with all one's mental faculties intact is quite an achievement even in this time of increasing life-span. But to write a book on philosophy, one which makes the reader sit up and think deeply about modern culture and its future, is a singular personal triumph. The key word in the title of this book is 'for'. This indicates straight away that this not another broad-ranging introduction to the various problems and fields of philosophy, but a spirited polemic which, as announced on the first page, addresses the question: 'What is the aim, the proper object of philosophising? What are we trying to do?' Her answer is in effect a summary of a life engaged in the practice of philosophy, a scholarly yet engaging confrontation with some of the important intellectual issues of our day.

What comes through very powerfully in this book, as indeed in all Mary Midgley's writings, is a passionate belief that philosophy is not just one academic subject amongst others, and certainly not a kind of science, nor is its role a sort of pontifical authority ruling over other academic subjects, but has a central place in our lives, 'a continuous necessary background activity…[which] profoundly shapes our inner life' (p. 81). It has an almost therapeutic role (not her term) in sorting, examining, comparing and assessing the varieties of myths and worldviews which underpin our contemporary ideas, values and institutions. In more down-to-earth terms she found impish delight in referring to her philosophical approach as akin to plumbing, not just because it services some of the basic needs of daily life but because it can at times go badly wrong and lead to domestic upset and anguish and needs sorting out. In this way philosophy can 'service' the hidden intellectual structures of our lives, the hidden assumptions and contradictions of our world-views. Our own times, she believed, are particularly needful in this regard.

This intellectual plumbing is no mere academic exercise. Though for some years she lectured in philosophy at Newcastle University, she had little time for what she describes as 'the modern logical and analytical style of philosophising' (p. 10), with its rather detached, a-historical approach and an increasing emphasis on research rather than teaching which, she argues, was an important factor in leading to the closure of eight British departments of philosophy in the Thatcher years. By contrast, Midgley approached her subject with passion and moral commitment, and with a full awareness of its place and importance within historical and cultural contexts, and within the exercise of our imaginative faculties.

This final book reaches back to her first major work, Beast and Man (1978), where she sought to bridge the dangerous gap, opened up in many areas of modern thought, between the human and natural worlds, and which led to her enthusiasm for environmental issues, to support for the Gaia hypothesis, and to a passion for 'reviving our reverence for the earth'. This led in turn to an abiding concern with the place of the current scientific worldview within the formation of contemporary values and goals, and with the deep influence of the myths which have been constructed around and beneath the natural sciences. These myths constitute various forms of scientism which treat science, not as one among many sources of information about the world, but as the exclusively valid source of all knowledge, and hence the object of almost religious reverence.

Midgley takes a completely opposing view. She sums up her own approach in this book as one of 'exasperation against the whole reductive, scientistic, mechanistic, fantasy-ridden creed which still constantly distorts the world-view of our age….[which] is revered as the only possible alternative to a supposedly unthinking, moralistic and religious…..orthodoxy' (p. 190). By contrast with this univocal view, her approach could be described as one of methodological pluralism, so for example: 'Pure reductionism will not work, precisely because it does not analyse the kind of complexity organisms display' (p. 26). We are faced with many puzzles in life, she argues; 'scientific, historical, practical, poetical, moral, social, logical, political or religious' (p. 193), and philosophy is not a matter of simply trying to solve these puzzles or formulating a total, final world-view that encompasses them, but involves exploring the many particular, often diverse, ways of thinking, of world-views, that will be most helpful as we try to explore the constantly changing world. And it is one in which 'philosophical thoughts are never final' (p. 6).

It follows from this that while it is important to search out the sometimes hidden interconnections between these world-views – like we would if we had a plumbing problem - it would be a serious mistake to the attempt to reduce them to a single method, namely that of the physical sciences. This clearly is not an attack on science itself about which she demonstrates profound respect and considerable understanding, but rather a recognition that the world is too complex, too inescapably plural, to be reduced to a single set of theories, and is in danger of forestalling investigation into key elements of life such as purpose, meaning, mind, freedom and responsibility. Our world, she points out, is complex and variegated, requiring many different 'thought patterns' and perspectives. Even the natural sciences themselves lose their individual significance and validity if pressed into the single mould of physics.

Several mythmaking excursions are used to elaborate her argument for pluralism, and to illustrate the need for philosophy to take a broad and inclusive rather than a narrowly specialised view of life. The first of these is the positivist approach of the Vienna Circle which became in the middle years of the twentieth century a kind of universal solvent that claimed to absorb all epistemological certainty and to eliminate all else as meaningless - 'scientistic puritanism' as she calls it – and which sought to disinfect modern culture of gods and souls. Midgley is no advocate of religious dogma, but sees in this approach an intellectual and cultural impoverishment leading to a kind of barren materialism which effectively eliminates human freedom and individuality.

A similar treatment is offered for a related and an equally influential twentieth century myth, namely behaviourism, still influential in some quarters, which she accuses of eliminating its main object, the human subject itself. By focusing exclusively on external, observable behaviour it manages to deny the possibility of talking meaningfully about the whole range of problems concerning human life, especially our 'natural sociability, and our 'constant need to deal with our own and each other's inner conflicts' (p. 173).

Midgley's most acerbic critique of reductionism is reserved for one of its more recent manifestations, the singularity associated with the supposedly inexorable march of artificial intelligence, the moment at which the world will be transformed - in 2045 according to Ray Kurzweil. She points out that this recent development is an intellectual descendant of the well established 'myth' – 'mechanolatry', a 'new oracle' - , dating from Descartes and the scientific revolution, that the universe as a whole is a machine, and that even living beings, and perhaps even minds of living beings are part of the same 'dazzling image'. This new and potent myth 'has somehow worked its way into our thinking…by its own dramatic force'. What was formerly attributed to God is now credited to machines. Computers and related technologies have given this myth new life, and now we face the prospect of being bypassed and taken over by the myth of transhumanism.

Much mythology, she points out, has been absorbed into this particular piece of technological wizardry, some bordering on pure fiction, some the product of wild futuristic speculation. Here the 'exceptionally eminent' astrophysicist Martin Rees is singled out for special attention, accused of inventing 'new superstitions', and making outlandish and frightening claims without the support of adequate evidence or argument. One recalls here her earlier irritable debates with another eminent proto-reductionist, Richard Dawkins, who gets only a brief mention here, though she is still adamant that his approach to genetics leads via scientism to an unacceptable form of reductionism.

Towards the end of the book she confronts the issue which lurks beneath many of the problems she has grappled with in this book and in her professional life, namely the question – the myth - of mind-body dualism. Part of the problem here, she speculates, is that we have tended to assume that 'matter is inert, dead, and inevitably we become deeply puzzled as to how such an active phenomenon as conscious mind can be in any way connected with it. Returning once again to her earlier concerns with evolution, she points out that matter has within it the potential for forming the vast variety that constitute the natural world, and that matter therefore cannot be the inert, inactive, neutral stuff of dualist theory. She goes on to say 'We surely need to look for a fresh start', but she has now alas laid down her pen and it is up to us to take up her challenge.

This book is not only a lively, witty and beautifully written work but is an important defense of philosophy which places it once again at the centre of our cultural and intellectual life, not only by demonstrating its importance in challenging many of the myths of our age but also by its capacity to take an embracing overview of human concerns without resorting to simplifying dogma or fantasy. What is Philosophy For? the last of a dozen books and many articles and public lectures, is a fitting tribute to a woman who gave much to philosophy, and to the world beyond. The SMN, of which she was an honorary member, will remember her with love and gratitude.