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A Preface to the Study of Philosophic Genres Author(s): Mark D. Jordan Source: Philosophy & Rhetoric, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Fall, 1981), pp. 199-211 Published by: Penn State University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40237294 . Accessed: 08/06/2014 22:06

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A Preface to thè Study of Philosophie Genres

Mark D. Jordan

At the beginning of the Poetics, Aristotle surveys the various

types of poetic imitation, distinguishing them aecording to means, objeet, and manner. Under the heading of différences of me ans, in discussing compositions which use neither harmony nor verse, Aristotle mentions the genre of the "Socratic conver- sations."1 I take him to be touching, for a moment, on the

generic classification of philosophie works. He goes on to distin-

guish a cosmologist writing in verse from a true poet.2 The Poet- ics shows, then, both the question of philosophie genres and the

suspect tendency to pass it by. I want to pause over the question in order to examine its features, its elusiveness, and also its failures.

I will begin the examination by distinguishing the question of

genre from a host of others with which it is regularly confused. It will appear, second, that by its nature genre is internai to

philosophie discourse and of universal extent in philosophie works. Genres are not found only in a few philosophie writings which are somehow (defectively) literary. Third, the examina- tion will discover dangers to the inquiry into philosophie genres which are hidden in the very notion of 'genre'. But let me repeat what the title says, that this is no more than a preface to the extended study of the shape of philosophical works. I hâve

thought such a preface useful because of the repeated obscuring of what is at stake in the study. Yet the essay «would defeat itself if it pretended to offer a generically neutral démonstration of some universal property of genres.

Let me also say that I will not notice during most of the examination thè intnisive practices of 'structuralist' and 'post- structuralist' criticism. I will adopt, instead, a way of reading which is less violent. This is to say that I will begin from those conditions for reading which the texts of the philosophie tradi- tion themselves impose upon thè reader, if he would bear them. What is gained in such an innocent approach - the extent to which it can be justified - thèse issues will be considered only at

Philosophy and Rhetoric, Vol. 14, No. 4. Fall 1981. Pubüshed by The Pennsyl- vania State University Press, University Park and London.

199

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200 MARK D. JORDAN

the essayas end, in treating of the dangers which lie concealed in the study of the genres as such.

1. Distinguishing the Question about Philosophie Genres

One of the first battles for philosophy is that in which it sets itself against poetry and rhetoric. Poetry is the elder rival out of which philosophy émerges. Rhetoric is the upstart which seeks to supplant philosophy by its more efficient techniques. So much is clear in Piato. There is, to cite a single instance, Soc- rates' s distinction in the Apology between the two classes of his accusers. The older class remains unspecified except for "a comic poet," Aristophanes.3 The younger class is represented by the "patriotic" accusers, versed in forensic rhetoric, who now prosecute Socrates.4 Even within this second group, Mele- tus is said to be prosecuting on behalf of the poets, Lycon on behalf of the orators.5

Of course, Piato is not the only évidence of this strife between philosophy and those arts which were later to be shared between thè trivi um and training in rhetoric. There is a long line of writings which reflect on this struggle. To cite only a few, pre-Cartesian examples: Aristotle's Topics and On Sophistical Réfutations, which are as much a part of the Organon as are the Analytics; Cicero' s De oratore; the fourth Book of Augustine' s De Doctrina Christiana; Martianus Cappella' s De nuptiis Mercurii et Philolo- giae; the Metalogicon of John of Salisbury; and Petrarch's De ignorantia. With Descartes, the question is obscured but not es- caped. What he took with him into that stove-heated Dutch room was his éducation from La Flèche and his language s. It seems characteristic that Descartes did not notice thèse latter posses- sions except when disapproving of them. He suffers language as what limits the clarity of his ideas.6 Modem philosophy seems frequently to hâve this unhappy relation to its own language, at once frustrated and fearful. The relation is exposed by Kierke- gaard and Nietzsche, in whom the ancient prospect of philoso- phy's relation to fleshly speech is once again desired, if not achieved. As a resuit, language is ubiquitously treated in contem- porary philosophy, whether in speculative projeets, in the method of analysis, or in technical works such as the New Rhe- toric of Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca.

