Here, I'm going to try to answer the first part of the question which
which I ended the last post, namely, the blog entry titled
"How I
became a "philosopher" ... and what it tells you about me".
That's the "negative" part of the question: why didn't I pick one of
the other majors I'd considered, like, for example, physics?
When I started college in 1964, I had a pretty strong idea that I
wanted to get a Ph.D. and become a college professor, or, at any rate,
some sort of researcher And yes, I was attracted to the teaching
side of being a professor, too, but most fundamental was the desire to
go on my own quest of the mind: to devote my efforts to finding
answers to some of the intriguing, puzzling, downright maddening
questions with which my head seemed to be filled. I wanted
to understand the world, a lot better than I did understand
it yet.
Unlike some choices of occupation, this one didn't dictate a choice of
major; in fact, it hardly constrained that choice at all.
The choice of major was just a choice of which category of questions I
most wanted to pursue. That wasn't easy, because there were so many
of them that seemed to be beckoning to me.
When you entered as a freshman, you were suppose to declare a major
tentatively, and at that time I put down "mathematics". That form of
abstract, "pure thought" inquiry had appealed to me the most, in high
school.
We were supposed to declare a major "for real" by the end of the
sophomore year. As that academic year got underway, I realized
that it wasn't at all clear to me what I would, and/or should,
choose. So I tried narrowing the choices to five
possibilities. But it was an odd sort of narrowing, because the
five were so diverse: mathematics, physics, history, economics, and
philosophy.
In the end, though, it came down to a choice between two: physics and
philosophy. Or perhaps it would be historically inaccurate to
put it that literally; but at least, those two will serve as
representatives of a choice between two paths ... broader, and more
fundamental, than the literal choice between the two specific majors.
If I had [still?] been motivated entirely by the prospective joy of
learning and discovering things, I think I would have chosen
physics. It had supplanted mathematics, by then, as the most
appealing form of purely intellectual inquiry, to me.
So why didn't I choose it? There were at least two reasons, but
the one that was more about physics, itself, was a concern
about the consequences of my actions. Even though I thought of
myself as wanting to pursue "pure research", I knew that people often
find practical applications for discoveries that others have made.
And I was concerned, in particular, about the possibility that my work
might find application, without my cooperation, in weapons. I
was not, never have been, a total pacifist; but
I also didn't have total faith that my country would use military force
only when, and to the degree, that I would call it truly necessary.
While this was during the time of the Viet Nam conflict, I think a
bigger part of the context, for me, was the "cold war"; particularly,
the enormous quantities of "strategic weapons" held constantly at the
ready by the United States, the Soviet Union, and some others. I
believed that these were excessive, because they were, on each side,
more than enough to destroy the threat posed by the presumed
enemy. It seemed clear that if these arsenals were used, there
would be no winner, and that the loser would be the human race, and
life on Earth, as a whole.
As I look back on this now, I haven't changed my opinion about these
strategic weapons: that having that much firepower on line was
something whose danger, to all, outweighed its benefits. I do
find myself less clear, though, about the logic of taking that as a
reason not to become a physicist. For one thing, it doesn't seem
all that likely that I would have, without intending to, made a
discovery that would enable the making of yet more lethal
weapons. (It also seems a tad bit grandiose to think that likely
enough to worry about; but such is the way of youth.)
I could have also made the argument, to myself, that if the leaders
wanted to make the "overkill" capacity even worse than it already
was, they could do so, by adding even more of the same kinds of
weapons So perhaps [further] scientific and technological
innovation in strategic weapons had already become, in a sense,
irrelevant; the limits of that innovation no longer constrained how
horrific a scenario the military planners could present us with, given
enough money to spend, and the belief that there was a reason to do it.
I don't actually know, today, whether I think that this sort of "don't
worry about it" argument would have been valid, or not. For
purposes of explaining the choice I made back then, in what must have
been the 1965 - 66 academic year, I don't think it matters, because to
the best of my recollection, such an argument simply didn't occur to
me at the time.
The concerns about military applications of my research, were I to
become a physicist, were real, though, logical or not, and they were a
factor, at least, in my choice of major. There were other
factors, too (and not all of them neatly separable from this one), but
those were more a matter of what drew me towards philosopny
as a major, rather than what drove me away from physics. So I
will deal with them in another post.
Categorie(s) for this post include:
About me;
Philosophy;
Quakerism
3:55:53 PM 
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