Why I don’t do philosophy anymore
I read part of Hilary Putnam’s Realism with a Human Face for the class on metaphysics my advisor is teaching this semester, and was particularly struck by the following quote:
I take it as a fact of life that there is a sense in which the task of philosophy is to overcome metaphysics and sense in which its task is to continue metaphysical discussion. In every philosopher there is a part that cries, “This enterprise is vain, frivolous, crazy–we must say ‘Stop!’” and a part that cries, “This enterprise is simply reflection at the most general and abstract level; to put a stop to it would be a crime against reason.” Of course philosophical problems are unsolvable; but as Stanley Cavell once remarked, “there are better and worse ways of thinking about them.”
This is essentially why I am stopping my active study of philosophy; it’s too hard. It’s so hard that I feel the problems are intractable, that is, the first part of the philosopher above is winning out. But the second part is still alive, and that is why I am sad about it.
Now I just need to finish the last four commitments I have for my final term, and finish a thesis.