Is ignorance an integral part of communication? On the difficulty of taking someone on their own terms

“What we do is never understood, but always merely praised or blamed.” Nietzsche

Do you know this? You have said something or written a text, and most of your interlocutors seem to misunderstand what you say? It happens all the time. If you ask me, it is so widespread that I sometimes wonder whether misunderstanding is a mode of communication rather than its failure. Now you might think that I am just being cynical, but no: I am sincere. I think it’s worth considering that understanding someone else is not the crucial part of what counts as successful communication. Let me walk you through a few examples.

If you’ve witnessed academic talks, you will be familiar with the following phenomenon. Some established academic sleeps through the talk of a colleague and then raises their hand first for asking a question. This kind of academic ‘exchange’ is often reported with a mixture of amusement and awe. How does it work? Well, I guess there are two standard ways: If the sleeper is sufficiently established, whatever they ask will carry enough weight to count as pertinent. Even if it is just remotely related to the talk. The other strategy is to pick on one item, an example or phrase, and pull it into a different context. If you’re a lucky sleeper, yours will be taken as a refreshingly original perspective. ­

­­­Now compare those strategies to more genuine questions. Typically, these will be way more cumbersome. Even if people are quick on the uptake, following an argument for the first time is really hard. Already trying to rephrase it in your own terms might bring out differences that need further discussion. The upshot is that questioners remaining on their own territory come across as clear or original, while those honestly struggling to take the talk on its own terms often lack time to even establish a mutual understanding. At least my anecdotal evidence tells me that sleepers are seen as more clear and original than the genuine listeners. I guess it’s not really surprising that this strategy works. Ignoring a speaker is not read as a display of ignorance but as a “power move”. (Can you have philosophical exchanges on Twitter? With such a small amount of signs? Of course you can! Mostly because what it takes is not understanding but making a clever move.)

Although the rules of the game might differ in different settings, similar patterns can be witnessed in other public exchanges, especially on politics. Again, I don’t have anything beyond anecdotes right now, but I would bet that the most common kind of frustration is that the interlocutor “fails to genuinely engage with the actual arguments”. Now what is behind this phenomenon? Going by my own experience, I think that the lack of actual engagement is often real. The reason is that we often rely on fairly general categories when trying to categorise our interlocutors. Before we engage with any argument, we will ‘know’ that our interlocutor is a “Leftie”, a “Kantian”, “a first-year student”, “a stranger (to the familiar customs)” or what have you. Once these evaluations and categories have kicked in, it’s not impossible but very hard to do what is called “engage with the argument” in the mode of genuine listening. However, since lack of engagement is read as a power move, perhaps even as a stable position, ignorance can be a winning strategy in all kinds of exchanges. Trump’s handling of his ignorance bears witness to this.

But what about personal conversations? My guess is that these strategies don’t really work in private settings. Try sleeping through a rant by your partner and then impress them with a pertinent question! Although some people might try to get away with it every now and then, it doesn’t really work in the long run. But why doesn’t ignorance work in private settings? A great number of reasons comes to mind. A crucial factor might be that understanding can’t be replaced by approval of the onlookers. In a public conversation the approving nods of others might be sufficient; in a private setting each interlocutor sets the standards. I’m not saying that private conversations are thriving on understanding; I’m saying that they are much harder. Of course, we might try the same clever moves that we get away with in public, but they don’t count for anything unless our interlocutor approves of them as sincere attempts at taking them on their own terms.

That said, the difference between public and private exchanges is not that the latter have to rest on genuine understanding. It’s that in private settings the interlocutor has to accept our moves. Convincing or understanding one individual is just harder if you cannot rely on the applause of a larger group. But the crucial point is not that we understand the other; it’s that the other accepts our move. Imagine that you are trying to console someone who is crying: What will make the situation work? That you really understand what moves your interlocutor to tears? Or isn’t it rather that the other accepts your engagement as a sincere attempt to console them?

