Teaching and Learning > DISCOURSE
Interview with Jonathan Lowe
Author: David Mossley
Journal Title: Discourse
ISSN: 2040-3674
ISSN-L: 1741-4164
Volume: 5
Number: 1
Start page: 17
End page: 28
Return to vol. 5 no. 1 index page
Mossley: I would like to ask you some questions about your experiences as a teacher, how you feel about teaching and what has influenced you in teaching in philosophy. I wonder if you could start by saying a little bit about your own history as a philosophy teacher, how you came to philosophy, where you've taught and so on.
Lowe: I came to philosophy through a rather roundabout route, because when I went up to Cambridge as an undergraduate I did so to read natural sciences and in the course of my first year I became dissatisfied with that and changed to history—so my first degree was in history. Now, in the course of studying history I became interested in the history of political thought, and indeed after I graduated I intended to do a PhD in the history of political thought but then got more interested in pure philosophy. So I moved to Oxford to do the BPhil in Philosophy and then subsequently the DPhil. So I became a philosopher. My first job in philosophy was at Reading University for a year and after that I came to Durham and have been in Durham ever since.
M: You have three main areas of philosophical interest (metaphysics, Locke and the philosophy of mind) and we'll touch on these in some of the questions I'd like to ask. In a recent book The Possibility of Metaphysics, you defend a position on the nature of philosophy and metaphysics in particular—correct me if I misrepresent this—in which you say the purpose of metaphysics is to delimit what could possibly be objects of enquiry by giving us the limits of possibility.
L: Yes
M: Taking that as a starting point, would you like to say a little bit about that and how you see the role of philosophy within a university context—whether in multiple disciplines or overlapping disciplinarity?
L: Part of my thesis about this is based on the idea of the unity or indivisibility of truth: that all different human intellectual enquiries— or many of them anyway—are aimed at truth, or pursue truth, in their own individual ways, with their own methods and their own fairly limited subject matters. But truth is one and indivisible. What is true in one area cannot conflict with what is true in another and so it is part of our intellectual duty, as it were, to reconcile these different pursuits of truth and make them all compatible. Now it seems to me that this is one of the tasks of philosophy—more so than any other discipline— because it is all-embracing: everything comes within the purview of philosophy and it is partly this critical aspect of the pursuit of truth that informs my position. The other element is to do with possibility. The thought here is that however much we may claim to be empiricists and say that knowledge (or large areas of knowledge) can be pursued only on the basis of empirical investigation and observation, observation or experience can only confirm or corroborate what is at least possible. I mean that you cannot empirically confirm a contradiction, or corroborate something which is incoherent, and again it is part of the task of philosophy to delimit what is, or is not possible, as a kind of precondition of empirical enquiry. And so it is for those two reasons—the unity of truth and the requirement, on any kind of empirical confirmation, of the possibility of what is being confirmed—that philosophy has a special interdisciplinary role. The implication, I suppose, for the university and other disciplines is that there is a philosophical dimension to all disciplines, whether they recognise it or not. In many cases, the disciplines' own practitioners will be able to engage with that philosophical dimension for themselves. But there is also a requirement to reconcile the philosophical dimensions of the different disciplines, and so there is an indispensable role for pure philosophy as a mediator between disciplines. Particularly within a university— since in a true university all disciplines will be represented— philosophy will have a special role in helping to coordinate and inspire the different activities of the various disciplines.
M: This is clearly a notion of the university which would be recognisable, I suspect, to John Locke—the university as grounded in enlightenment rationality, with a unified notion of truth. Would you like to say a little more about what you think a university is, then, because that notion of a university has been challenged recently in postmodern contexts?
L: Yes, well, I think at the heart of the notion of a university is the notion of an autonomous community of scholars, of people interested in the pursuit of knowledge, the pursuit of truth and the preservation and transmission of knowledge and learning to succeeding generations. That is essentially a cooperative enterprise, and even though the different practitioners are all involved in their own particular corners—their own particular disciplines—it is a moral community involving mutual obligations, both within that community and within society at large. It is charged with this special duty of—as I say—enhancing, preserving and transmitting knowledge and learning over the generations, something which is essential to any civilised society.
