More precisely: Who is the most loathsome philosopher in his or her personal life?
Let me set the bar high by naming my top two candidates.
1. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who fathered several children and had them abandoned to orphanages, and of whom David Hume wrote in a letter to Adam Smith: “Thus you see, he is a Composition of Whim, Affectation, Wickedness, Vanity, and Inquietude, with a very small, if any Ingredient of Madness. … The ruling Qualities abovementioned, together with Ingratitude, Ferocity, and Lying, I need not mention, Eloquence and Invention, form the whole of the Composition.” (David Hume, letter to Adam Smith, October 8, 1767 [Correspondence, 135])
2. Martin Heidegger, who was a Nazi and who, his lover Hannah Arendt said, “lies notoriously always and everywhere, and whenever he can.”
I’m open to other reasoned suggestions.
Some follow up questions. When one disagrees profoundly with an intellectual’s philosophy, as I do with Rousseau’s and Heidegger’s, is it legitimate to look for a connection between the philosophical and the personal? Or can deep philosophy vary completely independently of personal behavior? Is ad hominem ever a legitimate argument strategy? One should expect integrity, especially from philosophers — i.e., that they will live what they teach and teach what they live — but we also know that hypocrisy is widespread. Should it matter now that influential philosophers were personally immoral, or do only their ideas and arguments matter now?
Related: Rousseau on the education of children:
On Heidegger’s Nazism:
It would be much easier to list the philosophers who aren’t loathsome because the list would be shorter. But I’ve always counted Rousseau as the worst. I don’t typically count theologians as philosophers but, if I did, then Walter Grundmann would be pretty high on the list too.
I didn’t know about Grundmann. Here’s Wikipedia on him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Grundmann.
I believe that Hume’s evaluation of Rousseau is correct. But I’m willing to give Rousseau a teeny tiny amount of slack regarding the abandoned children.
Raising children was such a financial burden before capitalism that child abandonment was common. I’m not excusing it, but it’s important to remember the historical context.
There is a difference between conscious philosophical premises and subconscious habits. between philosophy and psycho-epistemology
It’s not that ad hominem is legitimate, but it’s certainly possible that the same character flaws that make a person act so badly also lead them to find obnoxious views legitimate. In other words, it’s not that Rousseauism is wrong because Rousseau was a jerk (ad hom), but perhaps what made him a jerk also made his views seem right to him.
All philosophic ideas are worth discussing, regardless of who is the person that expounds them. But we should also EVALUATE those ideas, and here there the moral character of the philosopher counts. If a philosopher cannot live by what he or she teaches, it could mean he or she is a liar (which would be irrelevant to the ideas). But it could also mean that those ideas do not fit well in the realm of human nature. This is the case of socialists: they always teach that we should be altruist and selfless, when they are selfish and competitive, just like anyone else. So if we measure their ideas by their failure to live by them, we should come to the conclusion that those ideas are simply wrong.
I think character has an effect on people’s work, but the reason it ought not be used to discredit a man’s work (in this case philosophical work) is that we value how our representation of reality in fact corresponds to reality. Discrediting a man’s work because of his character doesn’t adhere to this standard. Safely reading a man’s thoughts is not the same thing as having to deal with him on a daily basis.
Further, if we are trying to figure out something for which we heretofore have not had an answer, an eccentric’s ideas may take us outside the box we’ve contained ourselves in.
When it comes to mixing a man’s work and his character, Frank Lloyd Wright is edgier. He said he would hire a thief if he knew how to build. In other words, he thought he could manage the man’s thievery and obtain the part of him he wanted.
Stephen, you are always sparking interesting and entertaining speculations. And your blog followers offer commensurate commentary. I particularly like the comments by luis.
As Skoble suggests, while ad hominem is not valid, a look at a person’s life can illuminate his philosophy. For example, Rousseau’s social contract obviously does not imply that he has any obligations? So, who does? Heidegger’s unconcern for truth helps the reader understand his writings: he really is unconcerned with logical consistency and justification of premises.
One’s philosophy necessarily influences one’s psychology and behavior; so, it is probably always useful to evaluate a philosopher’s life as feedback. Except, what I know of Nietzsche’s life seems to have little reflection on or from his writings? Did he consciously consider himself insignificant, as opposed to his writings?
Nick’s point questions the existence of parental obligations at all. I believe that Ayn Rand argued that obligations begin with birth, as the child has independent existence then, has needs, and the parents are the willfully causes? I don’t think that this is an adequate justification of obligation, based, as it seems, on implied choice by the act of having sex?
