Research in Phenomenology 49 (2019) 252–254 Research

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On the Task of Philosophy

James Risser
Seattle University
jrisser@seattleu.edu

Dennis Schmidt has posed a question for discussion: What are hermeneuts
for? It is a question posed earnestly and not merely academically about the
practice of philosophy. More to the point, the question asks about the signifi-
cance and responsibility of philosophy in our time in relation to a philosophy
that takes its orientation from hermeneutics. It is a question about the task of
a philosophy that is inseparable from the understanding of life and the living
out of that life. As he himself presents his question, we see that it unfolds in a
twofold way, first as a question about the very idea of philosophy in our time
and then as a question about its correlation with a broadly understood ethical
demand, what Schmidt calls the ethos of a philosophical life.
Regarding philosophy itself, Schmidt notes unsurprisingly how little impor-
tance philosophy has in what amounts to a destitute time, a time in which
worldly understanding and truth no longer matter, a time when political dis-
course has become trivial and new forms of media do not encourage anything
to be meaningfully discerned. The impoverished condition of philosophy in
the world is exacerbated by the continual framing of the world in terms of
production and applications for use. From the point of view of instrumental
rationality philosophy is mostly ineffective. So, philosophy has a legitimation
problem today, even from within its haven in the university that, increasingly
so, wants accountability for its effectiveness. But Schmidt does not think that a
retreat from the crisis of legitimation, even if the university were more accom-
modating, is possible. Any retreat will be insufficient for philosophy, if indeed
its task is to remain linked to a responsibility in life. This dilemma of not being
able to retreat while still not being able to successfully assert itself into the
world is what Schmidt cannot fully resolve. It could be argued that philosophy
has always had a problem of legitimation. Socrates after all, as Schmidt notes,
was considered to be a danger to the city, but today it seems that we do not
even pose a danger to the city.
If we are to be serious about this problem and look to resolve its current
dilemma, I think we need to be cautious against relying too heavily on a nar-
row definition of the philosopher, even a hermeneutical one, who presumably

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On the Task of Philosophy 253

always wants to look out at the world. But I also think that we should not over-
look the simple, seemingly inconsequential, gesture that is part of the begin-
ning movement of philosophy as it seeks to find its place in the world.
Regarding the latter, certainly our beloved Socrates proves to be helpless in
the face of political power, but the laughter he evokes, despite the fact that this
laughter points to philosophy’s ineffectiveness, is the only way for philosophy
to ever really enter his city in the first place. Socrates is laughed at because
his appearance is trivial in a culture of the trivial. So, in earnestness he takes
small steps. He refuses to abandon the city and at the same time he refuses to
be a torchbearer with the one true message that would give the city everlast-
ing light (the comedy of the Republic should be apparent here.). While indeed
truth often needs a torchbearer, one has to be aware that not all torchbearers
who come in the name of truth actually speak the truth. Socrates actually be-
gins philosophizing in the city modestly, yet with danger in mind; he begins
with the simple gesture of speaking to another, posing a question in order to
provoke understanding, which necessarily occurs in an individuated way. It
may be that in these cases the danger only lurks, for there are always forces of
desire that can defeat a good will; still, our beloved Socrates refuses to retreat.
Regarding the former, if we broaden the “we” beyond the narrow confines of
the academy, we readily see the danger that philosophy poses to the city. Would
it not be appropriate to evoke the name of Martin Luther King in this regard?
Did he not evoke the name of Socrates in his practice? And in her description
of the banality of evil did not Hannah Arendt, not without some irony, present
a danger to the city? She made the case for the danger of not thinking as part of
the problem of evil; yet for some in the city this daring to think that there was
no thinking was itself a dangerous thought. If the philosopher in the academy
pales in comparison with the example of the activist and the political thinker,
can we not still learn from their example? Schmidt is certainly right to insist
that philosophical thinking needs to find its validation in life. In his own way
Gadamer was an example of this for us. He not only took part in the philosoph-
ical meetings organized by Pope John Paul ii to discuss worldly matters, he
also spoke with school children about the meaning of education and was later
interviewed by a student who asked him about his thoughts on old age and
closeness to death. In their simplicity these examples are consequential for the
life of understanding, if not also for being a form of thinking that is wedded to
the good. In their simplicity these examples all point to aspects of living well.
Philosophy, and with it hermeneutical understanding, is really a simple mat-
ter; it is simply an event of thinking, a learning to see, and to be vigilant against
every attempt at easy seeing.
We need, though, to say something more about the character of this think-
ing that seeks validation in life and directs itself to what is good. Clearly this is

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254 Risser

not a matter of simply making logical arguments. Social-political life, the life of
understanding, takes place within the space of the rhetorical and not primarily
the logical (which does not mean the logical has no place). But neither is it a
matter of characterizing thinking in a Heideggerian manner, notwithstanding
Heidegger’s best intentions to elevate the task of thinking in our needy times.
When Heidegger says that we have not thought the essence of action deci-
sively enough, we should take note that for Heidegger we have not thought
anything decisively enough, whether it be our humanity, art, language or what-
ever. Certainly, there is a point to be made with Heidegger that for the sake of
our living, we have to consider differently our posture in the world by way of
a different manner of thinking, but in some ways Heidegger’s call for a more
fundamental thinking, which is a thinking on being, only exacerbates philoso-
phy’s legitimation crisis. In this regard I am a Gadamerian, not a Heideggerian.
For Gadamer thinking is always in relation to its enactment in the life of under-
standing, which, as he forcefully shows, can never be equated with the theoret-
ical as such. It is a thinking that is rooted in the ethos of living, and as such it is
on the way to its validation. And, in particular, I would add, it is what occurs in
the life of dialogue where we attempt to understand ourselves as well as what
the other has to say. Most decisively, such thinking is what will always have to
repeat itself in the encounter with the individuating experiences of our living,
just as every generation thinks in relation to its own time.
And what then of the ethos of living–the enactment of thinking set within
the finitude of our own capacity to understand? Schmidt is right to emphasize
the relation between understanding and judgment and to note that the crisis
he speaks of is at once a crisis of judgment. To state the obvious, judgment
marks a certain space of interpretation insofar as it enacts an insight that is
not produced by a rule; it is to be distinguished from technical knowledge and
science. But more than this, judgment is always enacted in relation to existing
communal solidarities. As we learn from both Gadamer and Arendt, judgment
is not a solitary operation of thought, but occurs in relation to sharing a world
with others. This sharing of a world is precisely what will oppose the engineer-
ing of life. The crisis of judgment that lies within shared life does not defeat
philosophy, but generates a continuing task for philosophy, not unlike the one
described at the close of Plato’s Republic. It is there where Socrates marks out
the ethos of living in his final words to Glaucon. Faced with the effort of mak-
ing a life for themselves that cannot avoid the inherent dangers of carelessness
and forgetting, Socrates reminds Glaucon of the kind of care that is needed to
“make a good crossing.” It is to pursue justice with thoughtfulness (phronesis).
Presumably, such thoughtfulness, through which we are able to see the world,
is required of everyone in life. What more can we expect of philosophy?

Research in Phenomenology 49 (2019) 252–254