The upshot for both cases, public and personal communication, is that our exchanges largely rely on accepted moves rather than genuine understanding. Genuine attempts at understanding, by contrast, will often feel cumbersome and take time. Paradoxically, then, attempts at understanding each other will feel like unsuccessful communication. The reason is not that we are stupid; the reason is that genuine understanding doesn’t (for the most part) rely on accepted moves or general evaluations. It simply takes time to follow an unfamiliar line of reasoning or to really put yourself into someone else’s shoes.

What does this tell us about communication? I talked about “genuine understanding” as if it were a great achievement. But I doubt that it is crucial for what counts as successful communication. What makes communication successful is some sort of acceptance by the audience or interlocutor. That something is understood might be a by-product. Or to put it in Wittgensteinian terms, the content of what is actually said might drop out of consideration as irrelevant.

On expressing dislike and becoming yourself

I don’t like Bach. – Uttered in a conversation amongst academics, this sentence will make you stand out. I remember some occasions when that remark was met with a blank stare. When the conversation was sincere, however, people would go on and ask for reasons. Now you might think this is just highbrow party talk, and I won’t blame you. But it does have a crucial side-effect: it shapes my identity. The idea behind this assumption is that personal identity is crucially shaped by what psychologists call distinctiveness. Put crudely, distinctiveness is what distinguishes you from other individuals. So in a group of people who are likely to like Bach, expressing my dislike will probably set me apart. If you still think this is a concept of snobbery rather than identity, just think about your youth or even childhood, when expressing dislike was vital for building some first if perhaps shaky foundations of an identity. How and why did you choose your football team? Were you a Beatles or Stones person? Star Wars or Star Trek? Closer to home: continental or analytic? Of course not all identity markers are attained by expressing dislike. After all, expressing dislike is an expression of a preference. But in a highly homogenous environment, expressions of dislike clearly help carving out your niche, for better or worse. In what follows, I want to do two things: firstly, I’d like to explore this feature of identity formation a bit more; secondly, I would like to suggest that this feature might be relevant for explaining why many of us, not least philosophers, are attracted by disagreements so much.

Discovering and inventing yourself. – Admittedly, it took me quite a while to get from my Bach statement to identity formation. It was triggered by a chat about a boy who had recurrently expressed dislike of a certain kind of music, knowing very well that doing so would leave him hugely unpopular. Why does he do this, I wondered. I tried to imagine myself doing that and hit upon the Bach statement. But obviously, my Bach statement involved no social risks (at least none that are known to me). So I had to go back in time, to my adolescence: What makes you stand out, for better or worse, amongst a bunch of rock or classical guitarists? Right, jazz! What makes a fourteen-year-old stand out among their friends? Right, reading some philosophy. What makes your three-year old daughter stand out at an harmonious dinner table? Right, throwing a tantrum and knocking a glass off the table. The degrees of dislike and authenticity may vary. Some acts might not be continued; some might be mere experiments, but my hunch is that they figure in building distinctiveness and thus in determining personal identity.

Social functions of expressing preferences. – That said, I doubt that determining personal identity is an end in itself. Distinctiveness is embedded in social relations. Speaking from the now somewhat remote inside of my teenage head, a preference or dislike could be determined in several ways. Role models’ statements would often inspire me to try whether I liked something, too. In this case, I would hope for similarity with the role model. My parents, at least back in the day, often inspired the opposite. I guess one reason for that is that my parents wanted me to be “normal”, but building distinctiveness is all about being unusual. Or to quote from a pertinent psychology paper: “You are what makes you unusual”. While people’s expressions of preferences could inspire or help me in discovering my own preferences, such expressions also helped in building friendships. If you find yourself at a party disliking the music, you might be happy to find a companion sharing your dislike. Now you can mutually acknowledge how special you are. – But while expressions of preferences or dislike help building identity in social relations, they are also value judgements. And since such judgments are linked to our identity, they can feel empowering or hurtful. It might not hurt to hear that I dislike Bach, but if an esteemed music professor speaks to an aspiring pianist it might make all the difference.