Having traced this line of texts, I will set it aside. The ques-

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A PREFACE THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHIC GENRES 201

tion of philosophie genres is not addressed by talking about the external relations of philosophy to the other verbal arts. It must be understood, rather, as a question about the présence in phi- losophy of certain shapes of composition, which happen also to be studied in thè trivi um and by rhetoricians. A second line of texts then suggests itself , one governed by the topic of writing philosophy. There are, famously, a number of pedagogical asides in the prefatory remarks to various philosophical works:

Aquinas's plea for simplicity in the proemium to the Summa; Francis Bacon, passim, on the mummery of his predecessors; Kant9 s eschewing of example in the first Critique; the charges of Austinian analysts against their Continental rivais. There are also, more significantly, remarks on style and pedagogy which seem to adumbrate doctrines. This is the case, in opposite direc- tions, with Nietzsche and Peirce. Even for the dullest reading, Nietzsche9 s many aphorisms about style say more than that one

ought to write colorfully. They disclose something, at least, about the mask, about the connection between woman and

spirit, about the life of the philosopher as guardian and goad.7 But the doctrinal implications are even surer in Peirce, who treats of philosophie style in relation to the great aspiration of modem philosophy - the dream of clarity. Peirce' s directives on

clarifying ideas are not chiefly stylistic admonitions; they are a

prescription about how and what ideas can me an.8 Something similar - the espousal of doctrine through remarks on style - is familiär enough from the Anglo- American reading of Wittgen- stein' s Tractatus, especially the réitération of the dictum, "what can be said at ail can be said e le ari y/'9 The wish for clarity is from Descartes forward chargea with an epistemological déci- sion of which Peirce, Wittgenstein, and the Oxford masters are differentlv the heirs.

Still, the question of philosophie style, even in its doctrinal form, is not yet frankly enough the question about genres. The

question of style tends to relapse into an external view of philo- sophie language. The tendency can be seen in Blanshard's book, On Philosophie Style, 10 where there are some helpful remarks about writing expository prose. There is very little about what it is to write philosophy. Blanshard is so sure that philosophy can be said plainly, so much convinced of the subordination of sty- listic issues, that his remarks end by being little more than an

ordinary manual of style with philosophie illustrations. But the

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202 MARK D. JORDAN

question of form in philosophie discourse cannot be reduced to "verbal dressing."11 In thinking that it might be reduced, Blan- shard has fallen prey to a misconception. He seems to think that one gets a philosophie idea and then, in a moment which is

logically and temporally posterior, one begins to worry its ex- pression. Such a model betrays both a weak sensé of what style is and a doubtful philosophy of language. A word is not a con- tainer into which the distilled thought is poured, as if one were filling différent glasses under a tap.12

So I set aside the question of * style' in Blanshard's sensé just

as I set aside the question of the external relations of philosophy to the trivium and to rhetoric. What remains? There are a few précédents for a more searching inquiry into the form of philo- sophie discourse. At times the issue of philosophie pedagogy has been elevated beyond mere "style9 to the status of moral precept and informing principle. This is thè case in thè line of esoteric writings which is promised in Piato' s seventh letter and is seen in Clement of Alexandria, Haie vi, Maimonides, Spinoza, and Nietzsche. When one must write while keeping silent about what is most important, then one must consider 'style' in a far from trivial sensé. Leo Strauss has written a monograph on the esoteric tradition.13 If his concern for extrinsic causes is some- what troublesome, Strauss still shows how to ask reflectively about the philosophie genres. It is not to look for connections between philosophy and something eise. It is not to feel the surface of the text as an afterthought. It is, rather, to ask about the shape of the work and what it might mean for the discourse of philosophy 'in' it. Might it be that a work of a certain shape is the only one possible for certain thoughts?