My worry about some of the developments in universities at the moment is that there is an increasing commercialisation, commodification, and emphasis upon training for employment in all sorts of professions. Now there is some scope for that, obviously, but there is a danger that it could take over the traditional core role of a university as a repository of knowledge and learning, charged with the responsibility of perpetuating that knowledge over the generations.
M: It would shift the notion of a university from emphasis on the knowledge base to emphasis on the product? And thus to a reductive analysis of what a person is?
L: Indeed
M: Which brings me to the next point: I wondered if you'd like to say a little about what you think a person is, in terms of how a person is educated and how education works for an individual—and whether the philosophical notion of a person as a subject has a consequence for how education should be understood.
L: Yes, I think it does. As you've indicated, my view of a person is a non-reductive one. A person is not just some kind of assemblage of biological matter, or anything like that. A person is a self-reflective being that is capable of rational thought and action—that was Locke's view of personhood, essentially—and so, crucial for the very notion of a person is the notion of education. To become a person one has to go through certain educative processes in communion with other people, and the development of persons is the business of education both at pre-university level and, of course, at university level. And, as I say, this is a moral notion. The notion of a person is what Locke called a forensic notion: a person is a being that can acquire responsibilities, and be subject to praise and blame and so forth. So there is a moral dimension to education as well—one that is indissolubly linked with the intellectual dimension that should be reflected both in the structure and organisation and in the practices of a university. As well as recognising individual persons, we can think of communities of persons as being, in a sense, corporate persons—and a university is an example of a corporate person. It has a communal life, it engages in various actions, it has knowledge, and it is a rational—if sometimes also an irrational—being, with moral responsibilities to its members and to society at large.
M: If I may perhaps touch on a related point: if we look at a student coming to join this corporate person, what kinds of abilities, or skills, or outlook, or capabilities are best suited to a student entering a philosophy programme?
L: Well, there's not a requirement of any prior knowledge as such. It's more a matter of having the right attitude—an open mind, a willingness to engage in free and rational debate in an unbiased way, and an ability to listen to other people's arguments and to respond to them on the basis of the merits of those arguments, rather than being influenced by extraneous factors—personalities or preconceived ideas and so forth. Any student who has that aptitude—that willingness to engage in free and open debate—will, I think, be able to benefit from a philosophical education.
M: So, do you think there's anything particular about philosophy? Is what you've just said not equally true of, say, a student doing history or English?
L: Yes, it would be true for any intellectual discipline but partly, I would say, precisely because every such discipline has a philosophical dimension. But the special thing about philosophy is it doesn't really have its own subject matter. I mean that there aren't, as it were, philosophical facts which need to be assimilated by the discipline's 'novices' or 'apprentices'. In philosophy, everyone is equal, from the new student to the most eminent professor. There is no question of there being authorities in philosophy: everyone enters philosophical debate on equal terms and the debate proceeds in whatever way it does, depending on the merits of the arguments presented and not on the reputations of the people engaging in the debate. At least that's how it should be. It isn't always like that in practice, by any means, but it ought to be like that—not only amongst professional philosophers but also in debates between students and their teachers. But I don't think that it can be entirely like that in any other discipline, because in all other disciplines there is a body of accepted knowledge which has to be transmitted to the student. The novice physics student, for instance, can't question the principles of quantum mechanics, or anything like that—a first year physics student can't do such a thing, but a first year philosophy student can challenge the views of the most eminent philosophy professor, and that's perfectly proper.
M: Do you think, then, there isn't any sense in which there is a philosophical canon?
