Quietism in

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

sees the role of philosophy as broadly

therapeutic A therapy or medical treatment (often abbreviated tx, Tx, or Tx) is the attempted remediation of a health problem, usually following a medical diagnosis. As a rule, each therapy has indications and contraindications. There are many different ...

or remedial. Quietist philosophers believe that philosophy has no positive thesis to contribute, but rather that its value is in defusing confusions in the linguistic and conceptual frameworks of other subjects, including non-quietist philosophy. For quietists, advancing knowledge or settling debates (particularly those between realists and non-realists) is not the job of philosophy, rather philosophy should liberate the mind by diagnosing confusing concepts.

Status within philosophy

Crispin Wright Crispin James Garth Wright (; born 21 December 1942) is a British philosopher, who has written on neo-Fregean (neo-logicist) philosophy of mathematics, Wittgenstein's later philosophy, and on issues related to truth, realism, cognitivism, skep ...

said that "Quietism is the view that significant

metaphysical Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

debate is impossible." It has been described as "the view or stance that entails avoidance of substantive philosophical theorizing and is usually associated with certain forms of

skepticism Skepticism, also spelled scepticism, is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the pe ...

pragmatism Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that considers words and thought as tools and instruments for prediction, problem solving, and action, and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. ...

, and minimalism about truth. More particularly, it is opposed to putting forth positive theses and developing constructive arguments." Quietism by its nature is not a

philosophical school {{Horizontal TOC, nonum=on A * Absurdism * Academic skepticism * Achintya Bheda Abheda * Advaita Vedanta * Agnosticism * Ajātivāda * Ājīvika * Ajñana * Alexandrian school * Analytic philosophy * Analytical Thomism * Anarchist schools of t ...

as understood in the sense of a systematic body of truths. The objective of quietism is to show that philosophical positions or theories cannot solve problems, settle debates or advance knowledge. It is often raised in discussion as an opposite position to both

philosophical realism Philosophical realism is usually not treated as a position of its own but as a stance towards other subject matters. Realism about a certain kind of thing (like numbers or morality) is the thesis that this kind of thing has ''mind-independent exi ...

and philosophical non-realism. Specifically, quietists deny that there is any substantial debate between the positions of realism and non-realism. There are a range of justifications for quietism about the realism debate offered by

Gideon Rosen Gideon Rosen (born 1962) is an American philosopher. He is a Stuart Professor of Philosophy and the chair of the philosophy department at Princeton University, where he specializes in metaphysics, philosophy of mathematics, and ethics. Educa ...

and

John McDowell John Henry McDowell, FBA (born 7 March 1942) is a South African philosopher, formerly a fellow of University College, Oxford, and now university professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Although he has written on metaphysics, epistemology, ...

History and proponents

Ancient

Pyrrhonism represents perhaps the earliest example of an identifiably quietist position in the West. The Pyrrhonist philosopher

Sextus Empiricus Sextus Empiricus ( grc-gre, Σέξτος Ἐμπειρικός, ; ) was a Greek Pyrrhonist philosopher and Empiric school physician. His philosophical works are the most complete surviving account of ancient Greek and Roman Pyrrhonism, and bec ...

described Pyrrhonism as a form of philosophical therapy: Some have identified

Epicureans Epicureanism is a system of philosophy founded around 307 BC based upon the teachings of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus. Epicureanism was originally a challenge to Platonism. Later its main opponent became Stoicism. Few writings by ...

as another early proponent of quietism. The goal of Epicurean philosophy is the decidedly quietist objectives of

aponia "Aponia" ( grc, ἀπονία) means the absence of pain, and was regarded by the Epicureans to be the height of bodily pleasure. As with the other Hellenistic schools of philosophy, the Epicureans believed that the goal of human life is happin ...

(freedom from pain) and ataraxia, even dismissing Stoic logic as useless. The

neo-Confucian Neo-Confucianism (, often shortened to ''lǐxué'' 理學, literally "School of Principle") is a moral, ethical, and metaphysical Chinese philosophy influenced by Confucianism, and originated with Han Yu (768–824) and Li Ao (772–841) in th ...

philosopher

Cheng Hao Chéng Hào (, 1032–1085), Courtesy name Bóchún (), was a Chinese philosopher and politician from Luoyang, China. In his youth, he and his younger brother Cheng Yi were students of Zhou Dunyi, one of the architects of Neo-Confucian c ...

is also associated with advocating quietism. He argued that the goal of existence should be calming one's natural biases and embracing impartial tranquility.

Contemporary

Contemporary discussion of quietism can be traced back to

Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is considere ...