I don’t think most of us would condone the willful neglect of even an animal, but is there any duty beyond the obligation to your own psychological wellbeing?
Leaving aside the convenience of modern contraception techniques, are people to avoid sex unless they are willing to care for a child? Does birth and the child’s needs morally obligate the parents? Is a new born truly a human, or still only a potential human? If living by conceptional thought is the mark of a human, this does not occur until language is significantly mastered.
The possession of moral rights would not seem to be justified until an individual can recognize such rights of others. Thus, the reason that even a sign language using chimp does not have rights. The extended process of developing such moral abilities implies that the process of acquiring rights of independence is an extended one. Young children belong to their parents as property in a literal sense, until and to the extent that they adequately develop recognition of individual rights for all. Difficult to define, to be sure. A judgment call.
This also explains why criminals and the insane do not have rights.
I do not fully excuse Rousseau even if he had no obligation to assume unchosen responsibilities. I do not like or trust people with no concern for others. And the more one’s life intermingles with given others, the more concern people with rational psychologies naturally feel for them.
Decent parents begin the activity of intellectual-psychological intermingling with their child long before birth, through imagination, hopes, and planning.
Decent people may also choose abortion at any stage or plan for favorable adoption. But not careless abandonment. (Though immoral legal systems may make rational choices difficult.)
[Jack Gardner]>Ayn Rand argued that obligations begin with birth, as the child has independent existence then, has needs, and the parents are the willfully causes?
Whose obligations, child or parents?! Rand says obligation is a product of man’s mind (volitional and w/o innate ideas). She also says the mind’s develops its full conceptual potential at around 18 yrs.
A problem with judging people, philosophers or politicians or whatever, by their private life, is that we don’t know what we don’t know. For example, it’s taken a long time to learn that Obama ate dog meat — and who knows how many other political figures did the same?
Anyway, let me name a few despicable thinkers:
Marx+Engels: outspoken antisemites, and advocates for genocide of “inferior” races, notably the East Europeans. Nazis ante litteram.
Richard Hofstadter: not so much morally despicable as suicidally insane: a Jew who, after a century of socialist antisemitism, bamboozles people into thinking that racism is really the same as capitalism.
(And speaking of that, what about Arendt having an affair with a nazi?)
They are interesting because they bring up the issue of the boundary between the personal and the political: is antisemitism (or whitewashing antisemitism) a personal flaw, or a flaw of one’s philosophy?
If we’re allowed to count, per Steve Bilow, religious philosophers then I’ve always found Tertullian to be one of the vilest specimens.
Perhaps the awfulness of a philosopher should be weighted by the influence his ideas have had. That’s to say, there may be philosophical canons worse than Rousseau’s but if they never gained any traction then we can discount them.
I think psychology and character can at times be VERY revealing in evaluating a philosopher, philosophy and philosophic tradition – but not as the primary criteria. The ideas must still be met on their own terms. Otherwise it’s just committing the ad hominem fallacy e.g. A is a jerk therefore his argument is false. Which is not going to persuade the people you want.
Mr. Hicks you’re a blatant liar and your entire career is about misrepresenting some of the greatest Western philosophers there have been. It is a real shame your book about postmodernism has reached so far and wide, but the damage you’ve done will be undone, and your worthless contributions will be forgotten
Happy to learn from you, Lander, so please give me some examples of mis-representation with original sources and how properly to interpret them.
Thankfully this person has already brought together some examples of your misrepresentations/misreadings in the YouTube video cited below. I’d be very happy if you were to watch it and if you were respond to it afterwards I sincerely hope your goal will be to speak nothing but the truth. We all must keep doing the effort to overcome our blindspots and biases.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHtvTGaPzF4
Hi Lander:
Do give the Cuck (now calling himself Jonas) a listen, as he is not unintelligent, though be aware he’s an amateur with an ideological axe to grind. For professional responses to the book, check out these nine Ph.D. philosophers who reviewed *Explaining Postmodernism* in academic journals. Most were highly positive: https://www.stephenhicks.org/2019/04/30/ph-d-philosophers-review-explaining-postmodernism/.
My response to Cuck/Jonas and a contrasting (very good) YouTube discussion of *Explaining Postmodernism* is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kA8zi10cjo.
Happy to respond here to any specific questions or critiques you yourself have.
Best,
SH
When judging a philosophy the most immediate use of the philosopher’s character is as an alert to possible flaws.
If a philosophy recommends life choices which are not survivable, its philosopher is either hypocritical or dead.