L: Well, there's good and bad in philosophy—it's not that all the opinions of all philosophers, or of anyone who has ever spoken on philosophy, are of equal merit. Philosophy is—perhaps more than any other discipline—aware of its history. I mean: you don't get this constant awareness in, say, physics or mathematics. The study of past philosophers belongs to the very lifeblood of the subject, and that's partly because there's always a danger of philosophy becoming obsessed with what is fashionable and so just focusing on current concerns. By returning again and again to the history of philosophy we are able to see the same problems arising in different historical contexts, and we can see very often that those same problems have been viewed in a very different light in the past. This helps us to view them more objectively in our own present-day context.
M: So, students engage in this free and equal dialogue with their professors. What do they gain from this? How are they developed? How are they changed? To what extent is it a moral change?
L: It is very much a moral change. At least, it should be. Ideally what should happen is that the students will acquire—if you care to put it a somewhat high-flown way—a love of truth. So a love of an intellectual honesty should be the product—a propensity always to view one's own opinions with a critical eye; always to challenge one's own opinions and, when confronting the opinions of others, not simply to accept or reject them on prejudicial grounds, but always to subject them to critical scrutiny and to consider them for what they're worth; not to be taken in by rhetoric or clever language; but always to penetrate to essence of what is being claimed or argued. And I think that having such a propensity provides an invaluable protection against many of the snares and pitfalls of modern society that arise from the ways in which people try to manipulate one other.
M: If we could move on to the relationship between the teaching that goes on and the higher level of research that an academic will undertake, you've published hundreds of research papers and reviews as well as many successful books: so how do you see the relationship between teaching and research? And what kinds of role do the teaching and the research have, particularly in public life?
L: I see a very close relation between teaching and research. Many of my papers have emerged out of ideas that I have developed in the course of teaching and, similarly, when I give lectures or hold tutorials, very often the issues that I discuss or bring up are things that have occurred to me in the course of conducting my research. So I see the two as indissolubly linked. I am sure my research would suffer if I weren't teaching at all and, certainly, vice versa. Now, you ask about how all this affects public life. Well, this is a difficult and complicated matter. Of course, my own areas of philosophical specialism are not immediately practical—I mean, in the sense that I don't specialise in ethics or political philosophy, for instance, although I am in fact interested in both. Many people think of metaphysics as being a kind of 'ivory tower' discipline. Actually, I don't think that it really is—I think that metaphysics has many implications for the nature and conduct of public life. But metaphysics is not something that's easy to get across in 'sound-bites', by appearing on the radio or on television, or things like that. So I think that the main way in which metaphysics can affect public life is through a process of dissemination, through education—through, as it were, sending people out into the world who've gained some insight into and some interest in metaphysics, and who can bring that to bear in their everyday life and in their interactions with other people.
M: Coming back to your history and experience, how do you think that teaching has changed? This is a big question: there are a lot of aspects to this in terms of the way higher education has expanded and so on, and there also the changes to the political environment of higher education, but how do you think that things have changed during your career?
L: Well, I haven't changed the way that I teach, really ... Actually, I don't think it's really right to talk about philosophy being taught. Philosophy can be inspired: you can inspire people to think philosophically, or to become philosophers; and the way that you do it is by example. So when I give lectures, for instance, I never lecture from notes, because it seems to me that what should be on display is someone thinking through some philosophical problems freshly. In a lecture you should always be prepared to come to a different conclusion from the one that you came to the last time you gave a lecture on that subject. Now, I still do that in all of my lectures and tutorials: I always try to be as spontaneous as possible, because if you always tried to reduce philosophical issues to set formulas, then that would be the death of philosophy. The current culture of quality assurance does not make this way of proceeding as easy as it was in the past. I mean, I can fortunately still do it, because I can get away with it; but I do worry for a younger generation of philosophers, who have to go through various managerial hoops in order to get promotion, and for that reason might not find it so easy to do things this way. However, I do think that it's absolutely essential to real philosophy that it's done, as I say, spontaneously. So, in short, I haven't changed my own basic methods of teaching.