2. Philosophie Genres

There is no ready theory of genres in literature which could be borrowed in analyzing philosophie genres. With some authority, Northrop Frye complains, "We discover that thè criticai theory of genres is stuck precisely where Aristotle left it. The very word 'genre' sticks out in an English sentence as the unpro- nounceable and alien thing it is. Most criticai efforts to handle such generic terms as 'epic' or 'novel' are chiefly interesting as examples of the psychology of rumour."14 What has stood in for a theory of genres is the habit of distinguishing literary kinds

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A PREFACE THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHIC GENRES 203

according to certain accidentia - the convention of writing po- etry flush left; the fact that novels are longer than no v e lias, which are longer than short s tories; and so on. Some of thèse features are perhaps not so peri phe rai, though it is not clear whether they are, for that, any closer to the center of genre.15 Nonetheless, we are accustomed to thinking that some things can be done appropriately in one genre and not in another. What- ever it is that makes for thèse différences of possible effect, that I want to name the formai différence of the genre.

Formai différences are related to what I called 'structure9 when discussing the esoteric tradition in philosophy. I now need to show a contrast between thè two. In a very suggestive essay on "philosophie form," Louis Mackey considers three cases of the embodiment of philosophie thought in the structure of its articulation - thè circle of Piato' s Euthyphro, the arch of the sixteenth Question of the first part of Aquinas' s Summa Theolo-

giae, and the plane of Hume's third Essay in thè Enquiry Con-

cerning Human Under standing. 16 I do not know if thèse ought to be called analyses of structure; they are not, I think, gener- ically formai analyses. In his exegesis, Mackey moves from a

particular doctrinal notion to its metaphor-rich embodiment. The

study of genres would move, instead, from the structure to the

possibilities for the doctrine. Mackey himself points to the unsta- ble character of readings which focus exclusively on metaphori- cal embodiment: A more detailed analysis might resuit in a new and quite différent understanding. But I do believe that some such approach to philosophical writings - cali it formai

analysis, structural analysis, stylistic analysis, or what-you- will - is essential to an understanding of what thèse writings say."17 About thè generai claim, I hâve no doubt. Nor do I want to say that Mackey9 s practices, especially the careful attention to metaphors, ought to be excluded from a generic reading. My only différence cornes in wanting to distinguish among the three

projects which Mackey equates. I hâve already discussed stylis- tic analysis. I want now to separate my sensé of generic or formai analysis from Mackey9 s analysis. Mackey connects doc- trines to metaphors to structures. I cali this a mate rial or con- tentimi corrélation. I want to ask, instead, whether there is a connection from genre to the semantic and criteriological possi- bilities for what is said 'in9 the genre. This would be a formai corrélation.

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204 MARK D. JORDAN

The question is whether something can be done philosophi- cally in a certain genre but not in another, just as certain things can be done in a novel but not in a short story. It is not easy to find help with such a question. There are some treatments of some philosophers' use of spécifie genres. The obvious subjects are Piato, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche. Stanley Cavell has also treated of the less noticed genres in Wittgenstein.18 The fact of

genre in the first three, at least, is so patent that it would be odd if it had gone unnoticed, though it is still habitually forgotten. There is a generai essay on the genres by Julian Marias, to which I will come in moment. Beyond that, there is little by way of reflection, especially of self-critical reflection. Too fre-

quently, when one passes from thè generai Statement of the issue to the particular study, one finds the question slipping away. This seems to be partly the case in Albert William Levi's

"Philosophy as Literature: The Dialogue," which was offered in this journal as the first in a séries on "philosophy as litera- ture."19 Let me use Levi's essay as the final stepping-stone in

reaching the question about genres. Levi is concernée! with what impels philosophers to use the

dialogue as a form. He makes clear that he is not asking a

sociological question which could be answered, say, by référ- ence to a psychological quirk or to a fashion at the time of

writing. Levi wants to know, rather, what it is about the dia-

logue which commends it to certain writers and not to others. He concludes that "the intrinsic appropriateness of this literary form lies in its reproduction of the situationality of philosophiz- ing, in its exhibition not of philosophie doctrines, but of philo- sophie activity, and in the possibilités which it provides for the

characteriological embodiment of the oppositional factors in the

lifeofthought."20 As an attempt to say what the form of the dialogue intends,

Levi's answer is a plausible beginning. But notice that he has

already slipped towards that extrinsic view according to which one chooses genres. He is already turning from the füll force of the question. To put the issue as Levi does - Why should a dialogue be chosen? - is already to hâve drifted back towards making the language external. Hère one ought to recali Mackey' s stronger thesis and the remarks in the essay by Marias entitled "Literary Genres in Philosophy."21 Marias does seem to face the question about genres in its fullness. Although much