From dislike to disagreement. – Seen as a type of judgment, expressions of dislike can be part of a disagreement. If it is true that we strive for distinctiveness, then initiating a disagreement is an obvious tool, especially in a highly homogenous setting such as an academic exchange. Perhaps this partly explains the adversarial culture in philosophy. I was once told that a straightforward way to become famous among philosophers would consist in defending an absurd thesis. Although this was rightly meant to be taken with a grain of salt, it makes even more sense in view of the identity-forming function of disagreement. But if such claims are also linked to our identity, then we should bear that in mind when expressing our disagreement.

Given that such claims can be quite empowering or hurtful, it is not surprising that certain discussions, especially on social media, often quickly get emotionally heated. If we strive for distinctiveness and try to achieve this partly by expressing dislike, then expressions of dislike or disagreement are often linked, in one way or another, to our social identity. Expressions that signal virtues to our in-group might be seen as vices by an out-group member. Arguably, social media facilitate (perhaps even encourage) expressions of distinctiveness. So we’re much more likely to find similarity (e.g. through ‘likes’) as well as disagreement and dislike, and along with it all the empowerment or hurfulness involved.

Two kinds of philosophy? A response to the “ex philosopher”

Arguably, there are at least two different kinds of philosophy: The first kind is what one might call a spiritual practice, building on exercises or forms of artistic expression and aiming at understanding oneself and others. The second kind is what one might call a theoretical endeavour, building on concepts and arguments and aiming at explaining the world. The first kind is often associated with traditions of mysticism, meditation and therapy; the second is related to theory-building, the formation of schools (scholasticism) and disciplines in the sciences (and humanities). If you open any of the so-called classics, you’ll find representations of both forms. Descartes’ Meditations offer you meditative exercises that you can try at home alongside a battery of arguments engaging with rival theories. Wittgenstein’s Tractatus closes with the mystical and the advice to shut up about the things that matter most after opening with an account of how language relates to the world. However, while both kinds are present in many philosophical works, only the second kind gets recognition in professional academic philosophy. In what follows, I’d like to suggest that this lopsided focus might undermine our discipline.

Although I think that these kinds of philosophy are ultimately intertwined, I’d like to begin by trying to make the difference more palpable. Let’s start with a contentious claim: I think that most people are drawn into philosophy by the first kind, that is, by the desire understand themselves, while academic philosophy trains people in the second kind, that is, in handling respectable theories. People enter philosophy with a first-person perspective and leave or become academics through mastering the third-person perspective. By the way, this is why most first-year students embrace subjectivism of all kinds and lecturers regularly profess to be “puzzled” by this. Such situations thrive on misunderstandings: for the most part, students don’t mean to endorse subjectivism as a theory; they simply and rightly think that perspective matters.* Now, this is perhaps all very obvious. But I do think that this transition from the one kind to the other kind could be made more transparent. The problem I see is not the transition itself, but the dismissal of the first kind of philosophy. As I noted earlier, the two kinds of philosophy require one another. We shouldn’t rip the Tractatus apart, to exclude either mysticism or the theory. Whether you are engaging in the first or second kind is more a matter of emphasis. However, interests in gatekeeping and unfounded convictions about what is and what isn’t philosophy often entail practices of exclusion, often with pernicious effects.

Such sentiments were stirred when I read the confessions of an ex philosopher that are currently making the rounds on social media. The piece struck many chords, quite different ones. I thought it was courageous and truthful as well as heart-breaking and enraging. Some have noted that the piece is perhaps more the complacent rant of someone who was never interested in philosophy and fellow philosophers to begin with. Others saw its value in highlighting what might be called a “phenomenology of failure” (as Dirk Koppelberg put it). These takes are not mutually exclusive. It’s not clear to me whether the author had the distinction between the two kinds of philosophy in mind, but it surely does invoke something along these lines:

“Philosophy has always been a very personal affair. Well, not always. When it stopped being a personal affair, it also stopped being enjoyable. It became a performance.

… Somewhat paradoxically, academia made me dumber, by ripening an intellectual passion I loved to engage with into a rotten performance act I had to dread, and that I hurried to wash out of my mind (impossible ambition) when clocking out. Until the clocking out became the norm. Now I honestly do not have insightful opinions about anything — not rarefied philosophical problems nor products nor popular culture nor current events.”