One of the things that certainly has changed is the sheer number of students that I have to engage with now, and the consequent reduction of their contact time with me—so that whereas 20 or so years ago I would know personally all of my undergraduate students very well, it's not that way now. In fact, I probably have more postgraduate PhD students now than I had 3rd year undergraduate students 20 or 30 years ago. So that has made it all much more impersonal, which is, I think very regrettable: the students get less time individually with me and I know less of them as individuals—and this is a loss for both of us.
M: I'm interested in the idea of philosophy not being taught but inspired, could you expand on that a little?
L: Well, as I say, part of the point here is that there aren't authorities in philosophy. There is no such thing as a 'right' answer, as such, in philosophy: there are just perennial questions, and these questions are only worth pursuing if people are interested in them. There's no obligation to pursue philosophical questions unless you're interested in them. But it's good for humanity that we're interested in philosophical questions and that's what one is trying to inspire—an interest in those questions. Now, they're really only interesting for people who think that they have a chance to answer them for themselves—it's not especially interesting to hear someone else's solutions to philosophical problems; rather, it's most interesting to try to think them out for yourself. That's the real source of inspiration and that's what you've got to try to get across to people—to help them to see how interesting it is to pursue these questions for themselves.
M: You've written a number of books specifically for teaching purposes, or rather they are written for students, or aimed at a student audience (including A Survey of Metaphysics, two books on Locke and An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind). Would you like to say a little bit about that and how you go about deciding what is appropriate for a student audience and what students need to hear?
L: All of those books have essentially emerged out of my teaching— out of lectures that I've given. This is particularly the case with my philosophy of mind book and my survey of metaphysics book, both of which fairly closely follow the kinds of courses of lectures that I would give in those subjects. So, in a way, a lot of thanks for them is owed to my students, because through a process of osmosis and feedback I learned what went down well, what were better ways to approach certain topics, and what topics interested them. On the other hand, as I said earlier, I do think that it is important that when you're actually giving a lecture or tutorial you should be spontaneous—and so I tell the students, 'If you want to know my official opinions about X, Y and Z, then go look at these books'. I'm constantly changing my mind, as Russell did—I'm not constant in my opinions—because you make mistakes, and realise that you've made mistakes. So that's another reason why I try not to make my courses too rigid. I don't provide lots of handouts and I don't determine in advance exactly what I'm going to say in a lecture, because I think that a lecture should be something that is alive and spontaneous—where you're taking a risk every time of making a fool of yourself, or taking a wrong turning, or discovering something new. And that has certainly happened to me in a lecture: I've realised something that I hadn't thought of before—and that's marvellous—or a student has raised a question or made a suggestion that I'd not anticipated. That makes it all very much more interesting than just going through some preplanned exercise. And I would hope that this can be recognised as a good way to teach, particularly in philosophy. Indeed, I hope that younger philosophers won't feel so constrained by the current, rather rigidly defined conception of quality assurance, that they can't teach in that way. That would be a very sad loss, I think.
M: It takes a great deal of confidence and skill to be able to lecture in that way, a lot of confidence to expose yourself to the possibility of error. Is there any advice that you could give to a junior lecturer on that score?
L: Yes, well, it's easy to say this, but I think that I would just advise them not to worry about it. If you trip yourself up, the students will be understanding, I believe. I think that they will appreciate it that you're trying to think on your feet, rather than delivering them something that they could just go and read for themselves, if they wanted to. I don't think that they will be critical or feel unkindly towards you because you've done it this way. Of course, you need to explain it to them when you start a course: you need to say, 'This is how I want to do it: I'm not going to regurgitate stuff for you, and I don't want you to regurgitate stuff for me in your essays and exam answers; it's part of the lifeblood of philosophy that it's a spontaneous and living activity, and that's why I'm going to do it this way and if I make mistakes, please point them out to me and then we can all make progress together.' I think that if you're 'up front' about it with the students to start with—honest with them and with yourself—then there won't be problem.