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A PREFACE THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHIC GENRES 205

of what he says is directed at the contemporary poverty of the

genres in philosophy, he makes two generai points which secure the force of the question itself . The first is that philosophy has

frequently evaded the self-examination required by the question, rushing to conceal itself in hasty borrowings from literature. The second is that a failure with regard to genre - a failure to attend to one's own genre, to find one's own genre - is a failure of

philosophy simpliciter. Levi's question ought, then, to be re- versed. The question is not, Why should a dialogue be chosen? It is, What thought thinks itself as dialogue?

I hâve only three fragments of an argument for this reversai of Levi's question. They might be made into a case for the exigen- cies of genre as coeval with the thought 'expressed in' them. The first fragment is a reflection on the root of generic distinc- tions. The second is a canon of exegetical practice. The third is a pattern in the history of Western philosophie writing. It is part of the prefatory nature of this essay that thèse are fragments and not a large démonstration, though it may well be that to ask for a

proof of genres in generai is already to hâve forgotten what the

question requires in the way of self-cri tic ism. First fragment. When Frye cornes to fili the gap in the study

of literary genres, he claims that generic divisions ought to be understood by référence to "the radical of présentation."22 Ge- neric divisions dépend on différences in the mode of présenta- tion, that is, on différences in "the conditions established be- tween the poet and his public." Frye emphasizes that it is the radical of présentation which is in question and not its présent form. This reminder applies to philosophie composition by re-

calling the root-connection between philosophy and teaching -

that is, between philosophy and persuasion. I use 'persuasion' in its authentic sensé and not pejoratively.23 The ultimate ground for the plurality of genres in philosophie discourse may be the

plurality of modes in persuasion. The dialogue, the disputed question, the lecture, the aphorism are forms both of teaching and of composition. Even the solipsistic forms of modernity (the méditation, the autobiographical essay, the faceless monograph) are implicitly didactic invitations and are offered as paradigms. In so far as thèse vert forms might indicate genres, the genres would reflect the modes in which philosophy can be persuasive, which is to say, the modes in which philosophy can be written.24

Second fragment. Bad exegesis is characterized precisely by

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206 MARK D. JORDAN

inadvertence to the form of the work being interpreted. The

egregious and récurrent example is the présentation of 'Platonic' doctrine in textbooks, with self-righteous disregard for the fact that Piato never speaks in the dialogues and that his Socrates is a master of irony. An equally important, if less apparent failure occurs in the translation of medieval thought out of the quaes- tiones disputatele into Indentine treatises. Hère I must disagree with a conclusion which Levi wants to draw from his survey of philosophie dialogues. He insists (the remark is italicized) that "philosophy's literary involvement is almost directly inverse to the de grée of its professionalization."25 Perhaps the conscious- ness of literary involvement is so proportional, if 'professional- ization' is taken to mean what has happened to académie phi- losophy in the modern period. But it would be more correct to say that no work of philosophy is not literary.26 It is rather that there are différent genres. Some genres employed by the mod- ems prétend disingenuously not to be genres, but that is just one of their generic features. No altération of thè generai point is required.

The plurality of genres counts in comparing différent writers; it also must be considered in analyzing the hierarchy of writings which is the corpus of a single writer. This analysis might be called the study of 'authorship', since Kierkegaard made it noto- rious in his Point of View for My Work as an Author. The question of 'authorship' is found in any philosophie writer with an articulated corpus. It is essentially distinct from the question of chronology, with which it is often confused. Even within a single corpus, there is no good to be had in collating statements from différent works without attending to their genres. Identica! sentences in différent sorts of workmia/z differently. Moreover, a later work in a narrower genre may be less central to the authorship than an earlier work in a more expansive one. Any exegete, then, who ignores the question of 'authorship9 in this sensé is bound to make important mistakes. Not the least of thèse is the mistake of assuming that the exegete' s own genre is neutral with regard to the genres being explicated.