, whose work greatly influenced the ordinary language philosophers. While Wittgenstein himself did not advocate quietism, he expressed sympathy with the viewpoint. One of the early 'ordinary language' works,

Gilbert Ryle Gilbert Ryle (19 August 1900 – 6 October 1976) was a British philosopher, principally known for his critique of Cartesian dualism, for which he coined the phrase "ghost in the machine." He was a representative of the generation of British ord ...

's ''

The Concept of Mind ''The Concept of Mind'' is a 1949 book by philosopher Gilbert Ryle, in which the author argues that "mind" is "a philosophical illusion hailing chiefly from René Descartes and sustained by logical errors and 'category mistakes' which have becom ...

'', attempted to demonstrate that dualism arises from a failure to appreciate that mental vocabulary and physical vocabulary are simply different ways of describing one and the same thing, namely human behaviour.

J. L. Austin John Langshaw Austin (26 March 1911 – 8 February 1960) was a British philosopher of language and leading proponent of ordinary language philosophy, perhaps best known for developing the theory of speech acts. Austin pointed out that we u ...

's '' Sense and Sensibilia'' took a similar approach to the problems of

and the reliability of sense perception, arguing that they arise only by misconstruing ordinary language, not because there is anything genuinely wrong with

empirical evidence Empirical evidence for a proposition is evidence, i.e. what supports or counters this proposition, that is constituted by or accessible to sense experience or experimental procedure. Empirical evidence is of central importance to the sciences and ...

Norman Malcolm Norman Malcolm (; 11 June 1911 – 4 August 1990) was an American philosopher. Biography Malcolm was born in Selden, Kansas. He studied philosophy with O. K. Bouwsma at the University of Nebraska, then enrolled as a graduate student at Har ...

, a friend of Wittgenstein's, took a quietist approach to skeptical problems in the

philosophy of mind Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the ontology and nature of the mind and its relationship with the body. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a number of other issues are addre ...

. More recently, the philosophers

, Irad Kimhi, Sabina Lovibond, Eric Marcus,

, and to a certain degree

Richard Rorty Richard McKay Rorty (October 4, 1931 – June 8, 2007) was an American philosopher. Educated at the University of Chicago and Yale University, he had strong interests and training in both the history of philosophy and in contemporary analytic phi ...

have taken explicitly quietist positions. Pete Mandik has argued for a position of ''qualia quietism'' on

the hard problem of consciousness The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining why and how humans have qualia or phenomenal experiences. This is in contrast to the "easy problems" of explaining the physical systems that give us and other animals the ability to ...

Varieties

Some philosophers have advanced quietism about specific subjects such as realism or truth. These positions can be held independent of one's view on quietism about the entire project of philosophy.

On realism

One may be a realist about a range of subjects within philosophy from

ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns m ...

and

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed thr ...

science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

and

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

. Realists claim that a given concept exists, has particular properties and is in some way mind independent, while non-realists deny this claim. Quietists take a third position, claiming that there is no real debate between realists and non-realists on a given subject. A version of this position espoused by John McDowell claims that the debate hinges on theses about the relationship between the mind and the world around us that are unsupported or unsupportable, and without those claims there will be no debate. Others, such as Gideon Rosen argue more specifically against individual cases of the realism debate.

On truth

Quietism about truth is a version of the identity theory of truth. Specifically,

Jennifer Hornsby Jennifer Hornsby, FBA (born 1951) is a British philosopher with interests in the philosophies of mind, action, language, as well as feminist philosophy. She is currently a professor at the School of Philosophy, Birkbeck, University of Londo ...

and John McDowell argue against any ontological gap between what we think is true and what is actually true. Quietists about truth resist the distinction between truth bearers and truthmakers as leading to a correspondence theory of truth. Rather they claim that such a distinction should be eliminated, true statements are simply one thinking truly about the world. The target of these thoughts is not a truthbearer, but rather the facts of the world themselves.

References

Sources

*Wittgenstein, Ludwig. ''Philosophical Investigations''. 3rd Rev Edn, Blackwell, 2002. *Ryle, Gilbert. ''The Concept of Mind''. London: Hutchinson, 1949. *Austin, J L. ''Sense and Sensibilia''. OUP, 1962. *Macarthur, David. “Pragmatism, Metaphysical Quietism and the Problem of Normativity,” Philosophical Topics. Vol.36 No.1, 2009. *Malcolm, Norman. ''Dreaming (Studies in Philosophical Psychology)''. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1959. *McDowell, John and Evans, Gareth. ''Truth and Meaning''. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976. *McDowell, John. ''Mind and World''. New Ed, Harvard, 1996. {{philosophy of language Metaphysical theories Theories of language Philosophical methodology Psychological attitude Scientific method Analytic philosophy Pyrrhonism Epicureanism