M: Philosophy has its own fads and phases. What do you think are the current driving factors in philosophy in the UK and internationally at the moment? What are the current trends as you see them?
L: Well, it's all becoming, in some ways, rather more segmented and disunified. For instance, there are many philosophers now who would describe themselves as philosophers of mind but who are mainly engaged in a dialogue with cognitive science and empirical psychology, and that's all very interesting, but they probably don't have much interaction with other philosophers working in, say, the philosophy of language or metaphysics. So it's a much less unified subject or discipline than it used to be, some 20 or 30 years ago. There are many more specialists nowadays: whereas, in the past, most philosophers in a university department could turn their hand to any branch of the discipline, today people are much more confined within their own specialisms. I think that's a very bad thing, because philosophy, as I said earlier, has by its very nature a universal purview, so that this increasing compartmentalisation is very dangerous to philosophy: if philosophy itself becomes segmented, that's a danger to its survival, so that is worrisome. However, one good thing that I think has happened fairly recently—though perhaps you'd expect me to say this—is the revival in metaphysics. I think that's good, not just because I happen to be interested in metaphysics, but because I think that metaphysics should be—and inescapably is— at the heart of all philosophy, and indeed of everything in our intellectual life. There is a metaphysical dimension to absolutely everything, and so it's important that metaphysics itself has undergone this revival and that there is now more confidence in metaphysics as a 'doable' thing.
M: Looking back on this whole view that you have of philosophy and its role within the university, and taking into account what you've already said, what do you think is your greatest achievement as an educator? And I say educator rather than teacher...
L: Well, I hope that I've inspired some students—as many as possible—to be interested in philosophy. Now, of course, I'm aware that some of my past students have gone on to become professional philosophers, or to do work that is related to philosophy, and that's very heartening to know, but, on the other hand, in a way the more important thing to have done is to have transmitted a love of philosophy to people who aren't going to become professional philosophers. It's going to be with them for the rest of their lives; they're going spread it around to their own children and friends. It's so important that philosophy shouldn't be seen—as I'm afraid it often is by the public at large—as some kind of ivory tower, airy-fairy discipline. It should be something that interests everybody and people shouldn't be afraid of it. And the more widely that one can disseminate it, the better. That's one very good thing about the expansion of the universities and the increased student numbers that we have to deal with: although it spreads philosophy teaching more thinly, at least it's spread more widely.
M: Are there any educators, any people, that you feel influenced you in any way?
L: Well, it's complicated, because, oddly enough, the person who probably influenced me the most was my director of studies in history at Cambridge. As I mentioned earlier, I wanted to change from natural sciences to history in my first year, even though I had only science Alevels. And, with some difficulty, I managed to do this, partly because my director of studies in history had confidence and faith in me. He was also a very inspiring and exacting teacher and I learned a lot from him. He had faith in my ability to make this change and, I have to say, I think it's a change that would be impossible in any UK university today—for someone in his or her first year as an undergraduate science student, with no A-levels in arts subjects, to change to History, which I did successfully as it turns out. That's one reason why I dislike the growing rigidification of the university curriculum.
M: Is there anything you would like to say generally about the state of philosophy in the UK?
L: In some ways, it seems to be in a much healthier state than it was back in the days when I was appointed in Durham in 1980, because that was a time when a number of philosophy departments were about to be closed. There was a reduction in the number of philosophers in the country and indeed of philosophy students. But it has all expanded a lot since then. It now has more vitality, I feel, and I'm glad to say also, that the international dimension has grown. There's much more interaction now between UK philosophers and other philosophers all over the rest of world, partly through the growth of the internet and other things like that. And there's less back-biting and less of a hierarchical attitude around in philosophy now than I think there was in those early days when I was a junior philosopher. Now it seems much more egalitarian in spirit, and there are many more opportunities for free debate—and that's a very positive development, I think.
M: Thank you very much.
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