Third fragment. Every philosophie révolution has been ac- companied by a dispute over the appropriateness of certain genres for philosophie discourse. There is much play in Piato, for instance, over the oracular style in Parmenides. There is, later, thè triumph of thè quaestio disputata over the Augustinian

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A PREFACE THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHIC GENRES 207

dialogue, a triumph which is often made convertible with the rìse of 'Scholasticism'. This révolution is followed, in its turn, by the polemic of the Humanists against the Scholastic forms and their introduction of y et other forms. The history of philo- sophical teaching in the West is mirrored in the history of the

ascendancy of certain genres. This corrélation ought to suggest, for a third time, the essential place occupied by the genres.

It might be objected against thèse fragments that while they prove nothing, they suggest too much. In particular, their resuit is to raise thè possibility of Croce' s critique of the form/content distinction.27 Wouldn't it be the case that the now elucidated

question about genres would ultimately allow only one genre for one thought? Wouldn't it follow that each philosophie work, being somehow unique in its conception, would also be radically unique in its formai différences from other works? What could the 'genres' mean for such a view? There are, I think, two answers to thèse objected questions. The first is that the generic catégories hâve been used hère only as preliminary notions which seem to render certain features discovered in reading the works of the tradition. Genre has been used as a heuristic de-

vice, not as an ontological tenet. The second answer to the

questions is that it might be well to dissolve the notion of genre as Croce does, though not for his reasons. This answer requires a look at the notion of genre in itself .

3. 'Genres'

The program of the two previous sections has been first to uncover and then to examine the question about philosophie genres. The program itself must now be scrutinized to find what is hidden in the notion of genre on which it turn s. The question of genres seems to risk undoing itself in a multiplication of

genres or in unchecked subjectivity. Any attempt to resist thèse

possibilities by insisting on the giveness of genres leads, how-

ever, to other dangers. The chief dangers are two; they are connected. The first is

that one will take genre as an ontologically basic entity and will

spill much ink in pursuit of the 'genre as such'. Surely 'genre' cannot be the name for an Idea or a Form. To think so would

presume a supra-linguistic access to the foundations of language which has yet to be secured. At most, 'genre' may refer to some

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208 MARK D. JORDAN

primitive modalization in language. It might be that the plurality of genres is one version of the plurality of modes of discourse which informs ail language. But thèse are only the beginnings of an answer.

The second danger is that the inquiry into genres will degener- ate into a hunt for the absolute Table of Generic Catégories. When Marias offers a preliminary list of genres used in Western

philosophy, he is rightfully careful to hedge it about with qualifi- cations. "[O]ne ought to expect," he writes, "neither a rigour- ous nor an exhaustive enumeration of the philosophie literary genres; it will be enough to note, in approximately chronological order, a séries of unequi vocal form s, whose very enunciation will clarify what our concrete problem is."28 Even the "un-

equi vocal" character of the forms is doubtful, as Marias sees. "For example, does the fact that the Theaetetus and the Three

Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous are dialogues among various interlocutors permit us to affirm that they pertain to the same literary genre? . . . And this leaves aside the necessity for

distinguishing between the original, authentic genres and their imitations; but even this distinction is not enough, because . . . one must take aecount of the not trivial fact that in certain moments of history the literary genre chosen by philosophy has been nothing less than imitation."29

The doubts raised by Marias confimi what was already becom-

ing evident. The term 'genre' is useful in finding and saying an essential question about philosophie discourse, but it must be set aside once the question has gathered its force. The term 'genre' must be employed only under erasure (to use a Heideggerian practice now taken up by Derrida).30 It is put under erasure be- cause it might otherwise foreclose the question as it raises it; because it might bring in the temptation of the form/content dis- junction; and because it might import into the thinking on lan- guage a literalism which would be decisively inappropriate.

