What is Philosophy?

Most academic disciplines are defined by their subject matter, but with Philosophy this is tricky, because its subject matter is, well, everything. We could say that Philosophy is a critical investigation into any aspect of the universe or of human experience. Maybe Wittgenstein’s approach is more useful here: he said that Philosophy is an activity rather than a subject. It is the activity of rational reflection, of challenging assumptions and asking questions. You can philosophise about absolutely anything; so philosophers will never be out of work even if they are not always paid!

Which philosophers have had the biggest impact on modern Philosophy?

For our 21st anniversary issue we recently circulated a questionnaire to professional philosophers asking them which historical philosophers they thought the most interesting or important. Aristotle came top, followed by Immanuel Kant, then Plato. In terms of philosophers who have influenced modern developments, Frege, Russell and Wittgenstein (and later Quine) were crucial to the development of the analytical school of Philosophy. He- gel is still the point of reference for most strands of continental Philosophy. My own favourite is Oxford ethicist Philippa Foot who had so many great ideas about the foundations of morality that I still see her as underrated, despite her fame.

Who is Friedrich Nietzsche and how has he influenced modern day society?

When I started studying Philosophy I remember one lecturer dismissing Nietzsche as “more a poet than a philosopher,” but really he was both. He was a brilliant young professor of Philosophy at the University of Basel, who resigned his chair due to poor health and spent the next ten years or so wandering around Europe writing books about what he saw as an imminent crisis of values. He saw Christian morality – which he hated anyway – as being fatally undermined by a widespread decline in religious faith (“God is dead”) and he called for a “revaluation of all values”. Did he cause the crisis of values or merely foresee it? Probably the latter, but he gave an early and influential voice to the idea that values had no firm foundation.

Isn’t it all a bit wishy-washy?

The usual accusation made against English-language Philosophy – especially that done in Oxford – is that it is overconcerned with precision about language. However, given the great difficulty of some philosophical problems and the long history of disagreement about them, I think that there is no such thing as being “over-concerned with precision,” and that it is better to move slowly and test every footstep carefully, if you want to make real progress.

Can we all be philosophers?

Yes of course – it doesn’t even require any expensive equipment! We all stumble across philosophical problems at one time or another: Is there a God? Should we eat meat? What is life for? What comes after death? Is it sometimes all right to lie? How should we deal with this or that ethical dilemma? Some of these problems are inescapable, so the only question is whether we deal with them well or badly. Sadly, many people deal with dilemmas on the basis of emotional responses, tradition, or peer pressure rather than reasoned argument. As Bertrand Russell said, “Most people would rather die than think; in fact, they do.”

Eurosceptics have seized the red meat, Nigel Farage is back to braying from the sidelines, and Cameron has demonstrated that he is a man of the people by offering the country a plebiscite on that brooding, meddling octopus, the European Union (EUSSR).

The right-leaning national press has cheered him to the rafters, with The Times rustling up a coterie of B-list business leaders representing companies that don’t even bother trading internationally, including a pub chain, Betfair and UCI Cinemas.

The problem is, Britain has never really understood Europe, and that’s why it’s never accepted the EU as a solution to centuries of strife. The Prime Minister alluded to this issue in his speech: “We have the character of an island nation – independent, forthright, passionate in defence of our sovereignty.”

To that I would add ‘ignorant’ and ‘exceptionalist’, both characteristics of the island mentality. How typical it was that the original date of Cameron’s great address was planned on the 60th anniversary of the Elysée Treaty between Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer.

Those familiar with The Thick of It can imagine how this omnishambles played out in Whitehall as they deliberated whether the continental knees-up really mattered that much – after all, aren’t the French needlessly emotional about absolutely everything?

De Gaulle blocked British entry into the European Economic Community, the forerunner of the EU, on two occasions (1963 and 1967) because of Britain’s different trading relations, employment attitudes and agricultural policies. “England in effect is insular, she is maritime, she is linked through her exchanges, her markets, her supply lines to the most diverse and often the most distant countries. She has in all her doings very marked and very original habits and traditions.” 

Alas, his efforts were to no avail; les rosbifs simply waited until he died to slip in and join the party, swiftly securing its first series of optouts in 1973, negotiated by Harold Wilson and put to the people.

But while the nation state has worked quite well for Britain over the last few centuries, the Peace of Westphalia, agreed in 1648 to recognise national sovereignty, did not stop wars and empires as means and ends to a political consensus in an ethnically diverse continent. The European Union has delivered 60 years of peace and was rightly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of this. It is neither perfect nor complete, as the Euro crisis shows, and Cameron is right to raise concerns about its democratic deficit.

But it is equally salient to point out that the peoples of Spain, Italy and Greece are still vehemently supportive of the EU, despite being ravaged by economic depression. They all have recent histories of brutal dictatorships offering a far worse way of life.

The reason why alarm is being expressed in European capitals and from Washington is that Cameron may have set in train the unravelling of the EU from 2017. If he gets a suitable renegotiation and keeps Britain in then he will pioneer a new EU based on Peter Mandelson’s cafeteria service, where all member states feel entitled to go à la carte on European policy, leading inevitably to disbandment.

If he wins the election but fails with the renegotiation and takes Britain out, then the EU has lost a very influential partner on defence, trade and liberal policy. The balance of power will shift in the remaining bloc and might entice other countries to seek an exit too. He will fail because he underestimates the extent to which the values of compromise and solidarity matter to the other member states.

In a continent with a shrinking demography and declining influence in the world, a fragmentation back to the model of querulous Westphalian states would surely be the death knell of European prosperity in the post-imperial age, in which sovereignty is moving to regional spaces and enacted by international organisations and corporations.

Many things can happen between now and 2018, and it would be useless to predict any- thing except the continuation of an increasingly unstable world operating in turbulent times. Since reform is happening already in the EU, and since active British involvement can help resolve the issues surrounding democratic accountability and the like, it seems self- defeating even to be contemplating the idea of leaving an institution that has delivered so much and promises to deliver so much more.

Britain’s stance on the EU is like the attitude of the sheriff in Blazing Saddles. At one point he says: “If you don’t do what I want, I’ll blow my brains out.” The problem for Cameron and the whole country comes when the rest of the EU says, “OK, go ahead.”