What the author describes is not merely the transition from one approach to another; it is transition plus denial. It’s the result of the professional academic telling off the first-year student for being overly enthusiastically committed to “subjectivism”. While we can sometimes observe this happening in the lecture hall, most of this denial happens within the same person, the supposed adult telling off themselves, that is, the playful child within. No doubt, sometimes such transition is necessary and called for. But the denial can easily kill the initial motivation. – That said, the author also writes that he has “never enjoyed doing philosophy.” It is at this point (and other similar ones) where I am torn between different readings, but according to the reading I am now proposing the “philosophy” he is talking about is a widespread type of academic philosophy.** What he is talking about, then, is that he never had an interest in a kind of philosophy that would deny the initial enthusiasm and turn it into a mere performance.

Now you might say that this is just the course of a (professionalised) life. But I doubt that we should go along with this dismissal too readily. Let me highlight two problems, unfounded gatekeeping and impoverished practices:

  • The gatekeeping has its most recognisable expression in the petulant question “Is this philosophy?” Of course, it depends on who is asking, but the fact that most texts from the mystic tradition or many decidedly literary expressions of philosophy are just ignored bears witness to the ubiquitous exclusion of certain philosophers. It certainly hit Hildegard of Bingen, parts of Nietzsche and bits of Wittgenstein. But if an exaggerated remark is in order, soon anything that doesn’t follow the current style of paper writing will be considered more or less “weird”. In this regard, the recent attempts at “diversifying the canon” often strike me as enraging. Why do we need to make a special case for re-introducing work that is perfectly fine? In any case, the upshot of dismissing the first kind of philosophy is that a lot of philosophy gets excluded, for unconvincing reasons.
  • You might think that such dismissal only concerns certain kinds of content or style. But in addition to excluding certain traditions of philosophy, there is a subtler sort of dismissal at work: As I see it, the denial of philosophy as a (spiritual) practice or a form of life (as Pierre Hadot put it) pushes personal involvement to the fringes. Arguably, this affects all kinds of philosophy. Let me give an example: Scepticism can be seen as a kind of method that allows us to question knowledge claims and eventually advances our knowledge. But it can also be seen as a personal mental state that affects our decisions. As I see it, the methodological approach is strongly continuous with, if not rooted in, the mental state. Of course, sometimes it is important to decouple the two, but a complete dismissal of the personal involvement cuts the method off from its various motivations. Arguably, the dismissal of philosophy as a spiritual (and also political) practice creates a fiction of philosophy. This fiction might be continuous with academic rankings and pseudo-meritocratic beliefs, but it is dissociated from the involvement that motivates all kinds of philosophical exchange.

In view of these problems, I think it is vital keep a balance between what I called two kinds but what is ultimately one encompassing practice. Otherwise we undermine what motivates people to philosophise in the first place.


* Liam Bright has a great post discussing the often lame counterarguments to subjectivism, making the point that I want to make in a different way by saying that the view is more substantial than it is commonly given credit for: “The objection [to subjectivism] imagines a kind of God’s-eye-perspective on truth and launches their attack from there, but the kind of person who is attracted to subjectivism (or for that matter relativism) is almost certainly the kind of person who is suspicious of the idea of such a God’s eye perspective. Seen from within, these objections simply lose their force, they don’t take seriously what the subjectivist is trying to do or say as a philosopher of truth.”

Eric Schliesser provides a brief discussion of Liam’s post, hitting the nail on the following head: “Liam’s post (which echoes the loveliest parts of Carnap’s program with a surprisingly Husserlian/Levinasian sensibility) opens the door to a much more humanistic understanding of philosophy. The very point of the enterprise would be to facilitate mutual understanding. From the philosophical analyst’s perspective the point of analysis or conceptual engineering, then, is not getting the concepts right (or to design them for ameliorative and feasible political programs), but to find ways to understand, or enter into, one’s interlocutor life world.”

** Relatedly, Ian James Kidd distinguishes between philosophy and the performative craft of academic philosophy in his post on “Being good at being good at philosophy”.