To put 'genre' under erasure is not, however, to embrace a structuralist or post-structuralist program. If I hâve adopted the

language and even a practice or two from that arsenal, I hâve not taken up the attack on the subject, on the sign, on the thought of the West. This does not mean that I intend a return to the facile reading of classicism in order to ignore every real problem raised about te tu ali ty; I intend to begin with the ques- tion about genres from the kind of reading that is presupposed

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A PREFACE THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHIC GENRES 209

even by structuralist writers of essays. This is not to proclaim the transparency of the text, or the présence of thè signified, or the subjectivity of the author. It is only to note that structuralist deconstruction is itself a revolt against the classicism it criti- cizes. Classicism once offered itself as the critique of a prior discourse. It might be that such a discourse, the one which stands on the other side of the classicism of modernity, does not fall to the critique of classicism deployed by the structuralist s. It might also be that the possibility of philosophie discourse dé-

pends in yet undisclosed ways on the thinking about language which was done in antiquity and among thè medie al s. The structuralists are not the first to think on language in an anti- modern way. Perhaps they are not even the most authentic thinkers, since much of their thought is conditioned by their

polemic against modernity. The value of a pre-Cartesian think-

ing on discourse is suggested not only by following the question of genres, but also by the persistence in that inquiry of the

question about philosophie silence. The claim of antiquity that there is something of vital impor-

tance to philosophie discourse which cannot be enunciated by it touches the study of genres in man y ways. It might suggest a

ranking of genres according to how closely they approach what

they cannot reach. It might serve as yet another measure for

questions of au t hors hip; much might be in the authorship with- out being written down in the texts.31 Yet, fi ail y, the question of the ineffable serves to keep the analysis of genres in check by reminding one that there is something beyond. 'Genre9 is put under erasure not only, or even most radie all y, by the contem-

porary cri tic s. It was originally questioned and reformed by the

thoughtful practice of that philosophy which modernity sought to banish. The study of the genres might show why that other

thinking of discourse is needed still.32

Department of Philosophy University of Dallas

NOTES

1 Poetics, 1447bll: tous Sokratikous logous. Though lexically attractive, 'con- versations' is not an adequate translation for logoi in this context. Logos named a very spécifie pedagogica! device within the Peripatetic practice of philosophi- cal composition. The logoi were passages taken down in dictation to serve as the

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210 MARK D. JORDAN

starting-point for fùrther discussion within the school. See Joseph Owens, The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics (2d ed., Toronto: P.I.M.S., 1963), pp. 75-78; and his référence to Werner Jaeger, Studien zur Entstehungs- geschichte der Metaphysik des Aristoteles (Berlin: Weidmann, 1923), pp. 138- 48. 2Poetics, 1447bl6-20. >Apology, 18dl-2. 4Apology, 24b5. 5Apology, 23e4-24al. 6 Recali this passage from the Discourse on Afethod, 1: "l'estimois fort

l'Eloquence, & i'estois amoureux de la Poesie; mais ie pensois que Fune & l'autre estoient des dons de l'espirt, plutost que les fruits de l'estude. Ceux qui ont le raisonnement le plus fort, & qui digèrent le mieux leurs pensées, affin de les rendre claires & intelligibles, peuuent tousiours le mieux persuader ce qu'ils proposent, encore qu'ils ne parlassent que bas Breton, & qu'us n'eussent iamais apris de Rhétorique.*1 In Oeuvres de Descartes, éd. Adam and Tannery, rev. ed., Vol. 6 (Paris: J. Vrin, 1973), p. 7, 11. 11-19. 7 Among the many passages in Nietzsche, the most connected discussion would

corne in the section from Ecce Homo entitled "Warum Ich So Gute Bücher Schreibe1* Wh y I Write Such Good Books"). In Nietzsche' s Werke, ed. Karl Schlechta (Munich: Carl Hanser, 1955), Vol. 2, pp. 1099-1107; and in Walter Kaufmann 's translation of Ecce Homo (New York: Vintage/Random Hpuse, 1969), pp. 259-325. Among the many other texts on philosophical composition, one might well recali Beyond Good and Evil, secs. 27-28, 289, 296. 8 Cf. esp. the famous "How To Make Our Ideas Clear," reprinted in Collected