In chapter six of Giving Reasons Morrow talks about charitable and uncharitable interpretations
of different claims.
Since I'm going to be asking you to provide your own charitable and uncharitable interpretations
of different philosophical claims, I'm going to give you some examples here of claims from
the history of philosophy, together with charitable and uncharitable interpretations.
The first one comes from the ancient Greek philosopher Thales, who famously said, “All is water.”
Now, I can interpret this in a very uncharitable way by saying that Thales, that idiot, thought
that all reality was water, that only water is real and that everything else is somehow
unreal or illusory.
I could give another interpretation that is only slightly less uncharitable: that Thales
thought that even solid objects like stones are in fact made of water somehow.
Somehow water comes together in some rigid combination to create solid objects, and in
some other combination to create gaseous objects.
This still seems to me to be fairly uncharitable to Thales.
Both of these uncharitable interpretations have the vice that they cause us to think
of Thales as being somewhat stupid, or completely disconnected from the common sense reality
that we all understand.
It requires us to assume that we ourselves are far smarter and wiser than the person
we are interpreting.
While that may sometimes be the case, it seems it's unlikely to be the case with Thales,
one of the Seven Wise Men of ancient Greece.
So let's continue with some interpretations that might be a little bit more charitable
toward him and see if we can unlock some of the truth that he's trying to express, even
if mistakenly or imperfectly in this statement that “All is water.”
I might interpret this statement more charitably by saying Thales thinks that water is the
most fundamental of the four elements, that somehow the cosmos depends upon water, all
life depends upon water, seems to come from water.
This is going to be complicated and contextualized by the fact that all we have from Thales’
writings are fragments like this, just a single statement that “All is water.”
But notice what a charitable interpretation invites me to do is to investigate more deeply,
to discover more of the context: What did Thales think he was saying when he said this?
Uncharitable interpretations tend to close off further lines of inquiry.
That's one way to recognize them.
The second example I'd like to give is a statement by the French revolutionary philosopher Rousseau,
who famously began his work The Social Contract by writing, “Man is born free yet everywhere
he is in chains.”
So let's give some interpretations of this, both uncharitable and charitable.
In an uncharitable sense, I could read Rousseau as saying that babies, right after they're
born, are unrestricted, nobody stops them from moving their limbs in whatever way that
they want.
They have a kind of meaningless freedom, right, it's worthless because unless they're fed,
unless they're cared for right away, they're going to die.
So and I could say, in a similar way, maybe the second half of this statement, “man
is everywhere in chains,” means that adults are restrained not literally, not literally
in chains, that seems to be so uncharitable as to make the statement obviously false,
but in some kind of figurative way we're held down or held back.
I think this interpretation of both halves of Rousseau's statement is still quite uncharitable.
It doesn't really give us an insight into what he's trying to say.
So let me try a more charitable interpretation: perhaps Rousseau means by this that humans,
by their very nature, when they're born, possess some kind of freedom.
(Now I want to ask: what kind of freedom is that? That's important for later.)
But civilization and society imposed some kind of restraint
upon us as we are adults.
I might also interpret this statement still more charitably by saying that Rousseau is
pointing out that culture and social convention limit our natural freedom in some radical fashion.
This is the purpose of his using this evocative expression, “Man is in chains.”
He's held down by the weight of culture and rules that are imposed upon him, that limit
his natural freedom.
I can now ask, is this correct?
Does Rousseau have a correct view in general of the nature of human freedom: that we are
born with it, it’s ours by nature but is somehow limited or taken away from us by laws
and social rules and conventions.
I can only ask this question about the truth of Rousseau's theory after I've given a charitable
interpretation that begins to open it up to me.
If I rest content with my literal or uncharitable interpretation of what he says, I write him
off as a kind of madman or idiot.
And that's again one of the hallmarks of an uncharitable interpretation: it closes off
further inquiry and allows me to feel superior to someone without really giving me a clear
understanding of what he's trying to do.
So I've just given you two examples of both uncharitable and charitable interpretations
of some claims from the history of philosophy.
I hope you find this helpful for your upcoming writing assignment.
Thanks for watching today; goodbye.